We can now monitor the numbers and our KPIs ourselves on an almost daily basis.

Working more independently, efficiently and proactively with the figures

Until recently, the innovative BM Engineering from Kortrijk had insight into the current figures only once every quarter: an external bookkeeper then consolidated and filtered the intercompany transactions from the data of seven bookkeeping systems. For a growing company, that could be a lot more dynamic, so they chose BrightAnalytics, which connected to their SAAS-environment Yuki.

Our operation is – partly due to takeovers in the past – spread over a number of companies with a holding company above them,” begins CEO and founder Jan Leye. “As a result, we have seven accounting systems, which we transferred to Yuki about two years ago. We want to consolidate all those figures, and we need to be able to filter out intercompany transactions. Our external accountant used to do this for us once every quarter, but we didn’t have real-time figures.”

In addition, BM Engineering also made a number of KPI calculations, for which it exported data from various programmes into Excel in order to monitor the performance of the company’s various departments. “We also had to do this manually,” continues Office Manager Caroline Claeren, “which took a lot of time. As a result, we were unable to produce the KPI reports more often than once a quarter. This had to change.”

From the ambition of being able to create more independent, efficient and proactive insight, BM Engineering with in search of a solution. “We contacted BrightAnalytics and one other vendor, but pretty quickly decided in favor of BrightAnalytics. That had to do with their online demo, which was very convincing. We also liked the fact that they already had connections with Yuki. The fact that, like us, they are based in West Flanders was an added bonus for us,” says Jan.

From demo to implementation: focus on customer satisfaction

Meanwhile, BrightAnalytics has been up-and-running at BM Engineering for a year and both Jan and Caroline are very enthusiastic. “Caroline single-handedly ensured the successful implementation of the system,” says Jan. “At BrightAnalytics, we have a very competent contact who has helped us along the way. You can sense that this company places an emphasis on customer satisfaction. From the demo on signing the contract and the whole process of importing the historical data, to filling out our questions. In an amazingly short time, BrightAnalytics was implemented and working. If there is an issue now and then – which of course can happen – it is always resolved very quickly.”

“I feel like there’s a young group of people ready to help,” agrees Caroline. “When I call, they always want to help right away. Today we don’t need them very often, because the system doesn’t crash easily. We only contact them when we want to start something new.”

Even the company’s external accountant was amazed at how quickly the platform was up and running. Today he uses BrightAnalytics for BM Engineering, and it saves him quite a bit of work. “Moreover, we can now monitor the figures and our KPIs on an almost daily basis,” Caroline adds. “A day after the invoices have been uploaded to Yuki, we already have insight into the current figures, whereas before there was a delay of three months. And that with much less manual work.”

No more discussion about the figures

Moreover, because every department head has been given access to BrightAnalytics, there are fewer ambiguities about the figures, it turns out. “The partners see their figures for the month and can also click through to invoice level if they have any doubts. That increases the internal transparency”, says Jan. “Everyone knows how the flow works: the data goes from our ERP package Team Leader Orbit to Yuki, and from there to BrightAnalytics. That’s no longer questioned, which used to be the case because it involved a lot of manual work, which gave rise to a lot of extra checks.”

The arrival of BrightAnalytics also made it possible for BM Engineering to budget. “We didn’t do that until recently because we didn’t have the tools to control the budgets. Today, this is perfectly possible in BrightAnalytics. That’s what I like about this software: there is no end point. There are still possibilities in addition to the ones we’re already using. I think we’ll be talking to BrightAnalytics next year to see how we can use even more functionalities, for instance in the area of cash management and operational reporting. That’s how we keep growing, and BrightAnalytics grows with us.”