longview tax - frequently asked questions

Longview Tax

Frequently Asked Questions

ahStfosorciM

etnIeciffffOdnatnioPera

noitarge

balloC,wolfkroW

DdnaytiruceS,noitaro

sdraobhsaD

Longview Tax FAQ

What is Longview Tax?Longview Tax is a suite of tax technology software products for Corporate Tax. Longview understands

the types of controls and transparency today’s CFOs need, and that this is only achieved through the strategic

use of technology. Global corporations are challenged with trying to manage, control and make sense of

the high volume of tax data spread across different systems. Tapping into this expertise, Longview has

become the first to solve the tax data challenge. Longview Tax lets organizations take back control of

tax, and is the only tax data platform that delivers the transparency and controls demanded by financial

stakeholders, from tax professionals to shareholders, in a way that’s cost-effective and drives value.

Longview Tax includes:

n Longview Tax Data Platform

n Longview Tax Data Collection

n Longview Provision/Reporting

n Longview Tax Planning

Please find a complete description of each solution below.

What do you mean by “Don’t Manage Tax. Own It. Take Control with Longview Tax”?CFOs want more control over their tax data, something that historically has proven difficult to achieve. There

is a lot at stake – to tax departments facing material weaknesses, tax is the single largest area of risk. CFOs

have seen the benefits of using technology in other areas of the finance department, but with no real solution

for tax, tax professionals still rely on manual, time-consuming tasks, making transparency and efficiencies

difficult to achieve.

Longview understands the types of controls and transparency today’s CFOs need is achieved through the

strategic use of technology. Tapping into this expertise, Longview has become the first to solve the tax data

challenge. Longview Tax lets organizations take back control of tax and own their data. Longview Tax is the

only tax data platform that delivers the transparency and control demanded by financial stakeholders, from

tax professionals to shareholders, in a way that’s cost-effective.

Copyright © Longview Solutions Inc. 2012 All Rights Reserved wwww.longview.com/tax

Longview Tax FAQ


Longview Tax FAQ

I currently use Microsoft Excel for free, what will Longview Tax give me that I don’t have?Microsoft Excel is being identified by Auditors as a control issue. Longview Tax offers a proactive and

cost effective way to address this risk in a practical manner through an enterprise tax solution. Microsoft

Excel has limitations as a corporate business tool, for example, spreadsheets have a high percentage of

errors, there are poor internal controls in place and it is often challenging to manage a high volume of

spreadsheets. Difficulty in extracting detailed information makes “Comparative analysis” or

“planning/forecasting” on the provision data extremely challenging.

The best practice to deliver reliable tax reporting under these conditions is to streamline the process

and technology foundations of your tax provisioning activities. CFOs, controllers and tax executives

are now shifting their focus to improve the speed, accuracy and transparency of the end-to-end global

income tax process through the use of technology.

Longview Tax is an enterprise solution which increases the tax provision speed, accuracy, transparency

and auditability. The Longview platform provides a centralized data storage for all the tax department

data. Tax sensitized data from your ERP, G/L or any other source system can be loaded into Longview

Tax and used as a source for any other tax department point systems such as provision, compliance, etc.

We use Microsoft Excel but need the efficiency of an enterprise Tax technologysolution. Do I have to give up my Excel work papers if I implement Longview Tax?No. In fact, Longview Tax delivers the best of both worlds – it provides the security and efficiency of an

enterprise tax technology system and the intuitiveness of Excel – all in one solution. The Longview for

Excel add-in allows you to interact with your tax data via Microsoft Excel. From within your Excel work

papers you can view and dynamically refresh tax data from the database. In the background, the Longview

Tax database calculates and stores all the tax provision details and other tax data calculations. The

Longview for Excel add-in can also be used to securely push data to the database. For example, obscure

and/or complex-to-calculate tax differences can be calculated and uploaded using the Longview for Excel

add-in. This feature ensures both strong internal controls and efficiency – all from the comfort of Excel.

Does Longview Tax have a Tax Data Warehouse or a Data Management Platform?YES. Longview Tax Data Platform is an enterprise grade software application and database that collects,

stores and manages all your tax department data, while streamlining calculations. In addition, it’s powerful

integration capabilities make it the single source of tax data for your department’s reporting requirements

regardless of where the source data resides. By centralizing and consolidating all the data, Longview

provides the tax technology foundation to seamlessly manage your global tax processes. This means

that you have a very clear audit trail from book-to-tax and legal entity-to-consolidation at all times while

maintaining an appropriate level of autonomy to meet your departmental needs. Longview Tax gives you

transparency, auditability, confidence and control.

The Longview Tax Data Platform solution:

n Enterprise Platform – scalable, secure and performance

n Single source of Tax Sensitized data

n Longview Integration Suite

n Web Data Collection for data and documents

n Foreign Currency translation


Longview Tax FAQ

n Roll-up and Consolidation over multiple years

n Multi-dimensional Database/Configurable Data Storage

n Complex Modeling/Apply Business Intelligence (BI) to Data

n Out-of-Box Reports and Ad-hoc Reports

n Configurable Dashboards with Microsoft SharePoint integration

Does Longview Tax have Data Collection?YES. Longview’s open technology and Longview Integration Suite allows data to be collected from/sent to

any source system in any currency creating a single repository of tax reporting information. Longview

Tax Data Collection provides the technology for timely and accurate financial and tax data collection from

numerous source systems and any number of global legal entities.

The Longview Tax Data Collection solution:

n Load Data from Many Source Systems

n Longview Integration Suite

n Web Input Templates

n Automatic Rollup & Consolidation

n Longview Reporting & Analysis

n Longview for Excel

Does Longview Tax work with my general ledger or Consolidation system (SAP/Oracle)?YES. Longview Tax can import data from any system including SAP, Oracle, any general ledger system,

consolidation system or tax point system such as fixed assets, data warehouse, etc. Data can be imported

by the tax department. Alternatively, the Longview Integration Suite offers a suite of integration tools that

allows for direct adapters to hundreds of source systems. The integration suite includes a comprehensive

set of pre-built adapters for common databases, ERP and CRM applications. Please see the Longview

Integration Suite brochure for more information.

Does Longview Tax work with my tax compliance system? Can I integrate to any system?YES. Longview Tax’s mapping tool and the Longview Integration Suite are bi-directional. Data can be easily

imported or exported out of Longview Tax to any tax compliance system or any other system such as

transfer pricing, general ledger, planning system, etc. Longview Tax works with all major tax compliance

software around the globe.

Does Longview offer a “hosted” solution?YES. Longview Tax can be deployed either “on premise” or in a “hosted” model (e.g. SaaS - Software as a

Service). You determine the approach that best meets your needs.

Does Longview Tax integrate with Microsoft SharePoint?YES. Longview Tax has integration with SharePoint that can help customers leverage their existing Microsoft

SharePoint infrastructure. The integration allows Longview data and documents to be leveraged in a

SharePoint dashboard (eg. KPI’s, tables, graphs). The SharePoint panels can connect directly to Longview

Tax reports and input templates or documents and can support a single sign-on.


Longview Tax FAQ

Does Longview Tax have Provision/Reporting?YES. Longview Tax Provision/Reporting provides the ability to report out-of-the-box in both ASC 740 (FAS

109) and IFRS/IAS 12:

n Consolidated current and deferred income tax provisions, by legal entity

n Deferred taxes by legal entity, by temporary difference

n Balance Sheet Approach or Income Statement

n Statutory and Consolidated effective tax rate reconciliation (ETR)

n Tax Account Roll-forward

n Tax Basis Balance Sheet

n Notes Disclosure and Journal Entry

n Return to Provision/Prior Year Adjustment

The Longview Tax Data Provision/Reporting solution:

n Out-of-Box Standard Tax Packages and Reports

n Easy to Use IFRS

n Industry Solutions

n Interim Reporting

n Process Late Adjustments

n Integration with Compliance

Does Longview Tax have mobile capabilities?YES. Longview Tax dashboards, graphs and reports can be used on mobile devices. The image shows our

standard Executive dashboard with an ETR graph by Region and our standard reports (Current Provision,

Deferred Provision, ETR and Tax Account Rollforward) all available on your mobile device.

Longview Tax on the go!

Is Longview Tax Out�of�the�Box? Is it configurable?YES. Longview Tax is a best practice solution to address ASC 740 (formerly FAS 109) and IAS 12, and this

functionality is out-of-the-box. The implementation of Longview’s pre-packaged solution is a rapid way of

ensuring that your tax department is leveraging best practice technology and processes.


Longview Tax FAQ

Alternatively, you may feel that your company/industry is too unique to be confined to an out-of-the-box

solution. If this is the case, then you can choose to tailor the functionality to meet your company’s specific

requirements. Longview’s configuration layer allows you to make company-specific changes without

sacrificing the ability to make future upgrades to the software. The technology is specifically tailored to

address industries such as regulated utilities (FERC), financial services, insurance (SSAP10), gas, mining

and oil.

In the end you have the best of both worlds in that you rely on Longview’s market tested out-of-the-box

functionality, while not being confined by a pre-defined product roadmap.

Does Longview Tax have Planning?YES. Longview Tax centralizes the storage of all the tax department data providing the perfect platform to

perform Tax Planning & Forecasting.

The Longview Tax Planning solution:

n Configurable Web Input Templates and reports

n Advanced Modeling

n ‘What-if’ Scenarios

n Longview Analysis & Reporting

Is Longview Tax easy to implement and Maintain?YES. Longview knows that the tax department and IT resources have limited time to implement and

maintain software, that’s why we’ve created simple easy-to-use administration interfaces and initial system

load files to implement and go-live in a matter of weeks.

Administration Interface to add new Legal Entities quickly

What are some of the benefits customers have realized from implementing Longview Tax?The primary benefits organizations realize through the use of Longview Tax are as follows:

n Efficiency – As compared to Excel-based provisioning, many hours of non-value-added activities

can be reclaimed by allowing the technology to address all of the repeatable functions such as tax

consolidation, foreign currency translation and dynamic validation of data. Of particular note is the

ability to quickly and accurately process late adjustments.


Longview Tax FAQ

n Improved Internal Controls – The Longview Tax web dashboard and workflow engine ensures that

you know the status of your provision at all times. The system ensures that everyone is working from

the same set of data and tracks all changes to the data by individual, date and time.

n Reduced Risk – The enterprise-scale tax engine and the improved internal controls inherent in the

system combine to significantly lower tax risk over traditional spreadsheet processes. The adoption

of tax technology can go a long way to address growing concerns over lack of transparency as it

relates to corporate tax governance.

n Tax Analysis – The reporting tools in Longview Tax are unparalleled. They allow your tax department

to better understand your current data, as well as to better forecast your future tax results.

n Ease of Maintenance – Longview Tax provides an easy-to-use application for all basic maintenance

functions, such as adding legal entities, setting up new permanent and temporary differences and

adding users.

What makes Longview Tax different from other tax solutions on the market?n Technology – Longview Tax is an enterprise tax technology solution that provides a robust platform

that can be expanded as your tax technology needs increase. The Longview Tax database isexpandable to include all the tax sensitized data required by the tax department. All the LongviewTax products, Longview Tax Data Collection, Longview Tax Provision/Reporting, Longview TaxPlanning, as well as Longview Consolidation, Longview Planning, etc. use the same technologyplatform and can be used separately or together.

n Transparency – The robust reporting capabilities of Longview Tax ensure that you have completetransparency to your tax numbers. All too often technology adoption can result in a “black box” –where a number goes in and a number comes out, but you cannot immediately discern how you havearrived at that result. Longview Tax reports always clearly show the audit trail from book to tax andsummary to detail.

n User Friendliness – The “drillable” interface allows users to easily navigate their tax provisionnumbers. Whether you are a controller in a foreign jurisdiction submitting your tax package or youare a power user at Corporate reviewing the consolidated footnote, you are never more than a fewmouse-clicks away from the answers you need.

n Flexibility – Longview Tax empowers your organization to address unique scenarios that may notfit into a standard out-of-the-box solution. The easy to configure interface allows you to addresscompany-specific situations that may not have been easily foreseen. This results in less work-aroundsand, therefore, greater efficiency and accuracy.

Is Longview Tax Sarbanes�Oxley (SOX) compliant?Yes. It also enables compliance with Canadian Multilateral Instrument 52-109 and meets requirements

within Europe for internal controls and management of tax accounting risks.

Can I use “what�if” scenarios and comparative analysis using Longview Tax?Yes. Longview Tax has unparalleled analysis capabilities. Our customers greatly appreciate the increased

visibility that the tool provides their tax departments. Many tax departments are using Longview Tax to

develop a budgeted effective tax rate (ETR), track developments by legal entity and then compare the

results to the actual ETR. The ability to quickly analyze data, support complex drill through, and run “what-if”

scenarios may offer the single largest ROI for tax technology adoption.

Do I have to use Longview implementation services?No. Although Longview has an experienced team of tax and technology professionals, you are not

obliged to use Longview’s professional services organization. Numerous tax service providers, such as


Longview Tax FAQ

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Accenture have been trained on Longview’s

Tax technology and related processes. These firms are skilled at delivering the entire range of services

surrounding Longview Tax.

Are the Tax Service Providers Certified?Yes. Longview has a rigorous certification program for Tax Service Providers and Consultants. The

program has been designed to offer reliable training and validation of experience in the following areas:

n Review of tax data collection, provision and accounting processes

n Best practice process redesign, improvement and automation

n Implementation support

n Accounting services

n Advice on internal controls, including Sarbanes-Oxley

n Advice on IFRS, IAS 12, ASC 740

Are all the Tax Service Providers certified?Yes. An annual audit of both Individual and Firm level certifications will be conducted to ensure that

individuals are up-to-date with the latest industry knowledge and best practices.

Why would a CFO choose Longview Tax?The Longview Tax Data Platform gives CFOs the transparency and controls they need to feel confident.

Tapping into the power of the Longview Tax Data Platform - which provides visibility to all tax department

data – CFOs can help make unwanted surprises a thing of the past and better protect their reputations and

that of their employers, by:

n Delivering integrated and reconciled data faster and more efficiently

n Driving more accurate results across more data

n Helping to manage risk across the organization, and reduce risk to corporate and personal reputations

Why would a Tax Director choose Longview Tax?Technology change is coming to the tax department. Other areas of finance have seen first-hand the

positive impact of technology, and the old ways of doing tax reporting will soon disappear. The Longview

Tax Data Platform gives tax professionals a way to manage that change, control their destiny, and

provides the best opportunity to take control of their process.

n Rework becomes easier to handle as a result, reducing the extra hours required

n Having changed from data collection to data analysis, Longview Tax will help tax professionalscontinue to evolve their role

Why would a CIO choose Longview Tax?Built for seamless data integration, Longview Tax provides a proven tax technology foundation for

integration of tax data with other enterprise-wise reporting data. Longview delivers a flexible and

powerful solution that will grow along with the organization in a way that’s cost effective. Scalable

performance - Longview’s enterprise grade database can aggregate and analyze billions of rows of data

across thousands of users. Longview offers a hosting solution as well, to offer the option eliminate the

burden of added systems to the IT department.

11

/2

01

2

About Longview Solutions

Longview Solutions provides a corporate performance management (CPM) and tax data management platform that leading companies

such as Aon, Brunswick, Lexmark, The Home Depot and Trustmark use to drive performance with speed, visibility and financial integrity.

Since 1994, Longview has been helping clients create a single repository of financial truth from which all, or any one of the following

key financial processes can be performed: financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, modeling, disclosure management/XBRL reporting,

statutory consolidation, management reporting, profitability analytics, tax data collection, tax provision/reporting and tax planning.

Longview is headquartered in Toronto, Canada with additional offices in Philadelphia, Chicago (USA), London (UK), and Amsterdam

(NL).

For more information please visit www.longview.com.

Division Headquarters US Headquarters UK Headquarters Netherlands Headquarters 65 Allstate Parkway, Suite 200

Markham, ON • L3R 9X1 • Canada

2 Radnor Corporate Center

100 Matsonford Road, Suite 230

Radnor, PA • 19087 • USA

Nexus House, Station Road,

Egham, Surrey

TW20 9LB• UK

WTC The Hague, 16th floor

Prinses Margrietplantsoen 46, 2595

BR The Hague, The Netherlands

Tel 905.940.1510 Tel 610.977.0995 Tel 905.940.1510 Tel +31 (0)854884 783

Fax 905.940.8310 Fax 484.367.1153 Fax 905.940.8310 Fax +31 (0) 854884 782

Email [email protected] Email [email protected] Email [email protected] Email [email protected]

© Copyright 2012 Longview Solutions. All rights reserved.

http://www.longview.com/

mailto:[email protected]


