Digitalization at Warth & Klein Grant Thornton
DeltaMaster for automated reporting and planning
The auditing firm Warth & Klein Grant Thornton uses DeltaMaster for analysis and reporting of data from the ERP system DATEV EO comfort and further DATEV modules as well as third-party systems. Reports are available for various topics from activity recording, order planning, and liquidity planning to cost accounting. An extensive authorization and approval concept controls data access. DeltaMaster is designed for stationary and app-based mobile use.
Digital transformation for reporting, too
Warth & Klein Grant Thornton is not only committed to digitalization in terms of supporting clients from the digitalization idea through to implementation – the auditing firm is also pursuing its own ambitious “digital plans”: Warth & Klein Grant Thornton aims to be the most digitalized auditing firm on the German market by 2025.
One milestone was greater digitalization of its hitherto Excel-based reporting. The monthly reports to various report recipients with information on employee development, cost accounting, and receivables management were to be created and sent automatically and in a standardized format – adapted to the respective information requirements. The requisite data mainly stems from the ERP system DATEV EO comfort, supplemented by data from further DATEV modules, for example for receivables management and financial accounting.
Automated and standardized instead of Excel-based
Warth & Klein Grant Thornton opted for DeltaMaster as the reporting tool. The analysis, reporting, and planning solution is already established in the DATEV environment – it formed the basis for DATEV MIS.
The DeltaMaster-based reporting system went live after a project lead time of just twelve weeks, and has also been available for mobile use on iPhones via the DeltaMaster app since mid-2019.
Read-only licenses allow around 150 users such as cost-center managers, partners, and Controlling employees to access reports on topics such as cost accounting based on figures from the most recently closed month and open items on an actuals basis. The data is updated at least twice a day here. In addition, reports on commenced orders and payment-on-account shortfalls are available, in each case up to the previous day.
In addition, around 400 employees receive a PDF report on activity recording each week by e-mail. These time reports contain information on the working hours of around 1,350 employees in the past week as well as an annual breakdown. They make it possible to check whether the working hours were allocated in full and to the correct cost center of the 150 cost centers in place.
“Our old reporting consisted of an Excel table with over 100 sheets. When a new cost center was added, it took a huge amount of work to adapt this Excel table to the new structure,” relates Mark Uckermann, Head of Controlling at Warth & Klein Grant Thornton. “If a new cost center is added today, the only effort I need to make is a couple of clicks in DeltaMaster, then I smile with satisfaction.”
“By using DeltaMaster, we have achieved our goal of streamlined, high-performance, automated information provision.”
Mark Uckermann, Head of Controlling, Warth & Klein Grant Thornton
Granular access authorization
An extensive authorization and approval concept controls data access. “This was hugely important to us,” adds Uckermann. “In contrast with sales organizations, where responsibility can usually be clearly delimited into postal-code areas, for instance, we as a service provider are much more focused on detail. We can now ensure, for example, that the partners can see all totals, but only the data for their specific area at the next level of detail.”
DeltaMaster also as a planning tool
Four key topics are on the DeltaMaster agenda at Warth & Klein Grant Thornton for the next twelve months. For instance, there are plans to convert the reporting of the auditing firm Trinavis, which has been merged with Warth & Klein Grant Thornton, to DeltaMaster and align it with the reporting of Warth & Klein Grant Thornton. DATEV EO comfort is also used as the ERP system at Trinavis.
In addition, DeltaMaster is increasingly being used for planning: Digitalization of the salary adjustment process in DeltaMaster is almost complete. Planning access to DeltaMaster allows those with planning authorization to plan salaries on an all-digital basis.
Furthermore, central KPIs such as revenue will be planned via DeltaMaster in the future. Access is not to be restricted to Controlling alone: Employees of the individual teams are also to gain corresponding access.
A central dashboard with 20 selected KPIs is also to be implemented as a gateway to further, more in-depth analyses and reports. The dashboard will provide examples in order to reduce the whole complex array of figures to an initial 20 as an entry point.
Highlights
- Reports for around 150 recipients
- Automated assessment of hours posted by around 1,350 employees in 150 cost centers
- Revenue and salary planning
- Authorization concept at cell level
- Stationary or app-based mobile use
Warth & Klein Grant Thornton AG
- One of the top 10 auditing firms in Germany
- 1,350 emolpyees
- Ten locations in Germany
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