Corporate Taxation Update for Commodity Traders in the UAE  

November 4th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

On 3 November 2023, the UAE introduced the new Ministerial Decision 265 of 2023, to replace the previous Ministerial Decision 139 of 2023, which came into effect from June 1, 2023. This change offers relief for traders operating in non-designated free zones, such as global entities established in DMCC.

Ministerial Decision No. 265 lists the trading of Qualifying Commodities as a Qualifying Activity, for 0 per cent corporate tax rate for income generated from physical trading of various commodities on recognized stock exchanges. It also covers derivative trading income used for risk hedging in such trading activities.

Furthermore, the Ministerial Decision provides clarity on the scope of Qualifying and Excluded Activities, offering transparency to free zone businesses.

‘Trading of Qualifying Commodities’
Trading of Qualifying Commodities refers to the physical trading of qualifying commodities and associated derivative trading used to hedge against the risks involved in these activities.  Qualifying Commodities include: metals, minerals, energy, and agricultural commodities traded in their unprocessed form on a Recognized Commodities Exchange Market.

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Posted in Dubai and regional news

Microsoft Business Applications Wave 2 2023

October 31st, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

At the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event, last week  the 2023 release wave 2 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform was announced. This is a a six-month rollout of new and enhanced capabilities scheduled for release between October 2023 and March 2024.

This release wave introduces hundreds of new features across Microsoft Power Platform applications. It  included enhanced capabilities for: governance, administration, and professional development.

 Updates for Dynamics 365 include innovation to:

  • help employees be more productive,
  • create exceptional customer experiences
  • deepen relationships,
  • drive meaningful growth across the business.

This release features new AI capabilities in Copilot to improve insights, save time, and enhance creativity across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.  

Organizations like Nestlé, Kodak Alaris, Northern Trust, Centrica, Spark NZ, Domino’s Pizza UK and Ireland, and Suffolk are already adopting these capabilities to drive transformative changes in their businesses.

Updates to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance include the general availability of extended planning and analysis, which brings together operational and financial planning to continuously plan, act, and analyze.

General availability of business performance analytics streamlines financial reporting by centralizing data from multiple business processes and in an easy-to-use interface.

Updates to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management include improvements in demand planning, as well as procure-to-pay processes. Copilot will suggest actions tto help purchasing agents make better decisions in response to new and updated information that affects open purchase orders.

With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, and Copilot you can use data and insights that used to be hidden, unlock capabilities previously out of reach, and reach new levels of productivity and collaboration.

The new release wave introduces a variety of solutions to help marketers and sales professionals use Copilot to deepen their understanding of their target customer base, streamline engagement processes, and push the boundaries in crafting exceptional customer experiences. 

Copilot in Power Platform bring a new era of AI-assisted low-code development. Copilot features in release wave 2 to make it easier to quickly create solutions.

Copilot plays a vital role in democratizing development, to enable a broader audience—both citizen and professional developers—to create innovative solutions using natural language. Copilot within Microsoft Power Platform  significantly improves the governance and administrative experience, to expedite the development of applications.

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Posted in Business Central, Dynamics 365, Finance, Microsoft, Technology

Microsoft 365 Copilot general availability and Microsoft 365 Chat

October 31st, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Microsoft Copilot is a digital companion for a single Copilot user experience across Bing, Edge, Microsoft 365, and Windows.

 Over the past few years, the pace and volume of work have  increased. On a given workday, users typically  search for what they need 18 times, receive over 250 Outlook emails, and send or read around 150 Teams chats. Teams users globally are in three times more meetings each week than they were in 2020. In  Windows, some people use 11 apps in a single day to get their work done. Microsoft 365 Chat will help everyone lift the weight of work.

Last week’s announcement in New York  impacts all the  product line-up for commercial customers: 

  • Microsoft Copilot in Windows  to create faster and to complete tasks with ease and make once-complicated tasks simple. Find it on the taskbar or with the Win+C keyboard shortcut, to get assistance alongside all your apps. Copilot in Windows will feature the new Copilot icon, the new Copilot user experience, Bing Chat, and will be available to commercial customers for free.
  • Bing Chat Enterprise builds on Microsoft Copilot and adds commercial data protection. Bing Chat Enterprise, chat data is not saved, Microsoft has no eyes-on access, and your data is not used to train the large language models (LLM). Bing Chat Enterprise is available as a standalone for $5 per user per month and is included in Microsoft 365 E3 and Microsoft 365 E5. Bing Chat Enterprise is now available in the Microsoft Edge mobile app and Microsoft is bringing support for multimodal visual search and Image Creator to Bing Chat Enterprise. Bing Chat Enterprise is already part of Microsoft 365 E3 and E5, Business Standard, and Business Premium, which means more than 160 million people already have access.
  • Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant at work. It builds on Bing Chat Enterprise and includes enterprise-grade security, privacy, compliance. This responsible AI ensures that all data processing happens inside your proven Microsoft 365 tenant
  • . Microsoft 365 Chat is the new experience for Microsoft 365 Copilot and goes far beyond simple questions and answers. It combs across your entire universe of data—all your emails, meetings, chats, documents, and more, plus the web—to solve your most complex problems at work. It’s integrated into the Microsoft 365 Apps:Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more. Microsoft 365 Copilot will be generally available for enterprise customers for $30 per user per month on 1 November 2023. 

Copilot in Outlook helps you stayon top of your inbox and create impactful communication in a fraction of the time.: 

  • Ask Copilot to summarize an email thread to get key information with annotations that help you quickly jump to the source of the summarized content, and suggested action items, replies, and follow-up meetings.  
  • Choose “Sound like me” tomatch your unique writing style and voice when you’re using Copilot to draft an email.
  • Follow a Teams meeting that you could not attend live, directly from Outlook on your own time. When the meeting starts, Teams notifies participants to record it. When the recording is ready, Copilot notifies you in Outlook.  

Copilot in Word transforms every part of the writing process to make you more creative and efficient::  

  • Ask Copilot for a summary of any document to share as a recap or quickly get up to speed, and Copilot will now deliver a more in-depth bulleted summation with all the information you need. 
  • Ask Copilot to “rewrite” a paragraph, then scroll through a series of options to see what fits best. You can then adjust the rewrite tone to make it more neutral, casual, or professional. 
  • Refine a prompt by asking Copilot to do things like “make answer more concise” or “add a column in the table for the project owner.”  
  • Save time on formatting by asking Copilot to generate a table from your copy. 

Copilot in Excel enables anyone to analyze and visualize data like a data analyst.  : 

  • with Copilot in Excel to help analyze, format, and edit your data to gain deeper understanding and insights. 
  • Quickly add a formula column, highlight key data with a prompt like “make all cells red where the value is under 1000,” filter and sort your data, and ask questions to instantly uncover key insights. 
  • Use Copilot to access advanced analytics; create powerful, professional visualizations, generate forecasts, and save time sorting through data with Python in Excel. 

Copilot in Loop unlocks the power of shared thinking,helping teams cocreate, stay up to date, and pick up where others left off.  : 

  • Iterate with Copilot collaboratively as a team, cocreating prompts and reviewing earlier interactions to edit and improve on work together.  
  • Ask Copilot to generate a quick table on the page to help organize team projects. You can easily turn the table into a Loop component to share with teammates wherever they’re working—in Teams, Outlook, Microsoft Whiteboard, and Word on the web. 
  • Quickly catch up where your teammates left off by asking Copilot for a summary of a page or asking open-ended questions like “What key assignments were made since I was last on this page?”  
  • Generate a recap for a teammate that you’re handing work off to, so they can get up to speed on any updates or changes.  
  • Save time writing code with Copilot-suggested Code blocks that pop up automatically using the context of your work. 

Copilot in OneNote helps you stay organized, prepared, and ready to take action.  :  

  • Gain deeper insights on your notes by asking comprehensive questions like: “What are the pros and cons of this process?”   
  • Quickly generate summaries of your OneNote content. 
  • Type just a few sentences and get a Copilot-generated paragraph, bulleted list, or organized section. 
  • Make your writing clearer and more effective with a quick Copilot edit. 

Copilot in Stream helps you find the insights and information you need from a video—in the Microsoft Stream web app or anywhere Stream videos work across Microsoft 365 apps—in seconds.  :  

  • Get a quick summary of the video with a transcript of the relevant spots you need to review.  
  • Ask Copilot open-ended questions—“What was the discussion outcome?” “How did the site walkthrough go?”—to quickly understand outcomes and key points. 
  • Ask Copilot to identify when people, teams, or topics are discussed, then jump right to that point in the video. 
  • Ask Copilot for suggested follow-ups or actions from a video you missed.   

Copilot in OneDrive helps you find all the insights and information you need—without ever opening a file. 
Now you can: 

  • Ask Copilot open-ended questions related to an individual file or get a summary of the content.

Copilot in Windows

In May, we announced that Copilot was coming to Windows 11. Copilot in Windows—in preview starting September 26—empowers you to create faster, complete tasks with ease, and lessens your cognitive load—making once complicated tasks, simple. We’ve made accessing the power of Copilot seamless as it’s always right there for you on the taskbar or with the Win+C keyboard shortcut providing assistance alongside all your apps, on all screen sizes at work, school, or at home.   

MANAGING COPILOT IN WINDOWS

To help bring Copilot to more people across more organizations, Windows 365 Boot and Windows 365 Switch will also be available in this update, making it easier than ever to get a full, secure, personalized Windows 365 Cloud PC with Copilot—on any device. 

Microsoft was recently recognized as a Leader in Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Desktop as a Service (DaaS).Copilot Copyright Commitment means customers can be confident using the Copilot services and the output they generate without worrying about copyright claims.  

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Posted in Dynamics 365, Microsoft, Security and Compliance, Teams collaboration remote access, Technology

New Continuous update policy for Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain

October 27th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

In2018, Microsoft released the Continuous Update policy for Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management (D365 FSCM), which included seven service updates per year. 

Last month Microsoft announced it reducing the number of service updates released per year to four. Here’s what to expect with these upcoming D365 FSCM release schedule changes.

NEW RELEASE SCHEDULE

Major releases, previously known as the Spring and Fall updates, will shift to January and July, with minor updates in April and October. The new naming convention will also be introduced at the same time.

Major releases will be denoted on version numbers with a “*”, e.g., “CY25Q2: 10.0.43*”.

The update name will consist of two segments.

  • The first will denote the year and quarter the update is scheduled to automatically be applied to production environments.
  • The second segment will be the update version. For example, “CY24Q1: 10.0.38” is version 10.0.38 that will be automatically applied to production from the first quarter of 2024 onwards.

You can only pause one consecutive update instead of three.

The total minimum number of updates you are required to take per year remains at two.

The management of updates—pausing, scheduling, and deploying to sandboxes—is still through LCS, as described here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365/fin-ops-core/dev-itpro/lifecycle-services/pause-service-updates?context=%2Fdynamics365%2Fcontext%2Fcommerce

Upcoming Release Schedule

D365 FSCM release schedule

PROACTIVE QUALITY UPDATES SCHEDULE

Proactive Quality Updates (PQUs) remain unchanged and will be pushed in between service updates, delivering periodic cumulative hotfixes.

The PQUs will follow the same “safe-deployment” model, which first delivers the PQUs to a single region that contains a small group of customers who have the highest tolerance for risk.

When no regressions are identified, the process continues through a broader group of customers, based on geographies (stations), until all customers are using the new version.

 

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Posted in Business Central, Dynamics 365, Field Service, Finance, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics Ax, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Power Apps, Project Management, SCM

UAE VAT Reverse Charge for Electronic Devices

October 27th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

The Ministry of Finance has announced the issuance of Cabinet Resolution 91 of 2023 regarding the Application of the Reverse charge mechanism on Electronic Devices among Registered businesses in UAE under UAE VAT.

  • The supply of Electronic Devices to a registered business for the purpose of resale or production/ manufacture of other Electronic Devices shall be subject to a reverse charge mechanism.
  • The recipient will have to account for VAT on the value of such supplies.
  • Electronic Devices are defined as mobile phones, smartphones, computers, tablets and their parts and components. Under this mechanism, the responsibility for VAT on electronic device supplies (for example, mobile phones, smartphones, computer devices, tablets, and related parts) will shift from the supplier to the recipient if these items are intended for resale or use in electronic device manufacturing.
  • In the clarification issued on Wednesday, the FTA outlined the goods covered by the Decision – ‘mobile phones and smartphones’ – which include phones and devices that only have call and/or text functions and those that include additional functions. It applies only to phones and devices that operate through wireless transmission.
  • The Cabinet Decision includes all types of computers, such as: personal computers, desktop computers, minicomputers, analogue, digital, hybrid computers, servers, computerised engine control units (ECU) for cars, and other similar devices.
  • It excludes: phones and devices running through physical means, such as wire or fibre optic cables.
  • The registered recipient will calculate and report VAT on these supplies in their Tax Returns, along with fulfilling relevant tax obligations, FTA said on Wednesday.

The Cabinet Resolution specifies certain conditions and documentation required to be maintained for both the supplier and the recipient:

The FTA  clarified that a Decision will be released to specify the standards to be followed while defining the parts and components of Electronic Devices.

The Cabinet Resolution is applicable after 60 days from the date of publication in the Official Gazette.

Summary

**1. ** Background Check: 

Understand Cabinet Decision No. 91 of 2023. 
Shift in VAT responsibility: supplier to buyer. 
Vital for electronic device businesses. 

**2. ** Scope Clarified: 

Intention to resell or use devices in manufacturing. 
Definition of ‘Resell’: Active trading, wholesale, or retail. 
Excludes consumption for business purposes. 
**3. ** Device Diversity: 

What qualifies as ‘Electronic Devices’? 
Mobile phones, tablets, computers, and components. 
Excludes physically wired devices. 
**4. ** Compliance Checklist: 

Supplier and buyer requirements. 
Buyer declarations: intent and VAT registration. 
Implications of non-compliance. 

**5. ** Zoning Matters: 

Impact of designated zones. 
Goods movement within UAE and designated zones. 
Crucial for businesses in these zones. 

**6. ** Effective Date Alert: 

Cabinet Decision in effect from October 30, 2023. 
Key date for compliance and transactions. 
Stay compliant to avoid penalties. 

**7. ** Action Steps: 

Review electronic device operations. 
Ensure compliance with Cabinet Decision No. 91. 
Communication with suppliers and buyers. 
Stay updated with FTA guidelines. 
Seek professional advice for specific concerns. 

**8. ** Document Checklist: 

Cabinet Decision 91 of 2023. 
Ministerial Decision 26 of 2023. 
VAT Public Clarification VAT P034. 

The UAE has previously implemented a similar mechanism for other key sectors like gold/ diamond trade and oil/gas trade between registered businesses. The high value and volume of such transactions undertaken means that the reverse charge mechanism will help Electronic Device traders to better manage their cashflows and account for VAT.

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Posted in Dubai and regional news

Upgrade Power BI Desktop .NET Framework to 4.7.2 or newer

October 25th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Power BI Desktop with .NET Framework 4.5 will no longer be supported after 9/30/2023

. Please upgrade to .NET Framework 4.7.2 or newer to avoid any support issues.

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Posted in Business Central, Microsoft, Microsoft Dynamics Ax, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Power Apps

Major Data breach – new Windows malware.

September 28th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Usernames and passwords of billions of users have been exposed online after the digital risk protection company DarkBeam left an online database unprotected.

Unfortunately over 3.8 billion user records were accessible to anyone during the period in which the database was exposed. The leaked email addresses and passwords contained on the database actually came from previous data breaches. Ionically DarkBeam had collected this information to alert its customers in regards to future data breaches, though it’s highly likely that this leak will affect non-customers as well.

Any such leak contains usernames and passwords from both reported and unreported data breaches, and there is a chance that your login credentials could be compromised, even though you had never heard of DarkBeam. it’s likely that hackers downloaded it to use in future attacks. For instance, they could use exposed email addresses in targeted phishing attacks. It’s more likely that  cybercriminals with this data will try and use the usernames and passwords at a number of different sites to see if any of the victims reused the same passwords. Password reuse is a big problem and when you use the same password and username for multiple accounts, hackers use stolen credentials to login to your other accounts. Create strong, complex , unique for all of your accounts. 

If that is not bad enough there is also a new open-source Windows malware Exela Stealer uses Discord to send stolen data back to hackers. Besides stealing login credentials, personal data and financial information, the malware can also steal session details from popular apps and online services including social media and gaming platforms. Once downloaded on a computer, Exela’s builder will run when there is a compatible version of Python (version 3.10.0 or 3.11.0) is installed on the machine and  the builder can create a.exe file.

When the malware’s builder batch file inside the Exela setup folder is executed, a Discord webhook URL is required, and when a victim doesn’t provide this URL, an error message is displayed until they do. The Exela Stealer uses this Discord webhook URL to act as a remote server for the hackers who deployed the malware. to send all of a victim’s stolen data back to the hackers.

After installation on a victim’s PC, Exela Stealer persists by copying itself into a new directory in the local app data folder. It adds a startup entry in Windows Registry so that the malware continues to run even after the infected PC is rebooted.

Exela Stealer then targets any Chromium-based web browsers like Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera or Vivaldi that are installed on a victim’s computer. Besides credentials, the malware can also steal credit card information, cookies and other browser data while logging keypresses and taking screenshots of the system. Exela Stealer can steal l info from social media platforms including Instagram, X, TikTok and Reddit along with data from both Steam and Roblox.Stolen data is sent back to the hackers behind Exela Stealer who can use it to commit fraud or identity theft.

You risk a bad malware infection should you try to download games or software illegally.. The Exela Stealer is distributed through phishing pages and websites offering free software downloads. However, given the malware’s capabilities, cybercriminals could devise new distribution method so be ever more vigilant about phishing emails, strong passwords, multi factor authentication, ant virus updates etc. Whenever there is  a big data leak like this one, check whether your own credentials are compromised. T Cybernews has its own personal data leak checker, or  use Troy Hunt’s popular HaveIBeenPwned ,or Mozilla’s Firefox Monitor.

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Posted in Corporate Perfomance Management, Security and Compliance

Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT – ask Synergy Software Systems

September 27th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, AI-powered chatbots captured the world’s imagination because these enable users to gain knowledge, understand nuances around complex topics, and be creative using a simple chat interface.

This experience aligns directly with Power Automate’s goal for everyone to benefit from the power of automation.

We now have a preview of a dedicated plugin for ChatGPT that lets users leverage the automation capabilities of Power Automate, directly from the ChatGPT experience!

Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT

Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT enables users to create, list and run flows from ChatGPT.

It leverages Power Automate’s natural language to flow authoring experience to help users create flows directly from ChatGPT.

The brand new “Skills Connector” and “Run a flow from Copilot trigger” helps you to discover and to invoke flows from the ChatGPT interface.

The plugin always ensures that you can either review the created flow, or which flow was selected to be run before it is executed. This human-in-the-loop oversight is critical to help users benefit from the power of generative AI responsibly.

Enabl3 makers to author no-code skills for ChatGPT

The new Copilot trigger, makers can create custom flows to be invoked directly from within ChatGPT, to increase ChatGPT’s capabilities without writing any code.

A maker can write flows that use the power of 1000+ connectors, together with desktop automation, and AI-based intelligent automation, and invoke those from the familiar ChatGPT experience. Or they can combine this plugin with other plugins to build transformative experiences.

ChatGPT is the first chat-based Large Language Model (LLM) experience that uses this new integration.

Getting Started with the Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT

The Power Automate plugin for ChatGPT is available for all ChatGPT Plus users. Once you have a Power Automate account and a ChatGPT Plus account, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to your ChatGPT account and go to the Plugins section
  2. Find and install the Power Automate plugin
  3. Log in to your Power Automate account and authorize the plugin

To start conversing with ChatGPT, use a prompt such as “Create a flow to post a notification to a Teams channel when a new file is added to a SharePoint folder”.

Use prompts such as “Show my flows” or “What are all my flows” to see a list of flows ChatGPT knows about. Only flows that use the new trigger are exposed to ChatGPT.

Create and run your first Flow from ChatGPT

Use Power Automate Plugin for ChatGPT to run flows. Any flow that has the “Run a flow from Copilot” trigger can be invoked from within ChatGPT. – these Flows are called “Skills”. Follow the steps below to author your first Flow-based skill:

  1. Login to the Power Automate portal, and use the Default environment
  2. Select Create on the left side menu
  3. Choose “Instant cloud flow”
  4. Choose “Run a flow from Copilot” as the trigger
  5. Add any inputs to the trigger that you want to collect as part of the run. For example, if your flow will perform an approval, what’s the Title, Description, etc.
  6. Add any actions to the flow, based on what you want the flow to do. All the power of Power Automate is at your disposal! For example, to just create an approval, just add that action to the flow
  7. Save the flow with a name that signifies what the flow does Ex: “Create an approval”
  8. Test the flow to ensure it does what you’ve intended using the Test or Run Flow option

Run this flow from ChatGPT with prompts relevant to the title and description of your flows, for example “Create an approval” or “Start an approval”. ChatGPT will reply with a link to run the flow where you enter and review any inputs to the flow before submitting the flow run.

Flow run experience from ChatGPT

 

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Posted in Uncategorized

Co-Pilot for Process Mining – ask Synergy Software System

September 27th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

Last month Microsoft  announced the general availability of Microsoft Power Automate Process Mining. .

Customers are able to unlock recommendations for automations and solutions to address inefficiencies. 

This month they announced the availability of new Copilot capabilities in Power Automate Process Mining (in limited preview—US only). You can try it for free with a Power Automate trial license.

How Copilot is democratizing process mining

Identifying opportunities for automation or adoption of transformative technology, like generative AI, needs understanding your process or and a clear way to prioritize investments.

Power Automate Process Mining enables organizations to identify inefficiencies and to accelerate digital transformation of their processes.

Use Copilot in Power Automate Process Mining, to arrive at such insights and empower everyone in your organization to make data-driven decisions.

Copilot in Power Automate Process Mining helps you discover processes from your event logs and to then map attributes to the required data schema. Uncover your top insights with a quick exchange with Copilot, which iteratively works with you to answer questions on your data, and then surfaces automatization or optimization recommendations. Copilot even surfaces one-click suggestions of other Copilots, passing along context of your process goals to get to automations and solutions faster.

Generative AI is transformational, and with Power Automate Process Mining, organizations can quickly pinpoint where to apply it first, second, and subsequently for maximum ROI.

 Use Copilot in Power Automate Process Mining to reduce ‘time to value’ to achieve process excellence in the organization. It can help to identify the process and subsequently with data ingestion, to uncover the key process insights into inefficiencies and provide one-click suggestions of other Copilot-assisted automations and solutions. 

The entire flow is powered by low-code and AI to drastically reduce both time and skills needed to tackle complex processes in your organization.

  • Copilot in Power Automate Process Mining uses large language models to recognize attributes and data in your event log to aid with process identification and automapping to the required data schema. In our example, a procure-to-pay (P2P) process is identified directly from the event log stored in Azure Data Lake. Copilot then guides in mapping these attributes for analysis. Web portal for Process Mining, file selection highlighted with Copilot card describing the process as “Process discovered! The most likely process mining business process given the file headers and data is the Procure-to-Pay (P2P) process. Once the process is analyzed, Copilot can accelerate your journey by providing top insights on the bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the process. Without having to analyze the visual process map or variants, and without digging deep into the root cause analysis, you can identify process bottlenecks and the most important facts about your current process. Traditionally, it could take process analysts weeks or months to define a process, depict it, and then identify opportunities for automation. In our P2P process example, not only did Copilot identify that the longest variant of the process is a week longer than the second-longest variant, indicating that it is a high ROI area for optimization, but Copilot also flagged a compliance issue of purchase orders being created without purchase requisitions in place.
Desktop application representing a process map with activities and sequence lines of those activities. Copilot has summarized the top statistics for the process following the “Provide the top insights” prompt given to Copilot.
  • Copilot then identifies other Copilot experiences in your enterprise that can help deploy solutions and automations to achieve process excellence. In our P2P process example, Copilot has offered two suggestions to solve the bottleneck of purchase orders being created with purchase requisitions and causing churn for the business:
    • A Power Automate cloud flow that will send a Microsoft Teams alert any time this compliance issue arises which can be implemented by using Copilot in Power Automate.
    • An update to an existing Microsoft Power Apps app, created by using the P2P enterprise application template, to include a list of at-risk purchase orders that can be implemented using Copilot in Power Apps.
Desktop application representing a process map with activities and sequence lines of those activities. Copilot has surfaced recommendations for addressing bottleneck through a Power Automate “create a flow” card and an Power App “update your app” card

With the native integration of Power Automate Process Mining with Microsoft Power BI, users track through custom Power BI reports and dashboards how implementation of optimizations impact process efficiency and other essential business metrics. Integrate these key performance indicators as Goals in Power BI scorecards. Unlock other powerful AI features like Power BI Q&A via natural language capability in Power BI to enable business users across the organization to quickly get answers from their data .

Get started with Copilot

The preview of Power Automate Process Mining Copilot is available in the US and will roll out to other countries over the next several weeks.

If you already have a Power Automate license, then to check out Copilot in Power Automate Process Mining preview by logging into the Power Automate portal.

Or try Power Automate Process Mining for free with the Power Automate trial license.

Power Automate Process Mining is available for sale via all channels and in all regions where Microsoft Power Platform is currently sold. Please contact Synergy Software Systems 0097143365589

For licensing information, please visit Overview of process mining and task mining in Power Automate.

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Posted in Uncategorized

UAE e-commerce Emirate specific VAT reporting

August 18th, 2023 by Stephen Jones No comments »

The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has stressed the need for taxpayers to abide by accurate, emirate-specific Value Added Tax (VAT) reporting requirements in relation to e-Commerce.

The Authority noted that recent updates to the VAT legislation in the UAE, specifically around the reporting of e-Commerce supplies result in additional obligations for a number of persons when preparing their VAT returns.

The FTA emphasized that businesses must carefully assess whether they fall under the new reporting obligations, noting that failure to comply or compliance with the updated reporting when not required may result in mistakes and expose companies to potential penalties.

Starting from 1 July 2023 and in the VAT return for the first tax period starting on or after that date, “qualifying registrants” are required to:

  • report supplies made through e-commerce in box 1 of their VAT Return, based on the Emirate in which the supply of goods or services is received by the customer.
  • They are also required to retain the relevant supporting evidence.
  • If a taxpayer is not a qualifying registrant or if a supply is not an e-commerce supply, then the taxable business must report its supplies in the Emirate where its fixed establishment related to the supplies made is located.

The FTA of UAE has recently issued certain user manuals on

The FTA explained that starting from 1 July 2023, and in the VAT return for the first tax period starting on or after that date, “qualifying registrants” are required to report supplies made through e-commerce in box 1 of their VAT Return, based on the Emirate in which the supply of goods or services is received by the customer. They are also required to retain the relevant supporting evidence. If a taxpayer is not a qualifying registrant or if a supply is not an e-commerce supply, then, generally, the taxable business must report its supplies in the Emirate where its fixed establishment related to the supplies made is located.

The Authority called upon the taxpayers to review the relevant legislation and the clarifications provided by the FTA prior to their next VAT return submission process, to determine if:

 They have made e-commerce supplies in the calendar year ending on 31 December 2022

  • The value of these e-commerce supplies made in the previous calendar year exceeded AED100 million.

 The Federal Tax Authority noted that in order to assist taxpayers in preparing a correct VAT return, the FTA’s Tax administrations system (“EmaraTax”) will request taxpayers to respond to a set of 2 questions to confirm if they are indeed qualifying registrants with respect to the new e-commerce supplies reporting requirement. This double-check will aid taxpayers to submit a correct VAT reporting, avoiding any later corrections or penalties.

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Posted in Corporate Perfomance Management, Dubai and regional news, e procurement, Finance, Sunsystems and Vision