The line   The page is built as a schematic, and it draws itself as you read it. One rule runs the full height; content hangs off it as nodes; the stretches between are edges, each labelled with what moves along it. A gold marker tracks your position down the line. All of it on CSS scroll-driven timelines — no JavaScript, nothing listening to scroll, and on a browser without support the page is simply complete and still. Dense nodes, generous line: the space is structural rather than left over, and the rule stays vertical at every width, so the idea survives mobile instead of dying with a sidebar.

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The decision has your name on it. So does ours.

Choosing a finance system is one of the few decisions a CFO cannot quietly reverse. The work starts with your process rather than a product demo — and the people who draw that map stay on the project.

Talk to a personStart where it hurts
First — what is actually breaking
01

Tell us what is breaking. We will tell you what we would look at first.

Which of these sounds like you?

Pick one — the answer appears below. Nothing is sent anywhere.

You already run a system

You are choosing or replacing one

The workarounds have workarounds.

What it looks like
  • Month-end depends on scripts only one person understands.
  • Customer payments sit unallocated because matching does not work.
  • Nobody owns the question of whether the setup is still right.
The likely next move

Have the system examined before anyone proposes replacing it.

Spreadsheets and local systems no longer keep up.

What it looks like
  • There is no single source of truth, and everyone knows which file is theirs.
  • Consolidation is manual, and it is manual again next month.
  • The architecture is at its limit and the business is not.
The likely next move

Map the processes first. The shortlist then falls out of the map on its own.

Investors want answers the system cannot produce.

What it looks like
  • The board pack is rebuilt from exports every quarter.
  • Two people produce two versions of the same number, both defensible.
  • Planning happens outside the system, in a workbook.
The likely next move

Fix planning and close first — the reporting problem is usually downstream of them.

The CFO needs a case the board can interrogate.

What it looks like
  • An investor or a new owner is asking for a plan with a date on it.
  • The decision lands on one desk, with one name on it.
  • Proof is required before anyone commits.
The likely next move

The deck is built in your numbers and your processes, and it argues the alternatives rather than asserting one.

Every new country adds another workaround.

What it looks like
  • Local tools multiply — one per country, and a spreadsheet between each pair.
  • VAT or e-invoicing is corrected after extraction, not before.
  • The entities no longer agree, and reconciling them is somebody's week.
The likely next move

Localization and consolidation belong in the ledger, where the posting happens.

I don’t have a company. I have isolated islands.

What it looks like
  • A different system in every country, and none of them talk.
  • Group reporting cannot see through the local setups.
  • Local requirements are driving the architecture instead of the other way round.
The likely next move

One template, localized where the law demands it and nowhere else.

Then — your landscape, drawn before anything is recommended
02

We draw your system before we recommend anything to run it on.

ERP, EPM, CRM and HCM are not four products on a price list. They are one drawing, and which part you buy follows from where your version of it is breaking.

EPM PLAN · CONSOLIDATE · CLOSE 02 CRM CUSTOMERS · PIPELINE CONTRACTS · ORDERS 03 ERP SYSTEM OF RECORD TRANSACTIONS · LEDGERS ENTITIES · REVENUE 01 HCM PEOPLE · ORG STRUCTURE ABSENCE · PAYROLL INPUT 04 actuals · ledgers trial balance plan · targets budget 1 → orders, contracts ← invoices, balances ← cost centres, entities → employees, payroll cost pipeline → forecast 3 headcount plan → forecast 2 eUNIFY · MIDDLEWARE · ONE INSPECTABLE BOUNDARY 05 PERSONIO employee master, absences DATEV journals, tax handover PERK travel & expense data + YOUR SYSTEMS individual integrations
Planning & consolidationEPM · plan, consolidate, close
plan vs actual · budget · forecast
The system of recordERP · one set of books · everything reconciles here
actuals · ledgers · trial balance
Integration layerMiddleware · one inspectable boundary
contracts · invoicing triggers
Customers & contractsCRM · pipeline, orders, renewals
pipeline → forecast · planned, not yet built
People & payrollHCM · org structure · payroll input
cost centres · headcount · payroll postings
+ your systemsThe slot this drawing is for · dashed until it exists
Runs todayPlanned, not yet real
Solid lines run today. Dashed lines are planned and not yet real — that distinction is the reason the drawing is worth reading. A reference sheet, not yours; yours is what the first two to three weeks produce.
What moves along here — the recommendation, argued against the alternatives
03

Most ERP projects do not fail on the software.

Budget, configuration and how long your close takes afterwards are decided by whoever implements it. Three questions worth asking us, and worth asking whoever else is in the room.

Who writes the process map, and when?

If the answer is “during the project”, the price in front of you is an estimate of work nobody has scoped yet.

Which of your people is still here in month seven?

Ask for the name. Then ask what else that person is booked on — month seven is when the implementation turns up the thing nobody wanted to find.

When did you last recommend a rival system?

Every partner calls its recommendation independent. Far fewer can date the last time being right about it cost them the licence revenue.

Then — and only in this order
04

Process, tool, automation, AI. We do not skip one.

Every company is somewhere on this ladder already. The damage happens when a stage gets skipped.

01 · Process

What actually happens, written down — including the parts that live in one person’s head.

Leave when the map matches reality, not the org chart

02 · Tool

The system chosen from the mapped process, argued against the alternatives that were rejected.

Leave when the system runs it without a spreadsheet holding it together

03 · Automation

The repeated, rule-shaped work handed over — matching, allocation, approvals.

Leave when the exceptions are rare enough to be interesting

04 · AI

Design-time only: reading a landscape, comparing options, drafting a migration plan. Not inside your live finance system.

Nobody is here who did not climb the first three

Drawn dashed on purpose — the fourth rung is roadmap, and we say so
05

Every competitor in this market can put AI on a slide. The part that is hard to copy is the refusal — and the refusal is the reason the rest holds.

What is on the record — five, because five carry written permission
06

Five projects we are allowed to describe.

Twenty legal entities in one, six in another, nineteen countries in a third. The pattern underneath is the same: work done by hand, in a spreadsheet, by somebody who could not go on holiday in the first week of the month.

AMANNGlobal textile manufacturing

Travel and project expenses ran through multi-country rules, currencies and reimbursement standards by hand, and SAP had to stay the single source of truth without data silos forming around it.

ScenicLuxury travel, operating on nearly every continent

Consolidation and intercompany transactions ran across disparate systems that had to be reconciled by hand, and revenue recognition depended on historical data.

HasenkampLogistics — high-value goods, art handling, global relocation

A highly mobile workforce produced a large volume of international expenses, handled by manual processes that differed from entity to entity, with limited visibility and control over what was being spent.

NZYMBiotechnology — enzymes and reagents for life sciences and diagnostics

Expense management was manual across six entities, with no real-time view of spending and no clean route into the accounting system.

PerkTechnology — enterprise spend management

Visibility was poor across disparate data sources, consolidation and currency conversion were manual, and different ledgers reported differently.

No outcome figure appears above — the published case studies carry none, and we do not invent them.

Who stays on it — the same names, through go-live and the year after
07

The people whose names are on it.

LK

Lars Kirschstein

Managing Director

Takes the first call and presents the proposal himself.

CS

Christoph Schweins

Managing Director

Signs off scope and price, and carries the commercial risk on our side.

FK

Fares Khattab

ERP & NetSuite

The technical read on your instance: what is configured well, and what is costing a week a month.

JG

Jarrid Gilfillan

Head of Products

Owns the products and the connectors between systems.

A real photograph or none.

End of the line

Talk to the person who would run yours.

A first call about the business, your own process walked end to end, a proposal that argues the options against each other, and only then the software on screen.

info@cloudmaven.com+41 77 212 24 28

90+ NetSuite projects · around 100 people across ERP and EPM · supporting finance teams since 2006 · under 100 days to go-live on a single-entity build. Customers include Sherpany, DOCO, Bitpanda.

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Process first, then the tool — with named people who stay through the build.

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info@cloudmaven.com

A certified Oracle NetSuite Solution Provider and implementation partner. Design study — every figure and customer name here is already published on cloudmaven.com.