Can the Opti.List Does the archiving of till data prove to be practical in the event of a tax audit? At our client Mäntelhaus Kaiser in Hanover, the focus was on VAT, and the till data was therefore subjected to a number of checks.
About the Kaiser Coat Shop
Mäntelhaus Kaiser has a long history, having been founded in the 1920s. For a refined shopping experience in a stylish setting, Mäntelhaus Kaiser in Hanover is definitely the place to go. In the retail sector, the till system is the central hub for recording sales and correctly calculating VAT.
Mr Hamm, Commercial Director at Mäntelhaus Kaiser, relies on the Opti.List data archive for archiving financial accounting and till data. On request, the archive enables data to be exported in the IDEA description standard. Opti.Tax Doku is used and maintained for process documentation in accordance with GoBD.
If a tax audit focusing on VAT has been announced, these preparations are usually sufficient. However, Mr Hamm wanted to be on the safe side and booked a day’s consultancy with hsp in advance to check that the archiving and documentation were complete.
Cash register data: What matters
In the area of till data Care was taken to ensure that not only individual data records were retained, but that receipt slips, daily totals and master data were also present in the data archive without any gaps. Finally, the completeness of the following archiving objects was checked: cash register journal, receipt headers and receipt line items, receipt payment methods, and the associated master data (payment methods, product groups, cash register master data, tax codes and tax rates). The data was archived on a monthly basis, and everything was to be traceable in the documentation so that the audit could be faced with confidence.
The data had been made available to the tax authorities in advance. As a result, the tax inspector was well prepared when the on-site audit began. IDEA used all the till records to carry out specific audit procedures in order to identify any anomalies. Example: zero receipts. If the till is opened without a sale or other transaction having triggered it, a zero receipt is generated. These zero receipts were the focus of the audit. Turnover figures, categorised by tax code, were also cross-checked against the balance sheet data.
Mr Hamm says: „It is true that we did use an incorrect tax code for a few months. However, we had kept the error logs.“
The data was checked using the Benford and chi-square statistical methods – checks that are certainly meaningful when dealing with large datasets. The gap analysis of the Bonn numbers was a further check, which in one instance also revealed a gap.
Mr Hamm adds: „According to our investigation, this was a system crash at the till. The programme had apparently already reserved the receipt number, but the receipt was not finalised. However, there were no discrepancies in the accounts for that day.“
This made it possible to carry out a number of spot checks to verify whether the data provided matched that in the live system, as the stock management system can display the receipt once a receipt number has been entered. The auditor was able to satisfy herself that she had received the same data for analysis.
Mr Hamm therefore comes to the following conclusion: „We are very satisfied with how the till data audit went. We are surprised at how well the auditors are now able to check the data digitally. With Opti.List, we have the right software to make the till data available. I’m glad we took part in the workshop with hsp. That’s because important fields were unlocked during the workshop, without which the audit wouldn’t have been possible.“
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