Grant Thornton’s Tax Practice Embraces Microsoft Power BI

By STS News Desk On Apr 19, 2019

Grant Thornton’s Tax Practice Embraces Microsoft Power BI

New Visualization Capabilities Turn Tax Data into Business Insights

Grant Thornton LLP has equipped the 1,600 professionals in its Tax practice with Microsoft Power BI – a data visualization tool. The move demonstrates Grant Thornton’s commitment to innovative technologies that benefit clients.

Using Power BI, Grant Thornton will be able to aggregate large amounts of data into graphs and charts that tax professionals can instantly understand – helping them go beyond the spreadsheets that they often rely on.

“Making Microsoft Power BI available to all professionals at every level of the tax practice reflects our belief that data is the future of tax accounting and professional services,” said Jamie Fowler, national managing partner of Tax Services at Grant Thornton.

Applying data visualization tools to tax data makes it easy for anyone to understand a company’s tax position. Moreover, it can yield unexpected business insights. “Because tax information touches almost every aspect of a business from sales to compensation, performing data visualizations as part of a tax engagement often provides revelations that go beyond taxation,” added Fowler.

Power BI will complement Grant Thornton’s previous deployments of data-visualization software – and also serve as the foundation for new offerings. These include customized visualization sets for tax technical specialties and industry needs, as well as individualized visualizations to meet unique client needs.

All Grant Thornton Tax professionals are receiving extensive training in Power BI and related efforts.

According to Oscar Osorio, Grant Thornton’s national Tax leader of Innovation & Strategy, Power BI is one part of a wider strategy to prepare the practice for the future. “We’re raising the collective digital IQ of our practice with an ambitious digital experience learning program,” he said.