Freudenberg Filtration Technologies gains real-time transparency and substantial time savings with Board

Freudenberg Filtration Technologies provides technically advanced products and services in air and liquid filtration to automotive, consumer, and industrial industries. The organization is part of the Freudenberg Group, a global family-owned group of companies that make sustainable contributions to customers, society, and the environment with pioneering innovations.

As a subgroup of the Freudenberg Group, Freudenberg Filtration Technologies submits its consolidated financial statements to the group. Historically, financial statements were prepared and distributed using specialized software. It could no longer meet the complexities and agility required by today's standards.

Building reliable financial statements and faster management information with Board.

The company began looking for a new solution to take over this task and reliably prepare monthly financial statements, P&L, and Cash Flow figures. Simultaneously, the transition would be used to adapt and further automate existing processes. Excel files should no longer be sent back and forth because of the associated issues of updating, traceability, and reliability. Data from upstream systems such as SAP should be imported automatically.

As a preliminary step, the finance department was looking for a good reporting solution that would inform management quickly and provide important details into the economic situation. Freudenberg Filtration Technologies chose Board and its partner MCG. Together, they were able to impressively demonstrate the strengths, flexibility, and user-friendliness of the Board platform. Friedrich Saas, Global Process Owner and a key figure in the use and further development of Board at Freudenberg, notes:

"The platform’s ease of use and the straightforward access to information are instrumental for the high levels of acceptance of Board at Freudenberg. More than 180 employees worldwide are now using Board and we are constantly receiving new requests for access."

Currently, Board is primarily used for reporting. All local planning from the 28 legal entities is aggregated on the platform and prepared for a standardized presentation. Where possible, Board automatically pulls data from upstream systems such as SAP BW. For some of the local, more specialized solutions, data is imported via Excel or CSV files. Board serves as a single point of truth and is a reliable source of data and information for management.

Monthly reporting with automatic consolidation, currency conversion and commentaries includes:

1. P&L with automatic consolidation and currency conversion
2. Cash Flow and Working Capital
3. Headcount
4. Forecasting reporting for next three months and year-end
5. Sales and Material Price Change Reporting (by customer/article)

Outside of Finance and Controlling, Board has recently been implemented as a KPI system for the operational area.

Freudenberg Filtration Technologies is now exploring more ways Board can be used across the business, with a pilot project for an integrated planning in Board that covers sales planning, material cost planning, personnel cost planning, and cost center planning. This is where MCG’s experience and knowledge of Board is a differentiator for enabling Freudenberg Filtration Technologies to further their use of the solution. Having worked with Freudenberg and Board for many years, MCG helps adapt the solution to meet specific challenges and implement them with greater efficiency. Friedrich Saas explains:

“In the future, we want to perform even more planning in Board. This will allow us to automate our processes further and move towards an integrated business planning approach and rolling forecasts. If the data model in Board is correctly set up, more detailed and faster forecasts during the year will be possible”. 

Expectations for the new applications are high. In addition to standardization across the company, the goals are to save time, increase flexibility, and improve transparency. Friedrich Saas adds:

"It saves us a lot of time to have an automated way to cover the numerous individual steps previously necessary in Excel, such as setting up the individual tables, creating and linking the corresponding formulas, and consolidating different versions. Board does all this for us. Additionally, the ability to view and compare different versions and scenarios makes planning much more flexible."

Management benefits from fast access to reliable information.

Discussing the key benefits of the Board implementation project, Friedrich Saas summarizes:

"Our Managers love the Board platform with its easy access to data. We provide standardized dashboards and reports to management to give them access to all the numbers. With drill-down capabilities, each manager can dig into the numbers as much as they need to. They can analyze the data by any category, such as customer, product, region, or country. This means they not only see current numbers but also where things are going well and where adjustments may be necessary. It goes all the way up to our new CEO who is thrilled by how easy it is for him to access figures quickly and get to the details he needs without having to involve controlling." 

Professional reporting in Board encourages dialogue with management. It’s no longer limited to just what the numbers are and more about why they are the way they are. Business units are asked to provide reasoning for any deviations from plan when they prepare reports. With Board, it’s much easier and quicker for finance and management to understand and evaluate the available figures. In addition, good visualization of the data helps to highlight potential problems.

Friedrich Saas concludes his thoughts on the project:

“I’m particularly pleased with the spectrum and quantity of figures we can now automatically load from different units and countries into Board. It takes only five minutes per unit. That alone saves us about 20 man-days a year. This is time that can be put toward other valuable tasks. The flexibility we gain with Board is also great. It's very easy to create a new report quickly. And for major items such as new applications, we can always rely on the support of MCG and Board.”