Sovos today introduced the Intelligent Compliance Cloud to help safeguard businesses around the world from the burden and risk of rapidly-evolving global tax and reporting obligations.

As governments adopt technology to enforce existing regulations, and to implement new ones, the speed and complexity of compliance is outpacing the solutions most businesses use to comply, leaving business leaders to grapple with increased risk and rising compliance costs.

While most traditional compliance solutions were built for slower response times, predictable regional regulatory models and less complex integrations with backend systems, the Sovos Intelligent Compliance Cloud is built for today’s complex regulatory and technology environment. The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform converts Sovos’ world-renowned regulatory analysis into secure, reliable cloud and private-cloud software solutions.

Andy Hovancik, president and CEO, Sovos:
“We now live in a world of rapid-response compliance. Governments have gone digital and compliance is moving to the transaction level, leaving businesses searching for software and data-driven compliance models that can keep up. We call that Intelligent Compliance, and we’re excited to announce the Intelligent Compliance Cloud, which was uniquely built to help businesses grow however and wherever they choose in this new era of unprecedented regulatory risk.”

“The unique pairing of world-class regulatory analysis with nimble software is important for businesses everywhere. Whether a business is feeling the pain today or not, a wave of technology-enabled compliance regimes is changing the way governments regulate – and businesses big and small will need to adapt.”

Since the financial crisis of 2009, governments around the world have been turning to technology to close tax and regulatory reporting loopholes. In Brazil, transaction-level electronic audits have been credited with closing a $50 billion value-added tax gap. Since then, similar “e-audit” mandates have spread throughout Latin America and are now pushing into Europe this year. At the same time, financial services companies have watched a series of tax transparency mandates spread around the world, starting with the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in the United States and expanding to more than 90 countries in the Common Reporting Standard (CRS). A recent report from Aberdeen found an increase in both the pace and frequency of audits in the United States as governments use data and software to crack down on sales and use tax gaps.

To combat these barriers to growth, Sovos Intelligent Compliance Cloud gives a wide range of businesses, from manufactures to retailers to financial services organizations, access to:

• Indirect Tax Compliance: Automates value added tax (VAT) calculation and reporting in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific, as well as sales and use tax in the United States.
• Business-to-Government Reporting: The first global solution for e-audit and e-invoicing, including 10 Latin American countries and new mandates in Europe, from SAF-T to Spain SII.
• Tax Information Reporting: Aggregates sensitive data securely for financial services businesses for reporting responsibilities such as 1099 reporting, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the United States and CRS around the world.

Sovos product enhancements

With the announcement, Sovos also unveiled several product enhancements to its tax compliance platform so that customers are automatically ahead of regulatory changes. Now supporting Europe’s SAF-T and SII reporting requirements, Sovos customers can rest assured they are ready to meet the demand on transaction-level VAT reporting in Europe. Other enhancements, such as global tax analytics, a cloud-based certificate management platform and workflow management for VAT filing, illustrate Sovos’ commitment to leveraging compliance software as a tool for businesses to automate processes and improve accuracy. In the financial services space, Sovos announced its global solution for Automatic Exchange of Information, now providing full automation for CRS compliance in more than 90 countries. Trusted by half of the Fortune 500, Sovos partners with the Big Four and the world’s biggest ERP providers, including Oracle and SAP, making it the global leader in business-to-government tax compliance and reporting around the world.

Teresa Bentley, vice president of deposit operations, Fidelity Bank:
“Thanks to Sovos Compliance, we pay no IRS penalties, have virtually eliminated internal staff time devoted to tax form processing, printing and delivery, and have significantly enhanced customer service.” 

To help organizations understand the regulatory landscape on a global scale and prepare them for what’s ahead, Sovos has also captured global compliance challenges and trends in a new eBook. Download “The State of Regulatory Compliance” here and for more information about the Sovos Intelligent Compliance Cloud, visit http://www.sovos.com.