Over the past few weeks, tax adviser Armin Schiehser and Paul Liese have worked with clients from various sectors to carry out numerous Procedural documentation written. In the live stream, the two of them talk about their experiences.

The interview in full

Paul Liese: A very warm welcome to another episode of hsp TV Livestream from our studio. I’m here all on my own today, but not really, because we’re about to ring Armin. As we’re a bit of a playful lot here at hsp and we love technology, we’ve got a brand-new, cool tool that lets us bring callers on air. We’re testing it live for the first time today. So, if it doesn’t work straight away, please bear with us. 

What’s it all about? Armin and I have been writing procedural documentation and would like to share with you what we’ve been doing so far and the insights we’ve gained.

Hi Armin, it's Paul.

Armin Schiehser: Hello, Paul.

Paul Liese: Can you hear me clearly?

Armin Schiehser: Yes, I can hear you clearly.

Paul Liese: That’s brilliant. Yes, we’ve got brand-new kit here. We’ve got this fantastic mixing desk, which can also connect to phones, and you’re the first to be able to communicate with us live via phone on the stream, whilst everyone else is watching on YouTube, Facebook and the like. I’m curious to see how it turns out later on.

Armin Schiehser: Yes, that’s an interesting technique. That’s right.

Paul Liese: We’ve both been working together over the last few months to draft procedural documentation, and we also had Manuel and Alex from your team on board. And in this stream, I wanted to talk to you about your insights – how the whole experience has felt for you at the firm, what lessons you’ve learnt from the projects so far, and, above all, what advice we can both offer other law firms when it comes to procedural documentation; whether it really is such a huge issue or whether it can actually be implemented efficiently and easily. What do you think?

Armin Schiehser: Well, we have actually got quite a few things off the ground through our collaboration since last November. We’ve implemented the whole issue of procedural documentation quite well here at my law firm. And essentially, it’s a process that’s still evolving in 2019. We started back then at the practical training days in Hanover, where we first came into contact with your programme. And then, by the middle of the year, the programme had evolved further in conjunction with steuerbüro.online, so that it is now an integrated system where we can work through a case very effectively together with our clients. And – as you’ve already mentioned – I now have a total of four staff members at my firm who are entrusted with this area. They are Martin Strhomenger, Alexander Kolar, primarily Manuel Just, and James Thrift. And that’s also the key to success – saying: „Right, I now have at least two staff members who are being trained in this area and with whom I can ultimately handle a case like this effectively within the programme“.

Paul Liese: Yes, that’s right. I’ve noticed that your staff’s learning curve has risen sharply the more projects you’ve carried out together, because they’ve come to understand what really matters. Would you say that the issue of process documentation can be implemented quickly and efficiently across the majority of clients – that is, smaller businesses? Or is it still such a huge challenge for you?

Armin Schiehser: No, it’s fair to say that the whole process can be handled quickly and efficiently. I can also say that both the staff I’ve assigned to this area and the clients are delighted with it. Particularly with the clients, I’ve received nothing but positive feedback; they didn’t feel burdened at all – in fact, they found the collaboration straightforward and efficient. And it’s also worth noting that my staff say: „Wow, I’m getting a completely different insight into the client and can also process the whole thing efficiently and then go through it with the client.“ You can then also create a report, which is very easy to manage in the integrated system with Opti.Tax.

„All topics that really interest me“

Paul Liese: You’ve just raised an important point: client feedback. Was it consistently positive? Were the clients also able to derive added value for themselves from the fact that we took a look at their processes?

Armin Schiehser: Yes, definitely. First of all, in practical terms, the client gained a lot of insights. Let me illustrate this with the example of a tradesperson from the gas and plumbing sector whom we worked with: He came back afterwards and said: „Wow, what you’ve identified regarding materials management and mobile time recording – those are all topics that really interest me, and I’d simply like some more input on them.’ So you could say that here you’re genuinely seen as a management consultant who deals with processes and who, of course, can then also offer input. Not just someone who does the bookkeeping or manages some kind of ‘graveyard of figures’, but someone who really plays an active role within the company.”.

Paul Liese: But that’s what makes it all so exciting for your team – getting to experience new things, isn’t it?

Armin Schiehser: That’s definitely the case. In our practice, we don’t just provide pure tax advice; we essentially offer business consultancy and business planning, and now we’re also increasingly focusing on procedural documentation as well as private wealth planning. We’ve had a regular team meeting – that is, all the staff from the firm sit down together; we discuss the plans for the coming month and what happened in the past month – and, naturally, everyone was very keen to hear what we’ve actually been doing in the area of procedural documentation. And that, in turn, adds value for the tax adviser, because there’s always talk of a skills shortage and so on – of course, there may be a shortage of skilled workers – but you simply have to look at potential employees to see who might be of interest to the firm. Take Manuel Just, for example, who is leading this project alongside me; he’s a qualified office administrator. He started working for me in 2019. We’ve started by training him in financial accounting and payroll. He already had a knack for IT from the outset. We’ve made the business area appealing to him, and he feels completely at home there.

Armin Schiehser: Yes, well, basically it’s like this, of course: the client is convinced by the whole thing. That’s the first point. And secondly, it’s also the case that the client clearly recognises a benefit – a benefit that is effective and far-reaching. And that’s the main point, too. No matter what services we offer at the firm, we’re always selling the client a benefit. And they see that benefit immediately after the meeting, once we’ve assessed the system, identified any weaknesses and worked out where we can help. And that’s why it’s also very important not to sell it by saying: „The tax office requires this.“ Yes, we do that too, but ultimately we simply sell it to the client as an opportunity for optimisation.

Paul Liese: It has to be said that there was scope for improvement in each of the projects. There wasn’t a single one where we could say it was perfectly organised.

Armin Schiehser: That’s right, exactly. Among the cases we’ve handled so far, there hasn’t been a single one where we’ve said that everything was running 100 per cent smoothly. And that, of course, is another added benefit. We tackle various sectors, which we then work on together. And once you’ve built up a wealth of experience from 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 sets of procedural documentation, the whole process becomes even better structured and significantly better than what you delivered at the start. Because so many things do tend to repeat themselves. My colleague Manuel Just also says: „I’ve learnt so much already that I feel increasingly confident in the process.“ For example, I recently had a discussion with a large tax consultancy firm. They have over 100 staff. They wanted to discuss the topic of procedural documentation with me. We spoke this week. They told me how they handle it. They actually do it using Word reports and checklists – in other words, without any integrated system. And they said that it’s difficult to get something like that done within a reasonable timeframe. My clear response afterwards was that I wouldn’t create anything like that in Word at all, because I’d essentially have to create a new report from scratch every single time, and that if you want to work professionally here, you need a professional system – one that’s integrated, where you can work on the client’s file, digitise it, and have the whole process optimally supported.”.

Paul Liese: And that it’s best to involve the client directly in the preparation process. Something else I found very interesting: we’d conducted this interview with Philipp Helmig and his team at steuerbüro.online right at the start of the projects. And my feedback from the penultimate project we carried out was that this interview went down very well and that the clients were able to work their way through it with very little support. Right?

Armin Schiehser: That’s exactly right. It’s perfect. Philipp Helmig and his team, and you all, have done a brilliant job. Every client can easily fill in this checklist. If not, then those points simply remain open. Then you can sort them out afterwards. But by then, the client has already done some valuable groundwork. And what’s really good is that this data is transferred straight away to Opti.Tax, where it’s available, and you can then continue working on it online. This means that, here too, the client doesn’t need to be at the practice at all for us to work through it, nor do I need to be on site at the client’s premises. It can all be done via a Zoom meeting. This is particularly good for me, as I have clients all over Germany. In Stuttgart, for example, we had that one client we worked on together. It really does run smoothly – professionally and digitally.”.

„Professional and digitalised“

Paul Liese: Yes, and that also builds trust with clients. If you work like this, fully digitised – and by ‘digitised’ I don’t just mean sending out checklists by email, but genuine digital workflows – it also builds trust in your firm, so that clients who want to work this way feel they’re getting the best possible support and can see that this approach is actually being put into practice. We really enjoy developing things like this and, above all, seeing later on how the whole thing works and is put into practice.

I’ve got another treat in store for you: last week we started developing the interface with DATEV so we can retrieve the master data from there. And DATEV replied today asking us to please name three law firms that would be willing to act as pilot clients to test this interface. So I wanted to ask you whether we should start the test at your firm next week.

Armin Schiehser: Yes, of course, I’d be happy to! That’s another milestone that makes the work even easier. I’d be delighted!

Paul Liese: In that case, we’ll organise it so that our IT team will arrange for the release to be installed on your systems next week. It will be a beta version, as I mentioned, because it’s currently in the testing phase. And then we can gather feedback on it together.

Is there anything else you’d like to add? Anything important that our viewers should know?

Armin Schiehser: For my part, I can really only recommend giving it a go and then eventually getting into this field. After all, with Opti.Tax and Philipp Hellmig – that is, with steuerbüro.online – the conditions are ideal. And if, as a practice, you manage to recruit one or two more staff members for this, it’s definitely a promising venture that I can wholeheartedly recommend to everyone. It’s also worth noting that, so far, very few tax advisers offer this sort of service at all.

Paul Liese: Yes. I think there is both the potential and the market to use this to establish a new area of practice within the firm.

Armin Schiehser: Definitely.

Paul Liese: Have you had a look at our new magazine yet? NERD ALERT Have you read through it?

Armin Schiehser: I haven’t read it through yet. I’ve seen that the hsp has made it available, but I’ll read through it as soon as possible – by the weekend at the latest.

Paul Liese: We can’t recommend it highly enough. The topics and projects are really interesting. Armin, I’d like to say a big thank you for your time and your candid comments on the subject. I’m looking forward to the next project we’ll be tackling.

Armin Schiehser: Thank you very much from me too, and I’m also looking forward to the next project we’ll be tackling.

Paul Liese: Best wishes to your team. And have a lovely evening.

Armin Schiehser: You too! Take care!