Online police reporting is only the final step: why efficient theft management starts much earlier

Digitalising the filing of criminal complaints is an important topic for many retailers. Particularly for companies with large store networks, one question quickly arises: can recorded shoplifting incidents be submitted digitally straight to the relevant police authority or online police reporting portal?

It is a valid question. Yet it addresses only part of the issue.

Submitting a report through Germany’s online police reporting portal, known as the “Onlinewache”, is just one step at the end of a much broader process. Far greater efficiency gains can be achieved earlier, by making the entire shoplifting management process consistent, digital and standardised across all stores.

Most of the work happens before the criminal complaint is filed

A shoplifting incident triggers numerous follow-up processes for retailers. Personal details and incident information must be recorded, stolen goods documented, witnesses registered and criminal complaints prepared. Where applicable, contractual penalties must also be managed, and information made available to internal audit and security management teams.

In large store networks in particular, these tasks create additional work when processes are not organised consistently.

Different forms, local Excel spreadsheets, paper documents and individual workflows lead to duplicate data entry, follow-up queries and data that can only be analysed later with considerable effort.

This is where Sherlock comes in.

One process for all stores

Sherlock centrally manages the entire theft management process.

Store employees, store detectives, security agencies, internal audit teams and head office work with a shared set of data and within defined processes.

This enables companies to establish consistent standards across their organisation:

• What information must be recorded for each incident?
• Which details are mandatory?
• Which documents are generated?
• Who is allowed to view or edit which data?
• Which follow-up processes are triggered?

The key advantage is that these workflows can be defined centrally, without having to organise them separately in every store.

Turning individual incidents into actionable data

Another major advantage of centralised recording is the ability to analyse the data.

When all stores document incidents using the same structure, the result is a comparable dataset across the company.

This makes it possible to answer questions such as:

Which stores have particularly high numbers of incidents? Which product ranges or items are most affected? At what times are shoplifters most frequently apprehended? Which theft methods are being used? How effectively do the contracted security agencies work? How are the value of stolen goods, contractual penalties and other key figures developing?

Recording individual shoplifting incidents thus becomes a tool for internal audit, prevention and security management.

Online police reporting as the final digital step

Once the preceding process has been digitalised and standardised, submitting information to the police becomes much easier.

The data required to file a criminal complaint is already complete and structured. An interface to the online police reporting portal essentially only needs to transfer this information to the designated infrastructure.

This makes the role of the technical connection clear: it is important, but it is the logical final step in an already digital process, rather than its starting point.

Current connection status

According to our current information, the following German federal states are already connected to the relevant interface for large organisations:

Hesse, Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia.

Connections for further federal states are being prepared or implemented. Current plans include, in particular:

Baden-Württemberg, Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Berlin.

Implementation in Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia is currently expected in 2026/2027.

The specific timetable is determined by the respective federal states and may change.

For companies, this means that if their internal process has already been standardised and digitalised with Sherlock, the effort involved in connecting further federal states later is significantly reduced. As soon as the relevant interface becomes available and can be activated by the federal state, the company’s process is already prepared.

Standardisation is the real driver of efficiency

The main benefits therefore begin well before a criminal complaint is submitted digitally.

They start with:

consistent processes across all stores, complete and comparable data, less manual work, fewer disruptions between systems and formats, centralised management and better analysis.

Online police reporting then adds another automated step to this end-to-end process.

This turns numerous individual cases across stores into a centrally managed digital process, from apprehension through to analysis and further processing.