India has been one of the frontrunners in digital technology advancement in the Asia Pacific region, even surpassing more mature and emerging economies. As the digital consumers in the country grow exponentially, Indian businesses’ digital adoption, particularly the finance and administrative function, needs catching up according to recent studies. 

In July, an SAP Concur study revealed that only 11{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of Indian organisations have implemented end-to-end digital finance and administrative processes despite the impending need to eliminate the tedious manual processes. This study reflects the most recent survey conducted by EY and SAP India, which showed the Indian enterprises’ digital readiness to comply with the new provisions of Tax Collected at Source (TCS).

New TCS Provisions in Effect

On October 1, the expansion of the scope for the Tax Collected at Source (TCS) provisions, under the Income Tax Act, has taken full effect. The Finance Act, 2020 has amended the provisions relating to TCS to provide that a seller of goods shall collect tax at the rate of 0.1 per cent (0.075 per cent up to March 31, 2021) if the receipt of sale consideration from a buyer exceeds Rs 50 lakh in the financial year.

The EY and SAP India survey uncovered that Indian companies are not completely equipped to handle the various tax implications of the TCS provisions. Conducted early September 2020, the survey involved over 110 corporate businesses across India to assess their readiness to implement the new provisions on the tax and technology capability of their organisations in addressing the concerns on compliances, validations, and reconciliations with various reporting requirements.

Key Findings

Aside from complying with the new TCS regime, the EY and SAP India study revealed that organisations are anticipating significant challenges on reconciliations, data, systems, processes, and tax audit readiness. 

• 85{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the respondents shared that their current tax function framework is not completely ready to accommodate the requirements to be able to comply with the new TCS provisions
• 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the respondents foresee issues around applicability and updating systems and processes as a significant challenge in complying with the new provisions
• 81{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} expects an increase in manual intervention for their tax teams in reconciling data and ensuring accuracy due to TCS compliances
• 65{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the respondents shared that their IT systems need updating for the new TCS regime, which also means that organisations will have to seek alternatives
• 65{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} admitted that their organisations require a digital solution to automate the entire TCS compliance and reporting life cycle
• 70{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the respondents revealed that the automated TCS platform should go beyond basic compliance by assisting in proactive reconciliations, data preparation for tax assessments, and tax credits matching

Supporting Tax Transformation

Today, more than ever, the tax and finance function of Indian organisations need to embrace digital adoption to align with the Government’s thrust on technology in ensuring tax compliances and undertaking tax risk assessments.

“Given the intent of TCS provisions, leading organisations are looking for digital solutions which help to not just comply, but also proactively perform reconciliations from a tax audit readiness and internal audit perspective,” said Rahul Patni, Digital Tax Leader at EY India.

Specific to the need for an intelligent, intuitive, and integrated digital fabric to support TCS compliance, EY has developed an automated solution called ‘DigiTCS’ powered by SAP’s Business Technology Platform. Hosted on SAP Cloud Platform, DigiTCS is scalable, secure, modular, and integrated with customer’s SAP ERP.

Anand Raisinghani, Vice President, Platforms and Technologies, SAP India said:

“Our customers need to stay compliant with the evolving regulatory tax framework. As SAP is the financial system of record for majority of Indian enterprises, we responded swiftly to ensure required provisions form part of our solution offering.

Together with EY, we deliver DigiTCS — a comprehensive solution powered by SAP Business Technology Platform. With this, we will empower companies to adapt to the new Tax regime providing them ease of deployment, security, and no disruption to their existing process and business.”

DigiTCS is another result of EY and SAP India’s innovative collaboration that would help Indian organisations in their tax transformation journey.

The post EY and SAP India Study New Provisions on Tax and Technology Adoption appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

ABBYY, a recognised leader in intelligent document processing by Everest Group, continues to innovate and expand its digital presence following its major activities in 2019 such as the acquisition of the AI start-up TimelinePI and the opening of its regional office in Hong Kong. Now, ABBYY has partnered with Winshuttle, the leader in data management and process automation software, to streamline enterprises’ financial processes and deliver automated invoice processing.

ABBYY and Winshuttle aim to help organisations deliver on their digital transformation go-live projects that involve extracting data from physical documents and loading it automatically into SAP. The collaboration intends to streamline and automate SAP invoice processing as well as reduce the costs of running financial systems with intelligent solutions like the ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices.

Integrating Solutions

The partnership will leverage ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices together with Winshuttle’s data management tools for the thousands of global enterprises using SAP to run their financial systems. FlexiCapture for Invoices is a turnkey invoice-capture application that reduces inefficiencies, errors, and costs associated with manual invoice processing by eliminating data entry and the physical handling of paper. 

In unison, FlexiCapture for Invoices facilitates the early capture of invoices, centralised extraction, and validation of data while Winshuttle’s data management tools process the PO-based invoices straight through.

Kristian Kalsing, VP Products and Solutions at Winshuttle, shared how the integration of solutions from ABBYY and Winshuttle can streamline and automate SAP invoice processing, one of the most critical processes in an organisation. Kalsing explained:

“Customers will now have a solution with ABBYY FlexiCapture for Invoices on the front-end to capture, sort, extract and validate the data and Winshuttle on the back end to collect, prepare and post single or batch invoices into SAP – all while adhering to SAP security and rules.”

Bruce Orcutt, SVP of Product Marketing at ABBYY, emphasised the importance of unlocking key information within business documents that are necessary for SAP systems to process. He said:

“ABBYY’s Content Intelligence technology and solutions provide the cognitive skills required to assist in automating content-centric processes.”

“Our partnership with Winshuttle will be instrumental to customers who are processing documents and need to post it securely into SAP,” Orcutt added.

About ABBYY

ABBYY, a global leader in Content IQ technologies and solutions, provides AI-based technologies and solutions to financial services, insurance, transportation, healthcare, and other industries transforming business documents and content into business value. It has over 1,300 employees across its offices in Australia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, Spain, Taiwan, the UK, Ukraine, and the United States.

Having a strong presence in the Asia-Pacific markets, ABBY works closely with large system integrators such as Fuji Xerox Hong Kong, Nikoyo (HK) Ltd., and Tech Mahindra.

About Winshuttle

Winshuttle, an SAP partner, is known as the provider of industry-leading EnterWorks Master Data Management (MDM) and Product Information Management (PIM) solutions. The company takes pride in its flexible no-code, low-code software that empowers over 2,400 organisations worldwide to drive business results at scale, increase agility, and transform digital into a competitive advantage.

Headquartered in Washington, Winshuttle maintains offices in North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia Pacific.

The post ABBYY and Winshuttle Champion Automated Invoice Processing appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.

In today’s ever-increasing digital landscape and rapidly evolving business climate, automating the accounts payable processes has become a necessity in consideration of the accounts payable’s highly-essential business function in an organisation. Accounts payable, which was once perceived as a traditional and transactional back-office function, is now also known to provide intelligence for business-critical finance data.

The shift on accounts payable’s perception has led Shared Services & Outsourcing Network (SSON), an online news source for global business services executives and business leaders, to study the leading trends and the key role of technology in the AP’s ability to optimise cash flow. In this white paper, the Australian and New Zealand market was analysed.

Creating New Opportunities Through Automation

Aside from leveraging new skills within AP teams, closer collaboration with procurement, and communication throughout the business, the shift in AP’s strategic mindset has put more emphasis on deploying the right accounts payable automation solution. Automating AP enables visibility into the business-critical data for improved financial control, spend visibility, and cost-saving potential. 

The whitepaper has revealed the key benefits of providing the right end-to-end accounts payable automation solution in an organisation’s over-all operational efficiency. These are:

Analytics for better decision-making

Needless to say, automation frees up the AP teams from the manual transactional work and leaves them more time on accomplishing more strategic tasks. Furthermore, AP automation solutions’ cognitive capture and analytics capabilities deliver business value for better decision-making. The intelligent technology provides real-time, accurate, and immediately useful information to help effectively manage working capital. 

Accurate data for increased efficiency

In the SSON research, only 24 percent of respondents have a fully automated invoice processing solution that includes optical character recognition (OCR) in place. The opportunity is in capturing the most comprehensive information and validating it upfront to reduce invoice processing costs and ensure the data required for analytics and insights are available for future use. 

With the appropriate AP automation solution, data extraction from invoices, no matter how complex or how invoices enter the organisation, will be optimised. Only when data are complete and accurate will automation be effective in increasing AP’s efficiency.

RPA for gapless automation

Robotic process automation (RPA) allows organisations to create truly seamless automation with its capability to fill in manual gaps between process steps and systems. RPA that sits on top of an organisation’s existing technology complements core systems like SAP and non-disruptive for day-to-day business. Together with an AP automation solution, RPA becomes an affordable option to automate recurring processes, eliminate data entry errors, and cut the processing time. 

Capabilities for a seamless SAP integration 

According to SSON, one of the key attributes of a comprehensive AP automation solution is the capability to integrate with an ERP. Critical AP automation solution components such as RPA, multichannel capture, best practice workflows, end-to-end analytics capabilities, supplier portals, and cloud-based services boost SAP system’s value by providing additional functionality and seamlessly integrating information directly into critical business systems from any location.

Digital Platform for improved customer engagement

With only three percent of supplier queries dealt on an online portal as uncovered by SSON, there is a loss in opportunity for the organisation. In today’s digitally-savvy population, businesses are expected to interact with its customers including suppliers, partners and even internal customers through a convenient digital platform. Integrated self-service supplier portals have dramatically improved vendor relationships by simply offering transparency and convenience.

The New AP Mindset Applied

Koppens Developments, a civil construction and development specialist in North Queensland, Australia has applied some of the key points uncovered by SSON on the AP perception shift. The company tapped Kofax, a California-based automation software provider known for its RPA solution, to modernise and digitise its end-to-end invoicing lifecycle. Specifically, Kofax TotalAgility was chosen to digitise invoices and automate workflows for the construction firm.

Kofax TotalAgility is a digital transformation platform that accelerates high-value customer journeys such as new customer onboarding, claim processing, loan automation, citizen service provision, and supplier management among many others.

Business Solutions Manager Jarrad Koppen shared:

“We currently process up to 14,000 invoices every year and have a team of three people handling it all. In the past, our staff relied on largely manual methods to manage invoice processing. As we grew, we recognized that such an approach was quickly becoming unsustainable.”

“Turnaround times were slower than we would like—putting us at risk of failing to pay suppliers on time. What’s more, the sheer volume of work made it challenging for us to gain fine-grained insight into costs and payments; insight that we need to ensure that we do not overrun our budget for a given project,” he detailed.

With Kofax TotalAgility, Koppen Developments has now automated end-to-end invoice processing, significantly cutting the processing time of a single invoice from one hour or more to just three minutes. Koppens explained that with faster invoicing, the company could take on more work in AP without increasing headcount, which consequently helps make the business more profitable.

Project Manager Martin Wojcicki added how the Kofax solution has enabled Koppens to gain deeper insight into its AP data helping the company sharpen cost control to keep projects on budget. He said:

“With Kofax TotalAgility our team can capture much richer detail from invoices, right down to line item level, which is something they simply could not do in the past. We use this invoice data in conjunction with information such as purchase orders and actuals to feed our business intelligence engine, which gives us a much more holistic view of project costs. Now that we have this insight, we can make decisions based on real evidence rather than best guesses.”

The Koppen Developments’ success story with Kofax is just one example of how automating the AP processes goes over and above eliminating manual tasks. With the right accounts payable automation solution, AP can substantially contribute to an organisation’s overall success through better cash flow management, improved operational efficiency, and as an intelligence hub for when creating critical business strategies.

The post SSON Whitepaper: A Shift Towards Accounts Payable Automation Solution appeared first on InsideSAP Asia.