Build a world-class finance function with tax compliance automation

Automation is a necessity for growing your business in today’s world and is vital for informed decision-making, collaboration, and agility. That was the key takeaway from a panel of finance, technology, and tax compliance experts who presented at a recent symposium hosted by CFO Magazine in Sydney, Australia. The event was titled Technology, Taxation & Transformation — Building a World-Class Finance Function.

Cyril Desouza, Global Head of Finance at Bigtincan, described how implementing NetSuite with Avalara helped transform his company into a global SaaS provider.

The cloud solutions enabled Bigtincan to smoothly transition through 14 acquisitions by making data importation seamless, explained Desouza.

They also cut the time it takes to process customer orders — from the moment the order is placed until the payment is received and applied to accounts receivable — to a mere five minutes.

Desouza was joined at the CFO symposium by Scott Wiltshire, Vice President and General Manager of Oracle NetSuite and Krishna Tadepalli, tax expert and Director of Sales at Avalara. They described how automation can help businesses overcome tax compliance challenges and build a world-class finance function.

As Bigtincan expanded from Australia to the United States, its tax obligations became more complicated. Through acquisitions, it established nexus in new states and continuously introduced new products.

“Initially, our team tried to handle compliance manually. We discovered it was just too much work because it was ever ongoing,” Desouza told attendees at the CFO conference.

“When a business is trying to expand, the most important parameter observed today is, ‘Do we have sales potential?’ But an important factor which is being missed is what is the taxation landscape in the area you’re entering,” said Tadepalli. “If you encounter a tax issue, there are strict regulations that can ban your business from entering some countries. And it’s humanly impossible to track all the tax changes in the 190+ countries on the planet.”

In 2023, there were 11,192 sales and use tax rate updates in the U.S. alone.

NetSuite with Avalara was the remedy for Bigtincan’s growing pains. Avalara reduces the risk of noncompliance by updating tax information regularly, handling registrations, calculating tax automatically, and preparing returns.

“The beauty is Avalara is embedded within NetSuite. I reckon I’ve given back my team probably 10 to 15 hours a month of tax compliance work,” said Desouza.

All that saved time frees up finance and compliance teams to focus on profit-generating priorities.

“That integration with Avalara means in all the countries where NetSuite operates, you have live access to information at your fingertips across the breadth of your business. That means you’re reducing your risk, you’re improving your compliance, you’re freeing people to do higher-value tasks, and you’re driving agility,” explained Wiltshire.

“Remote work will be with us for the foreseeable future,” said Desouza. “Collaboration is really essential in remote working.”

Bigtincan employees are dispersed across Australia, Denmark, the U.K., and the United States. Cloud automation technologies like NetSuite with Avalara allow one person to log off and someone else from a different region to pick up where they left off, creating a 24-hour cycle.

Collaboration doesn’t just occur within Bigtincan’s finance team; they also work closely with other stakeholders including engineering and sales. “My team is constantly updating them with reports we get out of these systems so they can make the right decisions in real time,” said Cyril.

The business landscape is extremely competitive, so you need to empower your executives and teams with data, Wiltshire advised the CFO conference participants.

“That’s where NetSuite comes in attached with Avalara to provide visibility across the business so you can make well-informed decisions. So you can build agility, stay resilient, and take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves,” said Wiltshire.

Read A CFO’s guide to automation: Cutting costs, not corners to learn more about the benefits of cloud automation and integrated technologies from NetSuite and Avalara.