CLOUD-BASED TAX TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION IMPLEMENTATION STREAMLINES EFFORTS AND IMPROVES TAX COMPLIANCE
CLIENT
SchoolKidz is the leading school supply kit program in the United States, providing services and programs in over 7,000 cities and over 3,000 schools across the country. It works with parent-teacher organizations and parent-teacher associations to develop customized school supply kits.
CHALLENGE
Historically, the sales tax determination process was dependent on rates that were updated in a reactive and manual approach, as opposed to a proactive and automated fashion. Specific areas of concern included:
- The lack of ability to populate estimated tax on e-commerce orders from its website limited the ability for it to provide accurate quotes to its customers
- Exemption certificate management was a manual process outside of Microsoft Dynamics GP, which led to compliance issues for expiring certificates
- Tax staff spent a significant amount of time compiling transaction information due to issues with its manual monthly compliance process
- Excessive time was spent identifying and updating jurisdictional rates within the standard Microsoft Dynamics GP tables
- Inefficient processes were being utilized to generate transaction detail reports when needed to support audits
SOLUTION
The engagement consisted of DMA’s tax technology experts implementing Vertex® Tax Links for Microsoft Dynamics GP connector to Vertex® Cloud Indirect Tax, verified by Vertex Inc., a leader in tax technology. The DMA team also provided subject matter expertise regarding the Vertex Cloud API and wrote a custom integration for its e-commerce platform to support the organization’s tax operations.
RESULT
Based on DMA’s extensive knowledge of Vertex Cloud capabilities and application programming interface, DMA and SchoolKidz built a robust custom solution including the following key areas:
- Real-time billing and consistently correct tax determination
- Exemption certificate management removed from Microsoft Dynamics GP and maintained within Vertex Cloud
- New system of record and reporting functionality to streamline and support audit readiness
- Automated jurisdictional rate and content updates
“As a growing medium-sized business, our tax compliance needs have increased. Thanks to DMA’s experts, our Vertex implementation to Dynamics GP and Ecommerce took only about two weeks. DMA took the time to understand what our needs were in a tax engine, and went beyond standard implementation to customize the integration specifically for our use, including automating monthly reports that used to take a lot of time to produce.”
—Joe Grlica, Manager II, Director of IT
WHY DMA?
DMA has a rich history of successful tax technology implementation engagements with large multinational companies including chemical manufacturers, consumer goods manufacturers, electronic device manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, software companies and pharmaceutical companies. DMA offers many industry- and tax-specific technology solutions designed to ease the administrative burden associated with taxes.
DMA’S IMPLEMENTATION EXPERTS ARE HERE TO HELP
Leverage our team of tax technology experts for seamless software solution implementation that fits your unique business needs.