3 companies share how they automated their financial reporting

3 companies explain how automating their financial reporting saves them time.

For CFOs, every minute counts in the never-ending pursuit of peak performance. Yet manual, repetitive tasks can quickly eat up valuable time and cause unnecessary stress. Dive into the stories of three companies that have unlocked their full potential since deciding to automate their financial reporting.

With 20 years of experience as a CFO, Pascal Deknop can boast solid expertise in his field. This long experience has given him a front-row seat to the constant changes in his profession over time. For nearly two years, he has been CFO at Euro-Locks Belgium, a company that has specialized in locking systems since it was founded in 1972.

"Immeasurable" time savings

When he took on his new role, the question of tools came up. And for Pascal, settling for a simple Excel spreadsheet was out of the question:

"I used to lose an entire day compiling information to produce a report. Then I spent three hours trying to explain that report to my executive committee." What's more, when he arrived, Euro-Locks Belgium had lost several months of financial data because its reporting wasn't automated.

"When I joined Euro-Locks, we had lost four months of financial data. There was no automated reporting tool and the former CFO was on sick leave. Imagine if we had urgently needed cash. The consequences could have been terrible for the company", he recalls.

The decision to use financial reporting automation software, also called "EPM software", was therefore a natural one.

The CFO explains: "EMASPHERE saves me an immeasurable amount of time. Now I only need one hour to compile the information for my financial reporting with EMASPHERE. I can spend the rest of my day analyzing that data to provide relevant insights both internally and to headquarters".

"We've already saved 15,000 euros a year"

In 2020, Edouard Della Faille became an entrepreneur by co-founding BeVet, a network of veterinary practices in Wallonia and Brussels. Together with four other partners, he launched this promising venture in animal health.

He is now CEO of the company, which today generates revenue of 10 million euros. Automation quickly became a necessity:

"Basically, since we started using EMASPHERE, we've been able to track budget execution better, cut costs and optimize. For example, on overheads, we had lots of small invoices we had very poor visibility on. We identified many synergies and saved around 15,000 euros in recurring costs per year. So we've already almost paid back the cost of using the platform, and we also have a better analytical view to allocate costs efficiently across the practices", says Edouard Della Faille.

 "An essential tool for any business owner"

Gary Dauman is also full of praise for EMASPHERE. Using it has sparked a small revolution in the daily life of the head of E.zicom, a French company that sells small household appliances for home care.

With the war in Ukraine since February 2022, E.zicom had seen its revenue and profitability decline. With EMASPHERE, he was able to analyze the cause of this decline and restore his gross margin by deciding to cut certain costs and raise the selling price. "Having this kind of tool should be mandatory for any company or SME. I'm completely autonomous on the subject; I no longer need to ask my accountants to produce a report for me", explains Gary Dauman.

This type of tool is also an asset when pitching projects to obtain a bank loan, since the financial reports presented to the bank look professional. Gary Dauman also stresses the time savings. Because the tables are generated automatically, there's no need to build these charts manually in Excel. "It saves me a huge amount of time when I have loan applications to submit. In just a few clicks, I can produce a forecast for the banks that is very visual and well designed. I'm currently working on a loan application and I used EMASPHERE for it."