ORBA Reduces Tax Returns
Processing Time by 200% with Databricks
Say Hello to ORBA
Orba is a top-tier accounting, tax, and advisory firm ranked among the top 150 CPA firms in the U.S. With 250 professionals, the firm serves businesses and high-net-worth individuals through comprehensive financial services including tax planning, audit, and business advisory.
Deliveries
Technologies & Integrations
– Microsoft Azure Platform
– Databricks
– Azure data ake Storage Gen2
– Postman
AUDIT SERVICES ♦ CLIENT ACCOUNTING ♦ TAX SERVICES ♦ TRANSACTION ADVISORY ♦ ACCOUNTING ADVISORY ♦
AUDIT SERVICES ♦ CLIENT ACCOUNTING ♦ TAX SERVICES ♦ TRANSACTION ADVISORY ♦ ACCOUNTING ADVISORY ♦
AUDIT SERVICES ♦ CLIENT ACCOUNTING ♦ TAX SERVICES ♦ TRANSACTION ADVISORY ♦ ACCOUNTING ADVISORY ♦
Orba’s Pain Points
Manually onboarding thier clients in their time and billing system.- Spending over 5 to 10 minutes in each tax and assurance report creation.
- Constant errors due to manual tax and assurance data entry.
Manually onboarding thier clients in their time and billing system.Four Main Goals of Orba
Automate the client onboarding in time and billing system with over 137,000 records spread across multiple pages.
Store and access historical accounting data which is essential for tax returns reporting and analysis.
Have tax and assurance data integration with data visualization tools like Power BI for easy tax returns reporting.
Get automated tax returns reports from multiple sources like IRIS, Thomson Reuters & Legacy system (Windows).
We Implemented the Following Solutions to Solve ORBA’s Challenges:
- A data lake to pull tax and assurance data from various data sources like Thomson Reuters, IRIS, Windows and store it in a centralized location for historical reporting.
- A data lake would facilitate the integration of this data, making it more accessible for Power BI reports & analysis.
⸻ PROBLEM #1
Slow Tax Report Generation Which Consumes 15 minutes Per Workflow
Tax data with details like cost & amount was used to create reports in Power BI but the timeline for this workflow was very slow, taking approximately 15-20 minutes every time they executed it. This was due to lack of automation in refresh cycles and Windows integration issues, leading to:
- Disrupted productivity, especially during peak periods like tax season, leading to delays in decision-making
- Slow real-time financial analysis, making it difficult to respond quickly to client inquiries or adjust tax strategies based on up-to-date data.
Our Solution
Databricks Services:
- It is a quick platform, and it has been used very thoroughly for reading and for writing and for accessing and for doing the scoring of the data.
- Directly connects with Orba’s existing systems (IRIS, Thomson Reuters, Power BI) via APIs for unified data access.
Automated Workflow with Power Automate that:
- Triggers upon receiving a purchase receipt in Dynamics 365.
- Fetches relevant information from Dynamics 365.
- Automatically generates an inspection ticket in a SharePoint list.
Triggers upon receiving a purchase receipt in Dynamics 365.
What stood out was the Sunflower Lab’s unique blend of offshore efficiency and onshore-quality deliverables. Making Compliance easier
Matthew Weiskopf
Chief Informational Officer – ORBA
Watch Detail Testimony Here
⸻ PROBLEM #2
Absence of historical financial data for ongoing analysis, reporting, and advisory purposes
- ORBA was unable to identify long-term financial patterns or client-specific trends, reducing the depth of strategic advisory insights
- Missing historical benchmarks made it harder to provide data-driven tax planning or cost optimization recommendations causing inefficient client advisory
Impact
- Enhanced Efficiency: The chances of missing any inspection thread are significantly reduced.
- Saved Resource Time: Eliminates the need for a person to spend 10-15 hours a week emailing the inspection personnel and handling excel sheets for data organization, thereby saving valuable human resources.
- Time Reduction: The time to resolve a single Purchase Receipt has been drastically reduced from 15 minutes to mere microseconds.
Additional Automation Processes
Our Solution
- Used Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) to offer a secure, scalable, and centralized data storage solution, making it easy to access historical tax returns data for further analytics, forecasting, and decision-making.
Automated Data Pipeline
- Used Azure Data Factory (ADF) to coordinate seamless movement of historical tax returns data (old and new versions) from source to destination.
Scheduled Processing
- Automated Databricks notebooks to run daily, enabling real-time organization’s data reading and updates all day.
Improved Performance
- Reduced tax returns data retrieval time from minutes to 2-5 seconds, regardless of data volume (even for 136K+ records).
Automatic Notifications in teams
- Improved Visibility: Inspectors receive instant notifications about new tickets, including priority ones, ensuring they’re aware of upcoming tasks and can plan their schedule accordingly.
- Reduced Response Time: Real-time notifications eliminate delays in receiving information about new tickets. Inspectors can react quickly and prioritize urgent inspections.
- Minimized Missed Inspections:The immediacy of Teams notifications significantly reduces the risk of missing or overlooking critical tickets, especially high-priority ones.
Reminders
- Ensures Prompt Task Assignment: By reminding the assignor within 24 hours if a ticket remains unassigned, the system helps prevent tasks from getting stuck in limbo. This ensures inspections get assigned quickly and avoid delays.
- Maintains Timely Status Updates: Reminding inspectors to update the status within 48 hours keeps everyone informed about the progress of inspections. This promotes transparency and helps identify any potential bottlenecks in the process.
Kara Kushma
Process Improvement and Training Specialist – Domeng
“The experience has been positive overall. The communication has been great. Just working directly with the delivery manager and the developer. So, it’s been just a very positive experience working with sunflower so far.”
Evaluating Our Performance
SFL Services
Account Manager – Yash Patel
Delivery Manager – Dhruvin Patel
How We Ensured Data Governance for ORBA?
Automating tax & finance workflows with highly confidential data
- Critical Security Focus: Handled highly sensitive tax, financial, and advisory data requiring strict confidentiality
- End-to-End Protection: Secured every stage of the tax data pipeline—from API URLs to authentication tokens and processed data.
- Compliance-Driven: Ensured secure processing aligned with industry standards for tax & financial data protection.
Secured Access Control & Authentication
- Restricted access to critical components (APIs, Databricks, ADLS) to authorized personnel only.
- Centralized authentication & authorization using Azure Active Directory (AAD) Integration for seamless yet secure access.
Meet the Project Team
We selected a team that could truly understand Dom Eng’s challenges and provide
effective solutions.
Where Sunflower Lab Stood Out?
Sunflower Lab proved to be the ideal partner for Orba’s automation and reporting challenges by combining technical expertise with a client-first approach. Here’s what set us apart
Strategic Prioritization
Helped Orba shift focus to Databricks reporting first, laying a stronger foundation for future Power Automate workflows aligning with their long-term goals
Delivered high-caliber solutions with the cost-effectiveness of offshore resources, ensuring seamless compliance & execution without compromise
Predicting Future Challenges
Anticipated integration challenges (e.g., legacy systems, data security) and addressed them upfront, minimizing disruptions.
Implemented end-to-end data protection for sensitive tax/financial data, securing high-risk elements like API URLs, authentication tokens, and pipelines.
Are your manual workflows delaying crucial financial & tax reports too?
Transform your financial data & get instant reports with Databricks
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