Why 'Cost Savings' Won't Help You Get Buy-in From Stakeholders
Digital transformation is affecting just about every aspect of a business. It’s hard to go a day...
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Download ChromeOne of the challenges highlighted in last week’s blog was how to elevate the tax department. When tax goes wrong it makes the front pages, but otherwise, it isn’t the CEO or CFOs top concern. But surely it is worth investing in technology and processes before this happens?
Paying the right tax has become synonymous with good business and ethical practices. So why are so many businesses still taking the risk of manual and error-prone processes to submit their returns? When they should be confident in the financials they are submitting.
The finance and tax departments have traditionally been risk-averse due to the nature of the data they hold. Innovation within finance is not doing what you did yesterday, and the technology is now available to ensure that manual processes can become a thing of the past. In the current climate being so risk-averse to change is what is putting the business at risk.
The key is engaging the right stakeholders, at the right time, to bring tax up the business agenda. This means being able to highlight the benefits of investment in tax to the CEO, the CFO and the IT department, as all will need to be involved.
Making Tax Digital (MTD) is a great opportunity for tax and finance teams to invest in getting it right. The digital linking requirements of MTD that come into play early next year mean that now is the time to fully digitise tax processes.
So what are the things you need to touch on to get the stakeholders interested in investing time or money into the tax department?
Of course, the first step is to actually make time to talk to them. As one of our tax clients at our recent roundtable pointed out: “Part of the problem is that we don’t always just sit down and have these conversations with the relevant stakeholders. I think what they really want from us is comfort, to know what is actually changing for them. It is about pushing the angle that this is actually going to make their lives easier.”
At the event, our tax clients highlighted the following as the topics that got their stakeholders to the table.
As one of our other clients stated: “The importance of tax has really shot up in light of things like MTD and Brexit. We have to plan for the worst-case scenario.”
So now is the time to take a critical look at how the tax function operates and whether transforming it will help prepare the business for the future. Businesses need to get ahead of any issues to protect the reputation of the company and ensure they have confidence that they are paying the right tax.
If you are interested in hearing how to build a business case for tax transformation and what it might achieve for your organisation call us on 0207 037 2758 or email us on enquiries@www.arkksolutions.comsolutions.com for a demo.
Digital transformation is affecting just about every aspect of a business. It’s hard to go a day...
Learn moreOur tax transformation platform, for:sight won the highly coveted Best Digital Innovation award..
Learn moreARKK's for:sight platform attracts £5m to give leading companies confidence in their tax and...
Learn moreOur for:sight platform offers a robust solution for tax teams, and its machine learning capability Fix & Verify takes its functionality to the next level.
Fix & Verify can not only save your tax teams time but also help to avoid errors by scanning 100% of your transactional data for anomalies such as incorrect VAT codes and manual keying errors.
This is crucially important in an era where tax administrations are pushing towards insight, accuracy and transparency.
We believe your tax department could benefit from Fix & Verify within for:sight. Want us to look at your data and prove it? Request a demo today and our team will be in touch.