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Global Businesses Achieve Up to 500% ROI Managing VAT Compliance with Avalara, Independent Study Finds

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Customer research shows organisations reduce manual effort, lower compliance costs, and cut risk with Avalara VAT Reporting and Avalara Managed VAT Reporting

LONDON, July 30, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Avalara, Inc., the agentic AI leader in global tax and compliance, today announced findings from an independent study conducted by Hobson & Company showing that organisations using Avalara VAT Reporting and Avalara Managed VAT Reporting can achieve measurable financial, operational, and compliance benefits as they modernise global VAT reporting processes.

Read the full ROI reports here:

Avalara VAT Reporting Avalara Managed VAT Reporting

Based on independent customer interviews and modelled ROI scenarios, the research found that organisations using Avalara’s VAT reporting solutions can achieve 200%–500% ROI over three years, with modelled payback periods of roughly three to four months depending on the operating model. The analysis drew on validation work with 14 customers and highlights how businesses are streamlining VAT compliance, reducing reliance on external providers, and improving visibility and consistency across jurisdictions.

“Avalara’s global VAT solutions are purpose-built to eliminate the complexity, cost, and compliance risk that comes with managing VAT across borders,” said Greg Chapman, EVP at Avalara. “These new independent findings reflect that automating VAT compliance doesn’t just save time and money, but fundamentally changes how finance teams operate and gives businesses the confidence to grow globally without compliance holding them back.”

Highlights from the Study

For organisations that want to manage VAT reporting in-house with greater automation and control, Avalara VAT Reporting helps standardise workflows, automate validations, and centralise visibility across countries and filing periods. In a representative enterprise scenario involving $150 million in VAT-applicable revenue across five countries, Hobson & Company found that Avalara VAT Reporting delivered:

Up to 466% ROI over three yearsAnnual benefits exceeding $470,000 An 85% reduction in VAT return preparation and filing timeA 95% reduction in third-party compliance accounting costsA 90% reduction in the risk of VAT fines and penalties

For businesses that prefer guided, end-to-end support, Avalara Managed VAT Reporting combines software with expert service to help manage registrations, return preparation, submission, and ongoing compliance across jurisdictions. In a representative mid-market scenario involving $50 million in VAT-applicable revenue across eight countries, Hobson & Company found that Avalara Managed VAT Reporting delivered:

Up to 277% ROI over three yearsAnnual benefits exceeding $140,000A 90% reduction in expected effort to prepare, file, and review VAT returnsA 75% reduction in third-party compliance accounting costsA 90% reduction in the risk of VAT compliance fines and penalties

Across both deployment models, the research points to the same conclusion: the strongest business case for modernising VAT reporting comes not only from reducing compliance risk, but from improving operational efficiency. Organisations realised value through less ERP integration effort, less manual validation, faster return preparation, reduced reliance on external providers, and a reporting model that scales more effectively as the business grows.

To learn more about Avalara VAT Reporting and Avalara Managed VAT Reporting, visit avalara.com/us/en/products/vat-returns-and-reporting

About Avalara

Avalara is the agentic AI platform for global tax and compliance. For more than two decades, Avalara has built one of the most expansive libraries of tax content and integrations in the industry, processing more than 54 billion transactions annually and supporting millions of businesses worldwide. The company’s purpose-built AI agents automate end-to-end compliance with greater precision, from tax calculations and return filings to exemption certificate management and beyond. For more information, visit Avalara.com.

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Lumos Launches MCP Governance to Provide Agent Runtime Security

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Security and IT teams get visibility and control over MCP usage and agent tool calls, starting with Claude Code and Codex.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Lumos, the identity management platform for the agentic era, is releasing MCP Governance for Claude Code and Codex. MCP Governance checks an AI agent’s permissions at the moment it acts, and blocks the action if policy does not allow it.

Enterprises are rolling out AI coworkers faster than they can govern them. An agent inherits the permissions of the person who launched it, and then works at machine speed. A single employee might delete one Salesforce record by mistake, but their agent can delete a thousand in seconds.

“We spent twenty years learning to govern humans, and we still have not finished,” said Andrej Safundzic, CEO and co-founder of Lumos. “Now we have agents doing the same work ten times faster. Just here at Lumos, with fewer than 200 employees, we measured over 450,000 agent actions in a single week. That kind of scale is impossible to track with old methods.”

The industry has answered this problem with inventory, but registering every agent only tells a security team that an agent exists. It does not tell them what that agent can reach, and it does not tell them what it did.

Lumos is taking a different position. Permissions set the upper bound of what an agent is allowed to do. What the agent actually does happens at runtime, and until now identity teams have had no way to govern that moment. MCP Governance moves the decision to the point of action.

“The teams I talk to are not trying to slow AI down. They are trying to say yes,” said Safundzic. “One customer would not turn on an integration for their marketing team because too many people had access to the underlying tool. That decision cost them pipeline. Governance at the moment of action is how you turn that no into a yes.”

“Identity has always governed what someone is allowed to do,” said Leo Mehr, co-founder of Lumos. “It has never governed what they actually did, because humans move slowly enough that review after the fact was good enough. Agents changed that. By the time you review an agent’s activity, it has already made a few thousand decisions. The only place left to govern is the moment before the action runs.”

MCP Governance extends the work Lumos has already done on non-human identity. Lumos maps every identity and permission across human, machine, and AI identities. MCP Governance covers the other half of the problem, which is control over what those identities do.

MCP Governance is available today for teams running Claude Code and Codex, with support for more agents to follow.

Learn more about MCP Governance by scheduling a demo today.

About Lumos

Lumos is the first identity platform built around autonomous agents, not manual workflows. Security teams use Lumos to give every human, machine, and AI agent a living control layer that watches and governs access in real time. Traditional identity governance was built for human workflows and periodic reviews. AI makes the problem bigger, messier, and faster: more identities to protect, more permissions to govern, and less time to catch abuse. Lumos helps teams at companies like Mars, Netskope, Assurant, and GitLab move faster, reduce risk, and prove compliance, all while keeping humans in control.

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SOURCE Lumos

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Ande Raises $52M Seed and Series A to Launch The First Entertainment Operating System For Enterprises

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Ande brings corporate entertainment into a single platform and gives venues a direct channel to enterprise bookings.

NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ande, the AI-native network for corporate entertainment, emerges from stealth with more than $52 million in seed and Series A funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Duration Ventures, and Sierra Ventures, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures.

Enterprises spend an estimated $325 billion a year on entertainment from client dinners and team outings to catering, sporting events, and gifting. Yet the booking and expense management behind it is fragmented across credit cards, AP systems, and consumer apps creating an extremely manual reconciliation process for finance teams.

Ande brings structure to one of the last unmanaged categories of enterprise spend by giving teams a single platform to book entertainment effortlessly, while finance and legal teams keep full visibility and control over every dollar spent.

Ande’s agentic workflows surface venue availability, book experiences, route approvals, execute contracts, and reconcile expenses automatically. Executive assistants, office managers, field marketers, GTM teams, and their managers all work together in a single, multiplayer workspace in order to book team offsites and deal-closing dinners, while the agents move each request through approval, signing, and payment.

More than 60 enterprises already run their entertainment on Ande, reporting savings of 12 to 15 percent. Customers like Cloudflare, Salesforce, McGraw Hill, Netskope, Navan, Sigma Computing, Monday.com, Workato, Semgrep, Checkout, Rillet, and many more contribute to over $400 million in entertainment spend flowing through the platform annually.

“Entertainment is one of the most important things a company does. It builds culture, closes deals and deepens the relationships that matter most. Yet the infrastructure to manage it is broken on both sides of every transaction,” said Lohit Sarma, CEO and co-founder of Ande.

“Ande is the first enterprise channel between corporate buyers and the world’s best entertainment vendors. Part of the reason this is such a hard problem to solve is that venues and entertainment providers don’t have a centralized distribution system to plug into. We had to build it. We’ve spent two and half years working with venues to digitize their data, and train models and agents for these workflows that are unique to enterprises,” continued Sarma.

For venues on the other side of the transaction, Ande is the corporate sales and marketing channel that never existed. Venues have historically had no pipeline into the corporate market. Ande gives them a platform to market to, engage with, and transact with corporate buyers at scale. Among the current partners are 1,600 hospitality venues including some of the largest and most decorated hospitality groups like Altamarea Group, Che Fico, Gracious Hospitality, JKS, The Mina Group, MML, Nobu, Riviera Dining Group, Tao Group Hospitality, Unapologetic Foods, Bacchus Management Group, Wish You Were Here, and Wolfgang Puck. Over 93,000 entertainment venues are on Ande’s network today.

“Our programs are high stakes and high visibility, with our executive leadership team and key customers at the core of each event we host,” said Vicky Chung, Director of Corporate Events at Netskope. “My team and I trust Ande’s platform, and especially the team behind it. I have real-time visibility into what’s happening across every event, and when I need something done right, I know it will be. My team is now focused on reaching the executives that matter and scaling the program vs. worrying about the logistics.”

“Entertainment is every enterprise’s biggest expense line that is not yet well managed. For that reason, there are financial inefficiencies and a poor experience,” notes Arif Janmohamed, Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners and Co-Founder of Duration Ventures. “Ande is the connective tissue, the perfect handshake between corporations and venues. Lohit is an exceptional founder, and the size of the market opportunity is largely unbounded.”

Redpoint Ventures Managing Director Alex Bard notes, “Particularly when we invest in an early-stage company, our confidence has everything to do with the founder and their ambition. Lohit has both startup DNA and the enterprise experience to solve this problem. His vision for Ande is bold and ambitious.”

About Ande

Ande is the AI-native network for corporate entertainment. Over 60 enterprises, including Cloudflare, Salesforce, and McGraw Hill already book, manage, and measure every experience through Ande, moving more than $400 million a year through a network of 93,000 entertainment providers across 90+ cities. For the vendors on the other side of the transaction, Ande is the dedicated corporate channel that’s never existed. Learn more at ande.ai.

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SOURCE Ande

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Ascensus Appoints John Shapiro as Chief Product Officer

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Experienced product leader to help strengthen client-centered innovation and advance the company’s next phase of growth

DRESHER, Pa., Sept. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Ascensus, the engine at the center of America’s savings ecosystem, today announced that John Shapiro has joined the company as Chief Product Officer and a member of the executive leadership team. Reporting directly to CEO Nick Good, Shapiro will shape Ascensus’ enterprise-wide product vision and strengthen how the company develops and delivers products, makes decisions, and sets priorities across the business.

As Ascensus continues to enhance the client experience and position the company for its next phase of growth, strong product leadership will play an increasingly important role in helping connect client insights, business priorities, and technology to create more integrated solutions and better outcomes. Shapiro will lead the Product organization and help foster unified, client-focused, and outcome-oriented approaches to product development across the enterprise.

“Ascensus has tremendous momentum, and we’re investing in the capabilities that will help drive our next phase of growth,” said Nick Good, CEO of Ascensus. “Delivering an exceptional client experience is central to that strategy. We want to make it easier for clients and partners to do business with us while creating more connected solutions and better outcomes. John brings a powerful combination of client focus, product leadership, and business acumen, and I’m excited about the impact he will have as we continue to grow and evolve.”

“Ascensus stands out for its clear purpose, talented team, and unique position in the market,” said John Shapiro. “I’m thrilled to join the company at such an important time and help build on its strong foundation by creating solutions and experiences that deliver greater value for clients, partners, and savers.”

Shapiro joins Ascensus from Lightspeed Commerce, where he served as Chief Product Officer. Earlier in his career, he held product leadership roles at Wayfair, Intuit, and Adobe Systems. Throughout his career, he has built and led large-scale product organizations, bringing new ideas to market and helping businesses serving millions of users accelerate growth.

Shapiro earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Stanford University.

About Ascensus
Ascensus is the engine at the center of America’s savings ecosystem. The company makes saving easier by bringing together intuitive technology, AI, and high-touch service to support better financial outcomes for savers, small- to mid-sized businesses, state governments, and leading corporations and financial institutions. Ascensus offers comprehensive qualified and nonqualified retirement plan solutions, third-party retirement plan administration, 529 education and ABLE savings program administration, corporate- and bank-owned life insurance solutions, as well as fiduciary and total rewards services. The company supports over 16 million savers1 and oversees more than $1.3 trillion in assets under administration2 as of August 3, 2026. For more information, visit ascensus.com.

1 Figure includes American Trust Retirement recordkeeping participants
2 Figure includes AmericanTCS AUA

Contact:
Greg Winter, SVP of Communications, Ascensus
gregory.winter@ascensus.com

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SOURCE Ascensus

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