Greater budgeting accuracy and even faster reporting

Greater budgeting accuracy

and even faster reporting

Clean-up and structuring of data at Total Produce Nordic (TPN), one of the largest produce growers and suppliers in the world, has maximized the speed of things like reporting the company’s P&L. Lots of redundant data was removed from their data warehouse, and the number of data cubes was reduced considerably – from more than 30 to just a few cubes.

”We needed a stable collaborative partner to help us continuously with the challenges we may encounter. Accobat was recommended to us, as they have extensive knowledge about the all the tools we use, along with the right business know how,” says chief controller Nicolas Couppé.

Previously, TPN has used the now-defunct Executive Suite (software for performance management, ed.) for P&L reporting. After a huge clean-up of the data warehouse, Cubus (German software for ad-hoc performance management, ed.) entered the scene as the new TPN business intelligence and reporting solution.

“Accobat’s consultants managed to streamline our data warehouse and remove superfluous data, making accounting follow-up faster. We have more than 20 companies in the group, and this is where Cubus is helping us with P&L reporting, both internally and to the owners,” the chief controller explains.

A strong budgeting tool with just one truth

Since then, Total Produce Nordic has added Jedox (German software for corporate performance management, including consolidating, ed.) as the company’s budgeting tool.

”We were spending way too much time on sending Excel spreadsheets in version 1, 2, 4, 7 etc. back and forth, which we controllers needed to try to consolidate and find some kind of truth in. When working with Excel spreadsheets, there is always an imminent risk that someone may enter something in a place where something else should be. There can be formula errors and all sorts of things.

We figured there had to be a smarter solution. We googled our way to Jedox, which Accobat has had good experiences with as well, and it obviously made implementation easier that we were using a partner who was already familiar with the rest of our solutions, our data warehouse, and of course our business. Now, we have a budgeting system that updates automatically, and which contains the right data. This means that we have a very secure tool, so we can spend our time where it is needed, on analysis, e.g. “should this customer grow by 5 or 10 percent?” Now, our discussions are about business matters, rather than discussions about whether the calculations are even correct,” Nicolas Couppé explains.

Jedox is used to make an effective breakdown of the revenue budget according to product category and from customer groups to customers. TPN has a very large number of customers, including many large supermarket chains, and they use Jedox for budgeting for the Danish, French, Spanish, and Swedish companies in the organization across 100 product categories.

“We juggle many key figures, and Jedox is there to lend a hand. Ultimately, we imagine using Jedox for P&L reporting as well, so we combine all activities in one total solution. We communicate with Accobat continuously, as they advise us about our setup, and we are simple looking for the most workable solution, and we are especially happy about the easy access to support,” states the chief controller at TPN.

Easy and fast adoption of new budgeting system

Implementing Jedox took just under a month, and that is with implementation during the annual budgeting process. ”The users have also welcomed the solution, because the interface is so intuitive. Along with Accobat, we have set up the pagers, so the entire Jedox solution looks like something from the Excel world users already know.”

Now, TPN has a budgeting tool that will help streamline the entire budgeting process from here on out. Today, TPN has about 20 users on Cubus, while 30 people a year uses Jedox as a budgeting tool. More users may be added, however, once TPN decide to get started with using Jedox for forecasting.

“As mentioned, there has also been challenges with the various systems, but we will solve those along the way with the help of Accobat, with whom we maintain a good dialogue. And that collaboration will continue,” concludes Nicolas Couppé.

About Total Produce Nordic

Total Produce is among the world’s largest produce growers and suppliers. They work out of 39 countries, but service many more – for retail, wholesale, and the food service industry.