Balkan Services has successfully implemented LucaNet - a solution for German financial consolidation and financial planning automation at Management Financial Group (MFG). The MFG Group is composed of over thirty companies and brands specialized in the provision of non-bank financial services around Europe, such as Easy Credit, White Card, Viva Credit, the P2P platform iuvo and many more.
After a study, MFG settled on the LucaNet financial management system and approached the Balkan Services team to implement the project.
The software solution enables parallel preparation of consolidated statements in accordance with applicable accounting standards and specific management requirements.
Implementing software became imperative for MFG as the Group grew to a point where reporting requirements became more complex. Consolidated statements are becoming more detailed and the time to prepare them is shortening. And this is impossible with the old model of work.
The implementation project started in February 2022 and took eight months to complete. Balkan Services has developed: management reporting; consolidation for management purposes; budgeting and consolidation on budget data, consolidation according to applicable standards9 (IFRS).
During the implementation of the system, the Balkan Services team follows two lines of work. The first line of work is carried out at Group level, while the second line is carried out at Sector level. Through this presentation of information, MFG's owners and management can clearly see how each sector is doing and what its financial performance would be if it were a standalone group rather than part of MFG.
In the first month of the project launch, the system was loaded with historical data about all companies for the period 2016 - 2020.
Subsequently, the data collection process for the year 2021 as well as for the past year 2022 has started.
LucaNet also has statistics in place to calculate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which varied for each of MFG's business sectors.
To be prepared to work with LucaNet, the MFG team is trained to produce additional reports, import information into them, create key indicators and make budgets in the system.
The process of setting up budgeting by company and sector has now been completed, as well as consolidation on budget data.
A key point in the implementation of the system concerns the formal consolidation (IFRS), which is done entirely in LucaNet.
Financial management software also provides a solution to a specific problem faced by companies such as MFG operating in different countries, namely the input of information in different currencies. Standard system functionality allows data entered in the functional currencies of individual companies to be automatically converted to a selected group currency.
One of the challenges facing the Balkan Services and MFG teams relates to the planned short implementation timescales. On June 1, 2022, the old way of doing things was discontinued and the accounting department began submitting financial data only to LucaNet.
"Once you start working with LucaNet you will have to forget working with tables. To start working, creating and thinking only in the language of LucaNet, because then LucaNet reveals all its potential to the users”, says Blagovest Vitanov, who has been part of the Group almost since its inception and is currently the Head of Marketing and Budgeting at MFG.
The benefits that the MFG team is reporting after implementing the financial management software are many. First and foremost is the speed that the software gives them.
“The consolidation process in the new system takes two days, not seven, as before its implementation”, points out Blagovest Vitanov.
Before the project, one person from the team could only process one company in one working day. After the implementation of the financial software, the same person was able to process between three and four companies in the same amount of time.
“This way we can easily see other things that we would otherwise not have time for”, notes Blagovest Vitanov. According to him, the biggest strength of LucaNet is that the data in the system is correct and the whole team uses the same information for their work.
At the heart of the project's success lies good communication and compatibility between the two teams throughout the work process.
”I felt very relaxed and secure working with Balkan Services”, adds Blagovest Vitanov.
