ERP Migration

The large majority of companies these days are in the midst of a (cloud) ERP migration. A lot of excitement for most parties involved… except for tax. 🫣

I have mentioned it before already: far too often, tax is still seen as the little sister of finance (read our whitepaper on the topic: 5 Challenges Requiring Tech Investments.

This is definitely the case when it comes to ERP projects. True, these are company-wide projects in which all departments are involved. Finance is definitely one of the key players here. Tax is in most cases seen as part of finance, be it typically in a way that they only get a limited amount of seats at the table (if tax gets a seat at all).

Well here are some typical frustrations from tax people when it comes to ERP projects:

▶️ Tax is invited late to the party. When the entire blueprinting is done, tax gets an opportunity “to have a look and validate”. By doing so, the entire tax process re-design opportunity gets lost.

▶️ Other than indirect tax use cases, in most cases the added value for tax is limited. Still, with the migration to the next gen ERP, the CFO expects everybody to be extremely successful going forward, tax included. That is a somehow unfair expectation, as the needs of tax are often very different from let say the finance and accounting needs…

▶️ Tax needs to put all other tech projects on hold. Yes, ERP migrations are massive and consume a lot of resources. But as mentioned above, the use cases and value for tax are typically fairly limited. And still, tax is asked to put their exploration for other tools on hold, whereas the momentum for transforming the tax function has never been higher.

▶️ The amount of successful ERP migrations is very limited. Typically, they take much longer than expected, the complexity is underestimated, the budget gets exceeded, the implementation partner fails, … And so the waiting for tax continues…

Don’t get me wrong: ERP migrations are pivotal projects and key for the long-term future and success of the organization. That being said, it is important that all stakeholders involved understand what the new ERP will and can do for tax, and what not. If not levels of frustration will rise, and in-house tax teams just can’t afford to pause the transformation of their department…