Tax and Accelerating the Close
The tax provision and tax reporting processes being used by organizations are receiving greater attention from CFOs and audit committees for two important reasons. One is an intensified determination to shorten the accounting close. The other is to address the need for greater transparency in tax planning, provision, disclosure and compliance. For decades, spreadsheets were the tool of choice for managing tax provision because they were the most practical option available. But today there are affordable purpose-built tax planning and provision applications that can accelerate the accounting close and provide a high degree of transparency to the tax provision process. Not all tax provision software is alike, however, so it’s important to understand the application’s structure to ensure it meets a company’s functional, ease-of-use and ease-of-maintenance requirements.
A purpose-built tax provision application and centralized tax provision data ensure a consistently high degree of accuracy, auditability and visibility. Furthermore, having tax provision as an integral part of the financial consolidation process and managed in a single application ensures that the data used for the provision is always consistent and up to date. This can shorten the close process.