Scheppach Group: Two hours more time every day thanks to Agicap
The Bavarian company Scheppach has a global presence and uses Agicap to consolidate all financial flows across 30 banks. Peter Konz, who is responsible for finance, gives an overview of the functions with which the tool significantly simplifies "daily doing", as he calls it himself.
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Key takeaways
As an industrial and retail company, the Scheppach Group generates an annual turnover of around 400 million euros worldwide. It faces the challenge of managing high daily cash expenditures and planning liquidity on a daily basis.
Due to strong growth in the past, financial processes are outdated and have not grown with the company. Many things were done manually – until Agicap was implemented. Since then, functions such as cash pooling, bank integration, liquidity forecasts and reporting have enabled simplified and faster financial management, freeing up valuable time.
Agicap was customised for Scheppach's purposes and is now an indispensable tool for the group. The best proof of this: The tool saves up to two hours of time per employee per day.
" From my point of view, Agicap is exactly the right tool for medium-sized companies that need individual solutions and need a quick and intuitive overview of their liquidity. "
90%
of transactions automatically categorized
2
hours daily saved per employee
30
bank accounts from 7 banks and 3 countries aggregated
Customer’s history
The Scheppach Group, headquartered in Ichenhausen, Bavaria, is a production and retailing company with its product portfolio in the areas of DIY, gardening, construction and renovation. At locations in Germany, France and Australia, 360 employees generate an annual turnover of around 400 million euros. Peter Konz, who manages finance at Scheppach, is responsible for keeping an eye on all cash flows.
One of the biggest challenges facing the international medium-sized company is having a clear overview of liquidity and cash flows. After all, due to years of strong growth and the previously manual aggregation of 30 bank accounts from seven banks in three countries processes are no longer up to date and concrete financial planning is difficult. Meaningful liquidity forecasts cannot be made with ERP data alone, and due to high cash expenditures in day-to-day business, Peter Konz does not know in detail where the money is going.
" With Agicap, we have found a state-of-the-art solution that provides us with perfect support in all aspects of cash management. "
This desire for a solution that overcomes precisely these challenges, eliminates weaknesses and replaces the indirect method of cash flow planning. It is intended to reduce the high manual effort that Peter Konz and his team is exposed to on a daily basis.
Customer’s needs
Bank Account Aggregation: Overview of all 30 bank accounts from different countries on a single dashboard
Liquidity Preview: Use of P&L for an ongoing and customisable preview of liquidity
More transparency: Generally, more and more precise insights into all cash flows of all locations and companies, also for providing analyses and reports for management
Integration: Integration of Agicap into existing systems or integration of them into the new tool so that there is a standardised database that presents all data cumulatively
Reduced employee workload: Less manual workload of employees, for example by automatically categorising transactions
Solution
The integration of Agicap has changed this situation. The tool replaces many manual tasks and ensures that Peter Konz and his team can detect liquidity peaks at any time on a daily basis, efficiently integrate data from different systems into Agicap and carry out a more transparent cash flow analysis.
To do this, the globally active company uses various functions of the treasury management tool – such as the direct conversion of the P&L into daily updated and customisable liquidity forecasts. From now on, liquidity peaks can be detected and counteracted at an early stage – the funds flow more quickly to the right place.
The linking of 30 bank accounts from different countries also contributes to this. This previously manual process is automated by the tool. This function is not the only reason why employees of the Scheppach Group save up to two hours a day thanks to Agicap.
" Agicap has generally brought many improvements for us in "daily doing". Above all, this includes time savings for our employees of up to two hours per day, reduced susceptibility to errors and the categorisation of our transactions, where we can now apply 90% directly to our expense categories automatically. "
According to Peter Konz, Agicap is exactly the right tool for medium-sized companies that require costumised solutions and need a quick and intuitive overview of their liquidity. At Scheppach, the tool has also enabled direct planning of cash flows since its implementation. Individual initial positions can be adjusted directly, reference to historical average values is possible and all data from the existing ERP system is imported – possibilities that the group did not have before.
The reports created from all the data collected also help Peter Konz as Head of Finance to report to management, banks and the advisory board. To do this, he uses the summary of the actual liquidity across individual banks and companies as well as the cash flow analysis of the last few weeks and the forecast.
Conclusion
The Scheppach Group uses Agicap in several areas, from cash pooling to liquidity analysis to comprehensive reporting – both on the desktop and via the app on the go, as Peter Konz emphasises. This gives him and his team an insight into the cash flows and liquidity of the entire group at any time.
One of the main criteria in the decision in favour of Agicap was the easy connection of the approximately 30 bank accounts that Scheppach maintains. This means that data from all banks no longer has to be aggregated manually, as was previously the case.
For Scheppach, Agicap is a "state-of-the-art solution" that supports the company holistically in the area of cash management and can thus keep pace with the rapid growth of the industrial and retail group thanks to an increase in the efficiency of financial processes.
Hornberger Consulting
Business Sector:
Business services
Where:
Hamburg, Germany
Cashflow Problem:
Anticipate cash flow shortages beforehand, craft scenarios that are based on actual financial data, extend ERP-systems with cash flow management capabilities
M2A Media
Business Sector:
Media Agency
Where:
London, United Kingdom
Cashflow Problem:
Manage multiple entities during internalization, managing different currencies and different banking providers
“Agicap provides the view the board needs if it is going to make strategic decisions.”
Business Sector:
Software Development
Where:
Dublin, Ireland
Cashflow Problem:
High manual effort in consolidating the cash flow data of 8 companies and 15 bank accounts, high susceptibility to errors, outdated data and hardly any chance to provide management with reliable reports for strategic decisions.
