To minimise the time and resources required during a tax audit, companies should prepare as thoroughly as possible. A thorough analysis of company data – one that is simple to carry out and easy to understand – is essential for this. To achieve this, hsp from Hamburg and the Bonn-based software company humanIT are integrating their software tools, OptiView and InfoZoom. hsp CEO Paul Liese and Thomas Morgenstern, Account Manager at humanIT, explained the benefits of this collaboration and the objectives pursued by the two companies in „hsp live at 11“.

Before we turn to the topic of collaboration, our guest introduces himself and the company humanIT. The Bonn-based software firm was founded in 1997 as a spin-off from the Fraunhofer Institute. Its remit – to enable large volumes of data to be visualised clearly – provided the impetus for its flagship product, InfoZoom. Since 2003, humanIT Software GmbH has been part of the proALPHA Group, based in Weilerbach near Kaiserslautern. humanIT currently employs around 50 people. The InfoZoom software is used by some 100,000 professionals across just over 2,500 client organisations.

Thomas Morgenstern joined the company in 2019 as a sales representative. Even back then, he was immediately impressed by InfoZoom and the software’s ability to intuitively sift through vast amounts of data. Users can review and analyse data without any programming knowledge. A wide variety of data sources can be tapped into with the greatest of ease. Thomas Morgenstern actually comes from a background in graphic design; he developed his sales skills in the paper industry and entered the technology sector eleven years ago. For a time, he worked for LexisNexis, a platform provider for the compliance sector. He then moved to an IT company in Bavaria that had developed a ticketing system.

View and analyse company data in near real time

hsp and humanIT have actually been working together for a long time, and this collaboration is now being revitalised. hsp offers the Opti.View product, which presents GDPdU and GoBD company data in tabular form. Paul explains that he has repeatedly heard of tax audits turning out differently than expected. For instance, issues were uncovered that the firm had previously overlooked. Or, matters that were difficult to understand were raised or criticised. Some firms therefore wanted the option of being able to simulate a tax audit themselves in advance. However, this required a method for extracting usable results for data analysis from large volumes of data.

This is precisely where humanIT’s InfoZoom software came into play. InfoZoom takes the data provided by Opti.View and enables it to be displayed graphically, as well as facilitating a thorough, comprehensive analysis. A key feature here is InfoZoom’s in-memory technology. This involves loading the bulk data into main memory so that it is available almost in real time for any operations within InfoZoom. A computer’s main memory is the fastest available storage and serves as the computer’s cache. It is not suitable for the permanent storage of data, but can make data available to work processes with minimal access time. InfoZoom utilises this feature to – as the name suggests – enable users to zoom in and out anywhere within the mass data. In Excel, there was a row limit of 65,536 for a long time; in 2007, this was increased to 1,048,576 rows. In InfoZoom, these limits do not exist. Thomas tells of a customer who pushes the software to its limits with around 480 million records. With data on such a scale, processing can sometimes take a while. However, typical data volumes can usually be handled almost in real time.

Tame and make use of big data with just a few clicks

Opti.View is capable of generating an XML file from the imported data if one does not already exist. Furthermore, during import, the programme checks the data for plausibility and flags any errors. Paul starts the live demo by importing data records, which he then exports for data analysis. After just a few clicks and a few seconds, InfoZoom opens with the imported data records. During the demo, Paul works with around 100,000 data records, which he can display on a single page with a single mouse click. Naturally, the details are no longer visible at this level, but the bars provide an excellent and unique overview of the transactions. You can now zoom in from the overall view to any part of the data to clarify specific questions.

A standout feature that makes the programme accessible to almost any non-expert is the so-called „queries“ – also known in the StB sector as „check macros“. These pre-built macros allow users to clarify a query or carry out a specific analysis with a single click. To demonstrate this, Paul creates a clear Benford analysis with just three clicks. A concise chart is displayed immediately. Paul then shows the ‘Gaps in Bonnumbers’ query type. He now clicks on the ‘Difference’ row, which displays the difference to the next Bonnumber. A consecutive Bon number has a difference of 1. If a Bon number is missing, the difference to the next Bon number is, logically, 2. A table shows how often the difference is 2 or higher. If many Bon numbers are missing, this indicates a problem. The client can address this before it becomes an issue during the next tax audit.

On the hsp.community, hsp has made an e-learning course available on the topic: „Data Formats & Data Analysis“ with Wolfgang Schönwaldt. This brings Paul’s demonstration to a close. Thomas then gives a brief insight into the future of InfoZoom. The team at humanIT is currently working on a cloud-based solution for InfoZoom. Furthermore, it is envisaged that, at some point, AI will enable forecasts to be generated based on company data.