Expert Series Part III: New Roles for IT in the Wake of Expanding Global Mandates

Sovos
November 15, 2022

Part III of V – Eric Lefebvre, chief technology officer, Sovos 

Click here to read part II of the series.

Government-mandated e-invoicing laws are making their way across nearly every region of the globe, bringing more stringent mandates and expectations on businesses. Inserted into every aspect of your operation, governments are now an omni-present influence in your data stack reviewing every transaction in real time as it traverses your network. Real-time monitoring has also brought about real-time enforcement that can range in severity from significant fines to shutting your business down completely. All of this has created a new reality for IT leaders who need a strategy to deal with these global changes. We asked our chief technology officer, Eric Lefebvre to offer his guidance on how this will affect IT departments and how they can best prepare.

Q: With government authorities now in companies’ data and demanding real or near real-time reporting, what impact will this have on IT departments? 

Eric Lefebvre: Centralization is the key, but there is a process that needs to be followed to execute correctly. At the outset, centralization needs to start with business processes, practices, tools and standardization on data push/pull technologies across the organization. Next, IT needs to consider data based on SLA-based needs. Starting with:

Delivery Data:

  • Real-time data
  • Data warehouse – reporting data
  • Archive data

Once this has been solidified, IT can then focus on operational data, which contains:

  • Mandate-driven configuration data or rules
  • System telemetric

IT departments need to focus on availability of data by adding multiple replicated sources of that data. Location of data is another critical need driven by mandates mostly shifting to keeping data local, as we are seeing in countries such as Saudi Arabia and many other East Asian nations. IT departments need to ensure that satellite data stores can be provided, which are critical to countries with those specifications. Centralization of processes and tools for delivery of data is step one. For step two, data needs to be split, moving away from storing data for years in a single data store, making it impossible to move/replicate and make it available.

Q: To meet government mandates and ensure operations continue uninterrupted, what should IT prioritize? What approach would you recommend?  

Eric Lefebvre: As organizations make the move to a centralized approach, they need to be aware that the blast radius of “failure” affects more than a single country. To combat this, IT organizations need to have strong procedures and plans in place that help to both avoid these situations and quickly limit the damage if a problem does occur. I view it as three distinct focus areas:

Change control procedures. Strengthen impact controls not just for code changes or operational updates, but also include regulatory changes and configuration changes.
Testing procedures. Step away from just regional scope testing and incorporate global end-to-end synthetic testing, starting from the edge service to all the backend servers and back.
Incident management. Pivot from backend monitoring to a central monitoring and outage single pane view, supported by a global operations center in a follow the sun style model.

A lot has changed in the world of government mandated e-invoicing. Continued investment in technology by government authorities has put regulators in the position to demand greater transparency along with more detailed and real-time reporting. To meet these demands, companies are looking to their IT organizations. The good news is you don’t need to go it alone. Sovos has the expertise to guide you through this global evolution based on our experience working with many of the world’s leading brands.

Sign up for Email Updates

Stay up to date with the latest tax and compliance updates that may impact your business.

Author

Sovos

Sovos was built to solve the complexities of the digital transformation of tax, with complete, connected offerings for tax determination, continuous transaction controls, tax reporting and more. Sovos customers include half the Fortune 500, as well as businesses of every size operating in more than 70 countries. The company’s SaaS products and proprietary Sovos S1 Platform integrate with a wide variety of business applications and government compliance processes. Sovos has employees throughout the Americas and Europe, and is owned by Hg and TA Associates.
Share this post

EMEA IPT
September 26, 2023
Taxation of Motor Insurance Policies

When considering motor insurance, it’s worth remembering that everything is high – from tax rates to the amount of administration required. This blog explains motor insurance in Europe, covering the types of applicable taxes, how they are calculated, vehicle exemptions and more. Insurance coverage in Europe on motor-related risks According to Annex 1 of the […]

EMEA VAT & Fiscal Reporting
September 18, 2023
Intrastat Thresholds: Current Exemption Values

Intrastat thresholds are value thresholds which decide if companies in an EU Member State qualify to file a return to tax authorities, based on their intra-community trading. These thresholds change annually, prompting businesses to conduct an annual recalculation to know their obligations. This blog contains all the Intrastat reporting thresholds for 2023, as well as […]

EMEA VAT & Fiscal Reporting
September 18, 2023
Intrastat Guide: Reporting, Numbers, Thresholds

Intrastat is an obligation created in 1993 that applies to certain businesses that trade internationally in the European Union. Specifically, it relates to the movement of goods – arrivals and dispatches – across EU Member States. The requirements of Intrastat remain similar across the EU, though certain Member States have implemented rules differently. As a […]

EMEA VAT & Fiscal Reporting
August 22, 2023
OSS VAT Returns: Deadlines, Exclusions and Penalties

Sovos’ recent observations of audits by EU Tax Authorities are that Tax Officers are paying more attention to the contents of One Stop Shop (OSS) VAT Returns. They have challenged, and even excluded, companies from this optional scheme. OSS VAT returns must contain details of supplies made to customers in each Member State of consumption […]

E-Invoicing Compliance Latin America
August 17, 2023
Chile: Changes in the Electronic Ticket for Sales and Services

The Chilean Internal Revenue Service (SII) recently published version 4.00 of the document describing the format of electronic tickets for Sales and Services. The electronic ticket (or Boleta Electrónica) is an electronic receipt issued for the sale of goods or services to individuals, consumers or end users. The document includes basic information about the transaction, […]