Cross-firm transparency at Dr. Schmidt und Partner

About Dr. Schmidt und Partner

Dr. Schmidt und Partner was founded as a pharmacy accounting office in 1947 and has since developed into a renowned firm for tax, legal and business advice. With offices in Koblenz and Dresden, the firm advises pharmacists, medical practitioners and medium-sized companies in particular.

Together with Nicole Schmorleiz, IT network administrator and special assistant for digitization and IT processes, Ute Heckelmann, tax consultant, partner and managing director, pushes digital transformation forward. Their focus is on making business processes efficient and future-proof.

Stackfield is a central component of the digital way of working: Around 150 employees across offices use the platform for organization and project management.

The initial situation

Prior to Stackfield's introduction, communication and collaboration within the law firms and across offices was mainly carried out by email. This often lacked transparency and a central overview. Email histories were only visible to those directly involved and other potentially interested parties had to be added to the CC. Furthermore, it was difficult to organize one's own email inbox, which made it difficult to track ongoing processes.

For file storage and project work, internal folders were used that could be accessed by everyone involved. However, clear responsibilities were not clear and progress on individual projects was difficult to track for people who were not directly involved in the project. To optimize processes, a tool was needed that would reduce the challenges for everyone.

Why Stackfield?

Research quickly led to Stackfield. As a German, GDPR-compliant tool, Stackfield clearly stood out from the competition, offered necessary functionalities to solve existing problems and gave administrators sufficient flexibility in rights management and license handling.

Introducing Stackfield to the firm

Once the decision had finally been made in favor of Stackfield, Stackfield was first introduced in the IT department. The team familiarized itself with the tool as much as possible and then created a so-called “global room” to which all new Stackfield users are automatically added. This room was filled with tips and tricks for using Stackfield to make it easier for colleagues to get started. Finally, the various teams at the firm were gradually brought in on a project-by-project basis and presented with Stackfield in short training sessions.

Cooperation within and across teams on Stackfield

Right from the start, Stackfield proved to be the ideal tool for implementing the internal structure of the firm away from large departments and towards smaller teams. “Teamwork can be simple and more organized with Stackfield,” praises Ms. Heckelmann.

Today, Stackfield's rooms are used for intensive organization, communication and project work. The communication module bundles the team's entire chat history on the relevant topic. Messages remain clear and traceable at all times - this is more important than expected, Ms. Schmorleiz emphasizes in retrospect.

Team meetings are planned, prepared and followed up in the pages of the room and sorted in folders. The calendar provides an overview of upcoming appointments and files can be uploaded directly to the room for specific projects. The “central core of the room, however, are the tasks”, says Ms. Schmorleiz.

Task management with Kanban

In the room's task module, all tasks can be displayed as a list or in a Kanban board as required. The various statuses or lists on the board can be renamed and expanded and the view can be embellished with labels so that tasks can be sorted at a glance. Progress is immediately visible on the board and bottlenecks rarely go unnoticed.

The task itself can be assigned to different people and subtasks allow it to be divided into task steps. “The subtasks can be assigned to people who are not responsible for the main task,” explains Ms. Schmorleiz and praises how much leeway is available to users in the task cards.

Maximal transparency

When asked what goal had been achieved with Stackfield, Ms. Heckelmann emphasized the transparency that is now possible across departments. Ms. Schmorleiz cites the online application process as an example, which can now be fully mapped in Stackfield.

The IT department organizes and documents processing and communication with the corresponding client in a room designated for online applications. As soon as the process is completed, the associated task is moved to a column in the Kanban board that has been specially defined for accounting. The person previously responsible is removed from the task and a contact person from accounting is assigned.

The accounting department is informed in this way that the online process has been started and can take over from that point onwards. Ms. Schmorleiz emphasizes how much the IT department benefits from this new transparency: “Processes remain clear even in large teams and handovers between departments can be carried out smoothly.”

Rights management

Another advantage of Stackfield for Ms. Schmorleiz as an administrator is the comprehensive rights management and other features available to admins of the Stackfield organization. The settings can be used to assign permissions depending on the role of the organization, room admins decide for themselves who can access the room and fine-grained rights can be assigned within the room - according to the need-to-know principle.

Concluding words

More transparency, clear task management and efficient teamwork: Ms. Heckelmann and Ms. Schmorleiz are satisfied with Stackfield and particularly emphasize the user-friendliness of the tool. And if anything is unclear, Stackfield's support team provides rapid assistance.