Heeros Systems Oy is a pioneer in electronic financial management and an internationally renowned consulting firm. We were founded in 2000 and have enjoyed rapid growth throughout our existence. For the seventh year in a row, Heeros has been on the Deloitte Finland Technology Fast 50 list. Our turnover for the previous accounting period (10 months) totalled approximately EUR 4.0 million and we employ a staff of just over 50 people. We maintain locations in Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Turku and Rotterdam. The company is owned by Heeros’ employees and client companies.
We have developed a range of products that encompasses all electronic financial management processes, from invoice recognition and the processing and archiving of purchase and sales invoices to bookkeeping and payroll functions. Some 7,000 companies and organisations use Heeros solutions. We handle approximately 400,000 transactions every month. We offer our solutions to companies either directly or through our partner accounting firms.
“Not interested – we specialise in financial management applications,” blurted a buyer representative in 1997, when offered a nearly completed purchase invoice circulation system. This terse proclamation had to do with a business deal, in which the buyer was a big industry player and the item for sale was the first enterprise–Raxum Oy–of our story’s protagonist. Raxum’s main products were fixed asset and group accounting software. Indeed, it was one of the biggest providers of this kind of software in Finland. However, an almost-finished purchase invoice circulation system didn’t spark the least amount of interest.
Being a visionary, our protagonist was a bit shocked at this and, at the request of the buyer, left the purchase invoice circulation out of the deal. Both the buyer and seller were satisfied. In hindsight, the buyer’s rejection of the software does seem a bit odd. According to a study (PWC: Economic analysis of SEPA, 16 January 2014), in 2012, approximately 90 billion payment transactions were made within the Single European Payment Area (SEPA) and, without their digitisation, we wouldn’t be talking about a state-of-the-art financial management system today.
After letting things mature for a few years, our protagonist decided to resume what he had started in that initial deal. This is how Heeros Systems Oy came to be. Borrowing its name from the demigods of antiquity, the company set its sights on the horizon: automated, digital financial management.
In 2000, on its first website, Heeros sought partners with an oracle-like invitation:
“Heeros Systems honours these wellsprings of Greek history with its name. Will we become the heroes of Finnish financial management? Only time will tell. This is the course we have set and we challenge all organisations interested in our epic tale of electronic financial management to join us.“
Over the years, this challenge has been accepted in the most exhilarating ways and counter-challenges have also been made. But, now it’s time to issue a new challenge. To wit:
”We challenge all operators interested in joining the digital financial management conquest of Europe. Gold prospectors in the Klondike probably had the same feeling as the Heeros board members do now – international markets are opening and Heeros has a modern solution that has already been proven in Finland and several European countries.“
But we digress. Let’s get back to the story of our beginnings. Our first products Circula (purchase invoice circulation), Admina (e-Archive) and Identa (scanned purchase invoice recognition) were created at a fast pace, even though the recruitment of skilled coders was an excruciating process due to the IT-bubble at the beginning of the millennium.
However, it would be a while before the seeds of commercial success would blossom. According to the business plan, which was drafted before the company began its operations, accounting firms would be the primary target group. This was due to the fact that, at that time and even today, accounting firm clients accounted for approximately 95% of organisations in Finland that are required to keep accounts of their operations. From the very beginning, our goal has been to work in close co-operation with accounting firm partners in order to reach a large number of SMEs and other similarly sized organisations. The Internet was undergoing exponential growth and document management applications, scanning systems and e-invoices were just around the corner. Based on these, a future playing field shared by accounting firms and their clients, auditors, banks and authorities was envisioned at that time.
As we can see today, this vision was realised, but far ahead of schedule. In the early days, a typical reaction at accounting firm client events was: “These future applications are amazing! We should start using these, too, someday.” Blazing a trail is not always so easy.
During the first years, growth in turnover was modest and required persistence, not to mention putting everything on the line. Fortunately, the commercial fog began to gradually clear. Since then, our growth has been steady from year to year, which the bar graph shows. For the seventh year in a row, Heeros has been on the Deloitte Finland Technology Fast 50 list. Indeed, the future holds great expectations in store.
The last accounting period in the figure is 10 months long, but a proforma adjustment has been made in order to make it comparable to earlier accounting periods. In the financial section of this brochure, the last 12-month accounting period has also been analysed to facilitate comparison. In practice, this means that unaudited figures for January and February of the 2015 accounting period have been added to the figures for 2014.
Heeros is a complete digital financial management system, which can be used both as individual modules and an all-encompassing comprehensive service. Heeros is currently integrated in over 50 outside systems, with new interfaces being implemented when necessary.
Heeros is greater than the sum of its parts. Implementing all of Heeros’ service areas significantly enhances the client’s overall process. From a user standpoint, it is essential that transitioning from the old system to Heeros can be done on the client’s terms and schedule. If any problems arise, the same personal Heeros assistance and advice is always there.
You can find more information of our products and services in our home pagehttp://www.heeros.com/en
Some of the required services, such as scanning, optical invoice recognition and administrator services, can be purchased directly from Heeros. If automated solutions are desired for, among others, purchase order and invoice matching or the pre-posting of multi-page purchase invoices, we offer these and other revolutionary solutions and application integration with our partner, Liaison Technologies.