Technology company SAP and industry body Assocham on Wednesday launched a knowledge-sharing resource centre to help organisations manage changes in their business processes and information systems as a result of the upcoming Goods and Services Tax (GST) roll-out.

The resource centre, called SimpleGST, will be a one-stop portal for businesses and will provide information on key areas such as tax computation, master data management and business process localisation.

“GST has opened up opportunities for businesses in over 160 countries and helped them move beyond the physical constraints to expand exponentially by harnessing digital prowess,“ said DS Rawat, secretary general, Assocham.

The roll-out of the new GST regime will necessitate over 51 million SMEs in India to consider reinvesting or redefining their business processes.

“It is estimated that over three to five billion invoices will be uploaded on GST Network every month, and over 40% of these transactions will be processed through an SAP system,“ said Neeraj Athalye, head of SAP S4HANA, SAP Indian Subcontinent.

At a panel discussion during the launch, participants said rerouting supply chain and compliance are two important parts for effectively imple menting GST. Automation and encapsulation of the compliance measures into the IT systems of these organisations is imperative, and early preparation and planning is the key to a successful GST implementation. Efforts such as this are currently focussed at answering some of these questions and smoothening the transition for businesses.

“SAP now sees a huge responsibility to get India Inc compliant with the upcoming law and is thus working in close collaboration with customers across industries, the overall ecosystem (including GSTN) to provide solutions for a smooth transition to goods and services tax (GST),“ said Arun Subramanian, VP, Globalization Services, SAP India.