Epson achieves a high level of tax automation and business efficiencies using Meridian's VAT Add-on

Epson customer story

Epson has integrated Meridian’s VAT Add-on application into their SAP ERP, providing a high level of tax automation and business efficiencies.

Epson is a global technology leader focused on solving societal issues through innovations in home and office printing, commercial and industrial printing, manufacturing, visual and lifestyle. 

Epson works with customers across the world to create total solutions that cover all aspects of a business, from planning and design to implementation, maintenance and ongoing support.

Epson’s EMEAR operations are extensive, and it is important that they can efficiently and accurately determine indirect taxes on complex EMEAR transactions. Epson has integrated Meridian’s VAT Add-on application into their SAP ERP, providing a high level of tax automation and business efficiencies. 

Before : Challenges and Opportunities

  • Due to Epson EMEAR’s complex business model, Standard SAP’s VAT determination logic was found to be insufficient and unable to cater for Epson’s tax determination needs. As a result the responsibility to meet the tax determination needs of the organisation fell to Epson’s IT team to create custom / hard coded solutions in the SAP system.  
  • The maintance of these custom /  hard coded solutions required a constant IT resource commitment in order to respond to business and legislative changes.
  • These changes often took a significant amount of time to develop and implement in the system as they were competing and being prioritised against other IT projects.
  • Due to the extensive activities of Epson, the company was also running out of VAT tax codes sequences in the Standard SAP ERP.

Why Meridian?

  • Meridian’s SAP Certified VAT Add-on solution is built directly into standard SAP using SAP technology which means there is no expensive external software or interfacing systems required.
  • The solution’s out of the box functionality was able to meet 95% of Epson’s needs, and where there was a gap Meridian were willing to develop additional functionality into their standard solution to fill these gaps (at no extra cost to Epson).
  • Meridian‘s implementation and support costs are fixed so Epson knew exactly how much the project would cost to implement.

After : Value driven results and improvements in tax efficiencies

  • Meridian VAT cockpit means that now Epson’s Tax Experts are able to respond to business and legislative changes with minimum IT involvement. 
  • Tax determination accuracy has been improved in the SAP system.
  • Meridian’s after care support are continually on hand to support the Epson tax team whenever needed.

 

"The Meridian VAT determination tool allows our VAT department to adjust faster to any internal process changes, and local compliance requirements. One year after the implementation, we have already seen huge benefits in terms of time/cost savings. No matter which VAT challenge we threw at the Meridian support team, they have always managed to come up with a solution in a reasonable timing."

Adeline Hilaire, Sr. Tax expert at Epson