How Alteryx is transforming tax processes (and how your team could benefit)

Managing tax processes can be complicated, time-consuming, and when done manually, often frustrating. Tax professionals face increasing pressure to improve speed and accuracy to ensure compliance at a greater scale than ever before – especially with tax authorities pushing for greater digital integration. 

That’s where we believe Alteryx can come in and save the day. 

What is Alteryx? 

Alteryx is a data automation tool that lets you build workflows – step-by-step instructions for what you want to do with your data. 

To create a workflow, you simply drag and drop tools onto a canvas. Each tool represents a task – like reading a file, filtering data, or joining two datasets. You connect them in the order you want them to run, and Alteryx follows the flow. No coding required. 

Much of Alteryx is straightforward to pick up. Support tends to be most valuable when teams want to go further – using APIs, building no-code macros, or integrating more complex logic. That’s where a bit of expert help can make all the difference. 

Every workflow gives you a clear, visual path of what’s happening – making it easy to audit, easy to explain, and easy to maintain over time. Once it’s built, you can run it again and again. 

Where does Alteryx fit in with tax? 

Unlike some, we don’t believe Alteryx should replace your dedicated tax software. Instead, we feel it’s highly complementary to new or existing tax (or finance) solutions, maintaining critical digital links and enabling targeted, powerful transformations and integrations. Crucially, creating an Alteryx workflow can be highly cost-effective, quickly delivering significant time and financial savings compared to traditional manual approaches or complex bespoke solutions. 

Here’s how Alteryx empowers tax departments by eliminating the frustrations of Excel and outdated macros, streamlining workflows, and significantly boosting accuracy. 

Why Alteryx matters for tax teams 

✅ Moving on from Macros! We've all been there: a team member builds an elaborate, macro-driven spreadsheet, then leaves the company, leaving it unsupported and unusable. While macros can handle small, specific tasks, larger-scale automation requires a more reliable solution. Alteryx provides a robust, user-friendly, low-code alternative – no VBA needed. 

✅ Reducing Excel risk Excel is excellent for quick, ad-hoc calculations but becomes risky and unreliable for ongoing and evolving tax workflows. Alteryx ensures consistent, fully auditable, and repeatable processes that effortlessly adapt to changes in your business – significantly reducing errors and safeguarding compliance. 

✅ Instant data transformation Manual data transformation is tedious, prone to mistakes, and often takes days or weeks. Alteryx accomplishes these tasks in mere seconds, dramatically improving accuracy and freeing your team for more valuable activities. 

✅ Seamless integration through APIs Manual data transfers between systems can be history. Alteryx's powerful API capabilities maintain digital integrity, automate data flows from ERP systems, and integrate seamlessly with your tax software. Interested in APIs? Explore further here: Understanding APIs: Unlocking the Power Behind Modern Tax Technology | LinkedIn 

10 Powerful use cases for Alteryx in direct tax 

1. Master trial balance creation 

With Alteryx, you can effortlessly consolidate and standardise financial data from various sources, forming a reliable foundation for your tax workflows. Discover the benefits of creating a master trial balance here: Unlocking Efficiency and Automation: Use the Power of Alteryx to Create a Tax Master Trial Balance. 

2. Automating tax return inputs 

Quickly analyse and categorise expenses, reducing preparation time and human errors significantly. See an example here: Alteryx in Action: Automate Expense & Fixed Asset Analysis – Boosting Efficiency and Reducing Errors. 

3. Simplifying capital allowances 

Capital allowance calculations can be complex and cumbersome, especially with large or diverse asset portfolios. Alteryx simplifies this complexity by codifying your business’s specific allowance rules, automating detailed calculations, and instantly producing accurate, reliable first-pass results. Your team spends less time on manual computation, reducing both workload and risk of errors. 

4. Efficient prior-year data extraction 

Automatically extract (via API) and summarise prior-year computational data to enhance accuracy and speed up prior year adjustments for tax provisioning. 

5. Simplified tax provision data gathering 

Easily gather critical data such as disallowance percentages, capital allowance rates, and other key metrics and import them directly into your reporting tools. 

6. Streamlined operational transfer pricing 

Simplify complex allocation methods, transforming burdensome manual tasks into swift, automated processes. 

7. Reliable quarterly tax forecasting 

Automate forecasting for accurate cash flow management, providing real-time visibility into your tax obligations. 

8. Evaluating corporate structure efficiency 

Quickly model and analyse various corporate structures and tax scenarios, helping you optimise strategies, minimise liabilities, and maintain compliance. 

9. Seamless data transfer between tax and finance 

Every tax and finance team has unique requirements, tools, and workflows, making data transfers across platforms challenging. Alteryx effortlessly solves this by automating secure, customised data exchanges between almost any tax or finance system you use – such as ERPs, statutory reporting software, and dedicated tax platforms. This flexible, business-defined integration ensures data integrity, accuracy, and consistency across departments, adapting seamlessly to your specific processes and needs. See Alteryx in action transferring data between ONESOURCE Corporate Tax and ONESOURCE Statutory Reporting (we implement both!) Thomson Reuters ONESOURCE Integrations (OCT to OSR) using Alteryx. 

10. Future-proofing with digital links 

With HMRC increasingly demanding digital links and transparency through initiatives such as Making Tax Digital (MTD), maintaining robust, compliant connections is no longer optional. Alteryx enables you to easily future-proof your processes by transforming raw trial balance data into structured, API-ready formats that are fully compliant with digital link requirements. This streamlined data preparation allows instant, automated integration with your existing tax and finance systems, ensuring you're always ahead of regulatory requirements. 

The bottom line 

Alteryx isn't here to replace your dedicated tax tools – it's here to amplify their power. By reducing manual effort, minimising risks, and ensuring compliance, Alteryx revolutionises how you manage tax processes. 

Please do get in touch if you’d like to explore how Alteryx can simplify and optimise your tax workflows. 

Want to get hands-on first? We think the best way to get started is with a bit of guidance from someone who’s done it before. But if you'd prefer to explore on your own, here’s a link to an Alteryx Free Trial – and when you’re ready, we’re here to help!