Live Finance as the AI spark for Umami
Umami grows herbs and microgreens in a resource-efficient closed-loop system that uses as little water as possible and no pesticides. Behind this business model are complex processes that have to be managed as reliably as the finances.
The challenge: when financial figures lag behind reality
Until now, accounting, fiduciary services and office management involved a great deal of manual work and lengthy reconciliation. At the same time, finance and other business processes ran in separate systems. The real challenge was therefore not the administrative workload alone. Just as decisive was the time lag between what happened in the business and the moment it became visible in the financial figures.
When key figures are only analysed two or three weeks later, the situation has often already changed. Monitoring, performance management and decisions are then based on a picture that no longer fully reflects the company and its day-to-day operations.
These challenges were at the centre:
- High manual workload: accounting, fiduciary services and the back office required intensive communication and reconciliation.
- Separate systems: financial data and other business information were not sufficiently connected.
- Delayed analysis: key figures were often only available after a delay, which made it harder to manage the business on current data.
What Umami needed was therefore more than a new accounting system. The company wanted to connect financial data and operational processes more closely and create new opportunities for automation.
What convinced me, beyond the technology, is the team behind Aderis. Finance experts and technology specialists work hand in hand here. They understand our requirements.
Robin Bertschinger, Co-founder and Co-CEO, Umami
Live Finance: a new view of the whole business
The switch to Aderis gave Umami the opportunity to take a fundamentally fresh look at its existing systems and processes.
Aderis showed the company for the first time how AI can be deployed at scale. The platform's open architecture allowed finance processes to work more closely with other business systems. For Umami, this was no longer just about replacing individual manual steps. Processes could be restructured and information brought together where it is needed for monitoring, performance management and decision-making.
With the help of AI, the company developed a Live Finance system tailored to its own requirements. Combined with finance, this creates new ways of bringing current financial and business data together for monitoring, performance management and decision-making.
What began as a change of finance platform became the trigger for a broader AI transformation across the company.
What has changed with the Aderis Live Finance Platform
01 Automation in day-to-day business
At Umami, 90% of customer orders are now automated. From the arrival of a customer order by email to a confirmed sales order takes around 90 seconds. Around 1,700 order lines are processed every month without manual entry. At the same time, 118 delivery notes are consolidated into seven monthly invoices.
This does more than reduce manual workload. Information can flow through the processes in a structured way, without having to be transferred manually between individual steps again and again.
02 Continuously current financial figures
Live Finance creates the basis for keeping financial data continuously current. Instead of analysing developments weeks later, key figures can be viewed closer to what is currently happening in the business. For Umami, speed alone is not decisive; the reliability of the figures is. Monitoring and performance management now build on a more current foundation, and developments can be assessed earlier.
In the course of the transition, existing reports were also reviewed, which brought previously undetected errors with an impact on earnings to light.
03 Rethinking processes with AI
Umami's experience with Aderis led beyond finance. The company began to take a fundamentally fresh look at its existing systems and processes and to use AI in other areas as well. One result was its own ERP system, developed with AI support and tailored to Umami's requirements.
Live Finance thus became not only the new foundation for finance, but the starting point for the company's AI transformation.
