Local authorities cover municipalities and towns/cities, Public Centres for Social Welfare, autonomous municipal companies, as well as local police and fire services.
Local authorities are striving to provide an increasingly broader range of digital services, along with more transparency. This gives members of the public and companies direct access to all relevant information and documents. Converting items from paper to digital format is also leading to a much-needed increase in productivity.
Incoming e-mails are dealt with automatically by the accounting system, invoices are scanned or read in as e-invoices, captured automatically, verified and then sent to management software (BBC) for accounting treatment. These services are all in the cloud. Invoices can be located in a secure archive that complies with all legal requirements. This does away with the need to keep paper invoices. All authorities, no matter their size, can be catered for due to the links that are already in place with all existing suppliers of BBC software.
Local authorities can also automate their document outflow to members of the public and companies (for instance, tax returns, day-nursery invoices, Public Centres for Social Welfare, sports halls, etc.). Members of the public and companies are free to set their own preferences on a portal, and receive their documents by e-mail or in their portal or preferred app (such as Doccle and POM). The digital innovation has been an instant hit for local authorities:
- customers are satisfied with the additional service
- there have been considerable cost-savings
Digitalisation also guarantees an efficient, straightforward and secure method for providing employees with their monthly payslips. Another strength is that they can easily obtain a record of past payslips.
Traffic wardens, members of the public, policemen and municipal staff can use apps to register and forward information directly. The direct digital processing of anti-social behaviour fines is one example in this regard, while the interactive and digital treatment of reports of defects, nuisance and complaints is another.
Documents, archives and files can be fully processed in the cloud. Incoming mail is digitally captured and followed up, outgoing documents are approved through this channel and sent out in paper and/or digital format. The last stage of the process is placing a digital signature on the documents using, for instance, an eID system
