Through Cooperation of Serbian and Austrian Experts Through Solution for Companies Whose Employees Work in Another State – Beyond Global Mobility “Takes Care” of All Tax Regulations

The local company M&I Systems, Co. and the Austrian BDO have jointly developed the app Beyond Global Mobility, whose aim is to automatize the part of the process which pertains to the calculation of the costs pertaining to the employees who move from one state to another for a job task. Thanks to this app, time is saved within this process and the errors that happen when the calculation is done manually are reduced.

When someone is signing a labor contract abroad, the distribution of the salary in line with the time spent may be the main, but necessarily the most complex problem. A bigger challenge is if the employee has a company car, a paid apartment, or bonus schemes at the company. In such cases, rules apply which vary between countries, and that’s where the software comes to the fore.

– BDO is an expert when it comes to modern accountancy standards, has access to clients at which the digitization has progressed much further than here and access to the funds that Austria offers. M&I Systems, Co. is there as an ideal partner which, with its thirty years of experience in the market of information technologies and consulting, has the potential to upgrade the services offered by BDO through the digitalization of solutions and processes. That is how we established the partnership and did several projects together, among which is the BGM project. This approach has enabled us to improve the knowledge, develop an additional product and expand the portfolio in the field of digitalization of business solutions, access to companies in the European market. Also, what’s invaluable for us is the partnership with the company BDO, with which, I am sure, innovative projects are to come – says Vladan Balban, the president of the M&I Systems, Co. Group.



BDO Austria points out that the company has so far had great benefits from the cooperation with M&I Systems, Co.

– This is not the first project on which BDO Austria and M&I Systems, Co. have cooperated. One of the most favorable aspects of the project is that the transfer of valuable knowledge is two-way. BDO Austria provides specialized tax knowledge about international tasks, and M&I Systems, Co. provides great knowledge from the perspective of digital transformation, intelligent solutions, software development and implementation – points out Jorg Schonbacher, Partner, BDO Austria.

Through the synergy of the knowledge that BDO has in the field of accountancy standards and global mobility and the all-encompassing experience of M&I Systems, Co in the field of the development and implementation of software solutions, a product was made that is ready to meet the challenges of the global market.

– The combination of our expertise, channels and network of contacts, as well as the international sources of finance that our available to us (the Austrian Development Agency, in this case) point to even more exciting and innovative project awaiting us – Balaban says.

Both companies agree that the next step is to put the app Beyond Global Mobility on the world market.

– The next step is to focus on putting this tool on the international market. We want to make sure that the tool will cover an increasing number of clients that deal with long-term and short-term tasks, as well as frequent business trips. Since it can be used for all companies that have employees in the whole world, we will focus on the countries where business trips are frequent – says Claudia Grabner, Partner BDO Austria.



The focus, Balaban adds, will be primarily on the EU states where global mobility is highly regulated.

– At the same time, we are also working on expanding the domains that this product covers. As our cooperation with BDO has so far been producing very creative and innovative results, based on constant learning and perfecting, we are continuing in the same direction and we are currently looking into new fields of cooperation. One of the examples of the previous cooperation is a project in the RPA field (robotic process automation) within which, with the help of software robots, that is, digital labor force, we automated a range of other key processes, important for the operations of BDO and the services they provide to their clients – Balaban points out.

He also adds that M&I Systems, Co. has big plans for the upcoming period.

– In 2022, we want to present our new Beyond Digital platform and continue its development. We have an increasingly better cooperation with many of our strategic partners on the global level, we are co-owners and founders of several startups which cover various fields – Kroog Ventures with the awarded IT platform Joberty and the innovative RPA solution Robotiq, which relies primarily of AI technology, and then offices in the major business locations in the United Arab Emirates (Dubai) and the USA (California).The fact alone that the world innovation fair is held in Dubai (Expo 2020) says enough about the focus on new high-tech markets of the Middle East and the Far East, whereas, on the other side of the Atlantic, the interest in our services and products is continuously growing. All this allows us to move in two important directions, for our clients and our employees – the strengthening of the current position in the market and a constant diversification of our portfolio and knowledge – he pointed out.

For the Austrian partners, this cooperation has been beneficial in multiple ways. They underline that they have learned a lot from the Serbian company.

– I believe that this project has truly shown how we can learn from each other. We have learned a lot from the structured, but quick and agile, work of our Serbian partner. What’s more, we have gained a great insight into how the Serbian market functions and how we can address the interested parties together with M&I Systems, CO. Finally, it should be said that, from our experience in this project, Austrian companies should be encouraged to cooperate more closely with Serbian companies, because they can find highly professional and highly motivated partners that are ready to present fresh perspectives, innovative ideas, current knowledge in the field of digital transformation, development of intelligent solutions and systems, as well as an unconditional attitude of friendliness and being at service – Schonbacher believes.



– From the business perspective, both M&I Systems, Co. and BDO Austria will benefit from the fact that we are raising the administration of globally mobile work force to another level. This creates plenty of possibilities for a joint expansion of our services on an international level. In order for a system to develop, you need creative and ambitious minds that are capable of running it. In other words, the project enables both companies to create new jobs and grow – Grabner adds

The time when systems could function independent of the environment and without a continuous following of world trends such as artificial intelligence, business automation and fintech technologies has long passed. It is precisely the Beyond Global Mobility project that has provided an insight to both companies in the field of tax regulations in various countries, Balaban pointed out.

– The foundation of this project – exchanging and combining knowledge in tax and software fields, as well as the financial stimulus from the Austrian Development Agency, would not be possible without international cooperation. Finally, a large part of the operations of M&I Systems, Co. is based on some form of international cooperation, where a knowledge synergy is created and through which the foundations are set up for long-term and equal partnerships, which enable us to constantly grow and develop – he believes.

The end-goal of the Beyond Global Mobility app is to encompass as many different countries and employee benefits as possible, so that companies with so-called expats (people who go abroad to finish a task) can automate this process as much as possible, save time for the people involved, reduce the errors and provide a transparent insight into the calculation to various interested parties.

The input consists of the earnings and the benefits of the employees and their work schedules. The output is divided by state and company, so that adequate tax can be paid and tax recovery can be realized based on it.

The product is meant for the employees that take part in this process. These can be the expats themselves, people from a HR department or accountants who report taxes based on these data. It is not rare that external agencies also do these services for companies, so they can also be the users.

M & I Systems, Co. Group Novi Sad

M and I Systems Co

BDO Austria

Austrian Development Agency

Vladan Balaban

Jörg Schönbacher

Claudia Grabner

Beyond Global Mobility

robotic process automation

business trips