Businesses, brace yourself, the one-stop shop will still rock for some time. Since 1is January, the implementation of the digital platform whose management has been entrusted by the State to the INPI (National Institute of Industrial Property) is far from being a long calm river.
“We can’t say it’s going badly, it’s worse than that, it’s not happening”, storm Nicolas Férand, president of the Order of Chartered Accountants of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, who like all professionals in charge of formalities on behalf of their business clients, finds malfunctions every day.
“The business creation files are lost, we manage to enter the data but 3/4 of the files are in nature. Before, it took a week to have a Cabis and now it’s 15 days to three weeks” testifies the professional figure.
Deadlines multiplied by two or three
He approached the president of the Toulon Bar Association, with a view to drafting a motion addressed to the Ministry of the Economy, to sound the alarm. “The referral times are multiplied by two or three and certain procedures are not possible” testifies Me Sophie Caïs.
His young colleague, Guillaume Luccisano, vice-president of the young lawyers of Toulon, and specialized in the life of companies, squarely listed the “bugs” to bring them up to the highest level.
Repeated disconnections, obligations to fill in the same information at several stages of the form, impossibility of reaching the often saturated hotline, lack of visibility on the processing time, which of course, in the life of a company, is detrimental.
“We are the beta testers of the platform” quips the commercial law specialist, who logs on at 7 a.m. or in the evening after 10 p.m. to avoid seeing the hourglass appear.
Discontent rises… And paper is back!
Faced with growing discontent, Bercy has already implemented several backpedals. For the past few days, the urgent procedure has been activated for certain procedures; that is to say… the return to paper.
For the creation of a secondary establishment, it is necessary to fill in printed forms again. And this, in order not to penalize the companies, with too long waiting times, the time that the platform is operational.
In the back office, the organizations that process the files (consular chambers, Urssaf, finance department, etc.) since the platform is only an intermediary interface, are mobilized.
“Entrepreneurs are unhappy and look to us”explains Yannick Mazette, the president of the regional chamber of trades, whose hundred agents who were to be redeployed on other missions, or not renewed for fixed-term contracts, will finally be on deck until the month of June, in order to support companies in their difficulties. “They are all trained at the one-stop shop, we inform and support”.
A real loss for businesses
Same thing for legalists, these firms specializing in the management of administrative formalities. “Structures like ours have to manage 150 a day. This is a real disadvantage for our customers; for a capital increase, for example, it takes fifteen days, compared to two to three previously” explains Loïc Le Goas, founder of LegalVision, some of whose clients have started to create a self-help group.
In their ranks, and on social networks, we point out the too rapid implementation of this platform, without having taken the time to test it, and we regret that of Infogreffe, run by the group of clerks of the 143 commercial courts , which has also recovered some of its missions, for a few days, such as the procedure for creating SCIs, to deal with the emergency.
Bercy plays on flows while waiting for the month of March
Faced with this anger, Bercy wishes to recall that its teams are in constant contact with the professional federations, the consular chambers and the administrations concerned. And don’t sit idly by.
It must be said that in France, more than 5 million formalities are carried out each year by the economic world. Since the establishment of the one-stop shop on January 1, 70,000 creations have been registered there, as well as 130,000 formalities.
Business creations could be filed online for a year “but as far as changes and terminations are concerned, the tests that were carried out between September and December were not sufficiently successful”, explains the Ministry of the Economy. Hence the use of another platform, the business counter, “who has a lot of trouble”.
A backlog of backlogs
Bercy admits that a stock of files is currently overdue “which should be cleared in the coming days”. How ? By playing on the daily outgoing flows which will increase from 3,000 to 6,000 in the coming days, by improving the efficiency of the platform.
“Since yesterday we have authorized the paper formality for the most urgent procedures”further specifies Bercy, recalling that until December 31, 70% of the procedures were still done on paper.
“There is very strong pressure on the INPI, the teams have been reinforced, we are using IT service providers, the first effects will be visible next week”ensures this Friday evening the ministry.
1,500 cessation of activity files will also be “switched” to the single window platform to relieve that of the business window, which will reduce the number of daily incoming flows from 5,500 to 4,000, for a capacity of 6,000 outgoing flows. Bruno Le Maire has promised a complete changeover, to a reliable tool, by March.