Digitalisation

• The same number stands in three places — in the email, in an Excel file and in the invoicing program.
• Someone types up slips of paper at the end of the month.
• Ask how long a job took and what follows is an estimate.
• When one particular person is on holiday, nobody knows where anything is.
• Quotes go out and nobody notices when no answer comes back.
• The folder “Templates final v3” exists.

Process recording

The workflow is written down as it really runs — not as it should run. In the textbooks the notations for this are called BPMN and event-driven process chain (EPK); on paper in the company they are boxes and arrows. All that matters is that everyone involved recognises their own step.

Lead time against processing time

A quote is written in twenty minutes and goes out four days later. The difference is waiting time, and waiting time is the part you can shorten without more staff. The tool behind this is value stream mapping (Wertstromanalyse).

Breaks between systems

Every point where data moves from one carrier to the next — slip into Excel, Excel into the software, software into a PDF. Every break costs time and produces transfer errors. We count them and cost each one out.

ABC analysis

Not every process is worth the effort. We sort by frequency times duration: what stands at the top gets tackled first; the rest stays as it is, on purpose.

Cost and payback

Every finding says what the change costs and after how many months it has paid for itself. If the figure is over two years, we advise against it.

Maturity level

A rough placing of where the company stands: everything on paper, isolated solutions, connected systems, data that is evaluated. It is not a report card; it shows which step is possible next at all.

Stock control and ERP

One system for customers, jobs, materials and invoices. For ten to fifty people a trade-specific package is usually enough; a large ERP costs more to introduce than it returns in use.

Documents

Invoices, delivery notes and contracts in one place, searchable, with retention periods. Anyone looking for paper looks longer on average than they think.

Interfaces

So that two programs do not need the same number twice: file export, CSV, API, and in wholesale also EDI. The least spectacular interface is often the one that lasts longest.

Recording in the field

Record times, photos and material use where they arise — on the building site, at the machine. It has to work without a network and be correctable afterwards.

Where the data sits

Your own server or a rented one. Both work; what decides it is backup, restore and the question of who is reachable at night when nothing runs.

Three things get overlooked regularly, and all three are more expensive later than beforehand.

Data protection (DSGVO)

Personal data — times, locations, customer records — needs a purpose, a deletion period and, where a service provider processes it, a data processing agreement (Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag).

Retention (GoBD)

Records that matter for tax must stay unalterable and readable. An Excel file on a network drive does not meet that.

Co-determination (Mitbestimmung)

Time recording, and anything that makes the behaviour of employees measurable, needs the agreement of the works council (Betriebsrat) as soon as one exists. Without a works council, the duty to inform the employees remains.

This is not legal advice. We say at which point you need a lawyer or your tax adviser (Steuerberater) — and will call them ourselves if you want.