Customer Case: Primus Wafer Paper

How Primus shortened its monthly close by 5 days and gained more insight and confidence in the numbers.

Customer profile

Primus Wafer Paper, based in Oostzaan, is a leading Dutch company in the food industry. The company produces edible paper that is used worldwide in a wide range of applications, including coconut macaroons, organic bread, and energy bars. With a team of 60 employees, Primus exports to more than 40 countries.

Challenge

As CFO of Primus, Marcel Steenbrink faced the challenge of gaining more efficient insight into the company's financial administration. While Primus relied on a solid ERP system, its reporting capabilities were limited. This resulted in a heavy dependence on Excel and manual processes — both time-consuming and prone to errors.
Marcel was looking for a solution that could generate standard reports easily and automatically. Key requirements were ease of use, a short implementation time, and minimal cost — without the need for a dedicated specialist.

The solution with Smartbooks

Primus chose the Smartbooks.ai reporting platform for its simplicity and fast implementation. Marcel describes the decision as “a no-brainer” after seeing the demo, in which 80–90% of his requirements were covered out of the box. The system was fully operational within two weeks, with only 10 hours of time investment from the Primus team.
The flexibility of Smartbooks allowed the team to quickly integrate their specific chart of accounts into the platform. Standard reports were easily tailored to the company's unique needs, resulting in a user-friendly and efficient solution.

Improved insight

The platform makes it easy to move from a high-level overview down to transaction-level detail. This has led to better-quality reviews of the numbers and a stronger grip on the financial situation.

Efficiency gains

The lead time of the monthly close has been reduced by a full five days. This enables the team to report faster and more accurately.

Confidence in the numbers

Reports are now standardized and easily accessible to the management team — strengthening trust in both the numbers and the finance team itself.

Feedback from Primus

According to Marcel, the implementation process was “smooth and straightforward.” The team was positively surprised by the intuitive user interface and how quickly they were able to work with the tool independently.
“Confidence in our financial reports has grown thanks to the transparency and reliability Smartbooks provides. It has given our team more clout and allows us to focus on what really matters,” says Marcel.

Recommendation

Marcel Steenbrink wholeheartedly recommends Smartbooks to mid-sized companies: “In my 30+ years of experience I've worked with many tools, but Smartbooks is by far the simplest and fastest to implement. It covers the needs of 80–90% of mid-sized companies. For us, it has become an indispensable part of our close process.”

Conclusion

Primus Wafer Paper shows how a smart, user-friendly solution like Smartbooks can help companies streamline their financial processes. With improved insight, greater efficiency, and standardized reporting, Primus has made significant gains — at a low cost and with an implementation that took just 10 hours of their team's time.