"We considered building something ourselves, but quickly realised: if we dedicate capacity to this, it will come at the expense of the resources we could use to improve our own products."

-Paul Brentjens, CFO
"Thanks to the integration between BrightAnalytics and our various accounting packages, we now receive daily feeds from our administration instead of having to import them weekly via Excel.  "
- Paul Brentjens, CFO

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Seamless financial integration in a buy-and build strategy 

Since its founding, the Dutch company Spotler has evolved from an email service provider to an omnichannel supplier of data-driven marketing automation software. Thanks to a buy-and build strategy, the organisation has seen strong growth and today groups together several private limited companies (BVs) across various countries. But how does a CFO ensure that these companies are seamlessly integrated financially, and preferably in an efficient way? Enter BrightAnalytics. 

 “When we acquire an organisation, there are always several steps to take in order to integrate that company,” begins CFO Paul Brentjens. “This applies both to their product portfolio and to the integration of the organisation itself. To streamline things and with a focus on synergy, we have placed all acquisitions under one management per country in every market where we operate. As our group expanded, we also began to centrally manage our marketing, development, finance, and HR. As a result, there has been an increasing amount of cross-charging and transfer pricing between the companies and countries. In the past, we could look at one private limited company (BV) and easily tell how things were going, but with all the intercompany transactions, this has become increasingly difficult.”

The requirements that Spotler’s consolidation package needed to meet became increasingly stringent. “Until a year ago, we were still using another tool for consolidation and reporting,” Paul continues. “We had developed an approach with this software that worked reasonably well, but it still required quite a few manual steps. That’s why we started looking for another solution. We considered building something ourselves, but quickly realised: if we dedicate capacity to this, it will come at the expense of the resources we could use to improve our own products. As a finance department, we often have to fight for that capacity as it is. If others can do this more efficiently, why would we do it ourselves?”

Daily automatic updates instead of weekly in Excel 

When Paul later became acquainted with BrightAnalytics, it turned out that the software had several advantages that suited Spotler. The company decided to start with four administrations in order to implement the solution in phases. “BrightAnalytics had many strengths, but we wanted to see if we would actually make progress in those areas and ensure we wouldn’t lose too many other functionalities,” Paul explains. When everything was running smoothly a few weeks later, the decision was made to expand further.

So, what were the advantages of BrightAnalytics for Spotler? “Firstly, BrightAnalytics could easily and quickly connect with the various software packages we use,” Paul replies. “For our central contract administration, we use Younium, while for financial administration, we use different tools in each country. In the Netherlands, we use Yuki; in the United Kingdom, we work with Xero; in Sweden, we use PE Accounting; and in Germany, we use Datev. Thanks to the integration between BrightAnalytics and all these systems, we now receive daily feeds from our administration, instead of having to import them weekly via Excel. Additionally, the use of multicurrency is a significant advantage for us. In the past, we converted the UK figures into euros, which meant the UK team couldn’t view their numbers in pounds. With BrightAnalytics, they can.”

A third reason why Spotler positively evaluated BrightAnalytics’ software is the ability to work with multiple reporting structures. “We have our traditional layout, such as the annual financial statements, where, for example, personnel costs are grouped under ‘operating costs’,” Paul explains. “However, in our functional reporting—which focuses on how we manage the business—personnel costs are broken down by department. As a company, we follow three main revenue structures: recurring revenue, transactional revenue, and service revenue. We also break down our costs in the same way. In functional reporting, we allocate personnel generating service revenue under service costs, and staff like customer service personnel under recurring costs. We had this functional structure in our previous tool as well, but we couldn’t switch from that to the traditional layout to align with the financial statements. With BrightAnalytics, we can.”

And then there’s the consolidation app: “When we make an acquisition in the middle of a financial year, we don’t always want to include its revenue in the reporting. But sometimes we do, for example, when we compare the figures for a certain month with the same month from the previous year, to assess the acquisition’s contribution. This was a challenge in our previous tool: we had to use a dummy administration and all sorts of workarounds, whereas this functionality is readily available in BrightAnalytics. Finally, I can also drill down into the figures while keeping the visual display the same. This has made it easier for us to analyse discrepancies.”

More time for what really matters 

It’s clear that Spotler’s growth story—aiming to make one acquisition per year—has played a significant role in the decision to work with BrightAnalytics. Paul continues: “On one hand, there’s the ease and speed with which we can connect an administration, and on the other, the insights that BrightAnalytics gives us, especially in the figures from before a particular acquisition.” Has the company also saved a lot of time as a result? “That’s hard to say, as I can’t compare the two tools directly in that regard. I think we now spend more time in BrightAnalytics than we did in our previous tool, but we spend our time more meaningfully: by analysing the figures, rather than manually collecting, importing, or exporting them,” Paul concludes.

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The benefits of BrightAnalytics according to Spotler:

  • Easily and quickly connects with various packages 
  • Daily updates of figures instead of weekly in Excel
  • Multicurrency support 
  • Multiple reporting structures available 
  • Easy to analyse discrepancies 
  • More time for analysing the figures

Wondering what BrightAnalytics can do for you?

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About Spotler

Marketing communication without the hassle: that’s the promise that the Dutch company Spotler makes to its clients. More than 5000 marketers, communication specialists, and IT professionals happily use Spotler’s software. The company assists them with email marketing, marketing automation, transactional emails, social media publishing, web care, WhatsApp for business, CRM and the use of customer data platforms. Thanks to the buy-and-build strategy, Spotler has grown into a large organisation that makes several acquisitions each year- either to expand its product portfolio or to migrate customers from existing platforms to Spotler’s products. The company has over 300 employees spread across offices in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. BrightAnalytics ensures that the financial integration of all acquisitions at Spotler proceeds smoothly.