Automating Tax Compliance and Reconciliation: How a Leading Bank Transformed Efficiency with 3Pillar and UiPath

For a world leader in wealth management, corporate services, and banking solutions, accuracy, efficiency, and reliability are paramount — which is why a prominent financial services provider recently turned to 3Pillar to help streamline and enhance tax compliance and quality assurance.

By partnering with 3Pillar, the bank aimed to automate manual tasks, reduce errors, and dramatically reduce the time and resources required for routine corporate tax processes and reconciliation.

The Tax Compliance and Quality Assurance (TCQA) team at this financial services firm  deposits an average of $1.5 billion annually in IRS tax withholdings. These withholding reports required the team to manually extract data from multiple systems on a daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis to perform complex reconciliations. Due to the sheer volume of data, these processes were often prone to human error and necessitated ongoing calculations, validations, comparisons, and formatting adjustments.

If the team failed to deposit withholdings in a timely and accurate manner, the bank was subject to penalties, interest, and potential IRS examination. In 2015 alone, human error resulted in approximately $35 million of withholding remitted incorrectly.

3Pillar leveraged UiPath, the leading RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tool, to automate the bank’s tax compliance and quality assurance processes. UiPath’s AI functionality conducted data quality checks and automatically regenerated reports in case of discrepancies. Reports could be saved in a centralized location and shared with respective departments according to the established processes, allowing the institution to generate and deliver numerous reports in seconds.

After conducting a thorough requirement-gathering phase, 3Pillar crafted a tailored solution design within UiPath to address the bank’s identified inefficiencies. The 3Pillar project team used UiPath robots to automate the capture, merging, zipping, and delivery of reports.

Here are some key aspects of the project:

• Efficient task execution: UiPath robots seamlessly combined and appended packages for Settlement & Reconciliation, optimizing workflow efficiency.
• SLA compliance: Through automated processes, tasks were completed within the same day, aligning with stringent SLAs.
• Task prioritization: Robots intelligently prioritized tasks based on transaction volumes, ensuring timely completion for each team.
• Exception handling: Built-in error-handling mechanisms enabled the robots to swiftly address any issues encountered during automation, minimizing disruptions.
• Communication and reporting: Automated notifications and comprehensive reports kept stakeholders informed about the progress of combining and appending tasks, fostering transparency and accountability.

Thanks to UiPath’s intuitive interface and advanced automation features, this solution significantly reduces risk and errors, all while dramatically streamlining processes.

By automating the tax withholding process, this leading financial institution has enhanced operational efficiency, improved accuracy and consistency, and driven greater productivity and client satisfaction across the board. The new solution has helped the firm avoid the penalties that come with late and inaccurate deposits, mitigating reputational risk with the IRS and freeing up team members for other critical work.

Today, the bank’s TCQA team generates more than 14 reports in seconds, ensuring streamlined and error-free outputs. The bank saves tens of millions of dollars by avoiding costly penalties and maintaining a lean team. The initiative also saves nearly 10,000 hours of work annually, allowing the team to spend more time on compliance reviews and other value-adding projects.

3Pillar is here to help you streamline processes, drive efficiencies, and improve outcomes. Contact us today to speak with a 3Pillar expert.