Senior Accounting Specialist

• Leasing of rail vehicles, ERP: Dynamics 365
• Project lead: CFO, Staff: 150
• Special topics like IFRS9 / posting of complex syndicated loans
• Accounting for 2 subsidiaries

• Digital marketing agency, ERPs: Unit4, MS Dynamics NAV
• Project lead: CFO HQ Netherlands, Direct reports/Staff: 6
• Preparation of annual financial statements for prior years for 3 group companies
• Process optimization in finance and performance area
• Ongoing accounting and administration, consolidation
• Reporting with LucaNet and Power BI

• Fashion / workwear, start-up
• Project lead: CEO
• 10-year financial planning including cash flow, margin details by customer and product group etc. for investor negotiations

• Automotive, start-up
• Local ERP: eGecko/Penta/Automotive Accelerator
• Project lead: CFO
• Operational accounting
• IFRS conversion
• Introduction of ICS and digitization of P2P process, consolidation
• IPO preparation

• Animal pharmaceuticals
• Group: Elanco, revenue 5 bn USD
• Local ERP: SAP R3
• Project lead: CFO Germany
• Local country accounting: responsible for accounting, reporting, and payments / treasury for the production company KVP in Kiel, revenue €250 m and approx. 1,000 employees as part of a carve-out from Bayer AG, work for 2 other sites
• SOX implementation
• Optimization of key processes - P2P, O2C, R2R

• Household and kitchen appliances
• Group, revenue €5 bn, Germany: approx. €500 m
• ERP SAP R/3
• Project lead: Manager Commercial Agreements
• Audit invoice terms of the last 3 years, approx. 15k line items, based on postings, invoices and contracts

• FMCG / cosmetics and personal care
• Start-up / grown-up, group, revenue €50 m
• ERP MS Dynamics NAV
• Project lead: Group commercial managing director
• Finance & controlling projects including BI systems
• Top-down group consolidation of 7 companies
• Analysis of tax filings vs. tax payments
• Building P&L by products, sales channels, key accounts
• Analysis of customer contracts, pricing, return agreements
• Determining rebookings for cost centers
• Participation controlling: budget variances, postings by month and cost center

• Software for top tier automotive companies – connected car
• Group: revenue €5 bn, entity revenue €10 m
• ERP MS Dynamics AX
• Project lead: CFO India
• Preparation and audit support of 2014 and 2015 financial statements during operational bridge
• HR: monthly review of payroll, handling employee secondments from India to Germany
• Development of tax optimizations

• Chemicals: premium fertilizers and horticulture products
• Group revenue approx. €300 m, 20 entities
• ERP SAP R/3, project lead: CFO
• Set up treasury in a carve-out after sale from PE Triton to XIO, responsible for treasury planning across the group
• Management of syndicated loan in triple-digit millions
• Cash pooling
• Build 13-week and mid-term liquidity planning
• Quick introduction of factoring
• Operative execution of weekly payment runs in SAP
• Controlling and financial planning, participation in closings
• Participation in financial statements, consolidation, annual audit
• Negotiation of new credit insurance

Case Study: introduction of factoring within a SAP R/3 system in one month

• Task: In June 2015 COMPO Expert is sold by PE house Triton as a carve-out from COMPO group to PE XIO. Accounting and controlling at HQ are provided as a service by COMPO group for COMPO Expert. The treasury is newly staffed and tasked with implementing silent factoring under the consortium loan agreement of COMPO Expert.
• Execution: The goal is to make the first sale of receivables to the factor within 4 weeks. Contracts were basically pre-negotiated for the previous COMPO group. In coordination with the factor, potential internal and external deal breakers are identified. External legal issues are negotiated and resolved with lenders. Internally, the challenge is to match different number ranges between invoicing and receivables in the SAP system, which can be solved with IT. In parallel, new transactions are discussed with accounting and booking and reconciliation rules are developed. The sale is done through the factor’s portal.
• Result: Through precise identification and elimination of potential deal breakers by respective teams, factoring is implemented extremely quickly within the 4-week timeline.

• Automotive supplier
• Group revenue approx. €1 bn, entity revenue €15 m
• ERP Infor Syteline
• Project lead: CFO, direct reports: 2
• Operational finance management
• Controlling and monthly reporting to HQ including variance analysis
• Month-/year-end closing

• Process optimization NAV 2013 / US GAAP

• Bonds, mezzanine, factoring, in cooperation with an auditing firm

• Optical industry/medical devices
• Group revenue approx. €5 bn, entity revenue €120 m
• ERP: Oracle, Navision
• Project lead: Entity CFO, direct reports/Staff: 3
• BI: development and rollout of an integrated planning software with Cubeware Cockpit for revenue to gross margin by customer, product
• Management of corporate planning including presentation to HQ
• Selection, design and rollout of sales reporting system with QlikView
• Business partnering with sales, marketing, HR etc.: analysis of sales pipeline, CRM data, KPIs, restructurings
• Production controlling
• HR and supply chain controlling

Case Study: development and rollout of a BI system for planning and reporting

• Task: develop a new process for annual budgeting and follow-up forecasts, moving away from using Excel on one side and an MS Access database application on the other. The latter is maintained by sales with a lot of implicit, undocumented knowledge. Also, this software version will no longer be supported by IT from 2015 and must be replaced medium term.
• Implementation: market and resource analysis shows that a database/BI tool is already in use in controlling: Cubeware, with software and hardware – server running Cubeware. Cubeware is used for Opex planning. A solution on this basis saves part of the investment costs. IT is also working on a data warehouse for products. The approach is to extend the DWH to include customers and sales and develop a BI solution with Cubeware that displays actual and planned data at maximum detail. Sales is convinced that previous functionalities of “their” database are largely transferred and new functions are created. After specs and tender, the system is developed, tested in phases and successfully rolled out.
• Result: With relatively low resource input, a system with current technology is created that transparently and flexibly meets budgeting requirements and is accepted by planners. For reporting, a complete dataset for revenue and gross profit by customer and product is available for the first time. Building on this, further cost optimizations can be achieved in cooperation with supply chain.

• Classical music films
• Media / film production and distribution
• Group revenue €40 m, Direct reports/Staff: 4
• Project lead: CEO
• EuroArts Berlin: cash management, ensuring cash survival – daily liquidity planning, negotiations with creditors, pre-financing of sales, M&A: vendor due diligences, sales negotiations
• Medici Arts/Idéale Audience, Paris: audits, development and implementation of restructuring measures to maintain operations, negotiations with suppliers, rights transfers to Germany

• Web-based literature sales: business plan, presentations

• Optimization of marketing, merchandising & music production, including setting up contract database and budgeting, negotiations with licensees