Column

Changing the way we do business

Accounting/Taxes

The Need to Improve business efficiency

Due to external factors such as a wider adoption of telework, improvement of work-life balance, overtime regulations and DX, many companies feel the need to improve their operational efficiency more than ever.

Although all people are given equal time, the time available to individuals is limited due to such factors as transporting children to and from daycare and caring for parents, etc..

It is precisely because the time available is limited that it is necessary to take organizational measures without relying on individual skills.

In this issue, we would like to introduce some examples of business efficiency improvement at EPCS.

We have started to go paperless.

Until now, bookkeeping and tax return preparation were done on paper, and a large amount of paper documents were filed and stored in our archives every month.

The following month, the same cycle of creating and storing a large volume of paper documents was repeated.

Then, once a year, the entire staff would come together for the big EPCS event of “File organization”, a day-long, sweat-soaked process of boxing up all the documents that had accumulated in the stacks to be taken out to an outside warehouse.

In addition, invoicing, a task performed by many companies, relied on paperwork, including monthly invoice printing, envelope sealing, taking the invoices to the post office, and mailing procedures.


Therefore, in order to reduce storage costs, reduce printing costs, make effective use of space, and promote telework, a paperless business operation method was formulated for the above operations. As a result, we are now paperless in most of our operations, with the exception of a very small number of operations such as the stamping of contracts, and this has led to cost reductions compared to when we used to work with paper.


The paperless system has made operations speedy, and although it is a side effect, I feel that the spread of paperless operations has led to an increase in telecommuting, a reduction in commuting time, an increase in time available to individuals, and an improvement in work-life balance.

Let's try paperless!

As many of you are probably aware, the Electronic Bookkeeping Preservation act was revised in the tax reform of fiscal 2021, requiring that electronic data received in electronic transactions must be preserved in electronic form from June 1, 2024

The government is also promoting the spread of DX, and the previously difficult requirements of the Electronic Bookkeeping Preservation act have been eased, making it easier than ever to achieve paperless transactions.


Electronic Bookkeeping Preservation act stipulates electronic storage methods for national tax-related books, national tax-related documents, and electronic transactions in three categories: (1) Electronic bookkeeping, (2) Scanner storage, (3) Electronic data storage.


First, try changing the issuance of invoices from paper to PDF (see (1) above), which can be started immediately, and then, although there are requirements for application, why not start with electronic preservation of invoices (see (3) above) received from business partners in PDF or other formats, which can be proceeded with relatively easily.

Although it is necessary to determine the rules for how to store such documents, it would relieve you from the stress of daily mailing and filing tasks.

We are available for consultation regarding the Electronic Bookkeeping Preservation act, so please feel free to contact us through our website or our representatives.

佐田 好隆

Yoshitaka Sada

Accounting Solution Division/Manager/Tax accountant Joined EPCS in 2008 after graduate school. Mainly in charge of foreign affiliated companies and SPCs.

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