Finance

The colleagues in the "Budget" team develop the basis for the city's financial management and thus create the conditions for an orderly budget. They support the Board of Directors and the rest of the city's administration in making financial decisions.

The "Central Controlling and Business Development" team supports the city's various target groups by providing information, coordination and management consulting, and points the way to process-oriented, holistic, strategic, functional and financial budget management with an integrated view of the city as a group.

On this path, the team plays an important role in the further development, implementation, coordination and communication of the process-oriented control system in the budget cycle by linking the tasks of central controlling, business development, investment controlling and consolidated financial statements.

Important core tasks of the department are the further development of controlling instruments, central reporting for the core administration and shareholdings, the preparation of analyses/comparisons, business and legal consulting, the analysis of optimization potential, training, the development of targets and key figures as an impact-oriented technical and financial control, conceptual design of guidelines and the development of an integrated control system for the core administration and shareholdings.

The City Treasury handles the payment transactions of the City's business units, posts their business transactions and is responsible for ensuring liquidity. It is responsible for the collection of all outstanding receivables and represents the interests of the city in all insolvency proceedings.

The Tax Department is the direct point of contact for the collection of business, dog and amusement taxes. The department also looks after the municipal businesses of a commercial nature in tax matters.

Balance sheet accounting is a subarea of the entire accounting. It deals in summary with the results of the individual sub-areas of accounting. The focus is on the balance sheet, income statement and financial statement and the annual financial statements. Balance sheet accounting is part of external accounting and must account for the municipality and its business activities to the public. It provides the accounting basis for the strategic and operational planning of the City of Wolfsburg.

Business transactions in the City of Wolfsburg that can be expressed in numerical values are recorded in the financial accounting system using the methods of bookkeeping in a factual and chronological order, posted to accounts and documented. Invoices received are checked and recorded in the accounts payable section and forwarded to the city treasury for payment. Creditors are the creditors of a company who grant the City of Wolfsburg short-term credit until their invoice is settled. The receivables of the suppliers (service providers) are recorded as liabilities. The different maturities of the liabilities enable short-term liquidity planning. Outgoing invoices, on the other hand, are created in the accounts receivable section of the municipal treasury and processed by the balance sheet accounting department as part of the preparation of the balance sheet and the income and financial statements. The objective of financial accounting is to determine the overall result from the expenses and income of the City of Wolfsburg from 01.01. to 31.12. of each year.

An important objective of the reform of municipal budget law is implemented with the municipal comprehensive financial statements (consolidated financial statements), namely to regain an overview of the net assets, financial position and results of operations of the service areas of the municipality managed in the budget, including the service providers that are organizationally or legally spun off from the municipality's budget.

Objectives and purpose of the overall financial statements:

• Harmonization of accounting in order to make the financial situation of the municipality as a whole capable of being considered and assessed.
• Starting point for the further development of integrative management structures through the complete presentation of assets, liabilities, expenses and income
• Identifying intercompany transactions and exchanges of services
• Provision of information for politicians, administrators, citizens, banks and interested members of the public with an overall view of the tasks of the municipality and subsidiary organizations, as well as the total assets of the municipality and the earnings situation of the municipality as a whole.

The "Property Taxes" team is the point of contact for questions relating to the assessment, levying and assessment of property taxes as well as fees for waste disposal, street cleaning and stormwater.

The Corporate and Fundamental Affairs department is responsible for the administration and controlling of shareholdings. It is the point of contact for the municipal holdings, the representatives in the shareholders' and annual general meetings, the members of the Supervisory Board and Administrative Board, the employees in the administration and the members of the Council.

Its core tasks include preparing decisions for the City of Wolfsburg as a shareholder, supporting elected officials, developing and maintaining municipal standards in the context of investment management, and preparing the investment report. Other tasks include controlling and organizing reporting, processing and coordinating sub-budget 98 - shareholdings -, providing business and legal advice, informing politicians and general shareholding management.

The principles of investment management are set out in the following guideline.