Ecovis Group relies on software from hsp

Hamburg, January 2021. For years now, Ecovis, a consultancy firm specialising in small and medium-sized enterprises, has been helping its clients to prepare procedural documentation. This is mandatory for tax audits. Ecovis has now found the right software to create this documentation efficiently: the Opti.Tax software from hsp.

For the consultancy firm Ecovis, which supports medium-sized companies, owner-managed businesses and self-employed professionals through over 100 offices across Germany, the benefits of the Opti.Tax software are clear: To collect all the data required for drawing up procedural documentation, it offers individual modules and an interview mode. This enables consultants and clients to work together by sharing tasks, clearly defining responsibilities and delegating them to staff. In addition, the software offers interfaces to Ecovis’s live system and to its in-house service platform for clients: Ecovis Online.

Unlike traditional word processing programmes, Opti.Tax ensures that data is complete and presents it in a clear and transparent manner within a comprehensive set of documentation. „Ultimately, the client ends up with procedural documentation that is as good as it gets,“ says Christoph Zehme, a member of the Executive Board of ECOVIS Europe AG and responsible for IT matters.

With the help of the version control feature that the software also offers, existing data can be optimised in subsequent years. This makes it possible to build up an excellent record of processes and procedures over time. With such procedural documentation In this way, companies not only fulfil their obligations during a tax audit, but also gain added value for their own control system through the consolidated knowledge of all data, processes and procedures. Companies can thus make existing working methods and processes transparent to all those involved and optimise them with the support of Ecovis.

Christoph Zehme is convinced that the importance of comprehensive procedural documentation will become particularly apparent over the next one to two years. During the coronavirus pandemic, business owners had to adapt many processes, such as changing the VAT rate twice. If these changes are not properly documented, there may be gaps in employees’ knowledge – and trouble during the next tax audit.