{"id":6328,"date":"2021-03-15T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2021-03-15T16:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/?p=6328"},"modified":"2023-06-13T15:03:45","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T22:03:45","slug":"new-star-experience-lights-up-statutory-and-tax-data-filing-at-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/insidetrack\/blog\/new-star-experience-lights-up-statutory-and-tax-data-filing-at-microsoft\/","title":{"rendered":"New STAR experience lights up statutory and tax data filing at Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
<\/div>\n

This content has been archived, and while it was correct at time of publication, it may no longer be accurate or reflect the current situation at Microsoft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For a large multinational enterprise such as Microsoft, filing statutory and tax data in a timely and accurate manner poses challenges.<\/p>\n

But now Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms Microsoft, has partnered with accounting firm, Ernst & Young (EY), to create a streamlined statutory and tax data reporting tool.<\/p>\n

Historically, compiling data needed for international statutory accounting and tax filings was a completely manual operation. It took sometimes up to eight weeks after our tax year close to provide all the information required by law.<\/p>\n

– Paul Weldon, director of statutory and tax accounting for Microsoft\u2019s financial operations team<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Called STAR, for Statutory and Tax Automated Reporting, the new tool replaces a complicated and labor-intensive process that Microsoft had used to collect statutory and tax data for some 200 Microsoft entities worldwide, and automatically sends the data to EY\u2019s Global Tax Platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, compiling data needed for international statutory accounting and tax filings was a completely manual operation,\u201d says Paul Weldon, director of statutory and tax accounting for Microsoft\u2019s financial operations team. \u201cIt took sometimes up to eight weeks after our tax year close to provide all the information required by law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any manual process poses risks to a company. Manual processes are more prone to human error, can be time intensive, and costly. These same risks apply to Microsoft, who addressed them primarily through people-oriented solutions. The benefits of mitigating these risks include avoiding late fees and rework of statutory files, plus the receipt of foreign tax credits.<\/p>\n

Around mid-2019, Weldon\u2019s team decided to find a more modern approach to statutory and tax data delivery and collection while also reducing risk. They reached out to Microsoft Digital to see if there was a way to utilize the existing Microsoft Azure data lake that was a repository for accounting data. The objective was to map that data to a range of data input and outputs, as well as specific reporting pipelines, to largely automate the collection and dissemination of tax information.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, the ability to use Microsoft Azure and its components as data sharing tools was simply something other organizations with data challenges were seeking.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany organizations are on a journey to be data-driven, and it depends on what data you have access to,\u201d says Jie Feng, a principal program manager with Microsoft Azure. \u201cIn many cases, that data may not be within your organization\u2014you might need to collect it from a partner, a customer, or a vendor in the supply chain. It is critical for organizations to share data with each other in a simple, efficient and secure way.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Learn how Microsoft modernized its SAP application by moving it to Microsoft Azure.<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

The birth of a new STAR<\/strong><\/p>\n

The thing that made this data transfer solution possible was the ease of integrating multiple Azure resources and components.<\/p>\n

– Denekew Jembere, senior software engineer at Microsoft<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Microsoft Digital used Microsoft Azure services such as Azure Data Share, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure Databricks, and Azure Data Explorer to develop a system that collects and identifies the appropriate data from the data lake, organizes it for use by EY, and securely gives them access. Since EY\u2019s Global Tax Platform is built on Microsoft\u2019s Platform as a Service (PaaS) Azure environment, integration has been seamless.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that made this data transfer solution possible was the ease of integrating multiple Azure resources and components,\u201d says Denekew Jembere, a senior software engineer who worked on the project. \u201cWith both Microsoft and EY on Azure, the implementation was straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n

In concept, STAR has three key workstreams:<\/p>\n