When expanding to the Polish market, one of our investors recommended SOFOS Poland to take care of our new subsidiary. This company is developing into a comprehensive consulting service provider, where entrepreneurs receive advice in financing, strategic and tax consulting, as well as legal and accounting services. Our team caught up with Grzegorz from SOFOS Poland to discuss trends in accounting in Poland and his experiences with CostPocket.

CostPocket: Hi Grzegorz! Thank you for joining us. For starters, tell us about what is happening with accounting in Poland.

Grzegorz: Hey! Very interesting times for accountants in here.

I feel a generational transition in the industry, as we start moving from the paper-only to the digital. Surely, a lot of accountants and businessmen are stuck with their habits, yet there is no other option but to move forward. For example, I gave a task to my assistant who was born after 2000 to arrange paper invoices in a folder by date using a hole puncher. It was the first time she saw this tool: at school, they only dealt with electronic files. Naturally, she also struggled with the old-generation accounting software that looks like Excel sheets, but it took her no time to get started with the new cloud-based accounting systems.

In 2019 I visited a technology fair for tax advisors and accountants in Berlin and was shocked by the possibilities and novelties available. Today, as I see many of those ideas being implemented, I am certain the whole industry is heading towards process simplification and automation, as well as digitisation of documents and the possibility to access data and software over the internet anytime from any place.

So at the moment, Poland is adopting a lot of innovations. Finally, Polish tax portal and other government services are upgraded to allow convenient and efficient submissions online. On top, our government started a major B2B electronic invoicing project, and from mid-2024 e-invoices will be mandatory between businesses. On one hand, my customers from Germany and Austria are surprised at how efficient processes are in Poland, but on the other hand, it is hard to impress Estonians who are known worldwide for their e-governance.

CostPocket: What are the practices of entering data from cost documents in Poland?

Grzegorz: Over the years we have formed a tradition for businessmen to physically bring paper documents to the accountant. Without any alternatives, everyone just got used to it. It definitely has issues, such as tedious manual processing and frequent late document deliveries putting pressure on accountants. But things are changing.

In March 2022 I was onboarding a new customer from Estonia and I shocked him with a request to physically send the documents. He could not comprehend how come I do not download the documents from the cloud instead. As a company, we have to follow the trends and needs of our customers, so we became much more flexible regarding document submission. Today, if I told any young entrepreneur to bring me paper documents, I would lose him as a client.

Our old habits were changed a lot by Covid-19. Lockdown was a huge shock and it kick-started digitisation in accounting.. We did not even talk about cloud storage a few years ago. With lockdown in place and no option to deal with paper documents, our clients started submitting them by email and Google Drive.

Still, when I meet with other accountants and talk about document digitisation and OCR (Optical Character Recognition), well, they often smile and look down at the new technology. They say the “clients are used to paper and the digital revolution is far away”, but forget that from the middle of 2024 all invoicing between businesses will be digital. I am sure it will be very frustrating and difficult months for all those entrepreneurs, accountants and employees who do not embrace the new technologies.

CostPocket: Tell us about your start with CostPocket.

Grzegorz: I learned about it in October 2021 when Martin and Joonas came to me for bookkeeping services. Naturally, they wanted to use CostPocket to submit their documents. To be fair, I was very skeptical: CostPocket worked only with Accounting360 software, which I had never used. A new software requires new processes and it all results in extra work. At the same time, I was intrigued.

The first impression was very positive and I thought CostPocket was miles ahead if compared to other digitisation solutions in Poland I had tried. I remember there were some issues with Polish documents when detecting REGON (registration ID) or identifying the supplier and the customer. But I noticed you solved those problems quickly and improved overall accuracy a lot since my first test. (CP - Digitisation accuracy was 75.1% in Dec’21 and 87.0% in Dec’22 with Polish documents).

I realized CostPocket has the potential to save a significant amount of time both for me and my clients. For starters, I picked 5 of my clients to test your services for a month. They were all delighted and continue using CostPocket to this very day. Having very positive feedback made it easy to convince my other clients that it is time to report expenses in a modern way.

CostPocket: What are the main benefits of reporting expense documents with a CostPocket? 

Grzegorz: From the user's point of view, as my company also uses CostPocket to report expenses, I am no longer afraid to lose important documents. Now I have a habit of taking a picture of the receipt immediately after the purchase, so I do not need to store it in my wallet.

From an accountant's perspective, I love the fact that I am not involved in collecting the documents anymore. This also means no time wasted on arranging documents and entering data manually in the system. And then I'm left with the most pleasant and important part of my job: posting to specific accounts and considering various taxation related aspects and implications.

Expense reporting with CostPocket also results in a more transparent communication between the client and accounting office. I can't accuse the client of failing to deliver an invoice and I cannot pretend that some invoice wasn't there: keeping track of files online is so much easier than dealing with folders in the storage room.

Furthermore, instead of a wave of documents flushing the office on the 7th of the month, we get documents on a more regular basis. It gives us power to control and plan the work, so we can notice and investigate any potential issues early on.

To sum up, CostPocket simply helps me to speed up and organize my work. And it is very easy to navigate. I find the whole experience ultra user friendly. Just log in and you're ready to go.

CostPocket: Who can benefit from CostPocket? 

Grzegorz:  I believe that any company, willing to improve their expense reporting processes, can benefit from CostPocket. I offer it to my customers who report at least 5-10 documents per month. If volume is lower, the effect of optimizing the process is minimal.

Also, from my experience, when employees have company cards, documents are always lost. This means additional costs for a company. In this case, a solution like CostPocket is necessary to control the circulation of documents in the company.

CostPocket: What kind of companies adapt the easiest? What are the obstacles, if any?

Grzegorz: I find it easiest to convince IT and consulting companies, as well as sole entrepreneurs, to implement CostPocket. They are always looking for ways to optimize their work and are, usually, very open and eager to try novelties. 

Oh, and all the international companies. Collecting expense documents is complex when employees are based in multiple countries, so email or app submissions just make sense. Also, international companies appreciate the CostPocket app being available in multiple languages (8 languages in total). All other similar solutions I know are available only in Polish. 

The biggest obstacle for most of the companies is being stuck in old habits. Some industries, for example, restaurateurs or notaries, are very keen on keeping their data on paper and do not even consider other options. I see many companies, where CostPocket could save a lot of time, but the managers are simply stuck in the past. Nevertheless, I stay optimistic: habits change as the world changes.

CostPocket: Anything else you would like to add from your experience?

Grzegorz: I view CostPocket mainly through the prism of the accounting program it runs with. In my case, it is Accounting360. While modern and great, Accounting360 has some technical limitations and I cannot use it with all of my clients. So I work with another accounting software as well. I would love to have CostPocket available on it too, can you do something about it?

CostPocket: Unfortunately, most of the old generation accounting software does not allow us to integrate the document digitisation. But today we have integrations also available with iFirma, Varico, Finka and Raks besides Accounting360.

Grzegorz: Oh, did not know that. Good to hear. Looking forward to more integrations and possibilities!

CostPocket: Our team is already working on that! Thank you Grzegorz!