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FDE as a service

An engineer embedded in your finance function

Month end close often rests on a spreadsheet everyone relies on and no one dares to touch. The forward deployed engineer joins your finance team, watches the real workflow before writing a line of code, and builds a tool that fits your data, your process and your ERP.

  • On your real financial data
  • Connected to your ERP
  • Close and reconciliations

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Key challenges

A finance function runs on tools that were rarely designed together: the accounting software, the tracking spreadsheet, the bank export, the cash file. Each works on its own, but the link between them is made by hand, every month, often by one person.

  • The spreadsheet standing in for an ERP

    Many closes rest on a single spreadsheet maintained by one person, full of formulas nobody else really understands. The day that person is out, the close waits.

  • The bank reconciliation that eats the week

    Matching bank statements against the general ledger is often a line by line copy job. The time it takes is time analysis does not get.

  • Collections that go out at random

    Without a consolidated view of outstanding invoices, follow up depends on the accountant's memory rather than a system. Old invoices get forgotten.

  • Forecasts rebuilt at every close

    With no link between the tools, cash forecasts get rebuilt by hand each month from scattered exports. The data already exists, it is simply not connected.

What the engineer does on your site

  • 1

    Watch the real close

    The engineer follows a full close cycle with the finance team before proposing anything. They note the export that gets chased, the file kept open all month, the step redone out of caution.
  • 2

    Build on top of what exists

    The engineer connects the tool to your accounting software and your ERP rather than asking for a migration. The exports and imports already in place become the starting point.
  • 3

    Automate the repeatable steps, keep verification human

    Reconciliation, follow up and exports become scheduled jobs with a log of discrepancies. An amount with no match gets flagged, never corrected on its own.
  • 4

    Hand over to the team who will run it

    The controller or accountant who will maintain the tool is trained as it gets built, not in a final session. That person decides when it is ready.

What stays in your hands

  • The code and its access

    You receive the source code and the credentials created for the project, with no dependency on a personal account.

  • Operating documentation

    What each job does, what it consumes, and how to restart it after a failure.

  • The measurement method

    The indicator agreed with you at the start, and how to recalculate it without us.

  • A trained team

    The controller or accountant who followed the build knows how to evolve the tool, or how to hand that off to someone else.

Expected results

  • Less re-keying

    Data moves between tools without manual exports or copy paste.

  • A close less dependent on one person

    Knowledge of the close moves from a personal file to a documented tool the team shares.

  • Time given back to analysis

    Time recovered from reconciliation and follow up goes back to financial analysis, not just building spreadsheets.

How we move forward

  1. 1

    Observation on the finance floor

    The engineer spends time with the team during a close or reporting cycle before proposing a tool.
  2. 2

    A narrow scope, tested on your data

    A first batch, on one flow, placed in the hands of the people who do the reconciliation or the follow up.
  3. 3

    Measurement before and after

    The indicator agreed at the start, number of discrepancies, reconciliation time, is tracked over time to judge whether the tool delivers.
  4. 4

    Handover to the finance team

    Documentation, training and transfer of access, until the team no longer needs us to evolve the tool.

Who it is for

This offer suits finance directors, controllers and accounting teams carrying a close or a reporting cycle that has outgrown the tools in place. It fits a small business whose finance runs on a spreadsheet as much as a group looking to connect existing systems without replacing them. The engineer joins the team already in place, they do not replace it.

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Frequently asked questions

How is financial data protected during the project?Data stays hosted in France or in Europe, isolated outside the web root when a web tool is involved, with limited retention. Anything that commits an amount is computed and checked server side, never freely produced by a model. Access is named and logged.
Does the tool connect to our existing ERP or accounting software?Yes, that is the starting point. The engineer first looks for the exports and connections already available in your ERP or accounting software before considering a replacement. The goal is to connect what exists.
How is this different from a consulting firm or an IT services company?A consulting firm most often delivers a recommendation or a report. An IT services company works to a fixed scope against a frozen brief. The forward deployed engineer joins your team, watches the real work, and delivers running software on your data, in short batches.
Who keeps control of the tool once the project ends?You do. The code, the access and the documentation belong to you, and the team who followed the build is trained to evolve the tool or hand that evolution to a third party of their choice.
Do we need to change our current tools to get started?No. The project usually starts with an observation of the close or reporting cycle already in place, with no need to change accounting software or ERP. The scope widens afterwards if the trial proves its worth.

Let's talk about your context

We always start by understanding the real work. One conversation is enough to know whether we can help, and how.

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