Special expertise in the area of universities

Auditing and advising universities has been one of our main areas of expertise within the public sector since 2007. 

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In addition to auditing annual financial statements, our range of services also includes tax consulting, internal audits and process optimisation.

Thanks to our decades of experience, we have detailed industry knowledge and are familiar with the university landscape, the legal framework and the organisational structures and processes typical of universities. In addition to our specialised human resources, these are essential prerequisites for being able to develop and offer pragmatic solution concepts in the event of changes to the legal framework and the resulting new requirements for universities.

In addition, we are involved in the further development of university accounting through lectures, publications and as co-editors of the Handbook of University Accounting and the Handbook of University Management.

Our aim is to provide you with comprehensive, interdisciplinary advice tailored to your individual needs. Our specialised industry team therefore consists of auditors, tax consultants and lawyers as well as IT specialists and a civil engineer. 

Our services for the university sector

We offer you audits of annual financial statements that we have tailored to the requirements of universities with our industry expertise. Special topics such as the accounting treatment of basic funding, special or project funds, the delimitation of construction measures, issues relating to the management of reserves and the separation of the sovereign and commercial areas of the university in the context of separate accounting have been among the core competences of our team for many years. If required, we can also call on experts in tax, legal or technical issues and IT topics.

We also offer universities the auditing of third-party funding utilisation reports and calls for funds. We customise our audit procedures and the respective reporting to meet the requirements of the respective third-party funders.

In recent years, internal auditing has developed into a risk and process-orientated monitoring and advisory body that supports university management in its control and monitoring duties within the framework of corporate governance. In this area, we contribute our industry expertise and experience in the field of process analysis, both in the form of targeted individual investigations and operational support for your own internal audit department, right through to the complete takeover of your internal audit. 

In addition to income tax and VAT declarations, our range of tax consultancy services also includes, in particular, advice on tax structuring. Our tax experts have been familiar with the special features of the public sector for many years and are at your side as a reliable partner. In addition to advising on the implementation of § 2b of the German Value Added Tax Act (UStG), we are also happy to help you with questions regarding the delimitation of commercial businesses. We also offer support during tax audits.

The principle of VAT taxation of legal entities under public law has been changed by the introduction of § 2b in the German VAT Act. The mandatory implementation is now to take place on 1 January 2025. In this context, service and contractual relationships must be reassessed. In order to avoid tax disadvantages, changes may be necessary once the assessment has been completed. We support you in both the analysis and implementation phases with our § 2b Compass.

We support you in fulfilling your obligations under the Union Framework for State Aid for Research, Development and Innovation of 21 May 2014. We help you to distinguish between economic and non-economic activities, check and advise on the introduction or evaluation of the separation calculation and advise or draw up an EU-compliant third-party funding guideline.

Digitalisation is an ongoing process. We support you in the implementation of IT projects both in an advisory capacity and as part of project-related audits. This provides you with the necessary security for system conversions or changes. We also carry out IT audits within and outside of the annual audit.

Attacks on IT infrastructure in the form of cyberattacks are also becoming increasingly common in the public sector, making it all the more important to make existing IT as resilient as possible. We are happy to support universities in determining the current status quo with a cyber security check, which records the status and identifies necessary fields of action.

PKF cyber security checks

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PKF Cyber security checks