Meet the Expert is our series of blogs where we share more about the team behind our innovative software and managed services. As a global organisation with indirect tax experts across all regions, our dedicated team are often the first to know about new regulatory changes, ensuring you stay compliant.
We spoke to Christina Wilcox, Director of Customer Success, EMEA at Sovos to find out more about the role her team has in delivering an excellent service to customers.
I manage the customer success team for the EMEA region. It’s a relatively new team having started in November last year. Before this role I was part of the Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) team. Our Senior Customer Success Manager, Roberta Folta, worked in the VAT side of our business. So together we have key areas of indirect tax covered. We understand both the market and the key priorities and challenges our customers face.
This is key to helping us make sure our customers get the best value from Sovos across the board. From our consultancy and managed services to our VAT and IPT compliance software. We proactively reach out to customers and then apply their feedback. So we’re always aligned and can improving our service offering to meet their changing needs.
Providing a personal approach and excellent customer service has always been important for us as a company; the customers who have been with us for over a decade are testament to that.
Having a dedicated customer success team gives us the opportunity to continue to connect with our customers from the moment they sign their contract, as well as strengthening the relationships we have with existing customers.
As a separate department this enables our software and services teams to focus on delivering the wide range of offerings we’re known for. The Customer Success team acts as the friendly face that’s always here to help.
For example, software customers don’t have the need to interact with us as much as our managed service customers. So we can focus on providing regular check-ins and see if there’s anything they need help with. We can check if there are additional services we can provide such as further training.
The team also helps with onboarding new customers. We make sure they understand all the services and solutions available to them as a Sovos customer. Our focus is on creating long-standing and strong customer relationships; being approachable and proactive to any potential concerns or questions that could arise.
Customers are always impressed with our managed service offering. People are very happy with the service our compliance teams provide to ensure tax returns are filed correctly and on time. They recognise the benefit of having access to our knowledgeable team of in-house tax experts. Being a global company, we’ve got experience of mandates in other parts of the world. So we can really help customers prepare for the shift to real-time reporting. This is prevalent across Latin America and now spreading throughout Europe and other parts of the world where our customers operate.
We also get great reviews on how intuitive and user friendly our software is.
Customers refer to us as their tax gurus. I think reflects our global knowledge and experience which we pass on through our monthly newsletters, blogs, and regular webinars on everything relating to the world of VAT and IPT.
The feedback we receive from customers, good or bad, helps us continue to meet their needs by being incorporated into planning for future developments.
We’re very much looking forward to the future and speaking with more of our customers to help build the best service offering we can.
Have a tax problem you need help with? Speak to our experts to see how Sovos can help you solve tax for good.
There are a variety of different approaches to Insurance Premium Tax (IPT) treatment for marine insurance across Europe. Before looking at how individual countries treat marine insurance, it is worth noting the challenges in determining the country entitled to levy IPT and any associated charges.
The location of risk relating to marine vessels falls within article 13(13)(b) of the Solvency II Directive. This outlines that in the case of ‘vehicles of any type’ the risk location is the ‘Member State of registration’. There is no definition provided for ‘vehicles of any type’. So there is some uncertainty as to whether this is limited to land motor vehicles or whether it extends to marine vessels and aircraft. Most EU jurisdictions adopt the latter, broader approach, but Malta limits it to motor vehicles.
Additionally, the German tax authority has been known to rely on a 2017 decision made by the Cologne Fiscal Court to levy IPT in circumstances where a P&I club member had a registered office in Germany, but no ship was registered there. This raises the possibility of double taxation. This is with IPT potentially levied in both Germany and the country of the registration of the vessel. The Law on the Modernisation of Insurance Tax passed in December last year.
Once an insurer has navigated the choppy waters of the location of risk rules, regimes across Europe vary considerably. Marine insurance is a class of business that sees a number of IPT exemptions. Some countries like Bulgaria and Ireland offer fairly broad exemptions for damage and loss to marine vessels.
Other countries adopt a more nuanced approach in distinguishing between commercial vessels and pleasure craft. Belgium offers an exemption in the case of the former, whereas they levy IPT as normal in the case of the latter. A similar distinction exists in France between vessels conducting commercial activities and those operating for pleasure.
Germany has a reduced IPT rate of 3% in relation to marine hull. Where the ship exclusively serves commercial purposes and has insurance against perils of the sea.
Denmark has an exemption for its tax on non-life insurance, but it does impose a separate tax on pleasure boats. Denmark calculates on the sum insured of the vessels themselves.
One final point of note is the extension of the regime for the reduced rate, like that in the Portuguese territory of Madeira, in April. The extension lasts until the end of this year at least. The European Commission has extended the State aid initiative which gave rise to the reduction until 31 December 2023, so it may be that this will be reflected in Portuguese legislation in due course.
It’s essential for insurers to understand the tricky location of risk rules associated with marine insurance. In addition to the various approaches taken by different countries in Europe. This ensures companies pay the correct amount of Marine Insurance Tax to the correct administration.
Get in touch to discuss your marine insurance requirements with our IPT experts.
This blog is an excerpt from Sovos’ Annual VAT Trends report. Please click here to download your complimentary copy in full.
VAT requirements and their relative importance for businesses have changed significantly in recent years. For data that is transactional in nature, the overall VAT trend is clearly toward various forms of continuous transaction controls (CTCs).
The first steps toward this radically different mode of enforcement, known as the “clearance model”, began in Latin America in the early 2000s. Other emerging economies, such as Turkey, followed suit a decade later. And today, many countries in the Latin American region now have stable CTC systems where a significant amount of the data required for VAT enforcement is based on invoices. Other key data is harvested and pre-approved directly at the time of the transaction.
There are several high-level features and processes that many clearance systems have in common.
However, many variations exist on this reference model in practice; many countries with a clearance system have implemented extensions and variations on these “standard” processes:
1. OK TO ISSUE: Typically, the process starts with the supplier sending the invoice in a specified format to the tax authorities or a state agent licensed to act on its behalf. This invoice is ordinarily signed with a secret private key corresponding to a public certificate issued to the supplier.
2. OK/NOT OK: The tax authority or state agent (for example, an accredited or licensed operator) will typically verify the signed supplier invoice and clear it by registering it under a unique identification number in its internal platform. In some countries, a proof of clearance is returned, which can be as simple as a unique transaction ID, possibly with a timestamp. In some cases, it’s digitally signed by the tax authority/state agent. The proof of clearance may be detached from the invoice or added to it.
3. VALID: Upon receipt of the invoice, the buyer is often obligated or encouraged to check with the tax authority or its agent that the invoice received was issued in compliance with applicable requirements. In general, the buyer usually handles integrity and authenticity control using crypto tools, also used to verify a signed proof of clearance. In other cases, the tax authority or agent completes the clearance check online.
4. OK/NOT OK: If the buyer has used an online system to perform the validation described in the previous step, the tax authority or state agent will re-turn an OK/not OK response to the buyer.
The first “clearance” implementations were in countries like Chile, Mexico and Brazil between 2000 and 2010. They were inspired by this high-level process template. Countries that subsequently introduced similar systems, in Latin America and worldwide, take greater liberties with this basic process model.
Europe and other countries passed through a stage allowing original VAT invoices to be electronic. This is without changing the basics of the VAT law enforcement model. This phase of voluntary e-invoicing without process re-engineering is “post audit” e-invoicing. The moment a tax administration audit comes into play is post-transaction. In a post audit system, the tax authority has no operational role in the invoicing process. It relies heavily on periodic reports transmitted by the taxpayer.
Largely due to the staggering improvements in revenue collection and economic transparency demonstrated by countries with existing CTC regimes, countries in Europe, Asia and Africa have also started moving away from post audit regulation to adopting CTC-inspired approaches.
Many EU Member States, for example, are moving toward CTCs not by imposing “clearance” e-invoicing but by making existing VAT reporting processes more granular and more frequent via CTC reporting. These countries will eventually adopt requirements for real-time or near-real-time invoice transmission. This is as well as electronic transmission of other transaction and accounting data to the tax authority. However, it’s not a foregone conclusion that they’ll all take these regimes to the extreme of invoice clearance.
CTC reporting from a purely technical perspective often looks like clearance e-invoicing, but these regimes are separate from invoicing rules. In addition, they don’t necessarily require the invoice as exchanged between the supplier and the buyer to be electronic.
The VAT trend towards CTCs is obvious, but situations in individual countries and regions remain fluid. It’s important to align your company with local expertise that understands the nuances of your business and what regulations and rules you’re subject to.
Start by downloading the full Trends Report here or contact us
VAT accounts for 15-40% of all public revenue globally. We estimate that the global VAT gap – i.e. lost VAT revenue due to errors and fraud – could be as high as half a trillion Euros. The GDP of countries like Norway, Austria or Nigeria are at a similar level and this VAT gap is big enough to significantly impact the economy of many countries. For this reason, tax authorities globally are taking steps to boost lost revenue through VAT digitization.
Up until recently, VAT requirements have traditionally followed three broad categories.
At a high level, the requirements that apply during the processing of business transactions break down into requirements related to:
These are reports for business transaction data in summary or aggregate form or full data from individual invoices. Historically such reporting requirements have often been monthly, with certain less-common reports being quarterly or yearly.
These occur when, during the mandatory retention period for invoices and other records and books, which is typically seven to ten years, a tax authority request access to such records to assess their correspondence to reports.
The requirement types listed above, and their relative importance for both business and tax authorities, have changed significantly in recent years. The overall trend is clearly toward various forms of CTCs.
This radically different mode of enforcement, known as the “clearance model” began in Latin America over 15 years ago. Other emerging economies, like Turkey, followed a decade later. Many countries in Latin America now have stable CTC systems where a large amount of the data required for VAT enforcement is based on invoices and other key data is harvested (and often pre-approved) directly at the time of the transaction.
Europe and other countries went through a stage where original VAT invoices could be electronic without changing the basics of the VAT law enforcement model. This phase of voluntary e-invoicing without process re-engineering is often known as “post-audit” e-invoicing. In a post-audit system, the tax authority has no operational role in the invoicing process relying heavily on periodic reports transmitted by the taxpayer. Being able to demonstrate the integrity and authenticity of e-invoices from the moment of issuance until the end of the mandatory storage period is key for trading partners in post audit regimes.
Largely due to the staggering improvements in revenue collection and economic transparency from countries with existing CTC regimes, countries in Europe, Asia and Africa have also started adopting similar schemes. This rapid adoption of CTCs in many additional countries doesn’t follow the same simple path of quick migration of the early adopters. In fact, as the trend spreads around the world, it’s becoming increasingly clear there will be many different models adding to the complexity and challenges faced by multinational companies today.
Download VAT Trends: Toward Continuous Transaction Controls to read more about the ever changing VAT landscape, VAT digitization and how global companies can prepare.
The basic principle of value added tax (VAT) is that the government gets a percentage of the value that is added at each step of an economic chain, which ends with the consumption of the goods or services by an individual. While VAT is paid by all parties in the chain, including the end customer, only businesses can deduct their input tax. For this reason, VAT requirements concerning invoices generally only apply between businesses.
Many governments use invoices as primary evidence in determining “indirect” taxes owed to them by companies. VAT is by far the most significant indirect tax for nearly all the world’s trading nations. Broadly speaking, it contributes over 30% of all public revenue. VAT as a tax method essentially turns private companies into tax collectors. The role of assessing the tax is critical which is why these taxes are sometimes referred to as “self-assessment taxes”.
VAT depends on companies meeting public law obligations as an integral part of their sales, purchasing and general business operations. The dependency on companies to process and report VAT makes it necessary for tax authorities to audit or otherwise control business transactions. But despite such audits, fraud and malpractice often cause governments to collect significantly less VAT than they should. The difference between the expected VAT revenue and the amount actually collected is the VAT gap.
In Europe, that VAT gap amounts to approximately €140 billion every year, according to the latest report from the European Commission. This amount equates to a loss of 11% of the expected VAT revenue across the EU. Globally, we estimate VAT due but not collected by governments because of errors and fraud could be as high as half a trillion EUR. This is comparable to the GDP of countries like Norway, Austria or Nigeria.
The VAT gap represents some 15-30% of VAT that should be collected worldwide. And these figures would certainly be much higher if lost tax revenue from unregistered business activity is added as the numbers only include bona fide, registered business activity.
Governments across the globe are enacting complex new policies to enforce VAT mandates. Through these mandates, they obtain unprecedented insight into economic data and close revenue gaps. Tax authorities are steadfast in their commitment to closing the VAT gap and will use all the tools at their disposal to collect revenue owed. This holds especially true in the aftermath of COVID-19 when governments epxect to face significant budget shortfalls.
To close the VAT gap, countries are pushing tax authorities to comply with VAT requirements. As a result, they’re enforcing different legal consequences for irregularities. The consequences on noncompliance with VAT requirements can be huge. Most companies therefore want to be as certain as possible that they can quickly and easily prove their VAT compliance to avoid risks including:
At a time when the requirements from tax authorities globally are only set to increase, it’s clear that businesses need to be aware of the compliance challenges they face and prepare for what lies ahead.
Download VAT Trends: Toward Continuous Transaction Controls for a comprehensive look at the VAT regulatory landscape
We recently launched the 12th Edition of our Annual Trends Report. We put a spotlight on current and near-term legal requirements across regions and VAT compliance domains. The report, “VAT Trends: Toward Continuous Transaction Controls” is authored by a team of international tax compliance experts and provides a comprehensive look at the regulatory landscape as governments across the globe are enacting complex new policies to enforce VAT mandates, obtain unprecedented insight into economic data and close revenue gaps.
Central to this year’s edition is our focus on four emerging tax mega-trends with potential to drive change in the way multinational businesses approach regulatory reporting and manage tax compliance.
The mega-trends include:
According to Christiaan van der Valk, lead author of the report and vice president of strategy at Sovos, continuous transaction controls have emerged as the primary concern for multinational companies looking to ensure tax compliance despite growing diversity in VAT enforcement approaches. Tax authorities are steadfast in their commitment to closing the VAT gap. As a result they will use all tools at their disposal to collect revenue owed. This holds especially true for the aftermath of COVID-19, when governments are expected to face unprecedented budget shortfalls.
Beyond the mega-trends, our report includes a major review of country and regional requirement profiles. These profiles provide a snapshot of current and near-term planned legal requirements across the different VAT compliance domains. The report also examines how governments have embraced digital transformation to speed revenue collection, decrease fraud and narrow VAT gaps.
“VAT Trends: Toward Continuous Transaction Controls” is the most comprehensive report of its kind. It provides an objective view of the VAT landscape with unbiased analysis from tax and regulatory experts with years of experience navigating the world’s most complex tax environments. If you are a tax, IT or legal professional working with multi-national companies, we strongly encourage you to download and become familiar with the subject-matter contained within. The pace of change for tax and regulatory environments is accelerating and this report will get you prepared.
As discussed in three key reasons to appoint a VAT managed service provider, the VAT compliance demands from tax authorities around the world continue to increase. They are only going to become more onerous to boost economic efficiency, combat fraud and reduce VAT gaps. The demands for more granular tax reporting are increasing for this to be in real-time. This includes Spain, Hungary, Italy, Turkey and Mexico. These growing demands are adding to the many other challenges faced by multinational companies today. This is why more companies are looking to managed service providers (MSPs). MSPs can ease the pain points of today’s VAT compliance obligations. They make sure they’re covered for fast approaching mandates looming on the horizon.
But how do you choose the right VAT compliance MSP? With so many providers offering a range of different services, making the right choice can be daunting. Do you choose localised individual solutions or opt for a central approach? Here are seven key areas you’ll want to evaluate:
You’ll want to take a strategic view of your IT environment and map tech investments to business goals. Using an VAT compliance MSP allows you to leverage their investment in software and in the ongoing training of their staff. They’ll have been doing this for many years for many clients. It’s what they do. It’ll also allow you to automate and streamline many of your manual processes which may also be a core business objective. Make sure the software is compatible and accessible to suit your needs in each of the locations where you trade not only today but in the regions you’re looking to enter in the future.
The move to digitise tax reporting all over the world has now led to IT security considerations being important when choosing any provider. Security can therefore relate not only to the transmission of data to a provider, but also in making sure it’s safely and securely stored during, and after transmission to revenue authorities. Here a centralised provider can provide some key benefits. Portals can be used to accept data from clients, and also all information can be securely stored on a consolidated cloud, with data centres in different regions as needed to comply with data retention policies globally.
Building and maintaining a team of specialists can be time consuming and costly. With the right VAT compliance MSP, you’ll have access to their team and can benefit from their specialist knowledge and experience. Let them ease the burden. Know they’ve got their finger on the pulse of regulatory changes so you don’t have to. You can then focus on what your company does best knowing that your VAT compliance is in safe hands.
You’ll want to choose a provider that can adapt as your business needs change. You may want the flexibility to outsource only part of your tax compliance obligations depending on inhouse resources, budgets, expertise etc but have the freedom to assess and change this at any time. A tailored approach that can be altered over time will ensure your compliance needs are covered today as well as in the future.
Hand in hand with flexibility, you’ll want a provider that’s able to grow with you. They’ll already have experience and in-depth knowledge of the markets you need help with today, but make sure they can cover other regions you may choose to enter in the future. Choosing local point solution providers for different markets can cause headaches down the line.
Your MSP is there to support and service your account and should feel like an extension of your own team. You’ll want a collaborative approach and partnership-feel. Ensure you get the most out of this relationship. Also be updated on new changes in the regulatory landscape well before they’re finalised. Find out about who your account team will be and if they’re in single or multiple locations in addition to if there are any language barriers.
Even though you’ve outsourced all or part of your VAT compliance, you’ll still want to keep track of it. To that end, check what access you’ll have to the software and who in your company will have full or partial access. Also ask if logins are restricted. A secure customer portal and centralized dashboard helps keep track, at a glance, of each stage of your tax compliance. This includes traffic lights to flag priorities and approaching deadlines.
Choosing to appoint a MSP for your VAT compliance will allow you to focus on what you do best. Take care to ensure your chosen provider not only suits your needs today but also has reach and experience in the regions you’ll enter in the future. Taking time to choose the right MSP will pay dividends in the future. The right partner will be at your side for the long haul.
To learn more about the benefits a managed service provider can offer to ease your VAT compliance burden, watch our recent webinar on demand VAT Reporting: Managing Change.
With a VAT gap across EU countries estimated at €140 billion in 2018, tax authorities are continuing to take steps to boost revenues, increase efficiency and reduce fraud. As a result, VAT compliance obligations are becoming more demanding. Failure to comply can not only result in significant fines but also reputational damage.
Many multinational companies find successfully navigating VAT compliance a challenge. Even more so when trading cross-border where VAT registration and reporting requirements differ significantly between territories. As demands increase, more companies are realising the benefits from embracing a managed service approach. This is to all or part of their VAT obligations.
From conversations with our customers, we identified three reasons for appointing a managed service provider (MSP) for VAT compliance. They are varied and apart from cost, fall broadly into three categories.
Staffing, training and retaining a team of indirect tax specialists can be expensive and time consuming. Accessing external expertise allows you to benefit from wider and more detailed knowledge and experience in complying with local tax authority regulations. Understanding local rules requires fluency in both the local language and in understanding tax law plus its implications to interpret the rules accurately. This can be a huge benefit in helping to simplify the complexities of domestic obligations. It can apply to initial VAT registrations, ongoing filings, as well as correspondence with revenue authorities whenever reviews and/or audits occur. Why struggle with the headache of resourcing and keeping up with the changing compliance landscape when there are specialist providers to ease this pain?
While the future of VAT reporting is increasingly tech-enabled, building and maintaining your own in-house software is onerous and for many companies is the key driver to getting external help with their VAT compliance obligations. By using a technology enabled MSP, you’ll have access to their VAT compliance software. It will help you stay ahead of changing VAT rates and requirements as they happen wherever you do business. Using a MSP that is technology enabled allows them to take care of any real-time/continuous reporting requirements. This includes Spain’s SII. This should also be far more cost effective than doing this in-house. Automating at a regular cadence prevents being caught out by missed filings that need to happen all too frequently to be done cost effectively by a person.
Keeping up with the ever changing requirements of VAT rates, new mandates and reporting requirements can be daunting. The VAT compliance landscape will continue to shift as more tax authorities move to enforce continuous transaction controls. The aim is to boost economic efficiency and close VAT gaps. The right VAT compliance MSP will ensure your business is able to meet your current VAT compliance requirements. They should also have experience in markets you may want to enter in the future. They’ll be able to guide you through VAT registrations and filing requirements as well as interpreting local complexities where needed. A valued VAT compliance MSP will also ease the burden of audits. They’ll help you whenever an audit occurs but ultimately with robust processes in place, they should also be able to prevent disputes occurring.
VAT legislation is complex and constantly changing. Businesses need the support of both managed services and technology to meet their VAT compliance obligations. In addition to continue trading with confidence. Appointing an experienced global MSP blends human expertise and technology. This can provide the perfect balance to face the changing VAT landscape head on.
To learn more about the benefits a managed service provider can offer to ease your VAT compliance burden, watch our recent webinar on demand VAT Reporting: Managing Change.
CLASS – short for Classification Information System – is the new single point access search facility from the European Commission. It provides access to tariff classification data of goods entering or leaving the EU and is the latest step in developing an integrated approach to managing customs information and procedures. When goods are declared at an EU entry point, they must be classified and declared on customs transit documents either according to the Combined Nomenclature (“CN”), or a Member State’s domestic classification. CLASS provides easy access to the correct rate of customs duty and details of any non-tariff measures that apply. It also provides:
Using CLASS should save businesses significant time in obtaining the required customs information without having to rely on multiple resources across different locations, formats, and languages. Time saving means reduced administration and cost as well as swifter supply chain decision making and ultimately a more efficient goods shipping process.
By coincidence, the UK government almost simultaneously to the launch of CLASS announced the blueprint for the UK Global Tariff (“UKGT”). UKGT is the UK’s replacement for the EU’s Common External Tariff once the Brexit transition period has ended (currently expected to be 31 December 2020). UKGT, which applies duty values in UK pounds instead of Euros, should make it simpler and cheaper for businesses to import goods into the UK from overseas. It features a reduction and simplification of over 6,000 tariff categories and rates (e.g. rounding rates to whole percentages), and a lower tariff regime than the EU’s Common External Tariff, including total elimination of tariffs on a wide range of goods. The goal is to ease customs administration for business, expand consumer choice, and enhance competitiveness for UK businesses trading globally. A controversial measure is the abandonment of the EU Measuring table, which removes over 13,000 tariff variations on food products that the government views as unnecessary. Remaining tariffs will be targeted to support specific strategic industries such as agriculture, automotive and fishing, where the UK is considered competitive, and are also intended to enhance competitiveness and the uptake of “green” energies and associated products.
The simplifications heralded by UKGT may offset the anticipated increase in customs administration costs to UK businesses post-Brexit. What is less clear is whether the strategic amendments undertaken to import tariffs will harm UK businesses as their products may not be subject to commensurate low rates on entry to EU countries, especially if there is a “No Deal” outcome to ongoing UK-EU trade negotiations. What is clear, however, is that all these changes should prompt any businesses seeking to import/export goods to/from the UK from next year to review their supply chains and re-examine the impact on their sales prices and profit margins. Since import VAT is calculated on duty-inclusive prices, there may also be consequences in import VAT accounting and cash flow.
To learn more about what we believe the future holds, download Trends: Continuous Global VAT Compliance and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to keep up to date with regulatory news and other updates.
Companies dealing with complex sales and use tax determination, VAT regulations and other tax challenges across the globe know that SAP alone is not equipped to support the varying requirements from country to country. As SAP sunsets support and updates for ECC and R3, companies must move to HANA to keep their systems up to date. With this inevitable change to S/4HANA or HANA Enterprise Cloud, now is the perfect time to step back and develop a comprehensive strategy to managing tax worldwide.
SAP users must migrate to HANA by 2025, but a majority have not yet started the process. Since the move requires major changes to ERP infrastructure, SAP users with global operations should take advantage of the unique opportunity to be more strategic in their implementation. With the right approach, companies can future-proof their solutions in a way that ensures they can keep pace with constant changes in tax regulations throughout Latin America, Europe and beyond.
Learn how to minimise business disruption during an SAP S/4HANA upgrade project in the wake of modern tax: Read Preparing SAP S/4HANA for Continuous Tax Compliance and don’t let the requirements of modern tax derail your company.
Governments around the world are implementing technology for tax enforcement. In order to keep up, companies must make the digitisation of tax a core pillar of their HANA migrations.
In the move to HANA, companies must consider the new world of tax, which includes:
The move to S/4HANA or HANA Enterprise Cloud requires companies to move all of their processes, customisations and third-party add-ons to the new platform. As such, there are several critical considerations.
Since most companies’ SAP ERP systems have been built and customised over many years, many will benefit from a phased approach to HANA implementation. The less customised modules, such as Financial Accounting (FI) and Controlling (CO) will be easier to move than Materials Management (MM) or Sales and Distribution (SD), which will need a long-term plan for customisations.
Many SAP configurations have become a patchwork of customised code and bolt-on applications. This is especially true when it comes to sales and use tax determination, e-invoicing, and VAT compliance and reporting, since requirements are vastly different in every jurisdiction a company operates. The move to HANA gives companies the opportunity to consolidate, eliminating local configurations in favour of a global strategy. Companies that proactively plan can help to ensure that the next 15 years are simplified, without the constantly changing configurations needed in the previous 15 years as governments have gone digital.
With an upcoming migration to SAP HANA, businesses must consider a solution that maintains SAP as the central source of the truth while keeping pace with constant regulatory change. Learn how Sovos is helping companies do just that, safeguarding the value of their HANA implementation here.