Climbing Higher at Month-End: Bergfreunde and FloQast

A passion for climbing and all things outdoors has helped mountain sports retailer Bergfreunde transition from a small business into an international brand. Founded in 2006 in southwest Germany, the company has scaled new heights every year, and now serves customers across Europe and the world. 

While Bergfreunde's reputation for quality, competence, and service has helped it summit both physical and figurative mountains, those factors also define its finance function, which has evolved over the years to ensure that the company maintained both high regulatory and accounting standards year on year. 

And, just as climbers rely on the right gear to help them reach their goals, Bergfreunde’s accountants need the right software to sustain their performance. 

Before FloQast

Bergfreunde’s Head of Accounting Markus Kimmerle and Acc.- Finac.Report.&Treasury Alexander Kimmel set out the details of the company’s transformation with FloQast, which took place in 2018.

In 2017, prior to FloQast, Bergfreunde’s accounting team was relatively small with only four team members. Closing involved a combination of internal and external manual work, email communication between stakeholders, and a reliance on Excel spreadsheets. In that environment, month-end tasks were prone to errors, difficult for managers to review, and often took over a week to complete; up to twelve days in some cases. 

At the same time, the company was growing, and with the introduction of a US shareholder, leadership realised that the time had come to change the finance function, in-housing its accounting processes, boosting accountability and transparency, and adding automated speed and efficiency to the close.

Drawing on their firsthand experience with the platform, Bergfreunde's US shareholder helped the company make the final decision to choose FloQast as the platform to help achieve its finance goals.

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“Our closing process was a combination of external and internal work with a lot of manual emails and Excel sheets. Since we were growing, we wanted to in-house the whole process and get a clear overview of everything. That’s why FloQast became an objective for us.” 

- Markus Kimmerle, Head of Accounting

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FloQast Implementation 

Following preparatory steps, the FloQast implementation at Bergfreunde took two weeks. 

Markus attributed the speed of that execution to FloQast’s clear communication and depth of real-world industry expertise which ensured the new tools were always aligned with the company’s goals. 

The Bergfreunde team structured the FloQast implementation around balance sheet items, using the platform to assign clear roles and responsibilities, and define steps for each part of the process, adding, deleting or adjusting steps as necessary. 

That approach has enabled Bergfreunde to establish a clear, repeatable process for each close activity, from inventory and accounts receivable/payable to reporting and tax. 

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“FloQast transformed our predominantly manual close to a clean, automated process. And in addition to shortening our completion time, there was a huge increase in quality. ”

- Markus Kimmerle, Head of Accounting

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The structure that FloQast provides has also helped Bergfreunde manage its growing team: the platform ensures that every individual knows what is expected every month, and can take ownership of their tasks. Meanwhile, managers have a clear overview of close progress, can perform reviews efficiently, and identify emerging problems quickly in order to avoid bottlenecks. 

Beyond individual accountants' roles and responsibilities, FloQast has also contributed to the collective cohesion and efficiency of the close, eliminating the need for individual task lists. The platform serves as a single source of truth that ensures everyone in the finance department is on the same page and can collaborate effectively at month-end. 

Connecting Compliance 

In addition to efficiency and visibility, FloQast is playing a growing role in Bergfreunde’s compliance framework. While compliance was not a part of the initial implementation, the accounting team has since brought key internal controls into the platform, including US SOX requirements, and now uses the system to match each control to a step in the monthly close process. 

While Bergfreunde’s US compliance obligations have decreased following its acquisition by a European company in 2024, the value of connecting controls to accounting tasks remains. Not only does the connected compliance approach improve control efficiency, but it ensures that everyone on the Bergfreunde team understands the risks they’re facing, and why and how they’re mitigating them. 

From a practical perspective, the FloQast implementation has helped the Bergfreunde accounting team achieve its close speed goals, reducing month-end completion time from twelve days to five days or less.

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“Without FloQast, reducing the close to within five days would have been challenging. It helps so much to have this overview, to see the different steps and responsibilities, and be able to organise from end to end - especially at a time when the company is growing quickly.” 

- Markus Kimmerle, Head of Accounting

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The Next Big Climb

Given Bergfreunde’s ambition, and the challenges that business growth brings, the company is ready to take on its next big climb with FloQast. 

Acc.- Finac.Report.&Treasury Alexander Kimmel noted that Bergfreunde is working with FloQast’s product team to expand the implementation of the AutoRec tool in order to speed up amortisation. Meanwhile, Markus pointed out that Bergfreunde also intends to leverage FloQast to add a tax compliance workflow in order to bring the same kind of speed, efficiency, and visibility into the company’s reporting process. 

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“On a team level, FloQast makes it easy to track progress and to identify problems and dependencies. But I also really appreciate the product feedback response: as a customer, I’m recognized and appreciated. I trust in the platform as a long-term partner.”

- Alexander SURNAME, JOB TITLE

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And looking further ahead, Bergfreunde plans to deepen its use of FloQast as it pursues new transformation goals. For example, FloQast’s flexibility enabled seamless integration with Bergfreunde’s legacy ERP, Softengine büroware, but the company is now exploring different ERP options. With that migration process underway, Markus expects that FloQast will continue to provide the accounting bedrock for Bergfreunde. 

Business growth inevitably brings change. But, while periods of transition are challenging for all companies, the strength of Bergfreunde’s partnership with FloQast is helping the finance team approach the close with confidence, strengthening operational foundations, and enabling the company to stay collectively focused on its future. 

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“With FloQast it’s all about usability and adoption. Customer feedback is taken seriously and the team puts in the effort to increase the product's quality for us. That’s not something you see with competitors.”

- Markus Kimmerle, Head of Accounting

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