Being CEO and Finance Manager at the same time? John Kohl, founder of Seniovo, shows us that this is challenging but possible. The dependency on an external accountant increasingly bothered him, so he started looking for a solution to cover internal financial processes without having his own accounting team. Read here how much time finway saves him in finance management and also provides more transparency at Seniovo.
Founded 2017
Platform / Proptech
45 employees
For 5 years, the Berlin-based start-up Seniovo has been pursuing the mission of enabling people to live in old age pleasantly and with dignity. Practically speaking, this means enabling people to remain living at home for longer. For this purpose, Seniovo digitizes the entire process of age-appropriate renovation, from the preparation of an offer, to the renovation itself, all the way to the settlement of claims with governmental funding authorities.
Challenges
Solutions
When companies grow, the focus is on new hires. It is not uncommon for the finance department to be managed for a long time by the founders themselves in collaboration with an external accountant. This is also how John handled it at Seniovo. In addition, he used tools for invoice approval and company card management. So what was the deciding factor for John to look for another solution?
I wanted a software that would enable me to handle all internal financial processes in one place, even without a fully staffed accounting team. The topic of payment runs was particularly critical.
The payment run was repeatedly delayed due to the cooperation with John’s external accountant, for example when the contact person there was absent due to illness. This not only upset vendors and customers, but also John, who then had to transfer all invoices individually via online banking: „That’s why at some point it was very urgent for us to find a tool with which we could handle the entire cash management in-house”
John’s requirements for a tool:
When John started testing finway, things didn’t go smoothly right away, „there were some things that were buggy, but the customer support was very behind it and was able to convince us to extend the testing period and get everything done little by little.” How was finway able to ultimately convince John? „By the fact that all functionalities are provided in one tool. With the other tools, I can for example represent the payment run or the invoice workflows well, or simply manage company cards. But almost no one can actually do all three functions at once.” What stood out particularly positively for John:
„The link to the bank is set up immediately. Otherwise, you’re always worried that it will take weeks until it works properly. We were able to solve the problem with the payment run directly with finway.“
He particularly likes the fact that no exports are necessary for the payment run and collective transfers can be made directly from finway. In his eyes, this is a sensible approach for companies that do not want to work with the full DATEV license. How many Seniovo employees use finway? Currently, there are approximately 12 people who review and approve requests in their position, further employees use finway mainly for reimbursement of expenses. Seniovo is also in the process of converting its company cards to finway, so that the craftsmen can make their expenditures on the road directly via the physical finway cards.
While Seniovo is just getting started with the cards, other features of finway have become an integral part of the daily work. In addition to the payment run, the rules that John can use for pre-accounting make his daily work in finance management easier. Moreover, the workflows for invoice approval contribute to compliance:
„We get along well in the management team, but you don’t always stick to all processes 100%. However only until you have a defined process in the tool, which you of course stick to. finway helps us to create transparency.“
By combining approval workflows and payment runs into one tool, John estimates that he can now get expenses managed 30% faster than before using finway. Where does he see the biggest improvement? „In the payment run, the liability has increased by 100% because I am now independent of the external accountant“
Another plus is: The reduction of complexity in expense management. What John means by this? „When you have multiple tools in use, you have to manage them all parallel, maintain them, and stay up-to-date on features. In addition, you have to on-board and off-board staff in all these tools.“ Compared to before, he now only needs half the time for all these topics. That’s why he’s looking forward to having the company cards managed via finway in the future, in order to make things even easier for himself and his employees.
„Because we’ve reduced the complexity of expense management with finway, I now have capacity for other topics again.“
Want to follow up with John? Then network with him on LinkedIn.
John has gained even more time for his tasks as CEO because Seniovo recently hired a Head of Finance. Together with him, strategic topics, business and budget planning as well as an update of the controlling area are on the agenda, especially there John would be happy to have someone contributing with the „finance glasses on“. He also sees potential for optimization in the operational area, where Seniovo wants to focus on the interfaces and smooth them out with finway.
The market and growth conditions are ideal for the impact start-up, as demographic change cannot be stopped and ESG criteria are becoming more important. While Seniovo’s focus is currently still on German metropolitan areas, the team would like to offer its services beyond Germany in the future in order to enable even more people to spend their retirement in their own homes. Would you like to learn more about Seniovo? Click here to visit their website.
John saves 30% time in finance management with finway – book a demo and find out how much time you can save.
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