Pracital example Ecovis: Digital cooperation between chancellery and client – enabled by DATEV and DIGISign

Ecovis is a consulting company with more than 100 offices in Germany that supports medium-sized companies in various areas. In order to secure and promote the economic actions of its clients in the long term, Ecovis combines the national and international specialist and industry expertise of all tax consultants, certified public accountants, lawyers and management consultants. The focus is clearly on digitalisation. Ecovis works continuously on the efficient digitalisation of the service and chancellery processes in order to expand and improve the paperless cooperation with clients.

In a first step, Ecovis has introduced the document management system DATEV DMS. Then the chancellery group was looking for a solution that would allow the corresponding documents to be signed in an eIDAS-compliant manner and without media breaks, and then easily integrated and filed in the digital processes.

With DIGISign Ecovis has found what it was looking for. In May 2019, the chancellery group began piloting the solution in several offices and has thus integrated the tool into their processes optimally. In autumn 2019 the rollout for Ecovis Germany started. The feedback from clients and chancellery employees is already extremely positive, so that the use will be expanded even further.

"In the past, the secretariat has prepared the document, printed them out in duplicate and handed them over to the tax consultant in a signature folder. The tax consultant then signed both copies together with the client. One original was kept by the client, the second was scanned by the secretary’s office, digitally filed and additionally physically stored in a folder. A process that costs time and human resources.", says Thomas Schnellhammer, head of the Ecovis chancellery in Passau, describing the signature process before the electronic signature with DIGISign.

DIGISign is serving the clients and employees of the tax chancellery to electronically sign documents – so that these documents do not have to be printed, scanned and filed anymore. The PDF document to be signed is marked in the DATEV DMS, signed using the signature pad and automatically archived in an audit-proof manner at the client’s office.

"Both the printout for the analogue signature and for the paper filing and the following scanning of the signed documents for the digital client file are no longer necessary. The client receives the signed document directly electronically and without media breaks. I can definitely recommend DIGISign.", Thomas Schnellhammer summarises.