Client Overview: The client is a leading tax and audit firm in the US.
Challenge
The client’s Partnership Tax Allocations process (Private Equity, Hedge Funds, etc) was a fully manual process involving spreadsheets for data collection, calculations and tax preparation. There was limited collaboration among the tax preparers due to the manual nature of the process. Our client was looking to unify their data and develop more efficient processes.
Solution
Orion developed a cloud-based solution for transforming legacy and Excel processes into a modular, scalable, and integrated web-based Allocations Platform with the following capabilities:
- Centralized management of engagements, charts of accounts (including footnotes), and partner data. Reusable content across practices, clients, funds, and entities.
- Automated Integration. Facilitate direct integration with downstream systems (GoSystems, CCH, etc).
- Configurable permissions and access control. Administrative control over who can access what clients, projects, or reports as well as what rights they have to data and features.
- Powerful diagnostics capabilities capture errors, warnings, and overrides up front. Reduced filing errors, configurable for all system inputs and calculations.
- Adapt to tax reform changes with strong administrative tools. Remap accounts/tax lines, adjust formulas/logic, and push updates to the entire user base without development intervention.
- Distribute workload across multiple users. Foster collaboration with field level comments and notes.
- Leverage server based/scalable calculation performance. Enable detailed calculations for multiple portfolios and side pockets.
- Detailed audit history and traceability back to client provided data. Field level revision history tracks back to original input data and allows the system to revert to prior versions.
Impact
The client was able to save as much as 80% of their cycle time on tax calculations and preparations for the Partnership Tax Allocation process. They improved the accuracy of their tax calculations and reduced data processing inefficiencies. They improved collaboration with their stakeholders with more timely, transparent, and accurate data. Their user experience and customer management process were both significantly improved with the new platform.
