5 most common accounting software problems in international companies

International companies often face many issues related to obligations to the state and shareholders. We focused on topics that most frequently trouble our customers operating in multiple countries at once (references here). Here is a list of their five most common problems:

Problem #1: High costs of keeping the system compliant with each country’s legislation

Every country has specific laws and obligations that companies must follow. Monitoring legislative changes and implementing them in the system often requires significant resources from Finance, IT, and the software vendor. And what about major changes such as Electronic Sales Registration (EET)?

Poor software brings more trouble than value.

Our EET solution for Dynamics AX is available as an addon for Dynamics AX and Dynamics 365 in our marketplace Addons.Blue.

Problem #2: VAT complications — different in every country

VAT is often a nightmare for heads of accounting. Each country typically has a different filing period, each requires VAT returns in a different format, and some require additional reports such as the VAT Control Statement.

Problem #3: Outdated information for decision-making

We often see that data between subsidiaries and the parent are not available online and quite often not even daily. Monthly data exchanges are not unusual, so management bases strategic decisions on stale information.

Problem #4: Laborious reporting and consolidation

Any reporting across more than one country requires extensive preparation. Combine multiple Excel sheets/documents, or in the better case import into a data warehouse. Once data for all companies are ready, all accounts must be mapped to a common chart because numbering of costs, revenues, and other categories differs by country. Even today we still see accounting software that cannot run local GAAP and international standards (IFRS, US GAAP) in parallel.

Even today we still encounter accounting software that cannot keep books under local GAAP and international standards (IFRS, US GAAP) at the same time.

Problem #5: Labor-intensive EU compliance

Companies operating in the EU have additional obligations: filing Intrastat, the EC Sales List (ESL), and if VAT-registered in other EU countries, local VAT returns there as well. Preparing these submissions often becomes last-minute manual work under the threat of penalties.

Are these problems familiar? If your current accounting software causes any of the above, contact us. We will help you resolve them.

Filip Rozsíval works as a Senior AX Consultant at Blue Dynamic.