GoBD Module Certification
Our GoBD module for Odoo achieved its certification in October 2021. But what does GoBD actually stand for and what does such a certification look like?
What does GoBD stand for?
GoBD are an administrative instruction from the Federal Ministry of Finance of the Federal Republic of Germany and, as an administrative regulation, the GoBD is only binding for subordinate administrative authorities and employees of the Ministry of Finance.
The abbreviation GoBD stands for the principles for the proper management and storage of books, records and documents in electronic form as well as for data access. Since 2015, the GoBD is to be understood as the successor to GDPdU and GoBS, since the contents of both have been merged.
What is the GoBD certification and what it is used for?
Applying for a certification is common practice, especially in larger companies, but it is not required under German or European law. The federal government has expressly stated that general company software cannot be certified because it always depends on how the software is configured and used by employees. The GoBD is also very extensive and detailed, which means that its implementation cannot be easily understood from the text.
The GoBD certification are defined by the institute for Tax Advisors IDW and are intended to signal that a program complies with the principles of proper digital bookkeeping. The audit according to IDW PS 880 must be proven by the auditors as part of their annual audit.
Examination according to IDW examination standard
The examination of our GoBD module was carried out by an auditor according to the general IDW examination standard IDW PS 880.
According to this, the software test must be planned and carried out in such a way that it can be assessed with sufficient certainty whether the software product, when used properly, enabled accounting in accordance with the principles of proper accounting and meets the criteria on which the order ist based.
This includes our assessment of whether the criteria have been adequately implemented by the processing functions and the program-internal control system, as well as whether meaningful process documentation is available. The effectiveness of the program functions is assessed using test cases.
After careful assessment based on knowledge gained during the audit, the tested GoBD module, if used properly, enables the journal function to be ensured for compliance with the principles of proper bookkeeping.
GoBD Module
The GoBD module for Odoo and its certification were carried out in cooperation with Syscoon GmbH, the exhibiting company. The expansion module for the Odoo accounting from Syscoon GmbH maked it possible to permanently block bookings that have already been made. During the process, these are provided with an independent blocking date, receive a unique consecutive number and a unique SHA256 hash value.
The installed expansion module also block or allows the following options for users:
a) accounting account numbers can no longer be changed,
b) accounting-relevant parameters in tax rates can no longer be changed,
c) in case of blocked invoices / bookings, attached documents can no longer be deleted,
d) draft postings that have already been made can be booked for a maximum of one month in the confirmed future,
e) the posting date is also available in outgoing invoices,
f) an address check takes place to ensure that before confirming an invoice the address used also contains street, zip code and city
For European companies that need to demonstrate their compliance with the GoBD standard, our GoBD module facilitates the audit process with customized user access rights. The GoBD module and certificate can be acquired by partners or customers alike. The installation is very easy, there is no need to make any configurations. In addition, the licensing of the modules is open source.
Are you interested in the GoBD module?
Feel free to contact us to carry out your electronic bookkeeping in compliance with GoBD and to strengthen the audit flow of operational data with our certified GoBD module.
