Lineage, a worldwide leader in cold storage and logistics, prioritised the implementation of CCH Integrator to simplify complex tax and auditing reporting requirements in the Asia Pacific region. It fast-tracked integration into its business units in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam to support multi-jurisdictional tax reporting and auditing challenges.
Transforming the corporate tax process
Juggling multi-jurisdictional tax and auditing reporting requirements, plus global taxation standards and US reporting timelines, Lineage needed to transition from Excel workpapers to streamlined tax automation software. A Regional Tax Manager Asia Pacific role was created and a long-time CCH Integrator software expert user, Zoran Havranek was appointed to oversee the needed digital changes.
With two decades of insights into the power of CCH Integrator, Havranek reviewed market offerings to ensure that Lineage was implementing the best-in-market solution for its tax and auditing requirements. Fast forward to a completed review, and Lineage capitalised on the opportunity by resetting benchmarks for the better production of multiple accounts across separate time periods and returns with CCH Integrator. Additionally, Lineage acknowledged that selecting a centralised and transparent tax platform was necessary to better collect and share evidence with local tax authorities moving to global tax assurance and compliance program requirements.
Linking a network of regional accounting staff, professional services and auditing support in a central platform, today CCH Integrator is integral to streamlining tax provisioning and consolidated returns with tight turnaround times and auditing pressures.
Accelerating efficiency and productivity
The Direct Tax solution with CCH Integrator was implemented over four months and now delivers significant efficiency and productivity gains. It has also reduced the number of queries from auditors and professional services consultants.
Havranek credits the workflow prompts, enhanced accuracy, and more robust compliance and information trails as a boon for efficiency and productivity. "CCH Integrator offers great checklists and checkpoints when preparing calculations. You can attach supporting files, which allows tax agents access to software and detailed analysis.”
Lineage is required to meet the demands of a regional and global operation. “Lineage today is a professional global operation, fully able to meet the demands of regional and global tax expectations with tax and auditing procedures and processes in place. CCH Integrator crucially anticipates and helps us meet evolving compliance requirements. You cannot retrospectively add this into year-end processes,” he continued.
How tax analytics supports the business
CCH Integrator is playing a valuable role in the due diligence process for growth plans for Lineage in APAC, aiding the executive team in understanding tax implications for post-acquisition outcomes. It also houses the file notes and helps streamline procedures for collaboration with professional services and auditor partners.
Havranek's 75% uplift in productivity gains using CCH Integrator has also seen him re-deploy another 25% of his time to higher-value activities. He explains this has been most helpful regarding the high degree of daily 'unknowns' with the tax function.
"Tax specialists have to know the historical transactional background better than accountants and be prepared to support queries on short notice. It's a key reason I could have 15 email queries from people within the company or a tax regulator daily. CCH Integrator ensures data is accurate and corroborates this automatically. It’s too easy to add a positive or minus into an Excel spreadsheet, giving you a major issue very quickly that you may take hours to locate,” he continued.
The benefits of streamlining
Using CCH Integrator has helped Lineage remove unnecessary tax-related administration from its regional accounting team. Reporting tools, action lists to finalise workpapers and processes to cross-check the data within CCH Integrator are now second nature to the team.
“There is a significant regional benefit with CCH Integrator. We don't have to bother with creating templates and worksheets or uploading and filtering data that needs to be manually checked. CCH Integrator has an in-built reconciliation process and guides you where reviews may be needed. We are minimising our time and ensuring we don’t have any issues at the same time,” he commented.
"We have trained our accounting staff, external professional services consultants, and auditors on how to use and maximise the benefits of CCH Integrator to help not only us but also improve their own professional outcomes,” Havranek said.
This is all made easier with the support of the Wolters Kluwer team. "It's a great support team. Whenever I have a query, they have responded within the hour with a solution. This is a fantastic way to operate, and we appreciate the team very much," he concluded.
