Goal is to help organizations manage domestic and international regulatory, tax and compliance issues
SAN FRANCISCO and CHICAGO, September 7, 2021 — Grant Thornton LLP, a leading U.S. professional-services firm with a global member firm network, and Topia, a leader in global workforce and talent mobility software solutions, are teaming to bring their distinct service offerings to clients. Working together, Grant Thornton and Topia can help organizations more efficiently manage domestic and international regulatory, tax and compliance issues associated with distributed, remote and hybrid workforces —and business travel.
Grant Thornton will pair its decades of experience in tax and compliance services for global workforces with Topia’s hybrid workforce-management technology, including its industry-leading Topia Compass application built atop the Topia One platform. Topia’s technology provides critical employee work-location data analytics combined with compliance-focused workflows and automation.
By bringing together Grant Thornton’s tax and advisory services with Topia’s software-automation solutions, organizations should be able to more easily and efficiently manage complex issues such as international employer tax risk, state and local tax payroll withholding obligations, permanent establishment and nexus. Grant Thornton and Topia can also help companies solve broader business strategy and operational issues stemming from hybrid workforces with employees working in many more locations. For example, they can help align employee locations to a company’s strategy and real-estate decisions.
“Hybrid working arrangements have become, and will continue to be, the new norm for many employers; however, this has caused cross-border regulations to increase in complexity, resulting in significant compliance exposures and risks for businesses across the globe,” said Richard Tonge, Human Capital Services principal at Grant Thornton. “Activities such as payroll withholding, tax compliance and statutory reporting were straightforward when employees worked in the same offices every day. Now, with today’s remote employees, the increased fluidity across local, state and international borders means compliance is far more difficult — it pushes finance, tax and payroll teams to proactively manage employees’ work locations to adhere to regulatory requirements. In short, businesses need to develop a successful hybrid work strategy.”
According to Tonge, Topia’s technology solutions can provide organizations with “clear, actionable and real-time data insights and analytics necessary to embrace hybrid working models while avoiding business risks.” He explains that with Grant Thornton’s extensive experience and its network of global member firms, “organizations can more easily adapt to a remote and flexible future of work.”
“Welcoming Grant Thornton into the rapidly-growing Topia ecosystem as a strategic tax services provider for companies using the Topia technology platform means our customers can benefit from Grant Thornton’s proven ability to help organizations shift to more flexible and mobile work arrangements,” said Anupam Singhal, SVP Strategic Partnerships at Topia. “Grant Thornton will help us expand the value of the Topia One platform and provide our customers with critical tax and compliance services to contend with the new remote-work environment.”
Nishant Mittal, SVP and GM Business Travel at Topia, summed up the relationship this way: “Grant Thornton is a trusted professional-services provider in the U.S. and internationally with its network of member firm organizations, which is why collaborating with the firm makes such good sense.”
To learn more about Grant Thornton’s global mobility offerings, visit www.grantthornton.com/globalmobility. To learn more about Topia Compass, visit www.topia.com/compass.