«We decided to implement digital signatures for annual reports, as due to the pandemic we had to move board meetings digitally as well. Penneo’s solution worked perfectly and was very straightforward. First, the board members signed the annual reports using their eID, after which the auditor was automatically prompted to sign, as well. If we had to have orchestrated the whole thing manually and signed by hand, we’d have to mail the annual reports between board members, and it would’ve taken at least three weeks to finalize the whole process. However, with Penneo, everything was done digitally, including collecting all signatures right away during the online board meeting, and in a compliant way too.» – Bengt Yngveson, Authorized Accounting Consultant / Agronomist at Kvarnhuset Ekonomi

 

About Kvarnhuset Ekonomi AB

Kvarnhuset Ekonomi AB is an accounting firm in Svalöv, Sweden, with a strong local presence and more than a century of experience.

The company offers services in accounting, financial advice, tax issues, and family law. Kvarnhuset works with individuals and organizations of different sizes and stages, helping them increase profitability.

Many audit and accounting companies experience the rush of the annual report filing period each year. And Kvarnhuset is no stranger to this busy time of having to finalize several annual reports around the same time. Therefore, saving time by automating the annual report processes would be a major benefit to Kvarnhuset.

 

Challenges

Kvarnhuset is the responsible accounting company for 10 foundations’ annual reports, where the board consists of exactly the same members. This means 10 annual reports that in essence would have to be individually signed by the same board members and the auditor responsible for the audit report.

On top of that, the board members are located across different parts of Sweden, meaning that the Annual General Meeting would likely not have been hosted in one location. This increases the complexity and leads to large amounts of manual processing and becoming dependent on mail services, which can increase the risk of surpassing legislative deadlines.

This is a very specific challenge, but Kvarnhuset recognized that solving it could significantly reduce the amount of time spent on the 10 annual reports, particularly regarding the manual labour involved.
Brand new to Penneo, but having heard about our digital signing solution which helps auditors and accountants automate time-consuming processes, Kvarnhuset reached out to see if a solution could be found.

 

Results

Penneo was able to help Kvarnhuset by utilizing a custom signing flow that would address their specific need, while also significantly reducing the back and forth between Kvarnhuset and its clients.

The custom signing flow enabled Kvarnhuset to send all 10 annual reports to the nine recipients meant to sign them in one transaction. Thanks to the design of the flow, which supported complex signing orders and multi-document signing, all parties could sign the respective documents in one go. Additionally, Penneo fully supported the legal and compliance aspects of the transaction by ensuring the responsible auditor was first allowed to sign only after all of the other signers.

The signing flow itself was straightforward, with just two steps: firstly, the board members each signed 1-2 documents per annual report (with just one digital signature), and secondly, the auditor signed the same documents, as well as an additional document.

As a result, Kvarnhuset was able to increase efficiency and save time by avoiding repetitive processes. By getting a custom solution, the company managed to solve a very specific challenge that would have required unnecessary duplicate work.

The custom signing flow helped Kvarnhuset support its clients by collecting the legally required signatures in an easy and compliant way, improving the customer experience as well. Kvarnhuset’s clients could sign from anywhere, on any device – and they only needed to sign once. The annual report signing process was streamlined so both Kvarnhuset, its clients, and the clients’ auditor (from EY AB), benefited from the solution provided by Penneo.

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