Predict tax outcomes with new platform from KPMG, Microsoft

KPMG and Microsoft have unveiled new applications designed to help finance leaders transform tax departments.

The two firms have expanded the KPMG Digital Gateway platform, enabled by Microsoft Azure cloud, with three new applications – Tax Advance, Data Factory and Connected Modelling – business leaders can predict tax outcomes and drive tangible business outcomes.

Extension of the KPMG and Microsoft multi-billion-dollar global alliance

The unveiling of this new application is part of the two firm’s ongoing multi-billion-dollar global alliance, to combine advanced technologies, industry insight and creative thinking to help enterprises transform and lead amid complex global business issues and continued market disruption.

As part of KPMG’s US$5bn investment in technology, people, and innovation to accelerate digital transformation, and more than US$1bn in tax and legal technology, specifically, KPMG is utilising Microsoft Azure and Azure AI as the backbone for a common, global cloud-based platform that helps to strengthen its range of digital offerings with new innovations in cloud-based audit capabilities, tax solutions and risk management.

Tax at a tipping point due to disruption and uncertainty

According to KPMG, the future of tax is at a tipping point as organisations work to keep pace with a rapidly changing business landscape, shifts in tax policy, heightened compliance and reporting requirements, workforce challenges, and the untapped potential of data.

“C-suites are being challenged by tremendous disruption and uncertainty,” says Greg Engel, VC Tax, KPMG in the US. “Whether it’s preparing for potential changes to US tax policies, implementing the OECD global tax policies, addressing the rising pressure to consider ESG in their total tax stories, or determining how to do more with less, many leaders are struggling with how to prepare and respond.”

KPMG Tax and Microsoft’s relationship is in direct response to the many disruptions that companies are being faced with and the need to help them grapple with it.

The KPMG Digital Gateway, enabled by Microsoft Azure cloud, has been built to equip executives with a single access point to their entire suite of tax and finance data so they can see around the corner and make smart business decisions even amid a time of great uncertainty.

KPMG Digital Gateway – helping C-suite make smart decisions

The KPMG Digital Gateway platform puts easy-to-use technology in the hands of non-technologists, so business leaders can predict what’s ahead and make smart business decisions.

The platform leverages AI, machine learning, automation and data and analytics applications to give a holistic view of an enterprise’s total tax and finance data, in real time, and within a single platform.

“An organisation’s data is both vast and complex and in order to generate real value from it, the right technology is critical,” explains Brad Brown, Global Head of Tax Technology & Innovation at KPMG International. “Digital Gateway is intended to an organisation’s single source of truth for all its tax and finance information… built to help the C-suite make sense of their data so that they can ultimately drive value and benefit the bottom line.”

Two of the three new applications – Data Factory and Connected Modelling – process, synthesise and visualise data from an organisation’s ERP system, while the third, Tax Advance, is a cloud-based collaboration tool that uses Microsoft technology to connect and optimise an organisation’s existing document management, process and workflow approaches within the tax and finance functions.

Business leaders then use the platform’s data-driven applications and powerful modelling tools to help inform strategy, forecast outcomes, plan tax requirements, minimise risk, generate cost savings, and drive tangible business outcomes.

Among the advantages of the KPMG Digital Gateway:

• Provides a single point of entry for a company’s entire suite of tax data
• Translates unstructured data into actionable insights
• Allows non-technology professionals to easily use the tool
• Leverages AI and machine learning to reduce data redundancies across applications
• Syncs with a suite of third-party tools
• Equips C-suite with. Control Tower home screen, which features a suite of applications that process data, generate powerful visualisations and more