Who writes the process map, and when?
If the answer is “during the project”, then the price in front of you is an estimate of work nobody has scoped yet. Ask to see the map before the contract, not after it.
ERP · EPM · CRM · HCM · Integrations · Advisory — Oracle NetSuite Solution Provider
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. So the work starts with your process rather than a product demo, and the recommendation arrives argued against the alternatives — in a document you can put in front of a board. Then the people who drew that map stay on the project. The same names, through the build, through go-live, and in month seven when the thing nobody wanted to find turns up.
Talk to a personOr start boundedThe Health Check: ten working days, and a written answer you keep
1Experiencereporting · planning · analysis2Applicationsclose · consolidation · treasury3Finance dataledger · entities · master data4IntegrationAPIs · connectors · streaming5Foundationcloud · security · governance
What is on the record
Everything we can prove, and the things we cannot
Read the second list as carefully as the first. It is the one that tells you what kind of firm this is.
- Partner status
- A certified Oracle NetSuite Solution Provider and implementation partner, specialising in complex, multi-entity deployments for international companies.
- NetSuite projects behind the advice
- 90+
- People across ERP and EPM
- ~100
- Supporting finance teams since
- 2006
- Single-entity build to go-live
- <100 days
- Customers we name
- Sherpany · DOCO · Bitpanda
- Published case studies
- 5 — two NetSuite builds, three finance integrations
- Countries in operation
- 20
- Localisations built into the system
- ES — SII real-time VAT · CH — QR-bill and ISO 20022 · DE — E-invoicing and ELSTER · SA — ZATCA clearance
- Legal entities you can contract with
- Cloudmaven AG · Cloudmaven GmbH · Cloudmaven UK Ltd.
And the rows with nothing in them
- Customer satisfaction score
- None. We do not run one, so there is no number to quote.
- Testimonials
- None yet. Four are written and none is cleared for publication, so none is here.
- Logo wall
- Three names, not twelve. The rest were a partner’s customers rather than ours.
- Average project cost
- Not published. It would be an average of jobs that have nothing in common but us.
Three questions worth asking us
Most ERP projects do not fail on the software
The vendor sells you the software. Budget, configuration and how long your close takes afterwards are all decided by whoever implements it — so the partner deserves harder questions than the product. These are the three we would want asked of us.
1Owner2Process map3Data4Decision5Control6Sign-off7Outcome
Which of your people is still here in month seven?
Ask for the name. Then ask what else that person is booked on, because 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.
Start where it hurts
Six situations, and a different first move in each
Pick the one that sounds like your last quarter. The first move is different in each, and the wrong first move is how a project loses six months before anyone notices.
1Legacy ERP2Spreadsheets3Manual close4Reporting5Local system6Email handoff7Shadow data8Reconciliation9Siloed team
01The workarounds have workarounds.
- 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.
Have the system examined before anyone proposes replacing it.
02Investors want answers the system cannot produce.
- 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.
Fix planning and close first — the reporting problem is usually downstream of them.
03Every new country adds another workaround.
- 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.
Localization and consolidation belong in the ledger, where the posting happens.
04Spreadsheets and local systems no longer keep up.
- 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.
Map the processes first. The shortlist then falls out of the map on its own.
05The CFO needs a case the board can interrogate.
- 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 deck is built in your numbers and your processes, and it argues the alternatives rather than asserting one.
06I don’t have a company. I have isolated islands.
- 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.
One template, localized where the law demands it and nowhere else.
How this works
Process, tool, automation, AI. In that order, and we do not skip one.
Every company is somewhere on this ladder already. The damage happens when a stage gets skipped — automating a process nobody has mapped, or putting AI on top of numbers that are still being corrected by hand each month.
101 Process202 Tool303 Automation404 AI reviewbounded · human-owned
Process
What actually happens, written down — including the parts that live in one person's head and the workarounds nobody documented. This is the stage most projects skip, and skipping it is why so many systems get configured to match a process that no longer exists.
You can move on when the map matches reality, not the org chart.Tool
The system chosen from the mapped process, argued against the alternatives that were rejected and why. Sequence matters more than brand here: a tool selected before the process is understood is a guess with an invoice attached.
You can move on when the system runs the process without a spreadsheet holding it together.Automation
The repeated, rule-shaped work handed to the system — matching, allocation, approvals, the checks somebody currently performs by reading. Automation is only safe once the rule is stable, which is why it comes after the process is mapped and the system is settled.
You can move on when the exceptions are rare enough to be interesting rather than normal.AI
Used today in design and analysis — reading a landscape, comparing options, drafting a migration plan, finding the pattern in a mess of tickets. It is not running inside your live finance system, and we will not describe it as if it were. That stage is on the roadmap, and it needs the three below it to be true first.
Nobody is here yet who did not climb the first three.Why we say it this way. 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: a company that will tell you your third stage is not ready is a company you can believe about the second.
Before you sign anything
Four things happen before there is a contract, and the software is the last of them.
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. Most of this industry runs that list backwards: demo first, process later, usually during the build and usually at your cost.
1Process map2Written options3Recommendation4Estimate
The first call
What the business sells, where it is heading, and what is breaking right now. Nobody opens a demo and nobody mentions a licence. Software comes up when there is something for it to fit.
Your process, walked end to end
Purchase order, goods receipt, vendor bill, payment, fixed asset — your version of it, next to the way it is normally run. That comparison is where you see which of your differences are real and which are habits you have been carrying.
A proposal with a price and an argument
Options A, B and C, with the reasoning next to each — written for a board that will ask why the other two were dropped. One of them is allowed to be a system we earn nothing on.
The software, after the process work
You see the system once we understand how you actually work, not before. A demo run on somebody else's data proves nothing about your close.
What a proposal looks like
Three options, and the argument for each one written out
One of them is recommended, and the sentence under it says what would have to be true for a different one to win.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud
Right when
Right when the group is already committed to SAP standard process.
Reasoning
Set aside when the entity structure needs configuration the public edition does not reach.
Oracle NetSuite
Right when
Right when multi-entity consolidation and local statutory reporting run in one ledger.
Reasoning
Recommended here because this company closes in eleven currencies and consolidates monthly. On a different process it loses.
Microsoft Dynamics 365
Right when
Right when the estate is Microsoft end to end and finance is one country.
Reasoning
Set aside when consolidation across many entities becomes a second project.
And once the contract is signed
Five phases, and the finance close is signed off before we hand over
Discovery takes two to three weeks and ends with your legal entity structure, chart of accounts, integration landscape and period-close workflow written down. Configuration starts after that, not alongside it — which is the boring reason a build stays inside its estimate.
1Finance2Controlling3Treasury4IT and data5Go-live
Discovery
Two to three weeks. Financial architecture review, entity mapping, integration audit, and KPI alignment with you and your finance leadership.
Design
Chart of accounts, consolidation structure, approval workflows and revenue recognition rules, all documented before a single thing is configured.
Build
Sprint-based configuration with weekly reviews by your finance stakeholders. Data migration, integrations, and user acceptance testing against real scenarios.
Go-live
Hypercare through cutover, parallel run managed, and a financial close signed off before the customer success team takes over.
Scale
A named support consultant, module expansions when you need them, and an annual health check on the instance.
Work already delivered
Five projects — two NetSuite builds, three finance integrations
Twenty legal entities in one, six in another, nineteen countries in a third. The pattern underneath them is the same: expenses, consolidation or revenue recognition being done by hand, in a spreadsheet, by somebody who could not go on holiday in the first week of the month. Five, against ninety-plus NetSuite projects, because five are the ones we have written permission to describe. The rest exist and we will not name them here.
AMANN
Global textile manufacturing
Around 2,700 employees, 19 countries, more than 100 markets
BeforeTravel 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.
AfterCountry-specific VAT and compliance checks run automatically, approvals are standardised across every unit, and cost centres, GL accounts and user master data synchronise straight into SAP.
Scenic
Luxury travel, operating on nearly every continent
NetSuite rolled out in every country the company operates in
BeforeConsolidation and intercompany transactions ran across disparate systems that had to be reconciled by hand, and revenue recognition depended on historical data.
AfterOne reliable source of data across global subsidiaries, automated consolidation and elimination, and revenue recognition without manual input.
Hasenkamp
Logistics — high-value goods, art handling, global relocation
Around 900 employees, twenty legal entities
BeforeA 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.
AfterEnd-to-end expense management across all twenty entities, integrated with the Exact ERP so cost centres, GL accounts and project data synchronise in real time, and corporate card transactions flow straight into expenses.
NZYM
Biotechnology — enzymes and reagents for life sciences and diagnostics
Six entities
BeforeExpense management was manual across six entities, with no real-time view of spending and no clean route into the accounting system.
AfterApproved expenses post automatically into Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, with GL accounts, cost centres, employees and dimensions synchronising both ways.
Perk
Technology — enterprise spend management
Operating across many countries
BeforeVisibility was poor across disparate data sources, consolidation and currency conversion were manual, and different ledgers reported differently.
AfterOne integrated financial platform with automated consolidation and elimination, and an infrastructure that keeps up with the company's growth rate.
The complete offer
Eight services, each answering one question a finance team actually asks
The question is printed under each one, in the words a CFO would use to search for it.
ERP evaluation
how to shortlist erp vendors
Implementation
how to keep an erp implementation in scope
NetSuite implementation
netsuite data migration and cutover checklist
Strategic consulting
finance target operating model design
Management consulting
finance roles responsibilities and approval limits
Customer success and support
netsuite support after go live
EPM implementation
epm implementation planning and consolidation project
CFO advisory
cfo advisory finance function operating model
Where the depth actually is
Reach and depth are not the same number
A project can run in twenty countries. Four of them are built into the system — the requirement is handled inside it rather than in a correction step afterwards.
1ESSII real-time VAT2CHQR-bill and ISO 200223DEE-invoicing and ELSTER4SAZATCA clearance
IEGBPTESFRBENLLUCHITDEATLIPLCZROAEQASAEG
Who stays
The same names, from the first call to the year after go-live
In the order you meet them. The one at the end matters most and is the one most firms leave off a website: after the project closes, somebody still owns your account, and it is a person rather than a queue.
Photographs go up when the people in them have signed a release. Stock photography and generated faces are not an option here.
Lars Kirschstein
Managing Director
The first call
Takes the first call and presents the proposal himself. Cloudmaven does not send an offer it has not walked you through.
Christoph Schweins
Managing Director
Scope and contract
Signs off scope and price, and carries the commercial risk on the Cloudmaven side. One contracting partner, carrying it end to end.
Fares Khattab
ERP & NetSuite Specialist
The technical read
The technical read on your instance: what is configured well, what is a workaround, and what is quietly costing you a week a month.
Jarrid Gilfillan
Head of Products
Products and connectors
Owns the products and the connectors between systems, which is where an integration promise either holds or quietly becomes your problem.
Eric Roger Jean
Install base
After go-live
Owns the relationship once you are a customer rather than a project. The year after go-live is when a partner either turns into a ticket queue or does not, and this is the person that question lands on.
One bounded way to start
The Health Check: ten working days, and a written answer you keep
An examination, bounded on purpose. We look at how your system is set up, what that setup costs you, and what to fix first. You keep the findings report and its prioritised first-fix list: what to fix now, what to leave alone, and what a bigger project would actually pay back.
1Systems2Data3Process4Control5Finding6Written report