About Illustrated
Everyone did their job. Nobody looked at the whole.
For 25 years I ran three companies and five shops. I saw good years, and also losses, a court-supervised restructuring and the bankruptcy of one of my companies. What I missed back then is what I now do for other owners.
My story
From the shop floor to numbers that arrive on time
25 years
Five shops, and the numbers with the accountant
Five stores on prime locations in Flanders, a franchise of an international fashion brand, with around 40 people at the busiest time. I did what every owner does: I kept the shops running. The numbers I left to the accountant.
The energy crisis
My costs rose on three sides at once
Electricity in every shop, and through wage indexation also rent and salaries. I only saw it in black and white in the accountant's report, months later. By then there is little left to steer.
Tracking it myself
Excel, till data and a rent negotiation
From then on I tracked my numbers myself. First in Excel, with the till data loaded in. It worked, but getting a clear picture out of it was manual work every single time. Still, it helped: with the figures on falling footfall in the shopping centre, I went into the conversation with my landlord.
What I missed
Seniority, and a current account that quietly grew
The seniority of my staff crept up unnoticed, until the notice periods were so high that I kept a loss-making shop open far too long. And costs with incomplete paperwork were booked to my current account as the director. Nobody said a word, until a new accountant asked why that balance was so high. Cleaning it up cost me a lot of money.
When it went wrong
A bankruptcy, and what it taught me
When a main supplier went bankrupt, my business got into trouble too. A court-supervised restructuring followed, and one of my companies went bankrupt. My accountant kept the books, my lawyer handled the procedure. Both did their job well. But nobody looked at how it all fit together. That was left to me. Right after, I started again, with Illustrated.
"The accountant will tell me if something's wrong." Mine didn't.
What wasn't in my books
The things that really hurt only showed up when I went looking
Sick leave was a killer. I only noticed it when I entered the payroll at SD Worx and had to download a report for it. What it really cost me was nowhere on a single line.
Footfall in the shopping centre dropped long before my revenue showed it. Once I had those numbers, I stood stronger with my landlord.
A weak items-per-ticket I pulled from the till, when I went looking. People came in, but they bought less per ticket. So we set up a non-recurring bonus with a higher items-per-ticket as the target.
And the costs that crept up quietly, the indexations and that current account balance, were in the books. Nobody looked at them. Not even me.
Why Illustrated
The overview I never had
Your accountant knows your numbers. Your lawyer knows the rules. Your coach knows you. I look at how it all fits together, the way you have to as an owner. I work alongside them, not instead of them.
With Illustrated you get the numbers you need on Monday morning, from the systems you already use, and they are right. I use the best tools for that, AI included. The difference is knowing which question to ask. I learned that in practice.
Gregory Moureau, founder of Illustrated