Category Archives: Automation

OAKLAND, Calif., Dec. 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OpenEnvoy, the Bay Area fintech company that created the first real-time AP automation solution, is helping rail shippers streamline rail freight invoices to increase cost transparency and boost profitability.

As capabilities in the logistics space have evolved, rail has continued to prove itself as the most cost-effective option for companies that ship massive freight. Though it also presents a variety of challenges for finance teams.

Railroad shippers can minimize the complexity of Rule 11 by using OpenEnvoy to ensure shipping invoices are paid on time, every time. "A single solution to automate accounts payable processes, manage invoice matching, and accurately audit unlocks the opportunity for early payment discounts and creates immediate cash flow," says Matthew Tillman, CEO of OpenEnvoy.

With the ability to perform a full forensic audit of high-volume invoices within minutes, OpenEnvoy's AP automation technology supports finance teams using Rule 11 by ensuring accuracy, expediting invoice payments, and eliminating wasted spending.

By applying OpenEnvoy's real-time AP automation technology to Rule 11, rail shippers can:

Finance leaders and teams can use OpenEnvoy to simplify Rule 11 by streamlining invoice processing and leveraging automated workflows to improve supplier relationships and capture cost-effective shipment rates.

Unlock all of the benefits of Rule 11 shipping rates with real-time AP automation by scheduling a demowith an OpenEnvoy expert today.

About OpenEnvoyOpenEnvoy enables finance teams of all sizes with visibility, automation, and cash flow solutions. To learn more about how OpenEnvoy can help you prevent wasted spend, visit https://www.openenvoy.com. Read more at Future FinOpsor follow @OpenEnvoy on Twitterand LinkedIn.

For Press inquiries please contact Jessica Brown at [emailprotected].

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OpenEnvoy's State-Of-The-Art AP Automation Technology Enables Shippers to Capture Rule 11 Rail Rates - PRNewswire

LEHI, Utah, Dec. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Aragon Research today officially recognized Demo Automation as a SaaS category and projected a potential market of $2.1 Billion by 2026. As demand for presales across the entire funnel continues to surgeand with it an expectation from customers for better buying experiencesteams require intelligent solutions to scale. Aragon predicts an acceleration in the adoption of Demo Automation Platforms (DAPs), like Consensus, to shorten sales cycles and improve overall sales effectiveness.

"Product demonstrations, which are critical to sales, have always been a manual and time-consuming process," says Aragon Research CEO, Jim Lundy. "With the rise of Demo Automation Platforms, or DAPs, sales organizations will make this new category a priority to scale presales and to streamline the sales process."

Validating a solution's capabilities is critical for customers to make decisions with confidence, and that was traditionally done by having Sales Engineers (SEs) deliver live demonstrations. But today's buyers expect more digital, interactive and guided experiences earlier in the funnel and throughout their customer journey. And with almost double the number of stakeholders in buying groups compared to just five years ago, it's no wonder that both buyers and presales teams are struggling.

Demo automation solves these constraints by scaling presales instantly, and by giving buyers an experience they can share intra-virally with colleagues to make the process of closing deals easier and faster.

Garin Hess, Founder and CEO of Consensus, said of the Aragon category note, "This is a huge milestone for all presales and technical sales teams. Our customers are the early adopters of Demo Automation and the kinds of results they're seeing is staggering. To have this category officially recognized by Aragon speaks to the huge opportunity presales, and more broadly sales, is entering."

Consensus, the Intelligent Demo Automation Platform, scales presales instantly with interactive video demos. Presales and technical sales teams automate repetitive product demos which allows them to reallocate that time to higher value activities. Buyers get a better experienceone that guides them with digital, interactive and on-demand video demos. This uncovers stakeholders automatically and eliminates unqualified demos, which in turn dramatically shortens sales cycles by 29% up to 68% and improves close rates by up to 44%. Market leaders like Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Autodesk, Sage, Trintech, Coupa and many others trust Consensus to scale. For more information, visit http://www.goconsensus.comor follow us on LinkedIn.

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Aragon Unveils the Demo Automation Category with a Projected Market of $2.1 Billion by 2026 - KPVI News 6

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global Electronic Design Automation Market 2021-2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The electronic design automation market is poised to grow by $ 5.68 bn during 2021-2025, decelerating at a CAGR of 9.03%.

This study identifies the increasing relevance of EDA as one of the prime reasons driving the electronic design automation market growth during the next few years. The market is driven by the growing significance of EDA in electronic design process and the rising adoption of ICs across various applications.

The report on the electronic design automation market provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors. The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The electronic design automation market analysis includes product and deployment segments and geographic landscape.

The publisher's robust vendor analysis is designed to help clients improve their market position, and in line with this, this report provides a detailed analysis of several leading electronic design automation market vendors that include Agnisys Inc., Aldec Inc., ANSYS Inc., Autodesk Inc., Cadence Design Systems Inc., Keysight Technologies Inc., Siemens AG, Sigasi NV, Synopsys Inc, and Xilinx Inc.

Also, the electronic design automation market analysis report includes information on upcoming trends and challenges that will influence market growth. This is to help companies strategize and leverage all forthcoming growth opportunities.

Key Topics Covered:

Executive Summary

Market Landscape

Market Sizing

Five Forces Analysis

Market Segmentation by Product

Market Segmentation by Deployment

Customer landscape

Geographic Landscape

Vendor Landscape

Vendor Analysis

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/si54og

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Global Electronic Design Automation Market 2021-2025: Market is Poised to Grow by $ 5.68 Billion - Rising Adoption of ICs Across Various Applications...

Pushing forward with the buildout of its distribution network, Walmart next year plans to open a new high-tech fulfillment center in Lebanon, Tenn.

The 925,000-square-foot automated facility will represent Walmarts first fulfillment center in Tennessee, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retail giant said yesterday. Located at 1015 Hixson Blvd. in Lebanon, the center is slated to open in the fall of 2022 and will support the companys expanding supply chain network and e-commerce business.

Related: Walmart targets Dallas-Fort Worth for new high-tech supply facilities

Walmart noted that the high-tech fulfillment center will create up to 300 full-time jobs and include a combination of associates, artificial intelligence software and robots that work together to speed up shipping of orders to customers. The facility will store millions of items from Walmarts everyday-low-price merchandise to be delivered directly to customers as soon as the next day, according to the company. Once an online order is placed, a fleet of robots navigates a compact storage system to retrieve products and ferry them to associates for packing. The order then is shipped directly to the customer.

Were thrilled to be bringing a new high-tech fulfillment center to the community of Lebanon, David Guggina, senior vice president of automation and innovation at Walmart U.S., said in a statement. This facility will include game-changing automation technology thats radically disrupting the supply chain, improving the customer experience and saving time for associates.

Related: Walmart plans new high-tech perishables distribution center in South Carolina

In Tennessee, Walmart operates three distribution centers and 150 retail stores and employs more than 42,500 associates.

Walmarts fulfillment center in Wilson County will play an important role in our broader supply-chain network, focused on fulfilling Walmart.com orders and supporting our promise of free next-day and two-day shipping, commented Steve Miller, senior vice president of supply chain operations for Walmart U.S. Were thrilled to be opening our newest fulfillment center in the great state of Tennessee and look forward to a long relationship with the community of Lebanon.

The Lebanon high-tech fulfillment center reflects Walmarts efforts to boost supply chain capacity by using automation to stay ahead of demand, improve the customer experience and raise productivity. In July, the company unveiled plans to automate 25 of its 42 regional distribution centers (RDCs) with robotics and other automation technology.

More recently, Walmart in October said it aims to build a high-tech distribution center for fresh and frozen food in Lyman, S.C., which will be the retailers biggest grocery DC to date. Due to open in 2024, the more than 720,000-square-foot facility will move twice as much grocery product including perishables such as produce, eggs, dairy, flowers and frozen goods in supplying area stores via a combination of manual labor and automation, robotics and machine learning technology, the retailer noted.

And about two weeks later, in November, Walmart announced plans to build two high-tech DCs in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The project in Lancaster, Texas, includes a 1.5 million-square-foot automated fulfillment center expected to open in 2023 and a 730,000-square-foot automated grocery DC slated to open in 2024. Walmart said the facilities will be among the largest automated fulfillment and distribution centers in its network.

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Walmart to open automated fulfillment center in Tennessee - Supermarket News

Global Robotic Process Automation Market 2021-2025 The analyst has been monitoring the robotic process automation market and it is poised to grow by $ 12. 75 bn during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of 45.

New York, Dec. 09, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Reportlinker.com announces the release of the report "Global Robotic Process Automation Market 2021-2025" - https://www.reportlinker.com/p05166330/?utm_source=GNW 53% during the forecast period. Our report on the robotic process automation market provides a holistic analysis, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis covering around 25 vendors.The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario, latest trends and drivers, and the overall market environment. The market is driven by improved cost savings for businesses and better service delivery. In addition, improved cost savings for businesses is anticipated to boost the growth of the market as well.The robotic process automation market analysis includes the end-user segment and geographic landscape.

The robotic process automation market is segmented as below:By End-user BFSI IT/ITES telecom logistics others

By Geographical Landscape North America Europe APAC South America MEA

This study identifies the non-availability of low-cost industrial laboras one of the prime reasons driving the robotic process automation market growth during the next few years.

The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters. Our report on robotic process automation market covers the following areas: Robotic process automation market sizing Robotic process automation market forecast Robotic process automation market industry analysis

This robust vendor analysis is designed to help clients improve their market position, and in line with this, this report provides a detailed analysis of several leading robotic process automation market vendors that include Accenture Plc, Amelia US LLC, Atos SE, Blue Prism Group plc, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd., Infosys Ltd., International Business Machines Corp., NICE Ltd., and UiPath Inc. Also, the robotic process automation market analysis report includes information on upcoming trends and challenges that will influence market growth. This is to help companies strategize and leverage all forthcoming growth opportunities.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to an analysis of the key vendors.

The analyst presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters such as profit, pricing, competition, and promotions. It presents various market facets by identifying the key industry influencers. The data presented is comprehensive, reliable, and a result of extensive research - both primary and secondary. Technavios market research reports provide a complete competitive landscape and an in-depth vendor selection methodology and analysis using qualitative and quantitative research to forecast the accurate market growth.Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05166330/?utm_source=GNW

About ReportlinkerReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.

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The Global Robotic Process Automation Market is expected to grow by $ 12.75 bn during 2021-2025, progressing at a CAGR of 45.53% during the forecast...

The road to network resilience is a thorny one, with networks becoming ever-more complex and harder to manage

One way organisations can enhance resilience is by adopting NetOps: an approach, which embeds a growing amount of automation, virtualisation and orchestration, to make networking operations and functions faster and more accessible.

Research commissioned by Opengear discovered 87% of businesses had increased investment in NetOps in the past two years, with a further 51% planning to implement this functionality in the next year. But as more businesses adopt a NetOps approach, particularly via automated processes, the traditional role of the network engineer has come under scrutiny.

With the increasing popularity of NetOps and the ability for automation to reduce human error, is there still a place for the engineer in the maintenance of a business network? The answer is an unequivocal yes. Rather than removing the need for the network engineer, the advance of NetOps and network automation enhances the value network engineers can bring to a business.

No more heroes?

Network engineers have historically been viewed as the saviours when something goes wrong. The culture around saving the day meant one professional was relied on to step in when a fault occurred. They were often seen as having a level of understanding about the network that others were unable to attain.Much of the work involved hard manual effort and following repetitive applications or routines.If a particular event had happened on the network, most companies would expect an engineer to log in, run through five or six routines to work out what was happening and then remediate the problem.

The advent of NetOps is changing that culture in a positive way.What NetOps does is automate that entire procedure so that when that event happens, the system automatically runs through those five or six steps. If that does not resolve the problem, the issue is escalated to the network engineer to handle the next level of troubleshooting. All thisremoves the dependency on a single hero to do the diagnostic and remediation work but also enables more engineers to be heroes by freeing them to apply their skills more proactively in managing the network at a higher operational level.

Need for reskilling

Through the capabilities it delivers, NetOps is helping overcome skills shortages for businesses.There are simply not enough engineers available to comprehensively staff every network location. Businesses can use NetOps tools to concentrate their network teams resource at a network operations centre effectively rather than having to find resources to staff each and every site.

So, the advent of NetOps will bring new opportunities to network engineers but will also require a level of reskilling.For years the badge of honour was being a certified engineer and CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert) or a CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) or JNCIE (Juniper).

That is still valuable but for NetOps, there is an additional skillset engineers will need to train for. They will need to program in Python, for example, and understand how docker containers work. They will need todeploy commonly-used toolsets like Chef, Puppet and Ansible. Network engineers need to understand how all this works and those businesses that understand all this are training them up in the required skillsets.

The success of this process will require commitment from engineers. Some will be wary of NetOps and automation, in part due to a lack of understanding of or familiarity with the approach. Overcoming this will, in part, come down to engineers being prepared to dip their toes in the water of the new approach. Simply using a Raspberry Pi at home, for example, will help them to gain experience in that environment.

For young network engineers entering the business, collaboration with more experienced employees will be crucial, and the onus will be on business leaders to ensure that new starters learn from every aspect of the organisation.The business may also need to invest more in training and support for their engineers. In the Opengear survey, just 32% of respondents said their network management/engineering team had undertaken industry training courses in order to transition to NetOps. More than half (53%) of the survey sample said they had personally learnt about it (NetOps) in their spare time.

Providing more flexibility, increasing speed and improving programmability,NetOps is a proactive approach to networking that uses automation and provisioning to modernise networks and increase their resilience. Yet, if enterprises are to make a success of it, they need to transition to a NetOps culture.Ultimately, that entails more than just integration of new solutions; it needs a mindset shift among the professionals that work within it. Enterprises and their engineers taking these considerations into account and focusing on achieving them will ensure effective integration of NetOps and enable a smoother journey on the road to resilience.

About the Author

Alan Stewart-Brown is VP of EMEA at Opengear, with responsibility for overseeing all Sales, Channel Development, Marketing events and SE activities across the EMEA region. Alans primary focus is the development and execution of sales strategies, talent development and channel initiatives that will ensure the accelerated growth of the Opengear business across the region. Alan brings 25 years of sales leadership experience gained across the technology sector, including Wireless LAN, Enterprise Software, BI Analytics and e-Commerce. Before joining Opengear Alan held Senior Pan-European Sales Management positions at Xirrus, Fiserv, AIM Technology, eColor and Phoenix Technologies. Alan holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Imperial College, London.

Featured image: Nakharin

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Dispelling the myth that NetOps and automation replaces human expertise - TechNative - TechNative

Ikigai, a startup based on research out of MIT, wants to make it simple to build workflows with humans involved. Whereas traditional robotic process automation (RPA) is about building bots for repetitive tasks, this company wants to make it easier to build workflows where humans have to make a decision as part of the process.

The company announced a $13 million seed round today from Foundation Capital, 8VC, Underscore VC and a variety of industry angels.

Company co-founder and CEO Vinayak Ramesh says that he found in his research at MIT, and at his previous startup, Wellframe, a digital healthcare startup acquired this month, that there were more complex workflows out there that RPA wasnt reaching.

What we saw is that there are use cases[that involve] manual processes in the organizations that were extremely difficult to automate because a fundamental step involved humans making judgments or decisions with data, and where both the data and rules theyre operating on would change very often, Ramesh explained to me.

Ikigai, which means your purpose in Japanese, wants to solve that problem with a tool that lets users create drag and drop workflows involving disparate data sources, while building in steps where humans make decisions, and then viewing the results in a dashboard/spreadsheet view. They describe this as an AI-charged spreadsheet.

Image Credits: Ikigai

But they believe that they differ from other supercharged spreadsheet approaches like Power BI and Airtable. [Those tools] require humans in the workflow, but theyre not decision- or data-based workflows, he said, and he says that ability to build in decision loops is a key differentiator for their product.

The company currently has 20 employees, mostly engineers, with plans to double that next year. The founders definitely seem to recognize the need to build a diverse and inclusive team as they scale the company.

Diversity helps make everything a much nicer place to work because you have different perspectives, different types of people coming into work every day, Ramesh said. He also points out that many of his early employees are immigrants, and the company has worked with these folks to help them navigate the difficult process of getting visas to work in the U.S.

The company idea grew out of research that Ramesh was doing as a student at MIT. In fact, CTO and co-founder Devavrat Shah is a professor of Computer Science at MIT and was Rameshs professor. Shah also started another company called Celect, which was acquired by Nike in 2019.

After helping to found Wellframe, Ramesh went back to grad school, where he connected with Shah. As the idea of a product like this only became more pronounced over time, they began to research it further and built the product last year.

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Ikigai gets $13M to build automated workflows with humans in the loop - TechCrunch

The case-ready poultry weigh-price-label operations of tomorrow will rely on automation and robotics, Thomas Swovick, market development manager, Dematic, explained during thePoultry Tech Webinar Series.

Growing interest in claims-based poultry products and transparency in food production, alongside demanding retail expectations, can strain the poultry supply chain. In addition, the e-commerce culture in combination with mass urbanization trends is leading to smaller orders being placed more frequently. The poultry industry is also dealing with a lowered availability of dependable labor.

The current process flow for case-ready poultry operations features a weekly inventory cycle and requires double-triple manual handling in a 28-storage room.

Poultry is one of those first protein areas that is getting a lot of e-commerce adoption, he said, noting that automation can help enable a successful move to online retail.

Advancements in automation and robotics can slash labor requirements, improve inventory management and support future requirements such as a migration to e-commerce.

Swovick previewed an automated case-ready poultry technology currently in use in Italy.

Robots can retrieve product from multiple levels located within each aisle in the 28-storage room. A combination of shelf positions, shuttles and lifts allows for the individual access of specific boxes, trays and pallets.

Now, instead of handling stacks, were handling these as individual entities, Swovick said. That gives you a lot of flexibility in your process.

In addition, production, weigh-price-label subsystems, shuttle aisles and palletizing robots are connected via a connector network, which enables the precise control of containers and eliminates the need for manual handling in an uncomfortable environment.

For more on the technologies set to advance the poultry industry, join industry-changing innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs, technology experts, investors and leading poultry producers at the Poultry Tech Webinar Series, scheduled for November 2, 4, 10, 11, 17, 30 and December 2.

During the webinar series, industry experts will preview whats coming next from prospective solutions to developing technology for the poultry industry.

This webinar series is proudly sponsored by: Arm & Hammer, Aviagen, Baader, Boehringer Ingelheim, Cargill, Ceva, Chore-Time, Cobb, Evonik, Marel, Phibro Animal Health, Staubli and Zoetis.

Visit our website for more details on the webinar series, topics and speakers.

Register for free today and join us for a glimpse at the future of the poultry industry.

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Automation helps prepare case-ready poultry for the future - WATTAgNet Industry News & Trends

Partial exemption (both standard and special method) has a multitude of moving parts making it complex and challenging which is why it was originally excluded from MTD for VAT.

However, with the recent increase in the VAT tax gap, and HMRC stating using software for all your calculations will reduce the risk of errors in your Returns, we and many others expect partial exemption to come into the scope of MTD sooner rather than later.

What makes partial exemption so difficult?

There are a few factors that contribute to the difficulty of managing partial exemption in general, and partial exemption special method (PESM), in particular. Firstly, the partial exemption special method by its very nature is complicated as it is individually agreed with HMRC based on a business unique set-up. It is this individuality that requires businesses to demonstrate that the agreed PESM methodology has been followed, right down to the transaction level. Proving this compliance requires significant evidence gathering.

Secondly, many enterprise resource planning (ERP)/accounting systems simply struggle with partial exemption and so businesses end up having to do calculations outside of them. A perfect example of this is a reverse charge which, because its often a manual process, has been identified by accountancy firms as the number one area of risk with PESM. Organisations often fail to capture all their reverse charge transactions, with audits and reviews picking up missed reverse charges totalling well into the millions of pounds of undeclared VAT for prior years.

Several steps within the partial exemption process itself present challenges.

In our experience, attribution allocation is often the hardest stage to perform its typically very manual with a sizable amount of estimation. Direct attribution is particularly time-intensive when thousands of transactions from across multiple data sources must be reviewed, allocated, corrected, or excluded and integrity checks performed before transactions can be correctly classified.

What are the implications of not digitising partial exemption?

By not automating partial exemption, you risk not maximising your recoverable VAT. This is because there tends to be a trade-off between keeping a method practicable and easy for the finance and tax team to operate, vs maximising recovery rates. For example, say a tax advisor develops two methods, in the case of option A the recovery rate is 75 percent but is relatively straightforward to implement, whereas option B has a recovery rate of 80 percent but is complex. Nine times out of ten companies operating a manual process will opt for option A because they can implement it more readily.

Reliance on spreadsheets and manual processes to calculate VAT increases the risk of errors. Partial exemption adds an additional layer of complexity with challenges relating to attribution allocations, sector information etc. This means theres a greater potential for more mistakes and, with ever-increasing scrutiny, HMRC will spot them and either impose penalties or undertake a compliance investigation.

Finally, not digitising partial exemption can lead to companies being reluctant to evolve their partial exemption agreement as their business changes over time. The reason for this is two-fold.

Firstly, it takes significant time to gather the evidence manually to justify the change and because its not in a digital format it can be harder to demonstrate how the method would work in relation to the current VAT Return, which extends the time HMRC takes to analyse and approve the change.

Secondly, once a new PESM has been agreed upon, there is the task of manually implementing those changes. But by rarely revisiting and updating your partial exemption method, the risk is youll potentially miss out on maximising recoverable VAT.

Choosing the right software

There are two main pitfalls to avoid when looking at VAT software.

Firstly, dont select technology that simply automates and replicates the existing process this will just bake in existing errors which means youll get to the wrong answer faster.

Secondly, dont end up dependent on third parties for change management this can make changes costly to implement and ultimately creates a change-averse finance function.

In contrast, purpose-built VAT software has the power to apply methods correctly, produce accurate calculations and deliver efficiency gains through automation. Partial exemption automation requires software with specific capabilities, so you should look out for:

Its essential the software enables you to demonstrate easily, to HMRC that the agreed partial exemption method is being applied consistently and correctly.

This visibility will help you prove compliance and will reduce your evidence gathering burden. If you use the sectorised method, look for the ability to easily set up sectors, the associated recovery methods, how these apply to the sectors and finally the allocation steps. When it comes to confirming compliance to HMRC, you will be in a good position if you are armed with a full digital audit trail, a digitally linked process, and have a record of all the steps completed when following your partial exemption method.

As your business activities evolve over time, youll want to easily reflect these changes in your partial exemption calculations. For example, the software should be flexible enough to handle additions to cost centres or changes in ERP reporting, as well as implement more complicated methods, without there being a costly or time-consuming IT project every time.

The goal should be to have an accurate, efficient and repeatable partial exemption method and process. Look into how the software will maximise the automation of each step, particularly manually intensive steps, such as cost allocations, as this will free-up time for reviews and value-add activities.

When allocating costs directly to sectors for input VAT recovery, the software should make it easy to identify the sector and criteria that ensure the right transactions are filtered into the sector. You should also be able to trace the transactions from sector to source.

The indirect allocation process can be the most detailed part of a PESM. Each step in the allocation of residual input VAT to sectors must be itemised and the movement of residual VAT tracked throughout, as it is allocated from, for example, cost centres into sectors, and potentially reallocated between sectors. Being able to step through this process and review each stage is fundamental to ensuring the special method produces the expected results.

The annual adjustment can be a laborious task requiring a lot of time and repetition of work. Therefore, the solution should utilise data and the set-up that has previously been provided. This ensures that the workload is focused solely on applying the relevant adjustments needed to arrive at the final input VAT position for the year.

Analytics should help you get the story out of the data. Hygiene factors will include the ability to track your recovery rates, conduct trend analysis and forecasting. Other areas to consider are how the analytics can support your partial exemption process, for example by giving visibility over movements in sectors and recovery methods.

AlphaVAT and partial exemption

AlphaVAT, Tax Systems specialist VAT automation platform, includes support for both partial exemption standard method and special method. It creates an accurate repeatable process proven to significantly reduce workloads.

For example, one of our clients who was using AlphaVAT to automate their manual process of mapping funds with cost centres and sectors removed three months worth of work. AlphaVAT also gives you the opportunity to maximise recovery rates through increased accuracy, such as calculating percentages direct from the source data, and through the flexibility to implement more complicated methods. Using AlphaVAT in this way, a financial services client recovered an additional 800,000 per annum.

To learn more about how you can overcome the challenges associated with automating partial exemption standard and special method, please download our Partial Exemption whitepaper.

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Digitising partial exemption is a matter of transformation, not just automation - Accountancy Age

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) Muscogee County is growing and with growth comes change. The city will be rolling out new 96-gallon trash cans and an automated trash pick-up truck. The change will come in 2022 as the city continues to deal with labor shortages from the COVID-19 pandemic like much of the country.

Director of Public Works Drale Short said the city wants to get away from the inmate labor they currently use to fill backman positions to manually dump garbage.

Well the city of Columbus is growing as you know and when theres growth theres time to make changes and how we do processes, said Short. So one of the things we identified was that because of all the workforce shortages that were experiencing throughout the country, if you will, we had to figure out a different way to be able to do collection and do it safely.

This has lead the city to begin moving towards this new automated system in the new year.

So were going towards automation, said Short. And automation just simply means that instead of there being two people on the back of the truck that will dump your trash, there will now be an electronic arm that will extend from the garbage truck, pick up the garbage can and dump it in the top of the garbage truck, instead of it going in the back and dispose of your trash.

What else do residents need to know about the new garbage cans? Short explained once they get delivered to your house they permanently belong to your address.

Basically well have a private company that will be delivering the cans. Each can will have an RFID tag instilled in the can, so it will be specifically assigned to that address, said Short. So in the future if you decided to move, you wouldnt need to worry about taking the can. The can goes with the address, but well have those delivered. Youll get two cans youll get a yard waste can and a household waste can.

Short also shared this will make garbage pick-up in Columbus more efficient since it will be automated they wont have to worry about filling positions when life happens and a backman has to call out leaving a spot needing to be filled. She said it will be much easier to pick-up that route with automated services.

The cans will be delivered sometime in February 2022 and Short said they are working with a vendor that will pick-up the old cans.

She urges residents to not be alarmed if they receive their new cans, but dont see new trucks just yet. Short said the old trucks will have an attachment that will allow the new cans to be used in the meantime.

Short is also urging residents to really focus on recycling as it will slow how quickly both your garbage can and our landfills fill up.

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New 96-gallon trash cans and automated system coming to Columbus in 2022 - WRBL