Asciano Turns to CCH to Streamline Tax Accounting and Compliance

Sydney - CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business and global leader in tax, accounting and audit information, software and services for professionals has implemented its web-based solution CCH Tax Integrator into Asciano (ASX: AIO), Australia’s leading transport infrastructure and operations company. With the Asciano tax team located in multiple locations, managing 80 entity-based tax calculations including 40 non-trading entities annually, CCH Tax Integrator delivered an online central resource to drive tax reporting and improve decision making company-wide.

An initial reliance on financial spreadsheets and manual collection of data greatly limited Asciano’s tax team when they needed to produce a tailored internal report or consolidated view across multiple entities. Different accounting platforms were in place, historical information was difficult to locate and manual inputs and double handling were commonplace.

Today with the implementation of a fully-integrated, tax effect accounting solution that rolls over and reuses data from tax provision to tax return function has significantly improved the quality and diversity of tax reporting for Asciano.

“The business case for CCH Tax Integrator has proved self-evident,” outlined Anne Richardson, Head of Tax for Asciano. “CCH Tax Integrator proved a professional turning point for the Asciano tax team - changing the way we think on tax reporting.

“CCH Tax Integrator really is the source of all tax truth for us in terms of compliance. It has streamlined our tax compliance processes and made the tax accounting function more responsive to corporate needs. It certainly makes you more accountable,” Ms Richardson said.

Since implementing CCH Tax Integrator, the Asciano tax team has improved the quality of its work. According to Ms Richardson all data is captured and nothing gets lost. “All the data is there to roll forward. Everyone knows where to go to gain the tax reporting information they need. There is no hidden information anywhere.”

Given its success, Asciano plans to further its use of CCH Tax Integrator to load trial balances and fixed asset information automatically allowing them to move to quarterly-based provision calculations.

Managing Director of CCH Corporate Reporting Solutions Peter Boyle said the benefits for the Asciano tax team, its external auditors and other stakeholders in relying on a central system include minimizing the time spent gathering, analyzing and interpreting tax-sensitive data to meet compliance and reporting demands.

“With CCH Tax Integrator, the Asciano tax team has the resources to take its tax reporting function to higher levels of professional excellence.”

Note to editors - photographs available on request.