Baden-Württemberg goes digital

It’s a topic everyone needs to deal with at some point or another: Whether social, corporate, or public administration spheres – digitization is changing every area of society.

Local governments in Baden-Württemberg, likewise, are facing major challenges. First, they are required to complete the conversion to double-entry bookkeeping by 1/1/2020 at the latest. Second, the enormous level of dynamism demanded by digitization requires further action, such as action related to the requirement for automatic transmission, acceptance, and processing of electronic invoices which will also apply as of 2020. This requirement is based on consistent digital processes.

For IT service provider and Axians Infoma cooperative partner KIRU, the focus is on converting double-entry bookkeeping customers over to the solution kiru.Finanzen_N. It is based on Infoma newsystem financial accounting. However, both partners have already done good work together so that they can comply with the deadline for converting anyone who hasn’t yet made the switch. Initial digitization projects, however, have already been launched.

The digital transformation is definitely at hand. However, many of our customers are still focusing on the conversion to double-entry bookkeeping. Things look different for those who have already made the switch. They are thinking more about working to introduce digital invoice processing.Ingo Stibi, departmental head kiru.Finanzen

Pioneers in this area include the District of Biberach and the cities Schramberg and Aalen. The Biberach borough council has already taken a major step by introducing the invoice workflow across all areas. The city of Aalen, in contrast, is following a different strategy by implementing the invoice workflow step by step in its agencies. They plan to introduce ePayment next. The city of Schramberg – in 2016 the first and largest city in the KIRU computing center which shifted directly to double-entry bookkeeping while changing its software at the same time – will start using invoice workflow and eInvoice manager in February in two agencies, completing introduction of the solutions across all agencies by the end of June. Electronic file processing also plays a central role in digitization of almost all processes. Read about how Baden-Württemberg Rems-Murr-Kreis-Immobilien-Management GmbH will be managing all its documents digitally in the future in our complete round-table discussion with Kommune21.

The Baden-Württemberg state government aims to introduce digitization across all areas quickly. To do so, the Ministry of the Interior, Digitization and Migration launched the Digitale Zukunftskommune@bw competition in 2017. 75 cities, boroughs and districts of different sizes entered. The winners will be the trend setters of digital transformation and true digital communities of the future soon. Some of them are KIRU customers. The district of Biberach, for instance, is part of a district network which has been named a winner. Each member adds a building block on the road to the digital age – for Biberach, for instance, it’s the electronic file.

The 50 local governments which will receive funds over the next few months to develop a digitization strategy focused on specific citizen needs include the boroughs of Amtzell and Walddorfhäslach. They will receive both academic and practical support in implementing their strategies and projects from the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO and the bwcon network. The goal is to transfer the best practices to as many local governments in Baden-Württemberg as possible.