The Value of Process Documentation | with Raphael Kammer

In this interview: Raphael Kammer, Managing Partner at DPK Digital

This topic is more relevant than ever: tax advisers can provide crucial support to their clients as they embark on their digital transformation. By working together to draw up process documentation, they lay the foundations for the future. And tax advisers position themselves as key points of contact for strategic business decisions and future-oriented issues.

Process consultancy for digital efficiency – that is DPK Digital’s mission. They have already produced countless process documentation projects for their clients. Managing Partner Raphael Kammer speaks to hsp Managing Director Paul Liese about their experiences. What can tax advisers do to convince their clients of the benefits of process documentation? What should they bear in mind? And why does DPK Digital rely on hsp’s Opti.Tax when creating process documentation?

Paul Liese: A warm welcome to another livestream from hsp GmbH! Our guest today is Raphael. We’d actually planned to have a second guest as well.

Raphael Kammer: That’s right.

Paul Liese: Unfortunately, Carola can’t make it. We wish her a speedy recovery!
Raphael, why don’t you introduce yourself? They all know me, after all. Why are you here?

Raphael Kammer: My name is Raphael Kammer. I was born in Hamburg. So, in that sense, we’re only a few kilometres apart here in the city. I come from a medium-sized tax consultancy in Hamburg. At the end of 2018, we set out to explore new consulting opportunities for tax consultancy firms and focused our efforts on the field of process digitalisation. We achieved this by spinning off this activity into a separate company. Since then, we have primarily been focusing on process digitalisation and process optimisation in the accounts departments of our clients, as well as those of companies that are not clients of this firm.

Paul Liese: Is that something you two do together?

Raphael Kammer: No, we’re a team of four people in operations, five in total – we’ve also got a second managing director. Three of them are consultants, and we have a team and project assistant who supports us.

Paul Liese: And is the main focus now on introducing „DATEV Unternehmen online“ to clients, or are you taking a broader approach to the issue?

Raphael Kammer: We’re taking a broader approach to the subject, and fortunately, that generally works out well. „DATEV Unternehmen online“ always plays a part when you’re working in the field of accounts preparation at a tax practice, because it’s an essential tool for getting all the data records and document images into the practice. But what really appeals to us are the areas where we can get involved in the company’s business processes. We’ve already provided support for other accounting systems – other source systems, all kinds of travel expenses or expense claims, entire payment processes, everything that plays a part in a company’s day-to-day operations.

Paul Liese: You set up a company specifically for that purpose. What was your motivation for doing so?

Raphael Kammer: On the one hand, we believe that specialising may have something to do with future market positioning. Tax advisers are certainly already aware of certain issues and, in some cases, even anticipate them – this is also demonstrated by the findings of DATEV studies. And we believe that by spinning this off into a separate venture, we can achieve a wider reach and also support more businesses in optimising their administrative processes – this is a slightly broader scope of what we aim to focus on. After all, it is not necessary for companies to be clients of the firm; rather, we offer our services generally to any company that shows an interest in our services on the market.

Paul Liese: Right. And how’s the response?

Raphael Kammer: We are seeing positive results on both counts. Not only are the firm’s clients pleased with our services, but so are companies that are not actually clients.

Paul Liese: In other words, when a client is referred to you by Dierkes Partner, your parent firm, what expectations do they have when they come to you? What have they been told about engaging with you?

Raphael Kammer: Yes, that’s interesting. It has a lot to do with how we promote the portfolio we’ve developed recently within the firm. After all, the first point of contact is usually the tax adviser, the partner, the team leader or the client manager – it always depends on the size of the company – and I’ve actually already received enquiries along the lines of: „Why don’t you have a word with Raphael Kammer? He can help you choose a programme (for the construction sector) that’ll best enable you to take part in tendering processes.“ So the scope is very, very broad, ranging right down to really specific issues, such as „Invoices need to be audited or approved digitally, or the processes need to be made more efficient“. We’ve also looked at HR systems. How can digital HR management be properly implemented? Digital signatures. Collaborative working also plays a role for us. We ourselves work with Microsoft environments such as Microsoft Teams and similar tools. And we’re already noticing that there’s a definite need for companies to address the organisational implications of these programmes, rather than simply focusing on the „How do I get this implemented? How do I get security under control?“. In our view, that is the job of IT system integrators or partners who specialise in such matters. Questions need to be answered, such as: How do we actually work with this now? What impact does this have on the way we work? Because this is, after all, very much a generational issue – chat-based and context-sensitive communication, and things like that. We have to be honest: we’re still finding our feet here and working with our clients to identify the right starting point for us to take action.

Paul Liese: Now the client gets in touch with you. What’s your approach then? Is it a case of you still having to win them over and make a sale, or is it more along the lines of: „This is the situation we’re in. We want to achieve this goal. Please help us to achieve it.“?

Raphael Kammer: The latter is, of course, what we ultimately aim to achieve. However, as things stand, we are still in the exploratory phase. There are certain areas where we have developed our own consultancy processes. We have essentially structured this so that we have two modules. We have the „Fibu Digital Duo“. Here, we handle the basic digitalisation for a client who initially says: „Accounting is and will remain the tax adviser’s responsibility.“ The main aim here is to replace the physical file folder. However, we already provide support to the extent that we ask: „What else can you actually do with it?“ and to at least gradually start exploring this topic. However, these are generally companies that are still at a relatively early stage in terms of digital maturity. And then we have „Fibu Digital Plus“. Here we take a modular approach; the prerequisites are already met in the preparatory bookkeeping stage. We look specifically at what needs to be done, for example, in the area of travel costs and expense management, how to properly address e-invoicing in future, traceability during invoice audits and approval, and then, of course, the very issue that brought us both together: GoBD requirements. We now affectionately refer to the whole thing as „process documentation with potential“.

Paul Liese: So, PMP.

Process documentation with potential

Raphael Kammer: Yes, you could also give that an abbreviation, that’s right. The issue of process documentation is, after all, something of an obligation that the company has to fulfil. And from the law firm’s point of view, it’s the sort of argument where you can use a touch of fear to sell the idea – „you need this“. Then we’re happy to take on the brief and see it through. But what we’d actually prefer is to guide the client by showing them the potential that can arise from digitalisation, automation and, subsequently, the interlinking of information. From our point of view, this is therefore a very essential building block that’s necessary to carry this out in a serious and professional manner.

Paul Liese: Yes. But when it comes to the first two modules you’ve just mentioned, it’s actually important that you know how the client operates today.

Raphael Kammer: That’s right.

Paul Liese: So, in process documentation, you really need to establish in every situation what the current status is, what the objective is and how to achieve it.

Raphael Kammer: Yes, it’s a bit like the rough draft you use as a basis. But we’ve also come across cases where clients have said: „Well, we just work with paper. The way we’re used to.“ There’s the ring binder, which is provided for that purpose. Then there are incoming invoices, outgoing invoices and the till. So it’s fairly straightforward. What they primarily want from us is the solution. They say: „Please implement this. You don’t actually need to assess the current situation in any great detail.“ We support that approach when we can confirm that the processes are truly standard. Implementing it in this way is customer-focused and solution-oriented, and afterwards there’s the documentation to ensure the whole thing complies with procedures. With larger companies, of course, it’s a slightly different challenge. We’ve got an interesting case at the moment where you’ve been involved right from the start. As part of the actual process documentation, we’ve discovered that, alongside all the potential that can be identified, there is a great deal of critical business knowledge stored in the minds of employees and owners who have been with the company for a very long time and who are now approaching the end of their working lives. This can also be a finding from a structured process review.

Paul Liese: Yes, all of a sudden you realise who is particularly important to the company.

Raphael Kammer: Exactly.

Paul Liese: I also had a conversation with a consultant recently, during which we both agreed that I should have process documentation if I want to sell my business, because then I can talk to a potential buyer on a completely different level and demonstrate how my business is organised and structured, and who the key people are that they will still need. Otherwise, I always end up in a situation where the buyer is faced with a certain degree of uncertainty.

Raphael Kammer: Yes, that does touch on the question a bit: what exactly is the point of doing this? For us, the motivation and vision we’re pursuing is that we don’t want to simply produce documentation to be shelved, but rather to generate added value from it. Today, that added value naturally lies in the implementation, and when you look at the topic of digitalisation, that’s actually quite obvious. You record the processes, digitise the potential, then look for the right systems to achieve the highest possible level of automation, and afterwards you analyse the results. And that’s where the topic of data integration comes in. This naturally has a wide-ranging impact, both on processes within the company and on the company’s value, positioning and competitiveness. And this is exactly what counts when you want to sell the company – showing the buyer what actually lies beneath the surface that is immediately visible from the outside. In this context, I also believe that the importance of processes within companies will continue to grow in the future, because standardisation forms the basis for effective process optimisation. And this isn’t a one-off exercise; rather, once you’ve entered this process management phase, you’re continuously engaged in the improvement process. When you break it down, this brings about a major transformation within a company: once you’ve got to grips with how you work, you then start to work on yourself and your working methods.

Paul Liese: Yes. It was interesting – whenever I wrote documentation with clients, I’d always get the same feedback: „Gosh, now I know more about my business.“ Why is that? Because, whilst we’re talking about their processes and documenting them at the same time, they immediately take stock, slow down their thinking and start questioning the ‘why’ behind things.
Another question: What sort of background do you and your team have? Where are you from, and what enables you to do these things for your clients?

Raphael Kammer: I’ll start with my team. We have one male consultant and one female consultant. They’re from the law firm. Nico trained as a tax clerk, worked for a long time in a tax practice and in auditing, gained experience as a paramedic at the same time, and has only just completed a degree in industrial engineering. Most recently, he was working in auditing and was keen to focus more on the field of digitalisation. Carola comes from the firm’s administrative department. She trained as a legal assistant, went on to study business administration, and then worked for a long time in the firm’s administrative department, providing increasing support for „Unternehmen online“ cases from the firm’s side. We then welcomed them both into my team. Then, as I said, we were able to recruit a team and project assistant from a property management firm – someone from our circle of acquaintances, so we already knew each other – because we explained that the way we would be working would be different from that in a traditional law firm. It’s clear to us – and this was a deliberate choice – that we’re doing more project-based work. Of course, due to the coronavirus, things are now running a little differently than expected. The intensity of the workshops isn’t quite what we’d hoped for at the moment. For me, workshops are always a sign that you’re working things out together with the company. Of course, this can also be done virtually, but not quite as intensively or effectively as it is when done in person. And a bit about myself: in my 20s, whilst studying law, I took my first steps into the world of business and worked extensively in the entertainment industry. I helped run both large-scale events and smaller nightclubs, and gained experience in the hospitality sector. I then got into accounting via a small business and restructuring consultancy. This is a firm that has taken over many companies in crisis and then put them on a path to continued operation. And because these were smaller companies, I realised that we actually had to provide all the consultancy services ourselves; we couldn’t simply buy them in. That’s how I got into accounting and tax. And I found it so fascinating that I wanted to explore it further. I then went on to study business administration in Kiel, and in early 2014 I joined Dierkes Partner in Hamburg with the aim of becoming a tax adviser. However, I’d already gained some experience on the corporate side beforehand. That must have been in 2010 or 2011. I was working for an online shop that had developed its own back-end system, and even back then I was working with a very digitally-minded tax adviser from Cologne. She worked with us to introduce „Unternehmen online“. Back then, „Unternehmen online“ was still a traditional, blue-screen interface, and that was the first time I actively engaged with the topic of digital accounting – both in terms of data records from a back-end system and the traditional process of transferring documents and pre-recording entries. I learnt about this whilst working on the corporate side. And that has stayed with me to this day, so I’ve always looked at all the cases in that light when I was handling accounting mandates at the firm; as a result, I had many online mandates very early on, and I tried to steer clients a little in that direction as well. And so the idea subsequently arose within the firm to try something in the field of digitalisation. And for tax firms, this is often a recommendation – or at least a trend – to get involved in. We started out by focusing on digitalisation, and it took a while before we evolved into process consultancy and digital efficiency.

Paul Liese: What were the obstacles?

Raphael Kammer: There weren’t really any obstacles. The question was: how do you actually interpret or define the service on offer? What exactly do we do? From my point of view, it’s a form of management consultancy. But even that covers a broad spectrum. That takes us to strategy consultancy, organisational and process consultancy, HR consultancy and IT consultancy. What exactly do tax advisers actually offer? And what do the firms take off your hands? Because if you take a look at the firm landscape, there are also firms that position themselves in the IT sector, dealing with IT security and all those topics. But then there are also those that position themselves in the field of finance or traditional business management consultancy. There’s certainly pure strategy consultancy too. We’re not talking about the „Next 10“ firms here, but about the broader SME sector. Dierkes Partner has 150 employees organised across a multidisciplinary structure. We’ve already given some thought to what would be a sensible addition. And when I first started thinking about what that business area might be, my approach was to say: „We’ve got digital strategy, we’ve got processes, and we’ve got the topic of business models.“ We’ve decided to step back from the topic of business models for the time being, as it’s a very diverse area. Although we’ve also looked into modern business modelling methods – such as the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition and Customer Journey – over the last few years, we’ve decided for now that our focus lies on processes.

Paul Liese: Why do you think digital transformation consultancy belongs within a law firm? Why isn’t this the sort of issue where the consultant realises the client could be more digital and simply says, „Give your IT provider a ring. They’ll sort it out for you“? Why a law firm in particular?

Raphael Kammer: Well, whether that’s exactly where it belongs, we’ll have to wait and see. IT system integrators, for example, are also trying to establish themselves in the market, and in my experience they often face the challenge of providing active advice and really getting people on board. They’re used to the approach: „We’ve got the computer, we’ve got the hardware, we’ve got the software – that’s what needs selling.“ Then the customer actually comes along and says, ‘I’d like that.’ As for tax accountancy firms, they’re actually quite well positioned in terms of their focus, because they handle the accounting side – payroll, financial accounting, all the tax return activities – for many businesses. It’s a given that every business needs an accounting function. They have a specialism that can readily be applied to processes. And I’m certain that process optimisation today takes place using digital tools. There are very few, if any, processes I can think of where digital solutions play no role at all. That is why I believe that, from this perspective, it makes perfect sense for a firm to position itself in this area. And I also think there is an inherent necessity, given the potential for automation in precisely these fields – namely the preparation of financial accounts, payroll accounting, preparing annual accounts and tax returns – to look to the future and consider what this will mean for the firms’ revenue streams.

Paul Liese: What that actually means is that when I, as a law firm, help my client to become more digital across the whole field of accountancy, I am also supporting my own firm.

Raphael Kammer: That’s right.

Digitalisation helps both sides

Paul Liese: After all, if I’m still receiving the paper files today and my staff have to type them up, whilst I could have made the process more digital for the client beforehand, that does have an impact on the processes within my own practice. So this isn’t just something I’m doing for my client, but also for myself as the practice owner.

Raphael Kammer: Exactly, that’s one thing. And what we do for one another is work more intensively on the relationship, because as consultants we clearly demonstrate that we’re looking to the future and therefore adapt our consultancy services so that the benefits aren’t just for the firm, but are actually transferred to the client company – because that’s where process optimisation comes in, at least when you’re thinking about the exchange of accounting data. I believe many law firms are currently still facing the challenge of getting their own processes right so that, with the digital information provided, they can actually continue to work as efficiently and in as organised a manner as one imagines on the drawing board. Our slogan is, and always has been, that bookkeeping begins with the client, and that is therefore where implementation should start. In the past, I’ve often observed that companies tended to perceive it as their tax adviser wanting them to introduce „online business“. And in the worst-case scenario, all the analogue processes within the company are retained; the documents are simply scanned, made available to the tax adviser via upload, and then filed away again in the analogue archiving system.

Paul Liese: But isn’t it the consultant’s fault that he doesn’t engage with the client and explain why? And that he should actually have looked at the client’s processes beforehand to see what added value using Duo would bring to the client?

Raphael Kammer: Yes, certainly. But I think the question is whether the adviser already recognises the potential there and also whether they feel capable of supporting the client in that regard.

Paul Liese: And I think another thing a consultant can do – I had a case like this yesterday afternoon – is to identify a particular process situation at the client’s firm and very quickly work out how much the client would save in terms of time, and therefore in terms of the hours they pay their staff, by changing those processes.

Raphael Kammer: You’re referring to the traditional approach to legal costs there.

Paul Liese: Yes. And then yesterday came the argument: „Well, what am I supposed to do with the staff? I don’t want to send them home.“ I said: „You don’t have to. You can put them to work on other projects within your company. After all, you’ve got plenty of other areas that need attention which you haven’t been able to tackle yet.“

Raphael Kammer: In that case, you’ve actually come across a situation where the organisation is very well-resourced in terms of administrative tasks. A lot of what we’re seeing at the moment is that companies are saying they need more staff. And I always say: „Hold on a moment before you go and hire them.“ For a start, it’s not that easy to find people right now, and often, through the right process optimisation and digitalisation, you can actually quickly reduce the need for additional capacity. But I also believe that we’re not yet at the point where we’re talking about traditional rationalisation; rather, process optimisation makes us more efficient to begin with, and then – as I understand it – there are many tasks that still need to be carried out by human hands. The challenge is certainly to support and empower people who have been doing the same job for many years so that they can then take on new tasks.

Paul Liese: You’ve now told us where the four of you are from and what your backgrounds are. What was the learning curve like in terms of becoming successful in the field of digitalisation consultancy?

Raphael Kammer: At the start, we experimented a lot with different ways of working. My aim was to set up my own company and organise it myself. For example, we don’t use DATEV. We do use it for the final accounts, but we looked for agency software because we work on a project-by-project basis, we need something where we can record project phases and log our hours. But it was clear to us right from the start that we operate less within the traditional realm of „billable hours“, but rather generate a project volume and then deliver the result for that. And we spent a bit of time thinking about that. We started very simply by asking: what phases does a project actually consist of? We’d never done that in the firm before. That’s because there are tasks that are very specialised, where traditional project organisation wasn’t really necessary at all. We made our first attempt in 2019. We managed the initial phase by using our own company to digitise the firm’s processes. For example, the whole issue of full digitisation – specifically, the accounting side of service provision – was one of our projects, which we launched at the firm in 2019. And we did this properly, with our own project plan and a stakeholder analysis: who’s involved and how do we get everyone on board? What level of digital proficiency do we collectively bring to the table? We deliberately made it a bit more elaborate than was strictly necessary, but that helped us to develop a comprehensive understanding of what it means to work on and with a project. And we brought around 14 people to the table. It all starts with finding a suitable date and organising the meeting in such a way that people participate and also understand the purpose of what we’re actually trying to achieve. That was a very exciting learning curve we went through. A second learning curve also arose from the classic topic of sales. We actively offered our services to clients. They didn’t approach us straight away. It just so happened that, in early 2019, we were already involved in a project with a client who had their own in-house DATEV accounting system. They’d already made an enquiry back in late 2018 because they’d implemented their own agency software, which incorporated the DATEV XML interface itself, thereby enabling the document value or data record to be transferred to the accounting programme, and that’s when I was asked if I could, so to speak, support the software manufacturer and the company to ensure that, ultimately, the data reached DATEV in the correct format and that the results were accurate. And that’s how we got involved. For example, they weren’t even using the automatic bank statement manager. They were still posting bank statements manually in the traditional way and had completely outsourced their dunning process. That’s how we got talking, and then, in our first proper project, we essentially supported the complete digitalisation of this company’s accounts processes. We introduced a programme for digital invoice verification and approval, then decided which documents should go directly into „Unternehmen online“ – as they weren’t project-related – and which needed to be fed into the source system. There, they were fully pre-coded and then fed back in via a different route. So we managed the whole process, helped set it up, trained the staff and documented it all. It was a truly holistic project. The exciting thing about it, however, was that we produced the documentation after we’d fine-tuned the processes.

Paul Liese: That’s one possibility.

Raphael Kammer: Yes, that was indeed one option. It’s not the ideal approach, but for a client it’s the more efficient one, because they say: „I’ll pay once for the process documentation, which is already optimised.“ From a GoBD perspective, we’d first have to map out and document the processes – that would essentially be version 1 of the process documentation – then implement the project, and straight after that comes version 2, because almost everything has changed.

Paul Liese: Yes. But that ultimately means that, once you’ve carried out that sort of documentation consultancy, you’re left with procedural documentation as a by-product, without the client actually being aware of it or having asked for it.

Raphael Kammer: Yes. In the projects where we’re actually doing this on a larger scale, it’s mandatory, because we’re helping companies to implement processes that comply with the law. We can only really ensure legal compliance if, at the end of the day, we can actually present the procedural documentation digitally.

Paul Liese: Many consultants do indeed find it difficult to convince their clients of the value of process documentation. The client might say: „Let the tax inspector come. I don’t need it.“ But if I take a different approach and say: „I’ll provide digitalisation consultancy; I’ll help you optimise your processes so that you can perhaps bring a bit more calm to your staff – who, as it is, no longer know when they’re supposed to do what – with reasonable working hours and the like,“ I think the client’s motivation is quite different. And that applies to the fee afterwards, too. Because this isn’t something for which you charge three hours’ work; rather, he’s getting a huge package.

Raphael Kammer: That’s true. But it’s well worth it. The time you have to put in overall pays off in the end. Especially if you look at these areas of modern payment solutions now – they’re starting to overlap a bit with travel costs and expenses on the market. There are now providers who issue corporate credit cards, allowing you to manage the funds very effectively and set spending limits. People can pay with the credit card and are immediately reminded by the app to enter a receipt straight away. You can allocate this very quickly. It’s a complete accounting entry that’s then available in the general ledger. You can really get a lot out of it. And the client or the company benefits immensely from this. And I believe that, as things stand, this is also an issue that most companies will have to address in terms of their future competitiveness. After all, when it comes to the possibilities for digitalisation in administration, we’re no longer talking about rocket science. AI plays only a limited role here. These are simply systems that are already available. They’re still evolving, but you can – as we say in business, „pick the low-hanging fruit“ – adopt them and then simply benefit from the opportunities that digitalisation already offers. I think it’s significantly more difficult for smaller companies to digitalise their service delivery.

Paul Liese: I agree. You approached us a while ago, and the main sticking point was that we aren’t cloud-based. What made you decide to work with us anyway?

Raphael Kammer: Exactly. So we signed the contract in 2019, which means 2020 is our first full year with Opti.Tax. At the time, we looked into what solutions were available on the market for process documentation, as that was our understanding of what we, as a law firm, wanted to offer our clients. What we saw straight away with you – and what ultimately proved to be the deciding factor – was the potential to get significantly more out of it. And when I look today at what you’ve implemented in terms of development, I can say this much: you’ve kept your word. The features have been delivered. And they enable us to structure our consultancy business even more effectively and to offer services in a more targeted manner – above all, now to offer them in a way that builds on one another. We thought that was excellent at the time, including the fact that you can implement very simple process modelling. That helps us. We’d probably also be able to work in slightly more complex modelling environments in the long run. But if I apply this to a tax consultancy, where you generally have people who haven’t had much experience with process modelling yet, it’s a great help. And for us, too, this is the solution we’re currently using, because it works and because the client also understands it well when it’s presented using this modelling. So, to put it plainly: it was the opportunity to turn this into a truly diverse range of services, rather than just procedural documentation. I’m also convinced that you can’t produce proper process documentation simply from a basic online catalogue or online questionnaire, which the client essentially completes themselves. In straightforward cases, that might be the case. But that’s just a standard approach. It may well be that this trend is becoming more prevalent as you move into an integrated system, and the fact remains that the documentation you need for this is already provided by the software itself. But if you’re dealing with larger, more complex organisations with various departments – ERP systems, inventory management systems, point-of-sale systems – and you want to bring all of this together, then you need a solution that offers the necessary flexibility.

Paul Liese: Thank you very much for the feedback. You actually joined us quite spontaneously in a developers’ meeting earlier. What do you, or what does your team, expect from us regarding the next topics you’d like to develop further, also with a view to growing your business? Because I’ve now realised that where you are today isn’t the same as how you started out back then. You’ve evolved a bit and are now tackling quite different areas to what you’d originally planned. So what does the partnership with hsp mean for you and for your business?

About IKS and TCMS

Raphael Kammer: I see this partnership as an opportunity to provide a robust service across the entire field of documentation. In addition to traditional process documentation, we can also properly address areas such as the internal control system (ICS) or the broad topic of tax compliance (an area I don’t really see much of at the moment within our company, which we set up specifically for process digitalisation); that’s where I really see the potential in the collaboration between the law firm and the corporate digitalisation consultancy. In this area, we’re very satisfied with the solution you’ve provided us with. We’re currently setting this up here at DPK and will then, as and when capacity allows, gradually bring in staff from the law firm to carry out these tasks, so that these opportunities aren’t confined solely to our own sphere.

Paul Liese: As you saw earlier, we want to bring documentation to life by not just documenting something that then ends up as a piece of paper in a drawer. Living documentation also means that I need to have process documentation. Because only once I’ve identified the processes can I link my ICS topics, control steps and risks to them, and then, on that basis, identify my tax risks, which feed into the Tax Compliance Management System. That means, basically, I have to do what you’re already doing in your digitalisation consultancy work. I can’t just say: „Dear client, I’m setting up my ICS now. What are your risks?“ Then they’ll look at me with wide eyes. „Risk? Do I have a risk?“

Raphael Kammer: That’s certainly true. Personally, I still find the whole subject of ICS a bit of a struggle, because it actually results in a project of its own. For us in the area of procedural documentation, that was also the biggest hurdle – the interplay between procedural documentation and ICS, which I’d previously only been familiar with from the field of auditing. So I asked myself: is it really possible that, within the budget allocated for process documentation, I could also set up an ICS at the same time? That’s not really possible, is it? What we do is look at the individual process steps and then try to define or identify the risks associated with them, so that we can incorporate them. And to then develop the whole thing into a proper ICS, which would then deliver the full benefits within the firm via a risk control matrix, is, I believe, a really exciting opportunity that could arise from this – particularly with a view to achieving cross-functional collaboration across the various departments within the firm.

Paul Liese: Right. Do you have any questions for me?

Raphael Kammer: Well, I’d just like to encourage you to continue consistently along the path to the cloud. We’d be very pleased if you did. Because we’re now seeing in many companies that a cloud-only strategy is definitely what’s wanted. Technically, of course, this is an area of data storage. Naturally, there are always different approaches. Where will the data end up? Will it be in the large, well-known data centres, or might you actually host it yourselves? I think that’s a separate issue. But I’d like to be able to use the majority of applications directly in the browser, without having to rely on a specific installation. Otherwise, I can only say: please keep up the good work at this pace.

Paul Liese: We’re doing our best.

Raphael Kammer: And we’d be happy to continue the dialogue you’re offering us as partners. It’s great fun.

Paul Liese: Thank you. Well, thank you very much for watching. I hope we’ve been able to provide some valuable insights – specifically, practical experience from a user who’s making the most of our software, perhaps in a context quite different from what was originally planned. We’re available via the hsp Community. Raphael is also part of our community and can be contacted there. On that note, we hope you have a lovely evening. Stay well! See you soon!