As a rule, tax firms handle the tax affairs of businesses. There has been a clear trend towards litigation advice, particularly since last year. But how exactly should firms approach this issue?
In the latest instalment of the „hsp live at 11“ Friday talk, hsp Managing Director Paul Liese spoke with his guest, Eugen Müller of Müller Blum Steuerberatungsgesellschaft mbH, about the field of process consultancy in law firms. Eugen Müller has been working in this field since 2015, specialising in digitalisation, and has extensive expertise. The first part of the discussion focuses on how law firms can go about tapping into this new area of business.
His start in his role as a process consultant was rather bumpy. Clients were hard to convince that consultancy aimed at Process digitalisation, optimisation and automation makes sense. Moreover, the firm initially had little technical support and tried – through painstaking manual work – to draw up its own standards for advisory services. „These days, we’re actually the ones holding things back and can’t keep up with the workload,“ says Eugen Müller. This is because many clients have now recognised the huge potential of litigation consultancy – partly because the subject has become more widely known. The tax consultancy firm is now technically well-equipped thanks to the Opti.Tax software.
Motivation: Optimising processes rather than fearing a tax audit
The clients„ motivation for creating process documentation clearly lies in the digitalisation, optimisation and automation of their workflows – and rightly so. Simply aiming to pass a tax audit is not a constructive approach: “In that case, only the bare minimum is done to satisfy the tax authorities,” explains Eugen Müller. Genuine process consultancy, however, is a much more comprehensive project – offering far greater benefits than simply producing procedural documentation. Providing the necessary documentation for the tax audit is more of a positive side-effect that arises naturally in the course of the process consultancy.
Tax advisers document in the process documentation what actually happens within the company. The documentation is therefore an ongoing project: if processes within the company change, these changes are also incorporated into the documentation. This ensures that it is always up to date. This is useful not only in the event of an upcoming tax audit, but also for the company itself. This is because, whenever a change is made, the tax consultancy firm can step in immediately to offer advice and, if necessary, optimise or automate the new workflow straight away.
The benefits of process documentation for businesses
The benefits of process documentation for businesses are multifaceted. First of all, the status quo is determined – in other words, how the processes currently operate. In Opti.Tax, this is achieved, on the one hand, via the interview mode, in which clients and advisers answer questions. However, the Live Chart is even better suited to this, as it allows workflows to be recorded. Thanks to this visualisation, the workflows and their interrelationships become much clearer. Each step can also be opened individually and described in more detail. This also directly initiates the digitisation of the processes. What’s more, the procedural documentation required for the tax audit is effectively produced as a by-product.
Once the processes have been identified, they can be optimised with the support of the consultants and, where appropriate, automated straight away. This saves valuable working time, which staff can then use for other tasks. Companies thus increase their profits in two ways: firstly, through direct cost savings thanks to automation – after all, time is money; and secondly, through the working time freed up, which can be devoted to the company’s core business and contributes directly to value creation.
Ready for the future through the right motivation
„However, cost reduction should not be the primary objective,“ Eugen Müller makes clear. „That alone is the wrong motivation; the project will then come to an end as soon as the savings have been achieved. Yet that is when the fun really begins.“ Machine learning, for example, is possible on the basis of process documentation. Knowledge can be generated artificially from accumulated experience; amongst other things, this allows diagnostic procedures, for example, to be carried out automatically.
Listen to the first part of the livestream as a podcast episode here:
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