Reduce manual effort and improve accuracy with automated tax data workflows in Bloomberg Tax Workpapers. See how it works.
How automation can improve your fixed assets workflow and help steward data transformation
Are you looking to automatically and accurately calculate fixed asset depreciation to maximize tax savings? Incorporate automation to reduce manual risk and help steward data transformation.
A cloud-based, integrated fixed assets subledger such as Bloomberg Tax Fixed Assets automates depreciation calculations so you can plan strategies that help your organization see better tax savings from your fixed assets.
Experience the benefits of a modern fixed assets
management solution
Bloomberg Tax Fixed Assets makes it easy to manage the complete fixed assets lifecycle so you can save time and focus on your organization’s strategic outlook.
Even high-performing tax departments face a multitude of challenges when it comes to accurately accounting for fixed assets, including data wrangling, keeping up with tax law changes, conforming to different state depreciation rules, and resource constraints. But tax automation software helps tax teams more easily manage their fixed assets, reduce risk from manual errors, comply with confidence, and steward a full data transformation of the tax function.
Fixed assets data management can be overly complicated. It’s often tedious and time-consuming and relies on manual processes. Many tax departments manage fixed assets within their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, but it can be difficult to maintain complete and current records with ERP systems. These systems can be inadequate and cumbersome for busy tax teams – in part because they aren’t designed with tax in mind, which still leads to the need for a lot of manual work in Excel.
Some tax departments rely on siloed, nonintegrated tools that are designed only for fixed assets tracking. But the resulting process of updating and collecting massive amounts of data from different systems and sources can be overwhelming. So, many tax departments outsource their fixed assets management – putting an outside firm in charge of collecting, standardizing, performing, and reentering calculations into the appropriate systems. But outsourcing has its own challenges, including the resulting loss of control for internal tax teams.
What is fixed assets automation?
Automation is the process of using technology to systematize tasks and processes within a workflow – in this case, managing fixed assets. Many tasks or processes can be automated if a decision tree can be mapped out based on criteria within the data.
Repetitive fixed assets management tasks and processes with simple decision trees are excellent candidates for automation because they reduce the complexity, cost, and risks associated with manually inputting, reconciling, and reporting your fixed assets data.
While it may appear that an organization’s individual fixed assets workflow uses unique or unusual steps, the steps that tax departments take usually have a lot of commonalities and are likely well-suited for automation, even if it doesn’t feel that way. Some examples of fixed assets tasks that can be automated include:
- Asset basis adjustments
- Capitalization thresholds
- Asset type mapping
- Cost segregation
- Bulk asset additions or disposals
When it comes to fixed assets data management, automation can reduce manual mistakes. It also allows more than one person to work with the data while providing greater consistency, control, and traceability.
Beyond data integration and transformation, automation provides quick access to tax law and rate updates and enables tools for modeling and planning for potential business needs, like M&A deals. Ultimately, integrated automation solutions can enable a full transformation of the tax function and how busy teams accomplish their work.
[Case study: How automation gives Petco one-click fixed assets efficiency.]
The challenge with corporate accounting systems – and how automation can help
Many corporate accounting systems weren’t designed with tax in mind and can lack the level of detail needed for safe compliance. For example, they lack support for GAAP and tax depreciation, audits, and tax law updates, and can make data extraction and reentry a tedious necessity.
In fact, one of the biggest challenges for tax departments is that enterprise automation tools such as legacy ETL tools and RPA solutions don’t provide the necessary controls and traceability and can’t be changed dynamically. Plus, organizations often must turn to IT departments to update ERP functionality and customize data, which can cause delays and strained resources.
In addition, sharing crucial tax information across departments is more difficult with older ERP systems or custom spreadsheets. And if a tax team is wrangling data within their ERP systems and using Excel to get things done, there’s a real risk of human error. Once a mistake occurs among thousands of line items, it could take a team a long time to find and correct the problem.
Integrated solutions with automation capabilities can help busy tax teams in a variety of ways, including maintaining compliance and resolving the time-consuming aspects of fixed assets management. Integrated solutions from Bloomberg Tax can help with more challenging tasks like reconciling between the general ledger and your fixed asset software, in addition to helping with tasks such as mapping and translating gap assets to tax assets and applying different rules.
In addition, when it comes to fixed assets tracking, tax teams must be able to respond to sudden tax changes in a timely fashion. If they’re forced to spend time checking on whether their general software is up to date, that’s a problem. Software that’s specifically designed for the nuances of tax helps tax teams stay nimble.
[Download our report, How to Save Your Company From Common Fixed Assets Challenges, to learn how the right fixed assets software can lead to valuable tax savings opportunities, new efficiencies, and improved bottom lines.]
The challenge with siloed tax tools and outsourcing – and how automation can help
It’s not uncommon for more than 50% of a company’s fixed assets data to be incomplete or inaccurate. As assets are tracked across multiple locations and tax jurisdictions, the data volume continues to increase, as does the need to accurately manage it.
If tax departments are manually importing massive amounts of data from different systems and sources, and using disparate tools to track their fixed assets that don’t integrate with their workflows, they can become overwhelmed and leave themselves open to making mistakes.
Using a comprehensive fixed assets solution allows teams to draw and standardize data from many sources and systems. It improves access to data between tax and accounting departments and automates processes to improve data accuracy.
And, with a solution like Bloomberg Tax that has built-in accuracy and compliance checks that source the latest tax code, accounting rules, and guidance, tax teams can reduce their margin of error, tighten internal controls, and achieve total integration of their fixed assets workflow.
Learn about how to automate repeatable tax and accounting data flows with minimal effort using Bloomberg Tax Fixed Assets software.
What is a fixed assets management system?
Now that the benefits of automation are clear: What’s the best way to automate fixed assets? A best-in-breed fixed assets management system checks all the boxes and maximizes the automation capabilities.
Today’s fixed assets systems need to do more than just ensure compliance. They must be an integral part of an organization’s strategy for maintaining operational effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability in financial reporting.
Fixed assets management systems that are integrated within a tax software suite have an advantage over traditional ERP systems because they’re specifically built to handle the challenges of fixed assets tracking for GAAP and tax. Automated software applications streamline processes and enable tax professionals to understand, model, and update their fixed assets data without the need for IT resources.
More specifics on these software capabilities follow.
Automation of repeatable data flows
Fixed assets software applications automate tasks to eliminate errors, improve productivity, and enable a faster response to business changes. Use a solution with built-in accuracy and compliance functionality that reflects the latest tax code, accounting rules, and tax updates.
As your organization grows and evolves, fixed assets software can easily scale to accommodate more fixed assets data and complexity. By using fixed assets software that is scalable, flexible, and customizable to handle any number of users, assets, and locations, tax departments can adapt to changing organizational needs, from corporate structural change to mergers and acquisitions.
Complex calculations simplified
Fixed assets software that can integrate with enterprise tax and compliance systems or ERPs can reduce the margin for error. It does so by ensuring data is synchronized so you can run complex calculations involving cost segregations, tangible property regulations, and other detailed functions.
Specifically, a fixed assets solution with automation capabilities can alleviate the burden of monitoring individual state depreciation rules, eliminating the need for time-consuming and error-prone manual work outside of the software with such features as:
- Automated state tax law updates to reflect changes in federal conformity
- Built-in calculations for states that don’t follow federal depreciation methods
- State bonus modification reports to ease the compliance burden
Real-time fixed assets tracking and control
Fixed assets management systems are the easiest way to gain visibility and control over fixed assets data across your entire business, giving you added audit protection. Real-time documentation ensures you always have the crucial information you need for complex audits and other data management demands. Built-in validation controls add safeguards to protect against bad data or errors such as asset duplicates and inconsistencies.
Other control capabilities include:
- Automatically reconcile your latest fixed assets inventory data from multiple systems.
- Track and adjust fixed assets data before projects are completed – even for multiple projects at a time.
- Compare budgeted expenditures to actual fixed asset additions.
- Convert CIP assets into depreciating assets.
Holistic data access
High-performing tax functions take advantage of tools that help them analyze their data in depth and offer a complete picture for reporting, tax savings, compliance, and critical business decisions.
A fixed assets management system lets you draw and standardize data from many sources and systems, improving both the data accuracy and the ability of the tax and accounting departments to easily access your complete fixed assets data.
With actionable insights, what-if analysis, and scenario-build capabilities, these tools enable deep data exploration, optimize tax planning, and ease the reporting burden:
- Quickly generate reports using standard reporting templates.
- Customize reports with unlimited asset fields.
- Automatically update Excel reports when data changes.
Foreign currency functionality
Fixed assets software has the added benefit of taking the uncertainty out of managing and reporting on multiple currencies with tax-specific functionalities:
- Track and audit exchange rates.
- Manage assets in both standard and hyperinflationary currencies with automatic currency translations based on historical or current rates.
- Support corporate-level assets reporting with options to report in one or more currencies.
What are the benefits of automating fixed assets management?
Cloud-based fixed assets automation tools create a streamlined, lower-risk fixed assets workflow that leaves more time for the strategizing, planning, and analysis necessary for your tax department or clients to achieve their goals:
- Gain efficiency and save time by automatically transforming ERP data to fixed assets data and making adjustments directly in the user interface.
- Increase controls, thanks to a secure cloud environment that offers 24/7 data availability and traceable data history.
- Reduce risk with a well-documented, automated process.
- Improve data accuracy by reducing errors from manual entries and exposing errors for review before committing the data.
Regardless of company size, a fixed assets automation solution can help tax teams improve productivity, avoid costly errors, and provide more efficient service by managing the complete fixed asset life cycle – from construction and purchase to retirement.
Access secure data anytime, anywhere
Cloud-based fixed assets management tools help tax professionals become more mobile and efficient with access to real-time data from anywhere – no check-in or checkout process needed.
A best-in-breed fixed assets solution like Bloomberg Tax Fixed Assets has data integrity and security features built into the network infrastructure, including multiple login management systems, encryption, multifactor authentication, and single sign-on capabilities. The secure online environment means source files can be shared without the need to email large files and eliminates the security risk of transferring confidential data.
Expand tax capabilities
Automating your fixed assets workflow frees up time to focus on other tax challenges and can make the entire tax function more cost-effective by allowing tax departments to expertly manage more of their own tax processes, or by allowing tax and accounting firms to offer new client services and grow revenue, including:
- Depreciation reconciliation between trial balance and general ledger
- Depreciation process improvement
- Data mining and analysis in response to new regulations
Reduce IT costs
Moving to a cloud-based fixed assets solution eliminates installation and maintenance costs, mitigates server failures, and reduces support costs, allowing your tax team to focus on higher-value work.
Improve data quality control
Comprehensive administrative capabilities give tax professionals better quality control over resources and data. Specify user permissions and limit user actions within the software while gaining better insight into your tax workflow, including task and project statuses, assignments and responsibilities, and due dates.
Automate your fixed assets with confidence
As overburdened tax departments endeavor to do more with less, tax automation software can help improve fixed assets data integrity and enhance productivity to help enable a full transformation of the tax function. With integrated tax solutions, teams can create an ecosystem where each part of their toolkit is optimized to enhance overall capabilities.
This streamlining can allow you to avoid manual mistakes, focus on higher-level tasks, maintain strong controls over the tax process, and help you positively and holistically transform your entire workflow.
Ready to find the right fixed assets solution for your business? Download our Buyer’s Guide to Fixed Assets Software for expert advice on evaluating fixed assets management solutions.
Bloomberg Tax Fixed Assets offers integrated solutions to help you on your automation journey. Our tax-specific tools solve your greatest challenges by automating time-consuming data management processes with the added benefit of maximizing traceability, transparency, and efficiency.
Request a demo to see how our software can help you manage your biggest fixed assets challenges.