CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business — CorpSystem Sales Tax Office & Sales Tax Returns Online

5789 characters

800-630-2218

www.tax.cchgroup.com

CCH offers several sales and use tax-focused applications through its CorpSystem business tax and management suite, with the primary systems divided between rates lookup and calculation, and preparation. The CorpSystem Sales Tax Office program is available as an on-premise installed solution, providing direct integration with the business’ sales and accounting software ERP to automatically calculate sales and use taxes and return the results back to the ERP for posting. The web-based CorpSystem Sales Tax Returns is a separate system for filing returns and paying liabilities.

Basic System Functions

Initial installation of the system and mapping and integration with the financial management programs in use by the business is guided by technical support representatives from CCH. After this setup, the automated CorpSystem Sales Tax Office system is mostly hands-off, where the program works with the sales and accounting programs to instantly look up rates, nexus and special taxability issues, and perform calculations as transactions are entered or estimates are generated.

Products are mapped by SKU to groups and items, with the ability to set up special custom products, rules and rate overrides as needed. For management functions, supervision and reporting, the system includes a streamlined interface that also includes access to sales tax research functions, such as state and local statutes, regulations, court cases and private letter rulings. Exemption management functions include built-in classifications and the ability to create custom exemption classes. The interface also offers functions for searching across the transactions and drilling down into individual line items.

Sales Tax Office integrates directly with the accounting system and can even support multiple business entities with a single license, including those with subsidiary units, multiple geographic locations and other subdivisions. The program can even integrate with multiple ERP systems in use by the businesses. As an installed system, CorpSystem Sales Tax Office is not available remotely and does not have mobile applications, although if a business utilized a Citrix environment it could offer remote access. 4.25

Compliance Capabilities

CorpSystem Sales Tax Office offers rates and rules for more than 8,000 taxing jurisdictions in the United States and Canada, including special taxability issues such as sales tax holidays, special districts, price thresholds and product types. As an integrated component of the business’ ERP, the system automatically assigns the appropriate rates to transactions after verifying taxability, and maintains reports and details of all taxation transactions. Nexus and jurisdiction issues are verified to help avoid penalties for non-collection as well as the burden of collecting taxes when they aren’t necessary. Businesses can also set up custom taxes and overrides. Rate table updates are provided to users on a monthly basis.

To automate the reporting side of sales tax compliance, the business can use CorpSystem Sales Tax Returns, a web-based program that integrates with Sales Tax Office to retrieve data and automatically populate signature-ready returns for all jurisdictions with reporting requirements, including zero liability reporting. The system includes workflow processes that guide review, edit, print and other functions, including limited options for electronically filing returns with taxing entities that accept such. 4.5

Integration/Import/Export

Both CorpSystem Sales Tax Office and Sales Tax Returns allow output of data into common formats, and the system’s taxability matrices, which include retail, restaurant, grocery and food service, and software and services, can be generated into Excel format for editing or customization. Most reporting can also be output to Word and Excel formats, including liability summaries and details, audit reports and jurisdictional output. CorpSystem Sales Tax Office offers standard integration options with SAP, Sage, Oracle and Microsoft Dynamics AX/GP/NAV, and can be adapted to many other systems as well as to most e-commerce packages. 5

Help/Support

After initial implementation, both the sales tax engine and the forms preparation system are fairly simple to use and offer intuitive interfaces that give good guidance and provide traditional Help utilities, instructions and other information. Online resources are mostly focused on account management, but also include a knowledgebase, program updates and documentation. Live support is included in pricing and includes phone, web chat and remote access options. 4.5

Summary & Pricing

The CorpSystem Sales Tax Office and Sales Tax Returns programs are designed primarily for mid-sized to larger entities with high transaction volumes across scores of jurisdictions, resulting in significant staff resources tied to sales tax compliance. The programs, when used together, offer an intelligent solution to streamlining these functions, thereby saving time and avoiding non-compliance issues. Pricing for Sales Tax Office is based on the revenue size of the company with the base system price starting at $15,000. Pricing for the Sales Tax Returns system is based on the number of jurisdictions for which returns are prepared, with up to 150 annual returns costing about $3,500. In July, CCH extended its offerings to include CorpSystem Sales Tax Compliance Service, a comprehensive returns preparation, filing and remittance outsource service. While not part of this review, the Sales Tax Compliance Service utilizes Sales Tax Returns Online to prepare returns and generate electronic filings.

2010 Overall Rating 4.5