Finnivo supports KAL Group with comprehensive financial reporting tool
Background
The KAL Group is a diversified retailer serving agricultural, fuel, retail and convenience markets across Southern Africa. With almost 300 operating points that make up the business, the KAL Group required a more intuitive and comprehensive financial planning, consolidation and reporting solution to better accommodate its unique and growing needs.
Solving KAL Group’s pain points
“We required a solution to enhance our management accounts as well as our Annual Financial Statements,” says Sunette Botes, Manager: Finance for the KAL Group.
Botes says that, the company wanted greater reliability and uniformity in the data extrapolated from its ERP platform. “We needed to be able to set up the Annual Financial Statements so that they all looked the same and were treated the same.”
Evaluating potential software package solutions
With so many platforms on the market, a major factor for the KAL Group was finding a solutions package and provider that could meet their needs as a large, listed and continuously growing business.
“Size and capability were critical factors in our decision-making process. We explored various software packages, each with its own strengths, but many could not support the scale and complexity of our operations,” says Botes.
Finnivo offered the level of structure and control that the KAL Group was after, allowing them to build structures and processes suitable to their unique needs while providing versatility and “editability” that makes virtually anything possible.
“With so many platforms on the market, a major factor for the KAL Group was finding a solutions package and provider that could meet their needs as a large, listed and continuously growing business.”
Implementation
The implementation process, like any other software installation and adoption, was a labour of love for the KAL Group. However, Botes and her team were provided with expert training and support from the South African-based Finnivo team from the very beginning, which she says allowed them to take the reins and continue building on the system that was in place without the need for constant support calls and requests.
“The biggest responsibility lies with you as the client to make it work. We developed our own template in Excel and then sent it on to the Finnivo team to build into the system, which is why the implementation took some time. The support from Finnivo enabled us to customise the platform according to our specifications, which was great,” she says.
The company’s ERP system also seamlessly integrated with Finnivo’s data collection and consolidation processes, ensuring minimal interruptions to their workflows.
“The support from Finnivo enabled us to customise the platform according to our specifications, which was great”
The feature of Finnivo that the KAL Group found most impactful for their business? Botes says it was the consolidation module, which she refers to as “Excel on steroids” when describing the experience of using the templates. This saved the team a great deal of time, which could now be better used for analysing results.
“Now that Finnivo is set up and running, it’s incredibly easy to use. We have completed the first phase of implementation; next we will look at developing systems for our management accounts. Once we’ve completed all these phases, there will be lots of opportunity to explore and expand on Finnivo,” says Botes.