GENERALLY APPLIES:
SHOULD YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS REGARDING THE PROCEDURE DOCUMENTATION, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR TAX ADVISOR.
With the "Principles for the Proper Keeping and Retention of Books, Records and Documents in Electronic Form and for Data Access (GoBD)", the German Federal Ministry of Finance has defined the requirements for IT-supported processes from the perspective of the tax authorities. The GoBD basically affect all taxpayers with income from profits within the meaning of Section 5 of the German Income Tax Act (EStG), Section 4 (1) EStG. The responsibility for the correctness of electronic books and otherwise required electronic records, including the procedures, is borne solely by the taxpayer - you as the cash register system operator.
In order to check the traceability and verifiability, the GoBD requires meaningful and up-to-date procedural documentation that fully documents all system and procedural changes in terms of content and time. It must show how the rules documented in the GoBD are observed and the procedural documentation must be comprehensible and verifiable by an expert third party within a reasonable period of time. A prerequisite for the comprehensibility of the target procedure is, to that extent, proper procedural documentation, which must contain the description of all procedural components, data and documents required for understanding the accounting. This procedural documentation is part of the work instructions and other organizational documents and must be retained in accordance with the statutory retention period.
Complete procedural documentation includes both the documentation that SimplyDelivery GmbH provides as a POS system manufacturer and the documentation that you create as a POS system operator and make available to the tax authorities. For complete and comprehensive procedural documentation, it is therefore in your interest and your sole responsibility to complete and provide the necessary documents.
The obligation to create procedural documentation exists in principle regardless of the size of the company and its hardware and software used for accounting. SimplyDelivery recommends the following sample outline for comprehensive procedural documentation that you have prepared, which includes the documentation provided by SimplyDelivery.
1. Corporate structure
1.1. Structure and process organization of the divisions involved
1.2. Technical tasks
1.3. Employee qualifications
2. Technical description
2.1. Supplementary legal bases except HGB, AO and UStG
2.2. Documentation basics, storage and archiving regulations
2.3. Document processing, document flow
2.4. Process documentation
3. Technical description
The technical description of the POS system can be found in this user manual as well as in the detailed SimplyDelivery process documentation, which can be found under the menu item "GoBD export" or "GoBD protocol".
4. Organizational and work instructions
4.1. Business processes in normal operation
4.2. Administrative processes
4.3. Emergency scenarios
4.4. Updating processes and documentation
5. Control
5.1. Responsibilities
5.2. Escalation
5.3. Organizational and technical controls
5.4 Implementation of the process documentation in the lived practice
6. Accompanying documentation and tax-relevant data
After the system and the own documentations etc. have been checked by a third party, i.e. an authorized institution or similar, a certificate regarding the compliance with the GOBD or DSFinV-K guidelines will be issued in case of a positive result. As an example, see our received certifications in the appendix.