How Somberg & Husmann serves digital clients efficiently and helped shape Frienton from a tax firm's perspective
“A tool that is simple for the user and still reflects the complexity of bookkeeping. I think Frienton has achieved that.”
Lukas van der Veen,
Tax Advisor
Somberg & Husmann
Company profile
Tax consultancy Somberg & Husmann PartmbB (“Somberg & Husmann”) is a mid-sized tax firm from Bad Bentheim with over 35 years of experience in tax advisory, payroll and financial accounting, business consulting and succession planning. The firm has worked with Frienton since the early days and serves numerous startups and scale-ups that run their bookkeeping in the Financial Operating System Frienton.
35+ years
tax firm experience
From day 1
8 → 2.5 hrs
Nationwide
involved in development as a partner
firm effort per month in a sample client
clients from Berlin and Munich
Starting point
Many young companies do their own bookkeeping, in tools that promise simplicity. What is still missing often only shows at year end. Classic tax firm software, on the other hand, is hardly usable without accounting knowledge. Somberg & Husmann wanted to bridge both and therefore helped shape Frienton from the tax firm's perspective from the start.
We didn't have a specific expectation of the software at the start. We wanted to be involved from the beginning and co-develop it, so it would move in the direction of our requirements.
Jan Somberg,
Tax Advisor and Partner
Pain points
Open transactions and receipts often only surface at year end.
Many tools promise: upload your receipts, the tax advisor does the rest.
Tax firm software is hardly usable without expertise.
Multiple accounts, PayPal, Stripe, shops and credit cards make consolidation time-consuming.
Goals
Simple for the client, technically correct for the tax firm.
Guide clients to complete, ongoing bookkeeping.
Consolidate multibanking, payment providers and invoices into one booking batch.
Shape the system from the tax firm's perspective.
The client works with categories instead of thinking in the classic chart of accounts (SKR). Nevertheless, the tax advisor receives the data prepared the right way, based on the chart of accounts.
Lukas van der Veen,
Tax Advisor
Results
Clients see their numbers daily in the live BWA (management report).
The month-end close is only possible once receipts and transactions are assigned.
Sample client with Stripe and 1,500 bookings per month: 2.5 instead of around 8 hours for the firm, including reporting and the advance VAT return. Frienton handles most of the pre-entry automatically, the client reviews and completes it.
Complex clients with multiple Stripe accounts and Shopify are easier to take on.
New clients nationwide, not a given for a tax firm from Bad Bentheim.
The classic way, bookkeeping would take us eight hours. With Frienton, provided the client’s pre-entry is correct, we as tax advisors only need two and a half.
Jan Somberg,
Tax Advisor and Partner
Otherwise, no scale-up founder from Berlin or Munich would ever think: I like that tax advisor from Bad Bentheim.
Lukas van der Veen,
Tax Advisor
Growing, digitally minded companies today expect more than backward-looking bookkeeping. With Frienton, our clients get an up-to-date view of their finances and modern digital processes, and on that basis we can support them even more precisely on tax and business matters.
Markus Husmann,
Tax Advisor and Partner
Recommendation
Somberg & Husmann pushed early for Frienton to align more closely with the needs of tax advisors. Features such as the account ledger come from this feedback. The firm recommends Frienton to growing clients who want to keep track of their own numbers at any time and are willing to contribute.