Are you Ready for an Audit?

When the IRS or other tax and regulatory agencies call, are you ready? There was a time in the SAP world that being “audit ready” meant implementing SAP DART before archiving. But for many companies, being audit data ready means having a process in place to enable them to respond at a moment’s notice to requirements and information requests from a dizzying array of tax authorities and regulatory regimes. It is an issue that impacts the bottom line: a multi-national company might expect to pay millions in penalties, simply because of their inability to report in a timely manner.

Being audit data ready isn’t easy under any circumstances – it takes deep expertise with SAP and the technology solutions available. DART was originally developed to address the need for IRS data extracts, but businesses with complex operations working in multiple tax and regulatory environments – and sometimes multiple SAP systems – often need greater flexibility than DART enhancements can handle efficiently. These companies need to have it both ways – a standardized, repeatable process to index tax-related data, and the ability to respond efficiently to ad hoc requests.

The right solution isn’t a single tool – it is the solution that delivers what companies need to capture tax and audit data, efficiently, meet ad hoc requests and maintain high system performance. For many environments, the latest version of DART hits the mark for extracting the tax data needed by auditors. Other companies deal with high data volumes and complex tax environments where new technologies and practices can deliver a higher level of flexibility and speed.