Case study · Tax reporting and account reconciliation · South Africa
Before there was a manual
A telecom group headquartered in South Africa, operating in 20 countries across Africa and the Middle East, moved its tax provision, tax reporting, Total Tax Contribution, tax risk register and account reconciliations off emailed spreadsheets and onto Oracle EPM. It was among the first Tax Reporting builds anywhere. I was the functional lead, and I taught it to the people who would run it.
Among the first
anywhere
- Client
- Telecom group, South Africa-headquartered
- My role
- Functional lead
- Team
- A project manager, me, a senior consultant and two consultants
- Delivered at
- Accenture
- Operating countries
- 20
- Trained onsite
- 30+
01 · The problem
Every change went round by email.
As the group later described its starting point, budgeting, financial reporting and tax compliance ran on spreadsheets that were emailed between the countries and head office.
Each change meant consolidating and aggregating the numbers again. Figures were updated in some places and not in others, and the same calculation could be done two different ways. Change one figure below and watch what it costs.
- Emails sent
- 0
- Re-consolidations by hand
- 0
- Versions in circulation
- 1
A simulation. Six of the group’s countries shown; versions and counts are illustrative.
02 · No playbook
A new product leaves every question open.
Oracle’s Tax Reporting cloud service was new, and this was among the first implementations of it delivered anywhere in the world. There were few finished builds to learn from.
So the design questions were answered from the tax first, then proved in the product. These are the kind of questions the functional design had to settle.
- 01 · Provision
How should deferred tax roll forward, entity by entity, in a product that had not done it here before?
- 02 · CbCR
Can the Country-by-Country Report be built from the same figures as the provision?
- 03 · Total Tax Contribution
How do you count every tax the group bears and collects, not only income tax?
- 04 · Risk register
What makes a tax risk worth a line in the register, who owns it, and how is it rated?
- 05 · Reconciliation
Which accounts need a reviewer, and which can close on the preparer's word?
- 06 · Everyone
How do you teach a system to people in twenty countries when nobody has used it yet?
Illustrative questions
03 · The scope
Five workstreams on two products.
Tax Reporting carried the provision, the reporting that follows from it, the group’s Total Tax Contribution and its tax risk register. Account Reconciliation carried the balance sheet. Choose a workstream to follow its data.
Simplified. Sources are described by type.
04 · The team
Five people, one design.
I led the functional side: what the provision, the reporting, the contribution and risk views and the reconciliations had to do, and how the build should express it. Then I took it to the users.
- Project managerPlan, scope and the client relationship.
- MeFunctional leadThe design of the provision, returns and CbCR, Total Tax Contribution, the risk register and the reconciliations, then the training and the UAT.
- Senior consultantConfiguration and testing.
- ConsultantBuild, data and test support.
- ConsultantBuild, data and test support.
05 · The room
Thirty-plus people flew in to learn it.
The people who would run the system each period came to South Africa from across the group’s operating countries. I delivered the training, then ran the user acceptance testing with them, as the change management for the whole programme.
people trained onsite, then testing the build themselves
operating countries in the group, across Africa and the Middle East
- Afghanistan
- Benin
- Cameroon
- Congo-Brazzaville
- Côte d'Ivoire
- Eswatini
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Guinea-Bissau
- Iran
- Liberia
- Nigeria
- Rwanda
- South Africa
- South Sudan
- Sudan
- Syria
- Uganda
- Yemen
- Zambia
06 · Training and UAT
Taught first. Then tested by the people who would use it.
Change management was not a slide at the end. The users learned the system in the room, and then they were the ones who tested it and accepted it.
- Step 1
Training, module by module
The provision, returns and CbCR, Total Tax Contribution, the risk register and account reconciliation, each taught in the room.
- Step 2
Hands-on practice
Attendees worked the system themselves before they were asked to test it.
- Step 3
User acceptance testing
The people who would run each period tested the build against the design.
- Step 4
Fixes and retests
What failed was corrected and tested again before sign-off.
- Step 5
Sign-off
The users, not the build team, accepted the system.
Illustrative test cases. 10 of 10 passed
To test0
In test0
Passed10
07 · The result
A system the group could run itself.
The provision, the reporting, the contribution and risk views and the reconciliations on one platform, built early in the product’s life, and handed to users who had already tested it.
The group later reported that its tax provision calculations, and their comparison with the group effective tax rate, moved from quarterly to monthly, with stronger oversight of the provision across its operating countries.
12 provision runs a year, each compared with the group ETR
Oracle EPM Tax Reporting implementations delivered anywhere
users trained onsite, from across the group
workstreams live: provision, returns and CbCR, Total Tax Contribution, the risk register, reconciliations