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Get your calendars in sync – ensuring compliance in 2024
With over 75 years of experience in entity governance as part of the Citco group of companies (Citco), Mercator® by Citco (Mercator) has gained a clear understanding of how large multinationals and funds operate their entity portfolios. In recent years, we have noticed two common practical challenges afflicting many multinational organisations: the first is managing information flow across internal and external teams; and the second is aligning priorities and deadlines.
Often the main cause of these two issues is having unsynchronised calendars and project status reports, or having none at all. Although this sounds trivial, the consequences can be far reaching – from inconsistent communication and the mismanagement of teams’ deadlines and objectives, through to delays in filings and incorrect information being submitted to third parties. Collectively these missteps can lead to deep dissatisfaction from stakeholders and increase business continuity risks.
The synchronization of calendars and project status reports is particularly important for organisations with many subsidiaries worldwide. Each jurisdiction is required to manage numerous reporting obligations with a multitude of different deadlines, spanning accounting, tax, compliance and more.
The situation becomes even more complex when you consider how each area of the business is managed by a dedicated team that either completes the necessary tasks in-house, or is supported by an external (global, regional or local) service provider.
Typically each team is responsible for tracking the recurring obligations and deadlines falling within their area – whether it be compliance, corporate secretarial, accounting or tax – and can do this by using either using technology platforms to digitise the process, or various internal spreadsheets which requires manual input. Information is then exchanged between teams through various channels such as emails, calls and in-person meetings.
The solution
A digitised calendaring solution can be a simple but effective way to generate greater efficiencies and enable clearer and consistent communication across multiple different business and supporting functions.
Moreover, having all monthly, quarterly, annual and other recurring obligations and deadlines in one place – whether it be tax, accounting, corporate secretarial or compliance – gives the business more control over its global portfolio management and legal operations framework, whilst creating greater transparency.
A high-functioning digitised central calendaring system tracking compliance obligations should have certain features:
- Automatic reminders: Timely notifications, reminders and updates should be sent out ahead of and after key events happen (for example, changed due dates, and the completion of a filing). This function can help minimize the risk of missed deadlines and resulting consequences, such as slowdown of business operations, fines and other sanctions.
- Documents library: An extensive online depository of the related documents for a company should be maintained on the platform to enable authorised users the ease of accessing necessary files related to their tasks.
- Role-based accessibility: A user authorisation module which allows for individuals in a company to be allocated different levels of role-based access to the platform increased client usability. This function should come with certain restrictions to sensitive information and documents.
- Reporting options: The option to filter obligations and convert reports into different formats will allow for increased flexibility for users.
With the end of the calendar year fast approaching and new compliance deadlines emerging for 2024, it is an ideal time to review existing workflows between teams and consider new solutions to streamline processes and ensure complete synchronisation between teams.
How Mercator can help
Mercator’s Global Compliance Calendar functionality supports multinationals with the management of their compliance deadlines worldwide and is a key tool in our proprietary technology platform Entica®.
It provides a customized and comprehensive overview of all compliance deadlines, whether it is a corporate income tax return filing, business name / permit / license renewal or ESG reporting or filing of economic substance.
Users can expand the solution to suit their individual needs and scale the calendar to cover all compliance obligations relevant to their organisation. Learn more here.
Jurate Kisieliene
Head of Client Services, Citco Mercator, UAB