Sovos, a global provider of tax software, has announced that it will acquire Stockholm-based TrustWeaver, the leading provider of cloud software that helps businesses authenticate and centrally archive electronic documents for VAT audit purposes.
The announcement comes just weeks after the European Commission granted Italy permission to mandate electronic invoicing (e-invoicing), making it the first country in the European Union to do so. Italy’s move paves the way for rapid expansion of real-time, transaction level reporting in Europe.
The acquisition extends Sovos’ e-invoicing coverage to 60 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, building on its success in Latin America, where e-invoicing has been used successfully in recent years to close VAT collection gaps. It also adds support for “post-audit” compliance, including e-signatures in compliance with the eIDAS Regulation, an onerous set of standards for electronic trust and identification in Europe.
In recent years, governments on six continents have mandated electronic signature rules, including proof of authenticity and proof of origin, and required invoice archiving for audit purposes, where specific invoice details must be searchable for as many as 10 years. TrustWeaver has led the way in safeguarding businesses from the risks and burdens of these measures, automating compliance with those rules within the most common procure-to-pay (P2P), EDI, business network, ERP and supply chain systems.
Andy Hovancik, President and CEO at Sovos, said “TrustWeaver has become a seal of approval for the world’s largest financial systems, which is a testament not only to the effectiveness of its software and integrations, but also to its ability to monitor and interpret regulatory change in the European region and beyond. We’ve built Sovos to reduce the costly friction between businesses and governments around the world, and it was immediately obvious to us that TrustWeaver provides an important part of that solution.”
According to Christaan van der Valk, President at TrustWeaver “as digital tax enforcement spreads around the globe, businesses are faced with complex and fragmented requirements that slow critical financial processes, increase compliance costs and stretch financial systems beyond their capabilities. Until now, no software solution has addressed the whole global e-invoicing compliance market, but Sovos’ acquisition of TrustWeaver changes that."
Van der Valk continued: “Sovos has built exactly what our clients and partners have been looking for. We can now automate every compliance step in purchasing and billing processes from tax determination to electronic invoice compliance to tax reporting. By adding Sovos’ market-leading solution for clearance e-invoicing to ours, we create something truly unique. It’s a perfect fit, and we’re looking forward to expanding our solution and extending our global reach.”
Sovos, which announced its global tax automation platform, the Intelligent Compliance Cloud, last year, has been actively working to acquire the leading solutions for e-invoicing in every region. TrustWeaver, which has grown quickly as a result of technology-driven tax compliance by offering embedded compliance-as-a-service in more than 60 top financial systems, including SAP, IBM and Coupa, was a natural extension of that strategy, according to John Gledhill, vice president of corporate development for Sovos.
Gledhill said “as governments shift tax enforcement to the transaction level, our goal has been to create the first global solution for every form of transaction-level tax compliance, from SAF-T to real-time e-invoicing. TrustWeaver is our fourth acquisition in line with that goal. It puts us in the unique position to help our clients solve this problem globally instead of locally, which has a very positive impact on the bottom line.”
For more information on Sovos visit https://sharespace.digital/supplier/sovos
For more information on TrustWeaver visit https://sharespace.digital/supplier/trustweaver
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