The sales manager of DATEV in the Upper/Lower Bavaria and Upper Palatinate region, a software provider specialising in tax and legal advice as well as auditing, referred to a forecast: around three quarters of all activities in law firms can be carried out digitally and automatically. This will also change the demands placed on employees in law firms.
‘We are preparing students for this digital transformation,’ pointed out Professor Claus Koss from the Faculty of Business and Management during the presentation. The faculty is an educational partner of DATEV eG. In addition to guest lectures, students can use additional resources for training and further education from the largest specialist provider of software for accounting, tax and legal advice and auditing. The professor, who is also a member of the Center for Artificial Intelligence at OTH Regensburg, reports that digitalisation and artificial intelligence are now an integral part of accounting, tax and auditing courses. Another major advantage of a degree course specialising in tax and auditing is that the lecturer is qualified as a tax consultant and auditor, so he knows the professional practice from his own many years of experience.
‘However, basic qualifications are also important in the age of digitalisation,’ was Tuncer Ilhan's recommendation to the students: ‘Artificial intelligence is only as good as the quality of the data input.’ The technology can recognise the scanned documents and convert them into posting records. However, the data models are based on the previous entries in the office. The changeover to the ‘digital law firm’ therefore starts with data quality. Tuncer Ilhan has been advising tax firms throughout Bavaria for almost 25 years. His experience is: ‘Digitalisation is a matter of mindset’. If the senior staff in the law firms want and implement the changeover, major efficiency gains can be achieved - in extreme cases, a three-day week with full pay compensation can also be achieved, he referred to a law firm near Hamburg.
