Vanderlande achieves efficient, automated processes with Longview Tax

“When I joined the company, we had a monthly tax reporting process that relied on various Excel spreadsheets, which was prone to error,” said Sebastiaan Stoffelen, Tax Assurance Specialist at Vanderlande. “The reporting timeline we have within Vanderlande is quite narrow, so an automation tool was considered key to make the whole process more efficient and robust.”

Vanderlande’s baggage handling systems are capable of moving over 4 billion pieces of baggage around the world annually. More than 52 million parcels are sorted by its systems every day. Established in 1949, the company employs over 7,500 people and has established itself as a highly reliable partner for future-proof logistic process automation.

Hampered by manual processes

Vanderlande was acquired in 2017 by Toyota Industries Corporation which will help it to continue its sustainable profitable growth. At that point, the company had a strong need to increase the efficiency of its tax processes and reduce the risk of errors.

“The most important thing is that the tool shouldn’t be the goal itself. You need to think about the business problem you’re trying to solve, and the tool should facilitate that.”

The tax team at Vanderlande were faced with increasing pressure to meet challenging deadlines for month-end close. The business needed a solution to automate the close processes, and empower them with accurate, real-time data that would save time while maintaining data integrity and quality.

After reviewing Vanderlande’s tax reporting processes and establishing their requirements for a new solution, Sebastiaan scheduled demos with seven potential software vendors. “The most important thing is that the tool shouldn’t be the goal itself. You need to think about the business problem you’re trying to solve, and the tool should facilitate that.”

Selecting Longview Tax

After evaluating different options, Sebastiaan and his team selected Longview Tax from insightsoftware. The solution was able to deliver on all Vanderlande’s requirements, including:

• Automating tax data collection, calculation, and consolidation
• Freeing-up time to refocus efforts on more added-value activities such as review and analytics
• Uncovering critical insights from tax data that supports strategic decision-making

“For me, the key benefits for my review and analysis process are the drillable reports and tax analytics provided by Longview Tax. I can easily do my checks and validations in the most efficient manner,” said Sebastiaan.

Smooth sailing through the implementation process

To assist with implementation, Vanderlande partnered with Taxvibes. Vanderlande chose Taxvibes because of their extensive experience with tax automation processes. “The implementation plan and cost proposal were spot-on to what was delivered. The project was completed on time and on budget,” said Sebastiaan. Some smaller issues inevitably came up during the implementation process, but these were resolved very quickly and satisfactorily.

One of the key success factors of the implementation project was the project team taking ownership and being involved as much as possible. By preparing and delivering the end user training themselves, Vanderlande’s tax team built a strong understanding of how to use the Longview Tax solution. They were able to hit the ground running as soon as the new system was set up. They also gained the knowledge required to maintain the solution themselves on an ongoing basis.

Partnering with Taxvibes was the right move for Vanderlande

Another key success factor was the close collaboration between Vanderlande, insightsoftware and Taxvibes. Through these partnerships, Vanderlande was able to leverage both the tax reporting advice and industry best practice from Taxvibes, as well as the product knowledge and integration expertise of insightsoftware. This enabled them to have a smooth implementation process whilst also ensuring the result met all their business specific requirements. “Our shared goal was to automate the tax reporting processes in a user-friendly way, enabling the team to move from collecting tax data to reviewing tax data and thus trusting the results,” said Peter van Tiggele, Tax Automation specialist at Taxvibes.

The tax team at Vanderlande is delighted with the advice and guidance provided by Taxvibes. “Taxvibes provided us with hands-on experience,” said Sebastiaan. “They brought the practical knowledge from other clients they worked with, which was extremely valuable for the scoping session and during the implementation process. Also, Peter and his colleagues at Taxvibes challenged us from both a technical and a tax accounting perspective, which improved our decisions. This proved to be one of the success factors of the implementation.”

Greater usability

As a result of the Longview Tax implementation, Vanderlande has consolidated their tax data into a single source of the truth. No matter where a user is in the world, they can pull data from one easy-to-access location.

Also, Longview Tax provided greater usability for the tax team, as well as improved robustness and automated validations. “Implementing Longview Tax resulted in a bespoke component that was built in the specific way that Vanderlande needs journal entries to be output by the system,” Sebastiaan explained. “With the help of Taxvibes, we have tailor-made functionality for that.”

“A couple months after we went live with Longview Tax, the majority of our report group spends 25 to 50% less time.”

Improved efficiency

Vanderlande has seen a variety of benefits by using insightsoftware’s solution, including:

• 70% automated tax calculations
• 25-50% reduction in time spent on corporate income tax reporting
• More robust tax reporting process

“Before I kicked off the project, I did a survey with our user group to ask how much time they were spending on the corporate income tax process with the existing spreadsheets,” Sebastiaan said. “A couple months after we went live with Longview Tax, I did another survey to ask how much time users estimated they saved. The majority responded that there was up to 25 to 50% less time spent.”

More flexibility

After implementing the product, Sebastiaan found that a specific journal entry item needed a different system set up. Thankfully, Longview is a very flexible tool and Taxvibes was easily able to configure the required functionality without additional costs.

Vanderlande now enjoys centralized tax information, more efficient and automated processes, and robust data management. Going forward, they have plans to implement Longview Transfer Pricing to further automate their business processes.

“We found a lot of value in the automation because of our tight reporting timelines. At the end of the process the disclosure notes are all fully automated, resulting in a more controlled outcome because of the validation checks that are built into Longview Tax. Ultimately, we aim for a holistic approach to our tax processes, with one source for multiple users.”