Idriz is a Financial Controller at Vizlib, having previously worked at ihorizon, Crunch Accounting and Neilson Active Holidays, among other organisations. Vizlib offers added features, capabilities and new visualisations to enrich the Qlik Sense UX.
As Financial Controller for Vizlib, Idriz’s role managing company spend during the pandemic was all about keeping a close eye on AR and OPEX. Learn which costs they cut and how they’ve kept track of invoices to come out ahead.
Vizlib may have not needed to pivot their business model, but they felt the need to review it. It’s a model that works, and that’s been proven again during the pandemic. The software company were one of the few lucky ones to find success in this difficult times due to the nature of their product.
The business intelligence software they provide has been exceptionally useful in helping clients make strategic, valuable decisions. They’re helping others survive COVID-19 by making them smarter – which in turn has helped them.
As Financial Controller, Idriz is used to running the spending show at Vizlib. So, when the pandemic went global, he didn’t need to make too many changes to his role. There were obvious adjustments, such as adding extra transactional areas to his job.
He started helping his team chase debtors and accounts receivable (AR); he spent more time tracking operating expenses (OPEX), and making sure there was a good reason behind every single payment they made.
You can never be too careful when checking signed off and executed payments, even without COVID-19.
A huge step in a crisis is figuring out how you can save money, and Vizlib went straight to the source of the majority of their expenditure.
When COVID-19 became a reality, they had important conversations with their suppliers and managed to renegotiate payment terms with some of them. This was huge. The company needed to stop spending cash beyond necessary, and these agreements helped them contain costs.
Vizlib’s concern with their AR was clear. They went so far as to allocate extra resources to chase all their invoices and collect as much cash as possible.
Together with AR, Idriz kept a tight grip on net cash flow to manage wins and losses during the pandemic, as well as their OPEX. It was a priority for them to collect way more cash than they were spending.
This meant that what they did spend was simply to survive. They saved a lot of money that would’ve been spent on T&E, which was a big help.
In fact, this year they were supposed to attend the QlikWorld tech conference in Phoenix, Arizona. It was unfortunately cancelled, of course, but they saved almost $100,000. Always look on the bright side.
