About a month ago, colleague Ksenija Puškarić commented on Lider’s website how suddenly institutions are accepting scanned documentation sent by email and how the pandemic has shown that issues important for companies and citizens can also be resolved this way.
However, the example of the accountant (nickname Nada Kaurich) who posted on the Facebook page of the Association Voice of Entrepreneurs shows that this is not entirely true. It does not state whether she is the owner or just an employee in the accounting service, but what is more important is that she sent documentation to the Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) via email for her client to justify the client’s ‘spending of self-employment support’.
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On April 9, she sent all scanned extracts and all incoming invoices according to HZZ’s instructions, and after an hour and a half, she received confirmation from the Institute, also via email, that the documentation was received, with the following words: ‘Due to extraordinary circumstances, documentation sent to this email or by registered mail is acceptable.’
Time Wasting
So, emails and registered mail are treated equally. But that this is not the case was shown by an employee at HZZ who sent the accountant a new email after almost a month (on May 6) asking her to send the already sent documentation by registered mail, along with additional documentation – two certificates from the Tax Administration regarding the status of unpaid obligations based on public levies and proof that the business entity is not in the VAT system.
Thus, in addition to the fact that the accountant is being harassed to collect documentation again, and additionally, and send it by mail, the problem is that almost a month has been lost for her client at a time when it is most confirmed that time is money. If the HZZ employee did not manage to process the case in that month (a friend recently told me that ‘they are working hard at HZZ’ since they are dealing with a pile of requests from entrepreneurs for help for their employed workers), she could at least have sent an email stating that the documentation should be sent by regular mail.
At least it would save time, but the accountant is also to blame, at least regarding the additional documentation from the Tax Administration that she should have sent along with the aforementioned.
And what now after the shipment arrives at HZZ? I fear it will take another month for the official or her colleague to start processing that case, and the liquidity of companies, especially small ones, is getting weaker, which is why they are waiting for money from the state like the sunburned. Of course, this will irritate every entrepreneur, especially in this situation of uncertainty in which the economy has found itself, when everyone is nervous and for many, even a small spark is enough to ‘ignite’.
Therefore, it is not surprising that now and then there are some inappropriate comments, and especially visible is the tendency of commentators to generalize, whereby all employees in public services (not just those employed at HZZ) are lazy and/or incompetent, which, of course (as my acquaintance said), is not true. From those comments of numerous entrepreneurs on the accountant’s post, one can also read all the anger many of them have towards ‘bureaucrats’, ‘HDZ members’, ‘SDP members’ that has been going on for years, but it seems that in this atmosphere it has boiled over.
The Cry of the Helpless
From both the accountant’s post and the letter she sent in an angry tone to the HZZ employee, it can be concluded that this request greatly irritated her. She told her that next time when she sends documentation twice, she will ‘receive an invoice in her name to pay because my spent time, doing the same thing twice, someone needs to pay for it.’ This is the cry of a person powerless to change the situation, and there is no doubt that the accountant has the right to be angry. Therefore, HZZ should warn its employees not to make such mistakes, especially since they have done a lot to make it easier for entrepreneurs to send their requests for state support online.
POST SCRIPTUM
To shorten the time, it would be best for the accountant to contact HZZ with a request to expedite the resolution of her client’s case since he has lost a lot of time waiting for that solution through no fault of his own. I have already written about this in ‘Justice’ – I think we need to lower the tensions because this situation has caught us all off guard, but there is also criticism that enough time has passed for the officials to get used to their new tasks. I believe that in the case of sending a request for expediting with an explanation of what happened, those responsible at HZZ would react and prioritize that entrepreneur’s case.
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