Case Study

Leveraging the Power of DOTS FastTax API in a Legacy ERP System

Georgia-based TenCate Geosynthetics is the world’s largest provider of geosynthetics and industrial fabrics. Their products are used in major civil engineering and industrial applications including roadways, building sites, landfills, water treatment plants, and much more. With a US market in excess of $150 million dollars, their products are found in many major infrastructure projects, particularly when mitigating soil or drainage issues are part of the design.

We recently sat down with Steve Huster, TenCate’s Global Director of Information Technology, to discuss their transition from an aging legacy tax system to Service Objects’ DOTS FastTax product.

We wanted to turn this project around quickly, and the team at Service Objects was very responsive in getting us the information we needed to evaluate and test the FastTax service, greatly minimizing disruption in our business process.

Steve Huster

Global Director of Information Technology

Filling a very specific need

TenCate Geosynthetics employs a legacy ERP application, based on an IBM iSeries with RPG based software in place. For many years they used a competitive sales tax package which served them well, but eventually the cost of supporting this very specific legacy application became untenable. For cost and support reasons, they wanted to change and found Service Objects’ FastTax solution.

This was a situation where TenCate needed an application that was accurate, cost-effective and easy to implement at the same time. They are a business-to-business supplier that primarily sells its products through a network of distributors, and less than 10% of their revenues involve taxable sales directly to end customers. However, these sales still require the ability to calculate the correct tax rate as a sale is booked into the system, as well as when the final invoice is sent.

Because they are using a legacy ERP system, there was some skepticism if a cloud-based solution such as FastTax could work well for them. In fact, they found it to be not only possible but quite practical and effective. Huster shared with us that, “the idea of leveraging a cloud-based API for some piece of data that we needed was a little foreign … they had to see it to believe it, but in our case, there was no technical reason and no business process reason not to pursue it.” In the end, implementation and testing went very smoothly, and they successfully went live with FastTax.

A relationship built on service quality

Perhaps most importantly, TenCate rated Service Objects a perfect “10” in its Net Promoter Score (NPS) ratings of customer service quality, particularly regarding our response to migrating a mission-critical application quickly and smoothly. According to Huster, “We wanted to turn this project around quickly, and the team at Service Objects was very responsive in getting us the information we needed to evaluate and test the FastTax service. We were able to make the decision quickly, create a successful internal pilot program and go live, greatly minimizing disruption in our business process.”

Looking to the future, TenCate is now looking into integrating additional data quality products from Service Objects as part of their CRM environment, including solutions for address and email validation. We are delighted to have this award-winning firm on board as a customer and look forward to being a part of their future growth.