Anago
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“And then it becomes 'your budget'…”

VIAA is one of four colleges in Zwolle. This college was founded from a religious movement and offers various bachelor's programs such as Pabo, Nursing and Social Work. VIAA also has Associate Degrees and post-higher professional education courses. VIAA has around two thousand students. We spoke with Hartger Veenstra from VIAA. He told us more about what they encountered, how we helped them and how the collaboration went.

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What preceded it…

In the past, a lot of work was done with Excel, with linking pivot tables. We have good people who have created all that, but you do encounter limitations. You are often dependent on a small group of people and that requires babysitting. If they are there, it's fine, but if at some point they start doing something else, then things get complicated.

Because it is a financial process, at some point it becomes “your budget”. The distance to the budget holders has then become too great. You want to have a process where you all work in the same system and not all separate models that ultimately continue to exist side by side. We also wanted there to be some support. We definitely found it.


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How are things now?

The involvement of budget holders in particular has changed positively. It is always an achievement when you get non-financials into such a system and they can also use that system themselves. We now notice in the budget that everyone works in the same system and that they can get by with it, so that is positive.

Working with Anago was really intended for the budget, but we now also see the added value in other areas.

Wishes for the future…

Sometimes we would like an extra dimension for specific accountability. I know this is being worked on now. Very nice!

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Why go for Anago?

You can integrate all the information you need for your budget process into Anago. It helps you automate and quickly calculate effects and scenarios. That is really relevant to us. You have to process less manually on the balance sheet. A large part is done automatically and that is very nice.

It also ensures that your focus is less on the technical side. You are more likely to focus on making a budget more policy-oriented. You can work much more substantively and you are less concerned with the technology. I think that is a really big advantage.

There is also version management. Of the hundred boards, at least 90 are concerned about version management. That you had started working in an old version of Excel again. For that reason alone you would consider something like Anago.

Moreover, with Anago you can also make analyzes much better and faster. Instead of sending around a large Excel file with the figures, you would rather not do that anymore. You just want one place where people can log in, online.

We do it together. There will of course be other parties that can do the same thing, but you have to look together at what you need, especially if you have few people. You have to do it together. If there is that interaction and you notice that there is commitment on both sides, then all is well. And we experience that with Anago.