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Companies and self-employed persons cannot avoid creating procedural documentation. However, there is often a lack of clarity about what constitutes procedural documentation in the first place, how it can be implemented and what purpose it serves both legally and for the company. Especially the underlying legal situation is a mystery to many.
Here you will find answers to the following questions:
The procedural documentation is intended to ensure that you comply with the legal standards of proper business management in the digital management of your documents. From the auditor's point of view, it is a kind of manual for your company, because it provides an overview of all tax-relevant processes, data and filing systems.
The primary goal is to enable an expert third party to adequately understand and review procedures and processes in the shortest possible time. On the other hand, you and your company also benefit from the procedure documentation - but more on that later.
Arrange an appointment with the windream experts now and learn more about audit-proof archiving with the windream ECM-system for your procedural documentation.
Who actually has to create procedural documentation? And is one legally obliged to do so? The answer is clear: The legislator provides for procedural documentation for every accounting and recording obligation - and this has already been the case since the GoBD came into force in 2015. This means that procedural documentation is mandatory for every entrepreneur and freelancer in Germany! However, freedom is granted with regard to the concrete design, as long as the contents are comprehensible and can be comprehended by a tax auditor within a reasonable period of time.
As a result of advancing digitalisation, business documents are increasingly being archived in digital form rather than in physical files. The decisive requirement for the digital archiving of these documents is the protection against unauthorised access.
If the aforementioned requirements are not met, decisive guidelines of the GoBD cannot be adhered to. With an ECM system that enables revision security in archiving, on the other hand, you take these criteria into account. "Audit-proof" simply means that the archived documents are stored in a non-changeable state for a defined period of time. The windream ECM-system thus creates part of the prerequisites for a procedural documentation in the company which complies with the applicable laws.
If there is no procedural documentation, the probability increases that your bookkeeping will be assessed as inadequate. If procedural documentation has been prepared, but it has formal and factual deficiencies at every turn, the auditor will also show you the red card. In the worst case, this could result in a tax assessment. The creation of proper, careful procedural documentation is therefore urgently recommended. Also because of the advantages for your company.
Procedure documentation not only makes sense from a legal perspective, but also offers your company many advantages. Relevant processes and the associated facts are neatly documented and can be viewed at any time. All in all, you put valuable company knowledge in writing and make it permanently available. Here is an overview of the most important advantages of procedural documentation from which you and your employees can benefit:
Identify sources of error and optimisation potential more easily
Optimised onboarding process through carefully documented work processes.
Collectively available information instead of knowledge silos.
Accusation of negligence: Protect yourself with documented work procedures.
Communicate transparency to the auditor. This way you avoid discussions and estimates.
We will go into the individual sections of a procedural documentation in the next paragraph. On the other hand, companies should obtain a qualified initial consultation from a tax advisor or from the corresponding internal contacts in the company (accounting, authorised signatory, legal department, etc.), as the necessary legal expertise is available here.
The objective of windream consulting is to inform you about how our ECM-system can support you in procedural documentation. This knowledge in dealing with the windream ECM-system will considerably facilitate the legally compliant creation of your procedural documentation.
Is there a template for procedural documentation? You should treat a supposedly generally applicable instruction for the creation of procedural documentation with caution. The detailed requirements always depend on the respective company, the industry and other legal factors.
What can make the creation of procedural documentation easier for you, on the other hand, are various freely accessible checklists, which we are happy to point out in our advice. In addition, we recommend a certain structure for the procedural documentation in this context, which we have defined as follows:
We go into the details of the points mentioned above in our consultation.
However, the internal control system (ICS), which is of particular relevance in the context of procedural documentation, is briefly explained here. The existence of an ICS is explicitly prescribed in the GoBD. In particular, there is an explanation of the provision of process documentation within the framework of the data security concept. In addition to many other functions of the ICS, this is particularly important for the process documentation. Whether this task is carried out manually - i.e. by one or more persons - or with the help of a corresponding software solution is up to the company itself.
With the windream ECM-system and the option of audit-proof archiving, you set the course for a legally compliant procedural documentation in your company. windream supports you with the software solution as well as with an accompanying consulting service. The aim of our consulting is to create a clear awareness and understanding of the requirements of procedural documentation, to help you with the implementation and to show you how our software solution can support you.
The legal conformity of our windream ECM-software suite has been confirmed by an independent and recognised auditing authority. The legal opinion certifies that the windream system "fully complies with the legal requirements". In the course of his examination of the windream ECM-system, the expert comes to the conclusion that windream does not only fulfil the legal requirements according to GoBD when using unchangeable or write-once storage media. Audit security is also ensured if changeable media are used.
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