SAP HR Implementation/ Interface development and Support for a leading distributor of home- and office-delivered newspapers in the U.S

Services

Enterprise Software Consulting

Sector

Retail

Engagement Summary

The Major retailers are required to pay usage taxes on items they buy but don't intend to sell. Large retailers frequently have trouble effectively matching their financial transactions to specific line items in an ERP-type system.

If a store is unable to demonstrate to the State, County, and local taxing authorities that taxes were legally accrued and paid then usage-tax penalties will apply.

Challenges:

Challenges

Reporting and data loading delays.
Reporting in SAP Business warehouse (Tax Data Warehouse) is slow and difficult.
Data must be kept in Business warehouse or near line storage systems for ten years, and interfaces must be created between ECC, near line storage, and BW (Business warehouse) for data reconciliation in order to comply.
Data must be kept in Business warehouse or near line storage systems for ten years, and interfaces must be created between ECC, near line storage, and BW (Business warehouse) for data reconciliation in order to comply.
It will take days to get a single file from the BW system for usage of internal and submission to tax authorities. Client has to generate 30+ flat files having huge data sets out of the BW system.
Custom ECC programmes for TDW extraction run for days and on end it was frequently failing and necessitating rerunning of the scripts.

Solutions:

Solution Proposed

Prior to creating a full TDW solution utilising SAP HANA, Transcend Digital created a Solution for Use Tax Reconciliation.
Transcend Digital extensively investigated the client's environment and made a solid HANA-based solution recommendation for tax reporting. HANA data models have been updated to handle larger data sets and speed up processing (Big Data) created flat file interfaces that extract data from HANA in less time than an hour instead of days for each file.
Data reconciliation between the source system and HANA can be automated and HANA analytical views were made by combining datasets from several business functions.
Transcend Digital also added interactive reports made using SAP Business Objects tools to HANA data models, giving users more flexibility in reporting.

Results

Client Benefits

8000 Stores
Operates in 15+ countries
9 Different retail formats
Met with the Internal compliance
Match up invoice line items with use-tax accruals
Much better adherence to tax laws
acquired the capacity for quick decision-making
large potential for cost savings and reduction of manual tax reconciling efforts

Testimonials

Transcend Digital is an A+ agency for both, strategic and tactical marketing solutions.

We set aggressive growth goals for the year, and it felt like we needed to bring an army of marketers to help us hit the targets. I’m so glad we hired Transcend – they run all our Paid Media, SEO & Content, and Email campaigns, and are consistently pivoting to ensure we're seeing strong ROI. They have a wealth of knowledge, are flexible and communicative.