Overview on Vertex

September 22, 2016 | 7,041 Views |

Manjula Malladad
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FIN (Finance)

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Corporations are required to collect and remit tax on the purchase and sales of goods and services. Such tax is collectively
termed Indirect Tax. It is levied by various tax regimes around the world and called by different names like Sales and
Use
Tax, VAT, GST, PST, HST etc. Orders and Billing transactions originating from ERP systems require computation of
indirect taxes. SAP Applications has some native functionality that assists with these computations. Complexity of tax
laws,
the number of jurisdictions and the ever changing rates and rules make it a cumbersome task to keep the tax system
organized
and updated.

Vertex is a tax compliance solution for Sales & Use Tax, GST, PST and HST and are built on the common platform of the
Transaction Processing Systems. Tax compliance is the process of billing, collecting and remitting the proper amount of
tax
to the taxing authorities. It also includes maintaining documentation and audit trails to justify tax activities to auditors.
Vertex
simplifies the process of compliance by accurately calculating the proper taxes and maintaining detailed reports.
Vertex calculates tax on financial events using the following general process:

Tax Accelerator is a solution to facilitate tax calculation and provide enhanced reporting for Cubic’s SAP instance &
Vertex.
It does not replace the standard Vertex SAP Interface Component (SIC) but it does replace the code within SAP. SIC is
still
used in conjunction with the Tax Accelerator to facilitate communications between SAP and Vertex O Series.
Tax Accelerator software is installed within SAP ECC that allows transaction information to be exchanged across Vertex
and
SD, MM, FI modules in SAP.
The Vertex SAP Interface Component (SIC) for SAP interfaces transactions from SAP modules to the Vertex O Services
Tax
Vertex Web Services include the software required to support the Calculation Engine, Vertex TaxGIS and Tax Situs via
XML messaging.
A set of standard data elements are available as part of the SAP Tax interface. They are automatically passed to Vertex
(via
Vertex Accelerator) to perform the tax calculation. Based on Cubic’s business needs, additional elements are needed so
that
an accurate tax determination can be made.
The data sent to Vertex are typically at the document header and the document line information. Vertex applies its tax
decision logic on the input elements and its configuration items and then returns a tax results with the relevant decision

a. messages.

Data Flow Diagram

SAP provides a Standard Tax Interface System, which passes standard tax data elements from SAP to Vertex. Due to the
complexities of the sales and use tax laws, as well as the multitude of Cubic’s operations, a user-exit enhancement is
provided in the tax programming logic to enable additional tax data elements to be passed from SAP to Vertex for
calculation
and reporting in Vertex.
Transactions from SAP will invoke Vertex via the interface. The interface passes a set of data elements required by Vertex
to
make the tax determination, after which, the response will be returned to SAP.

Vertex Accelerator Configuration Overview

Tax Accelerator is delivered as SAP transport files which will be imported into a target SAP ECC environment. To enable
the Tax Accelerator functionality during SAP transactional processing, existing SAP user exits, Business Add-Ins (BAdis)
and Business Transaction Events (BTEs) will need to be enhanced.
This enhancement was configured by the PwC (Advisory) development and the Vertex technical consultant. Detailed
configuration information is available in the Vertex Indirect Tax Accelerator for SAP User Guide.
Vertex Application Overview
Vertex is a rules based calculation engine that is used to determine, calculate and record transaction taxes. Vertex allows
the
users to configure company and tax data such as authorities, products, rules, rates customers, exemption certificates
reflecting
SAP’s tax environment; model transactions tax data using Vertex and calculate tax for documents which require a tax
result.
Logging into Vertex
To maintain Cubic’s tax rules, the IT/Tax Department user must login to the Vertex system.
Through Internet Explorer (or another browser), select the appropriate link or enter the URL, depending on the Vertex
system, which will display the following screen to login to Vertex
Note: The URL below points to the UAT environment. Switch to the Production URL to access the production instance.

Enter a valid User Name and Password to log in to access the following Home page:
Vertex Support Line
On the Home screen, the Support Line can be found in the upper-left corner. If Vertex support is called, they will ask
for
Product Version and Licensing and Configuration identified below.
Vertex Navigation Basics
Features in Vertex Central are organized under a series of menus. The main feature menus display across the top of the
Vertex Central window
Vertex Navigation Basics
Features in Vertex Central are organized under a series of menus. The main feature menus display across the top of the
Vertex Central window
Tax Setup features define the rules and relationships used to determine taxability and calculate tax amounts. The Tax
Setup
menu includes Taxability Categories, Taxability Mapping, Tax Assist and Flexible Fields.
Tools features are used to investigate and verify jurisdictional information and my enterprise and tax setup. The Tools
menu
includes Transaction Tester, Rate Lookup and Area Lookup. Additional information related these topics is
available on
the Vertex Indirect Tax O Series7.0 User Guide.
Reporting
Reporting features help Cubic collect and analyze information from the Vertex O Series databases. Further information
regarding reports can be found in the Vertex Indirect Tax O Series7.0 User Guide.