Date: 25.11.2025 (2025-11-25)
Bernard Gozalie (25.11.2025) • https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardgozalie/ • Finance Business Partner @ Helsing (600 ppl) • Formerly at Maersk in Hamburg • Based in Berlin
Notes: • Notes: • Not at Helsing anymore • He wants to move to Mexico • International Biz and MBA in finance • Forecasting, data analysis etc. • Helsing • FP&A • He is really good probably as early team member of Helsing • There is also a format in Excel of BWA • There is another file format that has everything -> Booking list • AP automation • It is really cool • At Helsing they use Candis -> accuracy was not good 50 to 70% • 100s of invoices per week -> a lot of time to process it • UX is simpler than Candis • They use Pleo (maybe offboarded) -> OCR was very good -> slow and cumbersome when paying invoices • e-invoices will be introduced -> where will it be done - check in which countries • Pain points Datev: • Goal: you want to have clean base data • Datev has only two cost centers • Kost 1: cost center • Kost 2: projects • He would need more columns for expense type, sub expense type -> for FP&A • -> use more • Revenue recognition: • Accruals was tricky -> he used Excel • He thinks a lot of tools are solved by ERP • Helsing has an ERP now (SAP Hana) • Very expensive - most companies cant afford it • He spent a lot of time looking at data and tried to understand what analysis to run -> AI to suggest formatting and formatting of data • Tools: • Excel • Check out Abacum • Tool is good but just relying • Interface is nice • User permissions is done well • Check competitors of Abacum • 75k to 100k per year • Full support - hand holding -> crazy FDEs to support 2 to 3h per week • He thought about founding - he is missing the idea part • He is happy to join a company -> a lot of the companies are boring • Meet in person • He can do intro to AP • Automation: • • Biggest objections / challenges in his daily life? • • Most valuable flows for him? • • Context: team setup? internal and external? • • Which tasks are the biggest pain? With magic wand -> what would he solve? • • Which tasks would he focus on? • • Do they already have automations? Which ones? How well do they work? • • Which companies would he target? • • General feedback to pitch? •