Blending Longview Tax With External Applications For Operational Synergies & Tactical Benefits

Blending Longview Tax With External Applications
For Operational Synergies & Tactical Benefits
Phil Parkinson, Tax Manager
The Co-operators Group Limited
© Exact International Development B.V., 2012. All rights reserved. All trademarks mentioned herein belong to their respective owners.
Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Morning Tax Humor
Random tax thoughts:
Did you ever notice: When you put the 2 words
"The" and "IRS" together it spells "THEIRS"
Death and taxes are inevitable, but death doesn't
repeat itself
A harp is a piano after taxes
Everything we have is taxed — even our patience.
2

Morning Tax Humor
3

Phil Parkinson’s Bio
Graduated From Wilfrid Laurier University with
BBA (2000) / MBA (2005)
Worked in public practice for small and big four
firms in accounting, tax & IT roles for 8 years
Chartered Accountant (2005)
Certified Public Accountant (2009)
Working for Co-operator’s tax group the past 3
years. In 2010 assigned the task of making
Longview a reality.
4

Agenda
Company Overview
Topic Overview
Background
Current State of Affairs
Future (where we want to be)
Lessons Learned
Success factors
Barriers/Challenges/Opportunities
Key Takeaways
Q&A
5

Company Overview
Co-operators Group Limited (Co-operators)
100% Canadian-owned and operated co-operative
Insurance products
home, auto, commercial, farm, life, group &
individual
Investment products
~4,000 employees across Canada
Listed on Toronto Stock Exchange
$7B in assets
6

Company Overview
Co-op Tax Department
Centralized in one location
Operates in somewhat decentralized finance function
Five staff & intern
Understaffed (like everyone) with limited resources
Primarily focused on compliance
80% compliance/20% value add (the fun stuff)
7

Topic Overview
One of the main goals of Longview Tax is to
automate the tax reporting process and help
customers focus on value added analysis and
activities. This could be achieved using the
Longview Tax platform alone and also via
integration with 3rd-party applications. This session
will cover how The Co-operators Group Limited is
currently using Longview Tax and its future plans to
extend the benefits of Longview Tax, including the
co-existence strategy with external complementary
applications.
8

Background
Due diligence and biz casing for tax provision
software done in 2010
Selected Longview as vendor of choice December
2010
IFRS adoption in Canada during 2011
Scalability
Ability to handle complexity
Reporting
Project kicked off in March 2011
Longview Team: Brad Hearn, Benny Isla, Grant
Rawluk, Ruth Candler
9

Background
Roll-out (Longview Tax go-live) late September
2011
Other Comprehensive Income
Parallel tested year-end 2010 during end of 2011
Ironing out the kinks
Parallel testing year-end 2011 now
Data extracts
Fine tuning
Entity nuances
10

Background
Longview Tax environment
Longview 7.0.3
Longview hosted “cloud” solution - why
burden/confuse Co-op IT?
20+ legal entitles provisioned
Microsoft Office 2010
Microsoft SharePoint 2010
Oracle R12
BPC (SAP)
11

Current State of Affairs
12

Future State - Near Term
13

Future State - Final Vision
The four elements:
Tax returns
Shared hierarchy
Data management
Workflow management
14
Longview
Tax
Tax Returns
Workflow
Management
Data
Management
Shared
Hierarchy

Future State – Tax Return
15
Tax return benefits
Reduce the extent of human manual data input
Improve accuracy, efficiency and control
Longview Tax is the source of the input numbers
leaving the return to be the final output
Return To Provision (True-up) resides in Longview
Tax
Avoids importing data from tax return software back
into Longview

Future State – Shared Hierarchy
16
Oracle
Shared
Hierarchy
BPC Longview

Future State – Shared Hierarchy
17
Shared Hierarchy benefits
Immediate:
Utilize the hierarchy contained in Oracle, the original
source of the truth
Automated update of changes to accounts,
segments and structure in the hierarchy
Long-term:
Send Longview data to Oracle (JEs and other
deliverables)
Send/receive data between Longview and BPC
(budgeting and forecasting data)

Future State - SharePoint
18

Future State - SharePoint
19
Microsoft SharePoint benefits
Allows tax department to link Longview Tax into the
overall company processes
Enterprise-wide users can access Longview content
Longview relevant documents will be housed centrally
along with other enterprise wide documents
Starting point for layering on further Longview
integration of bells & whistles
Manage/automate the workflow of the department
Link status of work to a Longview tax provision report
Manage tax department data

Lessons Learned
Success factors
Have a roadmap (vision) but allow updating of the
GPS to change direction during the journey
Maintain continuity by keeping the team in tact
Defined roles - know who is doing what & when
Constant communication - keep people in the loop
Realistically manage expectations
This is not a weekend getaway, it is a cross-country
journey
Buy-in is needed at all levels
20

Lessons Learned
Barriers
Devoting someone to the project full-time in a
small department
Completing project vs. completing normal duties
“business as usual”
Making your Longview priorities, a priority for
others
Managing change and the fear of the unknown
21

Lessons Learned
Challenges
Tax always the last to know
Doing more with less (resources)
The need for speed (time)
Longview learning curve
What you put in is what you will get out of it
Change is constant
Employee turnover
Accounting policies & tax legislation
Increasingly complex business environment
22

Lessons Learned
Opportunities
Tax is a very high risk area that is gaining attention
(30%)
Last finance related function to be brought into 21st
century technology wise
Allow tax departments to focus on more value add
(fun) stuff
Better manage the data and workflow
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Key Takeaways
Have a roadmap
3-5 year journey – Don’t Stop Believing!
Ensure there is time for stabilization after each
milestone before moving the vision forward again
Tax; A finance function overdue for automation
Leverage the learnings from other finance (accounting)
colleagues
Tax return software not integrated
Early days
Let the provision setup the return
Longview’s technology roadmap provides the toolkit
we need to achieve our tax technology strategy
24

Thank You For Investing Yourself In This Presentation!
Questions
25

Blending Longview Tax With External Applications For Operational Synergies & Tactical Benefits

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