33 Finance Monthly. Bank i ng & F i nanc i a l Se r v i ce s level, and BEPS requires an additional level of consolidation, at a country level. This sounds trivial and obvious but in most instances, it is far from it. There’s a range of system implications, so you need to assess your technology from a data capture and calculation perspective and then check the gap analysis. Undoubtedly, there will be missing data, so you’ll need to figure out how to capture it. Introducing automation The alternative to all this manual work is to introduce automation on an integrated, tax-specific collaboration platform. The collaboration aspect is important: if you have people working across 15 countries, you’ll have local people completing their local spreadsheets and emailing them to HQ, who will then laboriously copy and paste the contents into one central document. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have one secure portal everyone can access and upload their figures to? Finding a partner who can integrate your existing systems, and extract and collate the right data automatically will be a huge benefit. Too often, people expect to do it all from their ERP system but that’s more like the first step in a longer journey. ERP systems don’t typically cater “out of the box” for all tax-sensitive items that will be required for Pillar 2. You need to take the information from the ERP, integrate it with the tax return process, and make it available to those needing it. Thus, you can avoid spending months trapped in Excel with an approach that is quicker, more accurate, and controlled which gets it right, first time. Some might panic in the face of BEPS requirements but there is plenty of time to do the work. It’s a big change but addressing it needn’t require lots of money or throwing teams of people at it. By thinking about the whole process – both upstream and downstream, and by introducing end-to-end integration – you can successfully compile, collaborate and complete your Pillar 2 compliance. What’s more, BEPS requirements will likely change, as it is something of a moving target; an integrated tax platform will also help you evolve in tandem with the directive and complement your own company’s growth. “The alternative to all this manual work is to introduce automation on an integrated, tax-specific collaboration platform.”
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