Case study Gebr. Blokland

This is the story of a renowned real estate developer and builder that has experienced strong growth in recent years: Gebroeders Blokland from Hardinxveld-Giessendam. They have proven themselves as a constant factor in the often turbulent real estate sector. Their growth meant that there was an increasing need to gain control and grip on financial and project management. Why was that so? We will discuss it with Marijn Angenent, Financial Controller.

The challenge of growth

In the past, real estate and construction project calculations mainly consisted of manual work. This is what Marijn has to say about it: “When the two founders themselves were still active in the projects and on the construction sites, it was easy to make the right decision. It was either based on their years of experience or their ‘fingerspitzengefühl’. They knew what was needed and knew the current project and construction costs very precisely. Extensive project monitoring was therefore not necessary. But the success led to more and more projects, more managers and colleagues, and therefore also more reporting methods.”

“In 2017, the founders took a step back and the current management continued the company. The founders wanted to stay informed and the growth also meant that management could work on the projects in less detail. This created the need to get a grip on the figures of the increasing number of projects. That is a challenge for every real estate developer, no matter the external factors. Because a real estate project that you calculate today, but will only be built in one or two years, can fluctuate considerably in terms of costs. This is certainly the case now: rising construction costs, challenges in the area of ​​available labor and scarcity of building materials are responsible for this. Something else was and is needed to contain possible financial risks.”

Bringing together all financial and project data with Exsion365

The financial budgets of real estate projects are kept by project managers in Excel files. The project data is maintained in the ERP system Business Central. “We wanted less manual input in these Excel files, but above all more quality around the data. Questions arose: is the information correct in the various places? Can more standardisation be achieved so that there is more insight into the various projects? How can we consolidate real estate project information to create better capacity and financial planning? We came into contact with HB Real Estate, because we had heard about the Exsion365 solution that integrates data from Business Central with Excel. We decided that Exsion365 was the right solution for us. It turned out to be the start of an intensive collaboration.

The collaboration

Marijn continues his story: 'In addition to the integration of Excel and Business Central, HB Software has also developed a number of ready-made calculation models for us. Such as a calculation module to calculate the construction costs in advance, a cost-benefit analysis (CBA), a cash flow module and a liquidity budget.'

Results