Heijmans | 50% Faster Cost Planning and Forecasting

Key Takeaways What you need to know

Heijmans is transitioning from basic accounting practices to predictive finance by implementing Vena, which streamlines financial and operational processes, automating what was previously manual tasks. This shift is critical as it enhances forecasting accuracy, reduces planning time, and improves decision-making efficiency for construction projects.
This modernization is important not only for increasing operational efficiency but also for ensuring data quality and governance across all financial models, paving the way for advanced analytics and AI capabilities. The change benefits the finance team and project managers by allowing quicker access to reliable financial data, ultimately leading to better project outcomes.
The impact of this transformation is significant for Heijmans' 400 employees using Vena. By standardizing financial processes and integrating data from various sources, the company saves significant time on reporting and forecasting, allowing the team to focus on strategic decision-making rather than manual administrative tasks.

See how Heijmans connected Vena with SAP S/4HANA and Power BI to accelerate cost planning and forecasting while supporting its broader SAP modernization.

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The Challenge: Shifting from Basic Accounting to Predictive, Forward-Looking Finance

As one of the Netherlands’ leading construction and real estate development companies, Heijmans operates in a complex, project-driven environment where financial precision directly impacts performance.

By 2019, the organization recognized it was time to modernize its finance function. The company had large transformation goals, including a future finance program, a planned migration to SAP S/4HANA , and the development of a new data platform. However, the first step was to fix financial and operational planning processes that were fragmented and heavily dependent on standalone Excel files.

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“We wanted to increase forecasting power, avoid surprises and stop wasting time collecting information and building reports,” says Kees.

Organizational cost planning, S-curve forecasting and real estate foundation cost modeling were all managed in disconnected spreadsheets. Cost center owners manually exported SAP data, and developers built their own formulas. As a result, version control was limited, historical comparisons were difficult, and consolidation required significant manual effort.

The team’s ambition became clear: shift from spending their time on traditional accounting to maintaining true business control, supporting better decision-making and strengthening margin focus across projects. But without standardized templates, integrated data and full auditability, that transformation was difficult to realize.

Heijmans needed a solution that combined flexibility with control, preserved the familiarity of Excel while adding structure underneath, and could scale across multiple business processes. In 2019, supported by Finext, the company initiated a proof of concept with Vena. The fit was immediately apparent.

“The proof of concept showed this just works. Excel as a front end, structured database underneath. Exactly what we needed,” says Kees.

Team in safety gear walking through a construction site, inspecting a concrete structure.

Achieving Standardized, Integrated Planning That Drives Future-Readiness With Vena

Today, Heijmans runs 10 to 15 core financial and operational processes in Vena, including P&L, cash flow, S-curves, organizational costs, opportunities and risks, consolidation, tender monitoring and IT budgeting.

Processes that once required manual exports and spreadsheet consolidation are now centralized and automated. Organizational cost planning, which previously involved a full day of merging SAP exports and substantiations, now takes approximately one hour. Actuals and prior forecasts load automatically into controlled templates with full drill-down transparency, feeding directly into profit center P&L reporting.

S-curve project planning time has also been reduced, and the quality of the outputs and predictions have increased. Forecasts and actuals load instantly, users adjust only what has changed, and updates write back into SAP, automatically feeding Power BI reporting. The result is dramatically faster planning with stronger data quality at the source.

Vena has also saved considerable time for Heijmans’ IT team, which previously spent days facilitating rolling forecasts, as team leads can now enter their own budgets through structured workflows.

Beyond FP&A, Heijmans standardized their real estate foundation cost modeling across all regions. Every project version is stored centrally, enabling instant comparison across phases and benchmarking across more than 20 projects, as well as several versions of a foundation cost model. Their team of real-estate developers saves substantial time, and the organization gains consistency and insight across regions.

As Heijmans advances its S/4HANA migration and enterprise data platform initiatives, Vena provides a stable, auditable and low-code foundation. By strengthening data quality, governance and model consistency today, Heijmans is deliberately preparing for advanced analytics and future AI capabilities.

Worker in safety gear using a tablet inside a construction site.

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