What does your company do?
Vertex, Inc. is a privately-held provider of global tax technology and services. Vertex provides cloud-based, hosted and on-premise solutions that can be tailored to specific industries for every major line of indirect tax, including sales and consumer use, value added and payroll. The company is headquartered in Pennsylvania and has offices worldwide.
What is your usp and how would you describe your vision?
Offering a hybrid IT environment: Vertex provides flexible deployment options for organisations whose evolving technology roadmaps require a combination of on-premise, SaaS or hosted delivery models.
In addition, Vertex has established a chief tax office that is comprised of executive-level tax leaders who formerly worked for Fortune 500 companies and not only understand the challenges faced by today’s tax departments but have a pulse on the ever-changing global regulatory environment and can inform product enhancements with the client in mind.
Who are your customers in the UK and key Customers elsewhere?
Vertex enables companies of all sizes to realise the full strategic potential of the tax function, our flexible solution integrates easily into point of sale (POS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms. A global business needs to deal with the intricacies of different tax jurisdictions and their related purchase groups.
Vertex currently tracks tax rates and rules for over 17,000 tax jurisdictions across the globe and as such our client base has a global foot print. We have a diverse range of retail clients including Mulberry and Charles Tyrwhitt in the UK as well as other global retailers such as Bose, HBC Group, Apple and Amazon.
What do you see as challenges for the retail industry over the coming year?
We see challenges for the retail industry coming from the hectic pace of consolidation, the ongoing march of globalisation, ever-increasing regulatory activity and the explosion of ecommerce and multi-channel consumers.
Through acquisitions retailers may move into new tax jurisdictions and mergers that often intensify an organisations IT and tax data management complexity. As the growth of ecommerce continues, retailers must now adapt to the rapidly growing use of mobile devices by shoppers. Increasingly, multiple channels are used in one transaction and these behaviours can have major tax implications that must be consistently calculated and across all channels.
We also continue to see ever-increasing regulatory activity – including the introduction of sugary beverage taxes, the South Dakota v. Wayfair judgement, new environmental fees and real-time VAT reporting changes. Further changes are forever on the horizon, with the potential for increased complexity after Britain’s departure from the EU.
How are you prepared to meet those challenges?
Vertex offers a variety of solutions to meet customer’s needs. From enterprise on-premise software to private cloud to public cloud, there is flexibility in how our solution can be deployed. Regardless of deployment option, our tax rate and rule content can cover a retailer’s multiple sales channels, product range, and geographic footprint. Our retail solution offers the further capability at the store locations. Our team of researchers is constantly adding content as legislation changes, not only rate changes but new taxes or fees that are imposed. The automation of registering in new jurisdictions and the reporting capability of our solutions minimises the challenges of something like the Wayfair ruling.
GIVE US YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH.
At Vertex, we’ve made significant investments with our retail customer’s best interest in mind – from tax content addressing the most complex retail taxability, to powerful technology integrated with your POS, ecommerce, and back office systems. Our extensive global customer list reads like a who’s who of retailing—and it continues to grow as the world of retailing expands across borders, currencies, supply chains, and sales channels.
Our retail solution will centralise and standardise your indirect tax management across brick-and-mortar, online stores and marketplaces, catalogues, and wholesale operations. It integrates seamlessly with the ERP and ecommerce platforms you use to manage your growing business. We provide speed and accuracy, standardised processes, data visibility, and superior customer service for your multi-channel scaling operation.
WHITEPAPER: Cross-border protocols
In our recent whitepaper written in conjunction with Internet Retailing, we consider cross-border tax compliance challenges from a commercial perspective. The whitepaper looks at the hurdles that retailers may be confronted with when looking to grow into new territories or sales channels.
Recent events have introduced added complexity around taxes and tariffs – what was once already to a degree complex is now a lot more so with recent global events such as Wayfair and Brexit. The impact of such changes to tax compliance on a retailer selling globally is significant and can’t be ignored.
Here are our top 5 key takeaways from the whitepaper:
- Changing rules and requirements are leading toward greater complexity in tax calculation, exemptions, reporting and returns.
- The tax function is becoming increasingly important in retailer’s expansions plans.
- There are more risks associated with non-compliance than may be first expected.
- Partnering with a tax automation provider can help companies manage tax complexity and prepare for new tax requirements.
- Tax technology plays a key role in enabling tax professionals to manage many drivers of change.
Vertex IN BRIEF
- Date launched: 2006
- Office locations: USA, Brazil, UK, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, India
- Customers: Over 5000, including major global enterprise clients – 60% of the Fortune 500.
- Number of employees: Approximately 1000
- Partners: SAP, Oracle, Magento
- Contact details: www.vertexinc.com, @vertexinc, +44 (0) 20 3906-7630
This Company Spotlight was produced by InternetRetailing and sponsored by Vertex. Funding articles in this way allows us to explore topics and present relevant services and information that we believe our readers will find of interest.
