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Suncor Energy derives business value through business AI and automation
Suncor is legally required to charge tax on intercompany transactions, including those with companies outside of its control. To comply with this obligation, Suncor has developed the Intercompany Tax Automation (ITC) solution using SAP Business AI & SAP Build Products.
By the beginning of the decade, though, its automated solution was outmoded – a troubling predicament given Suncor’s legal and regulatory obligation to charge taxes on intercompany transactions.
While struggling to compute tax numbers based on tax codes, as well as jurisdictions, workers were compelled to make manual entries into an Excel file before downloading the customer line items onto an additional Excel sheet.
These tedious, manual efforts caused regular errors, requiring employees to waste valuable time reworking figures. This slowed down intracompany fund transfers and vendor payments and added to operational costs.
The only way out of the dilemma was to develop a flexible, scalable, and efficient remedy in the form of an Intercompany Tax Automation (ITC) solution. This would allow Suncor to harness embedded artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and manage its data responsibly.
Putting AI into practice
SAP Build Process Automation, for instance, would merge workflow management with robotic process automation functionality, process visibility, decision management, and advanced AI tooling for business document understanding.
The overriding goal was putting AI into practice by applying the highest ethical, security, and privacy standards to ensure audit compliance. At the same time, risks associated with regulatory filing would be minimized. The streamlined procedures would cut down on the period-end closing time.
As it had in the past, Suncor would heavily lean on SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP), a suite of tools used to integrate and connect entire landscapes to meet growing demands and business requirements.
Teams from SAP’s MaxAttention division would also work with Suncor specialty units to holistically review the business automation process, offering guidance on available solutions based on global best practices and other essential factors.
“From the initial requirements to the final deployment, (the SAP and Suncor) teams displayed technical expertise, flexibility, and willingness to work with each other to create a solution that perfectly meets Suncor’s business needs,” said project manager Tatiana Cojocaru, of Suncor’s program management department.
The bot does the work
Once the project was launched, the prototype for the ITC platform was delivered in less than four weeks, with deployment occurring in less than eight, beginning in November 2023.
“The SAP MaxAttention team displayed an exceptional level of thoroughness in every aspect of the project,” said William Brooks, an advisor and tax consultant for Suncor. “They meticulously handled the design, development, deployment, testing, and go-live stages. Additionally, they were highly responsive to changes, even when we deviated from the original requirements.”
Today, anyone using the solution can click a button to trigger an automation agent and, in the background, the bot orchestrates the tasks and generates all the documentation for compliance purposes. The system has eliminated past mistakes, accurately calculating tax amounts from customer line items and posting journal entries for each company code for sales and purchase tax while creating PDF invoices for audit compliance.
The key highlight of the solution was leveraging Suncor’s existing investments in SAP, improving, and optimizing the solution for evolving and challenging business needs with quick time-to-value.
The run time for the procedure is now under seven minutes – down from more than eleven hours previously. With an unattended bot available to respond to customers at any hour, the company has seen a 98%improvement in overall execution time.
In terms of savings, Suncor has reduced costs by $1.8 million. Suncor end users are happy with the solution, and the adoption is very high due to the reduction in tedious manual intervention and data processing; end users are now able to focus on strategic tasks rather than mundane data validation activities.
For deriving business value from automation, AI, and other contemporary tools, the ICT solution has drawn attention to Suncor from various industries, resulting in the company being designated a finalist at the 2024 SAP Innovation Awards.
The yearly ceremony honors businesses and organizations using SAP technologies to effect change. (To learn more about what Suncor accomplished to earn this coveted recognition, see their Innovation Awards pitch deck.)The yearly ceremony honors businesses and organizations using SAP technologies to effect change. To learn more about what Suncor accomplished to earn this coveted recognition, see their Innovation Awards pitch deck.
