Digitization is advancing in all areas of daily life. However, many companies that are public are still largely in the analogue world.
The situation is different with the Federal Accounting Agency! The company, which has 500 employees, operates at 7 locations throughout Austria and relies on a conscious and long-term planned digitization strategy.
“We are almost obliged to implement digitization processes very promptly,” says Mag. DI (FH) Alexander Sellner, IT Manager of the Federal Accounting Agency.
The consequence: the introduction of a digital signature platform as a further step towards process optimization. This makes one of the most crucial operational processes – the secure and legally valid signing of documents – much easier.
Starting situation
Digitization is on everyone’s lips and so are those responsible in public companies. More and more companies are already relying on the paperless office, networking their locations or offering new services online. In this way, they improve the customer experience, but also the collaboration with partners, suppliers and all other stakeholders.
When evaluating further digitization measures for their own company, the top management of the federal accounting agency quickly realized that the introduction of a digital signature platform could deliver enormous advantages. This form of signing is 100% equivalent to handwritten signatures throughout Europe and is subject to the strict guidelines of the eIDAS Regulation (EU) 910/2014 (Electronic Identification and Authentication Services).
However, many business owners are unaware of the benefits of a company-wide platform for digitally signing documents. A very consistent “credo” is still held against the introduction of a signature platform: “I have the mobile phone signature and can already sign digitally”.
In fact, almost half of Austrian citizens already use the mobile phone signature as a free eGovernment service.
However, the digital signature alone is usually completely inadequate in the business environment. What is missing are processes; tailor-made workflows. A common “dashboard” to have a perfect overview of the important documents in the company and much more.
In the meantime, some internationally active companies have already opted for a digital platform that can digitally map all signature workflows and use cases in the company.
BHAG relies on software from Austria.
In the first step, the BHAG project team led by Sellner evaluated which European and Austrian providers have already established themselves and brought powerful tools to the market.
“We do not want to compromise on the data storage of sensitive documents. This data is to be stored 100% in Europe. In our view, sproof meets these criteria by explicitly selecting data centers that are independent of U.S. corporations.”
Mag. DI (FH) Alexander Sellner
Federal Accounting Agency
In addition to the security and conformity of data storage, a signature platform is to support various signature processes that are part of the daily business of the Federal Accounting Agency.
So the attention quickly fell on sproof. After an intensive test and audit phase, the young IÖB-certified company was finally chosen. The cloud solution was able to present itself very well as an all-in-one platform with the highest security and data protection standards. “We were really particularly honored that we were chosen and that we were ultimately able to meet the very high standards of the federal accounting agency,” says Dr. Fabian Knirsch, co-founder and CTO of sproof GmbH.
The digital signature saves resources noticeably from the time it is introduced.
The feedback so far has been very good. Many of the employees, especially in management, use the platform for various signature processes and have since saved measurably time and resources. Documents no longer have to be printed, signed by hand, scanned and sent by post, but can be digitally signed with just a few clicks.
So the environment is happy too! 500 sheets of paper consume 7.5 kilograms of wood, 130 liters of water and 26.8 kilowatt hours of energy. A positive side effect that is prompting more and more entrepreneurs to introduce a signature platform.
In the first step after the introduction, the smooth integration of the platform into the company’s IT landscape was particularly impressive. Thanks to the cloud, the onboarding took only a few hours and was accompanied by sproof throughout.
The smooth communication and flexibility convinced Alexander Sellner. “sproof is open to feedback and customer requests and thus pursues the approach of constantly improving the platform,” explains Sellner.