Suncor is legally required to charge tax on intercompany transactions, including those with companies outside its control. To meet this obligation, Suncor has developed the Intercompany Tax Automation (ITC) solution using SAP Business AI & SAP Build Products.
By the turn of the decade, however, its automated solution was outdated—a troubling situation given Suncor’s legal and regulatory obligation to charge taxes on intercompany transactions.
While trying to calculate tax numbers based on tax codes as well as jurisdictions, workers were forced to make manual entries into an Excel file before downloading customer line items to an additional Excel sheet.
These tedious, manual efforts caused regular errors, requiring employees to waste valuable time reworking the numbers. This slowed intra-company fund transfers and vendor payments and added operational costs.
The only way out of the dilemma was to develop a flexible, scalable and efficient solution in the form of an Intercompany Tax Automation (ITC) solution. This would allow Suncor to use built-in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and manage its data responsibly.
Putting AI into practice
SAP Build Process Automation, for example, would combine workflow management with robotic process automation functionality, process visibility, decision management and advanced AI tools to understand business documents.
The main goal was to put AI into practice while applying the highest ethical, security and privacy standards to ensure audit compliance. At the same time, the risks associated with regulatory submission would be minimized. Streamlined procedures would reduce period-end closing time.
As in the past, Suncor would rely heavily on SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP), a set of tools used to integrate and connect entire landscapes to meet growing business demands and demands.
Teams from SAP’s MaxAttention division will also work with specialized Suncor units to holistically review the business automation process, providing guidance on available solutions based on global best practices and other key factors.
“From initial requirements to final deployment, the teams (SAP and Suncor) demonstrated technical expertise, flexibility and a willingness to work with each other to create a solution that perfectly meets Suncor’s business needs,” said the manager of project Tatiana Cojocaru, from Suncor. program management department.
The bot does the job
Once the project was launched, the prototype for the ITC platform was delivered in less than four weeks, with deployment occurring in less than eight, starting in November 2023.
“The SAP MaxAttention team demonstrated an exceptional level of thoroughness in every aspect of the project,” said William Brooks, a tax advisor and consultant for Suncor. “They meticulously handled the design, development, deployment, testing and operation phases. Additionally, they were very responsive to changes, even when we deviated from the original requirements.”
Today, anyone using the solution can click a button to activate an automation agent and, in the background, the bot orchestrates tasks and generates all documentation for compliance purposes. The system has eliminated the mistakes of the past, accurately calculating tax amounts from customer line items and posting journal entries for each sales and purchase tax company code, while creating PDF invoices for audit compliance.
The key point of the solution was to leverage Suncor’s existing investments in SAP, enhance and optimize the solution for evolving and challenging business needs with rapid time to value.
The execution time for the procedure is now under seven minutes – down from more than eleven hours previously. With an unattended bot available to respond to customers around the clock, the company has seen a 98% improvement in overall turnaround time.
In terms of savings, Suncor has cut costs by $1.8 million. Suncor’s end users are satisfied with the solution and adoption is very high due to the reduction of tedious manual interventions and data processing; end users are now able to focus on strategic tasks rather than mundane data validation activities.
For extracting business value from automation, AI and other modern tools, the ICT solution has drawn attention to Suncor from various industries, resulting in the company being named a finalist in the SAP Innovation Awards 2024.
The annual ceremony honors businesses and organizations that use SAP technologies to make a difference. (To learn more about what Suncor accomplished to earn this coveted recognition, see their Innovation Awards pitch deck.) The annual ceremony honors businesses and organizations that use SAP technologies to drive change. To learn more about what Suncor accomplished to earn this coveted recognition, see their Innovation Awards pitch deck.