Know your boundaries
“In der Beschränkung zeigt sich der Meister”, is an essential component of the Invantive culture. Invantive consciously chooses not to automate all processes of a project developer. We automate only that which we control and with which we can please our relationships globally. That is a lot. But we do not sufficiently control the following areas to make fantastic software for it:
- general ledger,
- debtors and creditors,
- fixed assets, and
- payroll administration.
It is a lot of work to support these accounting processes globally in al its local variants. Not just that, there are also many companies that control automating accounting processes better than Invantive and have been doing so successfully for years.
Instead of reinventing the wheel, Invantive makes sure that its software is easy for real estate development and integrates well with common accounting packages, such as KING, Unit 4 Multivers, Exact Online and Exact Globe. We have even supported Exact Globe since 2004!
This allows us to focus on the unique properties of Invantive Estate, such as:
- Complete overview of all projects not just in Microsoft Outlook but also in a browser. In all legal entities, whether they are subsidiary companies or combinations.
- Consolidation of the prognosis end of work from the level of a contract through projects, plan areas to over all legal entities.
- Cash flow and turnover projections over several years.
- Time travel thanks to the integrated real-time data warehouse.
Open standards for integration of accounting systems with projects
The integration of accounting systems with Invantive Estate is based on open standards. We use open standards for this such as SQL, webservices en Unicode.
How does that work? Financial data is exchanged between for example Exact Globe and Invantive Estate. A project developer will often work with multiple legal entities, sometimes even multiple per real estate development. A project developer has quite a number of accounting systems. Invantive Estate takes the realization figures that are related to projects out of the accounting systems: purchase and sales invoices and memorial bookings. When it comes to the memorial booking many different results will come out - depending on the basis for reporting. All this financial data can be seen as realization figures within Invantive Estate. For this it is required that every involved entry is supplied with a number of characteristics:
- project;
- cost type;
- possible contract.
The cost type is an essential element. This allows projects to be comparable to each other; also over the companies themselves. That is why it is necessary that the used cost types over all project entities can be redirected to a simple cost type structure. However, it does not matter if a part of the accounting is processed in another package, such as KING or Exact Online instead of Exact Globe.
Within Invantive Estate you can complete the realization figures with the requirements, prognoses and forcasts, selling of real estate and contract budgets. On the basis of the mixture of hard and soft numbers the prognosis of end of work is determined, along with the cash flow and turnover prognoses.
I have just described how the realization figures go from the accounting into Invantive Estate. The other way around you can also present the realization figures from Invantive Estate to the accountancy such as: concept invoices, but also profit takings and particularizations of the numbers. A good example is the profit taking on the sale of housing. Under IFRS the monthly determination of the profit taking can be a labor intensive and sensitive process. However, in Invantive Estate you can easily identify the proceedings of the work and for example the supply of housing. On the basis of the actual prognosis end of work, the proceedings of the work and the profit taking up to and including the last period you can quickly and with detail adjust the profit taking.
Invantive Estate together with the accountancy data: insight to the real estate developer
By combining data from different accounting systems with data on projects that have to be entered manually in Invantive Estate or from other systems, you can get a great insight in the status of your projects as a real estate developer. Not the status of weeks ago, but the status of today. Without extra overhead, without having to replace to current accountancy package.