How BGIS Finance Work Smarter with KNIME
See how BGIS Finance automated manual processes with KNIME, saving thousands of hours annually, enhancing accuracy, and ensuring compliance.
420 hours saved annuallyby automating revenue recognition processes
243 hours annual savingsfrom streamlined labour accrual processes
1-2 FTE workload reducedby automating reporting and dashboards across teams
Summary
Challenges:
- Highly manual and repetitive finance processes.
- Time-consuming report downloads with limited time for analysis.
- Frequent error checking and re-checking due to manual processes.
- Limitations of Excel handling large data volumes.
Solution:
- Transitioned key processes from manual Excel to centralized KNIME workflows for efficiency, auditability, and scalability.
- Automation of key finance processes: revenue recognition, labour accruals, etc.
Results:
- Annual savings of hundreds of hours across multiple processes (e.g. 420 hours for revenue recognition, 243 hours for labour accruals).
- Reduction in errors and increased audit compliance.
- Enhanced scalability, enabling rapid integration of new clients.
- Expanded KNIME usage beyond finance, automating processes across various departments.
Background
BGIS is a global real estate services company with a finance team of over 500 employees who were struggling with highly manual and repetitive tasks.
Finance team members spent significant time on routine data processing — downloading, formatting, consolidating data, and correcting frequent errors. What’s more, when data cleaning was done in Excel, they had to go back and check for manual errors, using up even more time.
These inefficiencies left little time for value-added analytical activities crucial to strategic decision-making.
Recognizing the need for a technological solution, BGIS explored various options, including in-house IT developments and off-the-shelf accounting software. However, most solutions were too costly, inflexible, and impractical.
After successful internal testing and demonstrations by internal champions, BGIS adopted KNIME due to its ease of deployment, intuitive interface, and immediate return on investment.
“It was short lead time, the cost was reasonable, payback was immediate, and it was usable across multiple processes.” Meera Thiagarajah, Finance Director, BGIS
Use Case 1: Revenue Recognition Automation
Challenge:
The process of revenue recognition, particularly calculating the percentage of completion (POC), was originally managed through manual Excel spreadsheets, resulting in inefficiencies, errors, and lack of audit transparency.
Solution:
BGIS successfully transitioned from a time-consuming manual process to a fully automated system with KNIME. Initially, the KNIME Analytics Platform streamlined complex revenue recognition calculations, significantly reducing manual effort. KNIME’s paid software enabled complete automation, enhanced auditability, and ensured compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) — a U.S. federal law designed to improve accuracy and reliability of corporate financial reporting.
The automated workflow provided a reliable self-service solution for the Project Delivery Services (PDS) operations and finance teams. It eliminated the need for redundant manual validations by independently performing dual calculations, which are required under SOX compliance standards to ensure financial data accuracy.
Results:
BGIS saved approximately 35 hours per month, equating to 420 hours annually, enabling finance teams to redirect their time to higher-value analytical tasks.
“It was thirty-five hours per month. At the end of the year, after all these projects are put into place, we're finding that it's 0.3 FTE savings that we've generated. it becomes really useful. And on top of that, it serves the purpose of making the day in the life of a finance person much more enjoyable.”Meera Thiagarajah, Finance Director, BGIS
Use Case 2: Labour Accrual Automation
Challenge:
Labour accrual at month-end was previously managed through macros in Excel across over 100 organizational units. The process was cumbersome, error-prone, and unsustainable, with extensive administrative overhead.
Solution:
With KNIME, BGIS centralized and automated the accrual process, easily integrating data from HR and payroll systems. This enabled "one-touch" processing, eliminating errors and significantly reducing the administrative burden and client finance team involvement.
Results:
With the automated accrual process, BGIS saved 243 hours annually, or approximately 20 hours each month.
Use Case 3: Expanding KNIME Beyond Finance
Beyond finance, KNIME's success at BGIS attracted the attention of the Project Delivery Services (PDS) team. Previously manual daily reports and dashboards are now fully automated with KNIME. One employee saved hours each morning by automating the process of generating and distributing reports.
“At the moment, I’d say KNIME is taking the workload of a person or two just by automating the workflows.”Meera Thiagarajah, Finance Director, BGIS
The PDS team now manages dashboards for 13 clients with over 50 active KNIME workflows.
“KNIME saves a lot of time for the PDS team and enables us to power dashboards for all PDS accounts. When new accounts join, we can integrate them into our existing workflows within an hour.”Meera Thiagarajah, Finance Director, BGIS
From Manual to Scalable
BGIS’s journey with KNIME shows how standardized workflows and automation can not just improve productivity, accuracy, and compliance of finance teams, but also their job satisfaction and opportunities to do more meaningful work.
By tackling manual, repetitive tasks, BGIS freed their finance and project teams to focus on strategic analysis and value-added activities, creating a scalable and adaptable technology-driven work environment.
Learn more about KNIME Business Hub and how it can help your organization or schedule a demo with our customer care team to see how it works in practice.