VGD: Leading the Way in Digital Accountancy in Belgium with Penneo

“If we send a case file now, we often receive the signed documents back within a day or at least within two days, whereas in the past this was a completely different story.” – Jeroen Vanhoutte, Accountant at VGD

Challenges

Prior to using Penneo, the accountancy team at VGD sent documents to clients either via postal services or email. Clients would have to print, sign, scan, and send the documents back. This was a time-consuming process for everyone involved and presented VGD with several challenges:

  • Documents were often returned incomplete, with recipients failing to sign all the documents they were supposed to
  • Clients would often return only the signature page of a document, leaving VGD to piece together the missing pages manually
  • There was no follow-up method in place, which led to a lack of overview on progress and a low percentage of returned documents

In order to reach its ambition of becoming a leading player in digital accountancy in Belgium, VGD needed to start looking for new solutions.

“For me, it’s also about the commercial part, because at VGD we want to be known as one of the leading accounting firms in Belgium which focuses on digital accounting, so having a solution for digital signing and automation is very important for us. With Penneo, we are one step closer to our goal.” – Charlotte Pille, Partner at VGD

Solution

VGD was first introduced to Penneo by a mutual partner, Silverfin. Penneo was a new partner for digital signing solutions in Belgium, and after a few discussions, VGD decided to implement Penneo Sign in their accountancy department to start with.

Since then, VGD has expanded its use of Penneo Sign across the organization, with more and more use cases being identified continuously.

“We really don’t want to be in just a supplier-customer relationship, we are partners with Penneo. Because working together creates good value for both of us and leads to a long-term relationship.” – Charlotte Pille, Partner at VGD

VGD

Results

There are four main benefits that Penneo provides to VGD:

Signing multiple documents in one go

Recipients who need to sign more documents in several capacities can do so in one go, which has made a big difference for VGD in increasing the percentage of completed documents returned signed.

Signing digitally with itsme®

VGD’s clients can sign from anywhere, at their own convenience. itsme® is a well-known solution in Belgium, which increases the level of trust.

Predefined and custom signing flows

With Penneo’s signing flows, VGD can handle complex signing processes more efficiently and make sure the right documents reach the right recipients at the right time.

Full overview over document transactions

With the Penneo dashboard, the team at VGD has a complete overview of their documents’ status. It’s simpler to keep track of progress and thanks to the automatic reminders, VGD no longer has to worry about manual follow-ups to ensure everyone signs on time.

“The main advantage of working with Penneo is the quality of the signatures, the completeness of the signed document, and the speed with which you receive the documents back.” – Charlotte Pille, Partner at VGD

About VGD

VGD is part of Nexia International, the world’s number nine international network of independent accountants, tax consultants, and auditors.

VGD Belgium has 300 experts ready to provide solutions tailored to their clients’ needs in fields ranging from taxation, accountancy, or corporate finance to HR, IT, subsidies, or estate planning. The company works closely with its clients, helping them to automate processes so they have to spend less time on administrative tasks and have more time for the things that matter to them.

“We use Penneo for managing the signing processes in our business line accountancy. Before Penneo, we did this in a very old-fashioned way which created a lot of frustrations and was time-consuming. Now we can automate the signing flow and make sure that we collect all the signatures we need. Our clients are also happy to be able to sign digitally using itsme®, which is a big step forward.” – Charlotte Pille, Partner at VGD

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