”It's a system that runs on its own”

We got the chance to speak with Head of Systems Orlando Matos and Applications Manager Celina Bacani, who joined Nido Living shortly prior to their implementation of Skovik. As both had prior experience with Skovik’s system, they were able to share an interesting comparison between Skovik and Nido Living’s previous expense management system.

Tried and trusted

After being acquired by a new investor, Nido Living transitioned from managing properties to also owning them. The transition meant they would lose access to their previous expense management system, and it prompted the team to consider whether to negotiate a new deal or look into alternatives.

People were not necessarily happy about the expense management system we were using. And the minute I noticed that, I told myself, well, this is a no-brainer, Orlando says.

He explains that when he and Celina had used Skovik at their previous workplace, they had found it easy to set up, integrate and use. This made Skovik the obvious choice, he says.

He adds:

“Another one of the drivers was the ability to accommodate tax changes on a country level without us having to worry about it. Things like per diem, mileage, tax codes, tax rates, so on and so on. So that was also one of the big advantages. But all in all it was the simplicity of the tool and interoperability between the platforms that we knew we would be using”.

Upon going live, the end-users quickly saw for themselves what Orlando and Celina had already experienced:

“Once people started testing out Skovik, the first thing that came out of their mouths was, oh, this is a lot better than our old system. Much easier to use, super quick, everything is there”.

He continues:

“For a lot of the people in the business who travel on a constant basis, this was a much better experience overall compared to our old system”.

Advice that makes a difference

As Celina and Orlando had expected, the actual process of implementing Skovik went smoothly as well. In a survey sent out to Celina after they had gone live, to help us assess the implementation process, she awarded Skovik the highest possible score on every question. It was quick, it was easy, no issues encountered, she says when asked about it.

She then goes on to describe the process in a bit more detail:

“You guys provided us with a questionnaire of sorts, with everything we needed to set up in Skovik, and it was really just a matter of us filling it in and then you guys did the rest”.

Celina adds that Kerstin, Nido Living’s customer success manager, was a good sounding board when they weren’t quite sure of what would be the most ideal way of setting something up:

“Whenever we’d get stuck with the questions internally I would just ask Kerstin: ‘Can you give us the best practice, or what are your other customers doing?’ And she would always have an answer. It was really a lot of knowledge on your side”.

Kerstin’s input was helpful also when it came to compliance to tax rules in their international subsidiaries:

“Our finance team is centralised here, so we don’t really have a lot of expertise in terms of handling VAT for some of the other countries. And so Kerstin really came in handy. She would tell us things that we didn’t know about, like there being a limit to deductible expenses for a specific country. And so that was something that she would bring up, and then she’d provide us with some different options on how we could set it up in Skovik”.

She emphasizes the importance of this:

“We were largely dependent on that kind of knowledge from your team, because we didn’t have that knowledge ourselves. Now we know that we’re adhering to the statutory or local requirements”.

Set and forget

Since going live, Orlando and Celina have remained pleased with Skovik:

It’s seamless finance processing. We have zero complaints, zero support requests. Nothing. It’s like a system that runs on its own, Orlando says.

Celina agrees:

“It was pretty much set up and then forget, about everything. Unless, of course, we want to change something about our set-up. So at least for me as an admin, I don’t really have to do a lot of work in terms of managing the tool. As Orlando also mentioned, we don’t really receive any support requests for Skovik internally”.

When we ask Orlando and Celina what they would say if another company asked if they would recommend us, Orlando immediately starts making a list:

“Set-up is a breeze. Knowledge from the success manager is top, one of the very best that we have found so far. The system is flexible”.

He continues:

“Approaching the customer success manager is easy, so is approaching Skovik, and openly addressing potential issues. There’s creativity in the way these issues are actually solved, without neglecting compliance, without neglecting best practices. And the ongoing support and administration of the tool is great”.

He adds more things as they come to mind:

“And the user adoption is great too. The users didn’t blink. They just said: ‘Oh, okay. Oh, that’s easy’”.

He concludes: Yeah, it’s just set and forget it. It’s literally plug and play.

He then turns to his colleague: I don’t know if Celina wants to add anything else.

No, pretty much covered it, she says in agreement.