Bringing together disparate systems and tax processes from multiple divisions, companies and VAT groups with ARKK.

Overview

The UK's entertainment and media (E&M) industry is one of the largest in Europe and continues to move in an upward trajectory. By 2023, it's predicted that the E&M sector will be worth approximately £80.5 billion making the United Kingdom the second-largest marketing in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, after Germany.

London remains the epicentre of the UK E&M sector with many major media organisations having headquarters in the capital. Roughly 20% of London's working population are involved in the entertainment and media industry.

Although the uncertainty of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all industries to some degree, the E&M sector is resilient and has found ways to adapt to the situation. 

Making Tax Digital posed a fantastic opportunity for one of the world’s largest media conglomerates to reinvent their tax processes and embrace the digital era.

The problem

Due to the media conglomerates acquisitional history, their tax structure was incredibly complex consisting of multiple separate divisions, entities, groups within the UK group and non-UK entities which are VAT registered in the UK. These all have their own VAT return which must be compiled and submitted separately. This resulted in a variety of different ERP systems and tax process making consolidation and consistency a challenge.

The media conglomerate’s Indirect Tax Manager was overseeing the evaluation of a new tax solution "With such a large and complex tax structure, we needed to find a solution that would not only comply with HMRC's Making Tax Digital mandate now and in the future but also be able to cope with our organisation's unique requirements".

The solution

An existing client, the media giant were looking for an MTD provider. They reviewed an approved list of suppliers which included ARKK and the Big Four. 

After being shortlisted and a final presentation, it became apparent that ARKK’s Automation Platform was the clear choice to meet the company's specific needs. 

Being system agnostic meant that the wide variety of ERP systems needed for data extraction was not an issue. Also, at the time various sections of the company were undergoing ERP changes and the  implementation required minimal involvement.

Additionally, the Indirect Tax Manager needed to have confidence that if any issues were to arise there would be support on hand to help resolve the problem quickly and efficiently. Lastly, the ARKK Automation Platform provides user permissions, meaning that certain individuals can be given specific access to particular files. Providing management with much greater visibility and control over the entire VAT process.

"There were several criteria that a tax technology needed to fulfil in order to be fit for our needs. ARKK seemed to have the knowledge, flexibility, speed of implementation and support that we needed".

Summary

Selecting ARKK allowed the media conglomerate to:

• Easily consolidate data from multiple ERP systems into one primary software
• Streamline their tax process by simplifying and automating repetitive, time-intensive tasks
• Futureproof their tax compliance for MTD requirements now and the future
• Increase organisational tax governance and harmonise VAT compliance structure through user permissions resulting in improved reporting