EY India uses Azure for DigiGST®, its GST solution, to deliver scalability, security, and flexibility

In 2017, India overhauled its indirect taxes and introduced the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a consumption tax levied on the sale, manufacture, and consumption of goods and services nationwide. One of the most comprehensive tax reforms in the past 70 years, the new GST replaces more than a dozen central and state tariffs levied at different rates with five tax brackets. It also provides tax credits that eliminate double taxation.

EY India has long offered tax advisory services through one of the biggest teams of tax professionals in the country. For the past 10 years, the firm has been proactively advising the government on the structure that the GST should take and on industry concerns. When the new GST was rolled out, EY India began offering a comprehensive Application Service Provider-GST Suvidha Provider (ASP-GSP) solution called DigiGST® which helps clients conveniently comply with the GST.

“Today, we’re one of the largest GST solution providers in India. As of October 2018, EY India has already submitted more than USD40 million worth of invoices for 800 clients,” says Venkatesh Narayan, Tax Technology Leader at EY India.

EY India used Microsoft Azure as a platform for the firm’s web-based DigiGST solution during its launch. With Azure, EY India has been able to ensure that DigiGST has the scalability to handle high-volume workloads, the security to help protect confidential tax information, and the flexibility to manage ongoing modifications to GST requirements.

Creating a comprehensive GST compliance solution

EY India’s DigiGST solution is unique in providing a single solution that handles the two phases of the digital GST filing process. The ASP solution processes transaction-level sales and purchase data for the taxpayer, applies more than 200 validations for consistent reporting—enabling vendors to receive proper credits for taxes already paid—and creates the tax returns. The GSP solution provides a highly secure, encrypted gateway for filing the requisite returns to and from the GST Network (GSTN), a nonprofit organization that stores all GST data for state and central governments.

The DigiGST solution is built on the Azure platform, with app and web services running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Azure. EY India employs Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services to load data into Azure, Azure SQL Database to provide database persistence, and Azure Files for highly secure, fully managed cloud file sharing. The firm also uses Azure Cosmos DB for globally distributed multimodal database services and Microsoft Power BI to deliver visual dashboards and analytics.

Handling significant volumes of data

Using Azure, DigiGST handles a significant volume of data quickly and reliably, with a high degree of security. “With the Azure platform, we achieve the high availability, processing speed, and scalability needed to manage our solution, which was responsible for 28 percent of transactions routed through all GSPs, according to GSTN in October 2018,” says Narayan. “Azure also offers the strong security, including encryption and security certifications, necessary to help us protect our client data.”

Adjusting to constantly changing GST rules

A key component of the DigiGST solution is its rules engine. EY India uses Azure HDInsight to configure business rules and perform data validations to ensure data is entered correctly. For example, DigiGST validates tax computations and performs invoice validations by correlating various fields based on GST rules that look at the place of supply. HDInsight processes massive amounts of data, using Apache Storm and Apache Kafka to read and write data.

Since the GST rolled out in July 2017, it has been a work in progress, with the government making ongoing changes. “We’ve been out in front, understanding the problem areas, discussing them with the government, and making changes simultaneously within our system,” says Narayan. “Using HDInsight gives us the flexibility to change and customize business rules regularly to accommodate evolving GST requirements.”

Delivering peace of mind

Perhaps the biggest advantage of the EY India relationship with Microsoft is the confidence it provides to clients. “Considering that the GST was such a big change, clients didn’t want to take on more risk by using unfamiliar vendors. They have comfort in knowing that their GST solution comes from one of the best tax advisors and one of the best technology experts in the world,” says Narayan.

Find out more about EY India on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.