Tax FAQ

What is Longview Tax?
Longview Tax streamlines and automates tax data collection, tax provisioning (IFRS and US GAAP) and tax planning for today's global organizations, employing best-of-breed data management and global collaboration capabilities. Using Longview's open technology, information is automatically collected from any source system, in any currency, creating a single repository of tax information.

Do I need to purchase the entire software suite to license Longview Tax?
No. While Longview Solutions offers a suite of world-class products for tax, accounting and finance, Longview Tax can be licensed separately. In fact, most of our customers use Longview Tax separately.  Longview Tax is general ledger agnostic and can integrate seamlessly with any consolidation system (such as Hyperion HFM) or compliance system.

Does Longview offer a “hosted” tax provision solution?
Yes. Longview Tax can be deployed either “on premise” or in a “hosted” model. You determine the approach that best meets your needs.

Is Longview Tax pre-packaged or does it need to be configured?
Longview Tax has "pre-packaged" processes to address ASC 740 (formerly FAS 109) and IAS 12. You may use this functionality “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.

Alternatively, you may feel that your company 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.

Does Longview Tax offer a Tax Data Warehouse Solution?
Yes. The Longview Tax Data Warehouse (TDW) is an incremental addition to the Longview Tax provision system. It provides a single, accurate version for all tax department data. This includes:

• Single repository of tax data – The Longview Tax Data Warehouse provides a central access point to capture the data and documents that your tax departments need on a daily basis
• Longview Integration Suite – Provides bi-directional data integration between the Longview Tax Data Warehouse and any number of data source systems, applications, databases, and compliance systems.
• Complex Modeling/Apply Business Logic to Data – The Longview multidimensional database and the calculation engine provide the ability to apply complex calculations and modeling to the tax data.  For example, Tax Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) can be calculated on the expanded tax data.
• Microsoft SharePoint Integration – the Longview Tax Data Warehouse provides integration with Microsoft SharePoint dashboards.  

Please see the Longview Tax Data Warehouse Fact Sheet for more information.

Does Longview Tax work with my tax compliance system?
Yes. Using Longview Tax’s mapping tools, data can be easily exchanged with any tax compliance system. Longview Tax works with all major tax compliance software – such as CorpTax, Insource, Vertex, Abacus (UK), Alpha Tax (UK) and TaxPrep (Canada).

Does Longview Tax work with my general ledger – such as SAP or Oracle?
Yes. Longview can import data from SAP, Oracle and any other general ledger system. This data can be imported by the tax department via ASCII/CSV file. Alternatively, Longview 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 page for more details.

Can I import data from other systems?
Yes. Longview can interface directly with countless systems (such as fixed asset systems, data warehouses, sub-ledgers, etc) to help automate the income tax reporting process.

Can Longview Tax be directly integrated with any consolidation system?
Yes. Longview Tax is agnostic to the accounting consolidation systems. You can exchange data directly from the consolidation system or simply use reconciliation reports to ensure the tax numbers reconcile to the book numbers.

Does Longview Tax handle global provisioning and tax planning for all countries?
Yes.  Longview Tax automates the calculation of a company's global income tax provision including all countries, states, provinces and local municipalities. The solution can calculate a provision for every tax return a company files around the globe, by legal entity and by jurisdiction.

The same rules used to calculate the above provisions can be used for tax planning. For example, users can simply shift income to different legal entities to see what the impact is on the consolidated effective tax rate.

We love Microsoft Excel, but need the efficiency of an enterprise Tax Provisioning system. 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 a Tax Provision system and the intuitiveness of Excel – all in one solution. Longview Tax includes an Excel Add-In that allows you to interact with your tax provision details via Microsoft Excel and view and update data via your Excel work papers. Behind the scenes the Longview Tax database calculates and stores all tax provision details.  You also have the choice of whether to view these details from your web browser or use the Longview Excel Add-In to view the results.  The Excel Add-In can also be used to securely upload data. For example, some clients may have obscure and/or complex-to-calculate tax differences.  Items such as this can be calculated in the Longview Excel Add-In and uploaded to the Tax Provision database in a manner that ensures both strong internal controls and efficiency – all from the comfort of Excel.

Can Longview Tax store documents?
Yes. Longview Tax has an integrated document repository.  Longview provides the ability to attach and view documents inform your web tax packages and view attachments in web reports.  The documents are stored in the Longview document repository. The Longview document repository can be accessed via Microsoft SharePoint and other 3rd party document management systems.  

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 contain links directly to Longview Tax reports and input templates or to documents, and supports a single signon.

What makes Longview Tax different from other tax solutions on the market?

1. Transparency – The robust reporting capabilities of Longview Tax ensures that you have complete transparency 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 can not immediately discern how you have arrived at that result. Longview Tax reports always clearly show the audit trail from book to tax and summary to detail.
2. User friendliness – The drillable interface allows users to easily navigate their tax provision numbers. Whether you are a controller in a foreign jurisdiction submitting your tax package or you are a power user at corporate reviewing the consolidated footnote, you are never more than a few mouse-clicks away from the answers you need.
3. Flexibility – Longview Tax empowers your organization to address unique scenarios that may not fit into a standard “out-of-the-box” solution. The easy to configure interfaces allows you to address company-specific situations that may not have been easily foreseen. This results in less work-arounds and, therefore, greater efficiency and accuracy.

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

1. 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.
2. 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, time and date.
3. Reduced Risk – The enterprise-worthy tax engine and the improved internal controls inherent in the system combines 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.
4. Tax Analysis – The reporting tools in Longview Tax are unparalleled. They allow your tax department to better understand your current data, as well as better forecast your future tax results.
5. Ease of Maintenance – Longview Tax provides easy-to-use wizards for all basic maintenance functions – such as adding legal entities, setting up new permanent and temporary differences and adding users.

I have specific industry requirements – can Longview Tax address my specific needs?
Longview Tax is a perfect solution for complex industry and statutory requirements. As a result of the unique configuration layer of Longview Tax the solution can address even the most complex processes. The technology is specifically tailored to address industries such as regulated utilities (FERC), financial services, insurance (SSAP 10), mining and oil and gas.

Can Longview Tax automate a company's income tax disclosure?
Absolutely. In fact, as soon as corporate accounting closes the books on a pretax basis, the Longview Tax solution calculates all required provisions and deferred taxes, an effective tax rate reconciliation and a draft income tax disclosure within minutes. Tax executives can now analyze instead of reconciling the numbers.

Is Longview Tax Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliant?
Yes. The solution also enables compliance with Canadian Multilateral Instrument 52-109 and meets requirements within Europe for internal controls and management of tax accounting risks.

Can Longview Tax calculate my state (or provincial) income tax provision by legal entity?
Yes. Longview Tax calculates a full current and deferred state/provincial provision. You can choose to use the convenient “blended rate” approach, or configure the system to calculate a “by state, by legal entity” income tax provision for every state and city return a company files, or use a “hybrid” approach combining the best of both.

Can Longview Tax calculate Interim Reporting?
Yes. Longview Tax calculates interim reporting to support ASC 740-270-30 (formerly FIN 18) or IAS 34.  The interim reporting process provides the ability to forecast the estimated annualized ETR at the legal entity and consolidated level.  The interim reporting is seamlessly integrated with the annual provisioning process to provide powerful comparative analysis of the tax provision throughtout the entire year.

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 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.

Can Longview Tax handle specific sub-consolidations, such as the UK Group Relief or a Dutch Fiscal Unity or a state unitary return, etc?
Yes. Longview Tax can be set up to calculate tax provisions that mirror the entities included in a tax return for every tax return around the world. And to be very clear, this is not just a “group” of entities, it is a true complex sub-consolidation that reflects the true tax consolidation.

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 Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young, Accenture and True Partners Consulting) have been trained and are knowledgeable of Longview’s Tax technology and process. These firms are skilled at delivering the entire range of services surrounding Longview Tax.