TSS Case Study Cobase
Cobase Client case: Evos
Companies that hold accounts with different banks face many inefficiencies. They have to use different bank portals to access their accounts or other financial services and multiple ERP connections may need to be maintained. The more different banks and accounts a company has, the more complex it gets.
Cobase offers a solution! Our multibank platform is a single point of access to all bank accounts and other financial products and services from many banks and financial service providers.
The main features of the platform are a central Payment Hub, Cash Management and Treasury modules.
The combination of this functionality with many bank connections in one place offers tremendous financial and operational efficiency, especially for medium and large size companies.
Evos and Cobase
Evos is an international and independent energy storage company that operates a network of premium tank terminals with a combined storage capacity of 2.5 million m3. EVOS terminals are located in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Algeciras.
In 2019 and 2020, First Sentier Investors, via its infrastructure investment fund, acquired these existing four terminal locations from previous owners. Evos needed to gain insight and control over the bank accounts of the acquired terminals at short notice and started looking for a platform that would quickly give it enhanced cash management control.
Full cash visibility and control within weeks
Pim Bezemer, Group Manager Business Control & Treasury at Evos: “As a newly created organisation, we needed to act fast. We knew that every terminal had various bank accounts with different banks, so we needed a solution that would be bank-independent. We soon found out that Cobase offered all we needed. Compared to another vendor, Cobase also had the shortest implementation time to go live.”
Cobase was able to implement all banks rapidly. With Cobase, Evos avoids having to use multiple bank portals. Cobase offers full cash visibility and account reporting with clear overviews of balances and transactions on all accounts, at all banks. Both Securities and Payment orders can also be managed centrally using one harmonized payment authorisation flow for all banks and accounts. Cobase offers an efficient central user administration in that only one security token is required instead of many. Pim Bezemer is also very pleased with the possibilities of integration with ERP systems and automatic download of bank statements. “The Cobase platform is our single point of access to all bank accounts and other financial products”.
Payments and Dashboard functions
Evos directly started using the Cobase Payment Module. Pim Bezemer says: ”This really is a user-friendly tool and it supports various payment formats. The Dashboard gives me all the information I need for my daily work”.
Implementation
According to Pim Bezemer, the implementation on Cobase side went very well. Cobase offers a dedicated implementation team and most of Evos’ banks were willing to cooperate directly. All of the Dutch banks connections were implemented within a few weeks. With some banks that Cobase was not yet working with, implementation took a bit longer. Evos now uses the Cobase platform for all of their banks on a day-to-day basis for cash management.
Evos and Cobase going forward
Being owned by a private equity-like investor, it is expected that Evos will expand over the next few years. When an acquisition takes place, Cobase offers the flexibility to easily add new entities, banks and bank accounts to the platform, allowing Evos will always retain control. In addition, it also gives Evos the possibility to streamline and cancel obsolete bank accounts, while for the end users the functionality remains the same.
Evos is planning to make more use of the benefits of Cobase in the future, starting with the ERP integration for all the four terminal locations.
Liquidity Forecasting is a module that will help Evos further optimize their liquidity positions.
Pim Bezemer: “The Liquidity Forecasting model is also definitely something that we are considering. Knowing that Cobase works in a co-creation model with its clients, we will certainly give our input and ideas”.
