TaxProfileFactory™ Stories

Company Profile

This BSI client is an American supercenter chain with over 250 grocery and general merchandise stores located throughout the Midwest. The company has roughly 120,000 employees, with turnover rate of nearly 50%, which includes new hires, hourly and seasonal workers.

Challenge

When this client reached out to BSI, they were seeking a tax profile solution and had already seen a presentation from a competing vendor. However, based on some doubts they had about the competing vendor’s ability to deliver local tax validation, they asked to learn more about BSI’s TaxProfileFactory™ solution. Their goal was to purchase the best tax profile solution available to help them with the challenges in their payroll tax onboarding and W-4 process.

These were some of the challenges:

• An exorbitant amount of hours was spent by their staff in researching, reviewing, validating, and setting up payroll tax profiles for new employees. The client was expanding their business and hiring 50,000 to 60,000 new employees per year. It was thus becoming increasingly difficult to manage all the new payroll tax assignments, for both employee and employer.
• They had some specific challenges with courtesy taxes, especially with employees living in Indiana and working in Illinois.
• There were local tax challenges in Ohio, where employees lived in a taxable municipality and worked in another taxable municipality, and the employees were responsible for paying the higher tax from the live addresses. This was difficult to manage with their manual processes and sometimes caused inaccuracies. The client wanted to have a solution that could handle these intricacies.

Solution

Based on the three challenges mentioned, this client put together seven different local tax scenarios and tasked BSI with showing them the results BSI would deliver. BSI demonstrated and explained the results to their scenarios. The customer also determined how much money they were spending in their internal payroll tax onboarding and W-4 administration process. This was the turning point at which they became convinced they needed to act quickly to start using TaxProfileFactory. Thanks to TaxProfileFactory, this client was able to streamline their payroll tax assignment process, as well as handle their specific payroll tax challenges.

Company Profile

Founded in 1894, this private corporation, which consists of 46 companies, is known for its corporate travel services, market research, corporate incentive, and consulting services. This organization operates in 41 states, has 7,000 employees, and serves many Fortune 500 clients.

Challenge

This client was dealing with numerous unique payroll tax related challenges over the course of several years before they engaged with BSI. Their company was growing rapidly, having added 1,000 employees to their team over the course of the past three-year period. Their work-from-home population was also increasing. One of the main issues this organization was having was experiencing inaccuracies with validating local taxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio, where they had a growing number of employees. In fact, they were specifically looking for a partner that could help validate not only live, but work addresses, which were particularly problematic in states like Pennsylvania.

Another challenge was the lock-in letter process, as it was still done manually. The company was also struggling with certain municipal taxes in the location of their Corporate Headquarters.

Finally, there were increasing issues with new hires in tax authorities which had not yet been set up in their payroll system. With their prior software, there was no way to identify when this happened – no error message and no report.

Solution

In order to accommodate this client and help solve their concerns, TaxProfileFactory was able to offer the following:

• Validate accurate payroll tax profiles for the client’s work-from-home population, along with profiles for local taxes in Pennsylvania and Ohio
• Automate the lock-in letter process
• Correct the missing municipal taxes
• Develop an enhancement that would show when a new employee was added in a tax authority not yet set up in the client’s payroll system.

TaxProfileFactory delivered these capabilities, providing this growing, multi-faceted organization with exactly what they needed to get a better handle on their employees’ payroll tax profile concerns.

Thanks to TaxProfileFactory, this client improved the accuracy in their payrolls because the local and municipal taxes were correct. With an improved and more accurate payroll tax assignment process for its employees, this organization also experienced an increase in employee satisfaction with their payroll and human resources teams.

Company Profile

Founded in 1917, this BSI client is a designer and manufacturer of specialty trucks, military vehicles, truck bodies, airport fire apparatus and access equipment. They have approximately 15,000 employees in the U.S. and operate in 42 states. A global company trading on the NYSE, this client has been recognized for the past five years as being “One of the World’s Most Ethical Companies®” by Ethisphere.

Challenge

In the past, this organization had many issues with assigning the correct taxes for new employees, especially in states with complex local taxes, like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. They needed to find a solution to help automate new employee onboarding and the entire W-4 process.

Specifically, these were some of the challenges:

• Administering the Form W-4 process was becoming increasingly difficult, as the company grew. Incorrect payroll withholding tax assignments resulted in many W-2Cs issued at year-end. These additional administrative tasks resulted in over 60 hours of work per year.
• The staff spent over 1,400 hours each year researching, reviewing, validating and setting up payroll tax profiles for new employees. Despite this, there were many inaccuracies in their payroll tax assignments.
• The staff also spent more than 220 hours annually updating payroll tax profiles for approximately 2,700 existing employees who changed residences or work locations.

Solution

This company automated their payroll tax onboarding and Form W-4 administration process using BSI’s TaxProfileFactory solution and saw a return on their investment in the first year. TaxProfileFactory helped eliminate the manual work the company’s staff did in researching, validating, updating and setting up payroll tax profiles for new and existing employees. Since the client had an integration between their payroll system and TaxProfileFactory, new and updated payroll tax profiles were delivered back to the payroll system in real-time.

Furthermore, TaxProfileFactory is automatically updated by BSI, thereby eliminating the work involved for the company’s staff in monitoring and managing any new W-4-related changes in the approximately 5,000 Federal, State and Local authorities across the United States.

TaxProfileFactory also automated the Form W-4 process for the client’s payroll team. The robust solution delivered and administered approximately 165 pre-populated W-4 forms, including military, resident, non-resident alien, and many others. Through a self-service, single-sign-on portal employees were able to see the actual Form W-4 in a PDF format.

Finally, by using TaxProfileFactory, the client was able to dramatically decrease year-end Form W-2 corrections, along with potential fines to the tax authorities.

Company Profile

This BSI client is a leading restaurant brand with locations in the United States and Canada, and more than 100,000 associates.

The company’s focus has always been on the guest experience, and this organization has set industry standards for healthy foods and food quality.

Challenge

Operating in most of the states and hiring many new staff every year, it was becoming increasingly difficult for this company to manage their W-4 administration. The company was dealing with a manual and time-consuming process that was error-prone, especially in managing and assigning the correct local taxes for their employees.

Solution

BSI’s time-proven solution helps automate the determination of each employee’s local taxes – often a tedious, manual process. TaxProfileFactory presents and pre-populates the W-4 tax forms, saving time and costs for the payroll and human resources staff, thus ensuring the employer has the capabilities for accurate local payroll tax profiles based on a live and work address. By increasing the frequency and automating the process to update payroll, the employees’ tax profiles were evaluated and updated almost in real-time, helping the client to greatly decrease the number of retro-active corrections needed.

By regularly reviewing and updating the employees’ tax profiles, TaxProfileFactory helped achieve a significantly reduced number of W-2Cs. As an employee’s data changes, which directly impacts an employer’s tax reporting and withholding requirements, TaxProfileFactory provides updates to the employee’s entire U.S. tax profile, so that payroll is automatically updated before the next check is processed.

Overall, this client improved the accuracy in their payrolls because the local taxes were current, updated, and automated. This company also minimized quarterly and year-end payroll tax adjustments, while realizing a return on their investment in the first year. With an improved and more accurate payroll tax assignment process for its employees, this organization also experienced an increase in employee satisfaction on their payroll and human resources teams.