VEERA OÜ, a Tartu-based company founded in 2016, whose main business is sales and development of the cloud-based budgeting application VeeRa, celebrates its 7th anniversary in 2023. VeeRa is already being used, for instance, by 75% of local authorities in Estonia. The application has more than 4,000 active users and the total volume of the budgets managed with it exceeds 4 billion euros. Based on the results of 2022, the Äripäev business publication selected the company as one of its Gazelle TOP rating companies for 2023, where it landed in 151st place out of almost 1,000 companies. The company has the international ISO 27001:2013 information security certificate.
The application was initially only meant for planning public sector budgets in order to create a convenient information channel between separate units and departments, as a communication centre. The application brings simplicity and accuracy to the financial matters of most local authorities and other larger organisations in Estonia, improving convenience and the human factor of the work of the officials and persons responsible for budget planning.
For instance, in the final report of the study commissioned by the Association of Estonian Cities and Municipalities titled “Analysis of the main information systems used by local authorities to provide services to their residents” (completed by Proud Engineers OÜ in 2022), VeeRa was one of the few positive examples mentioned. VeeRa has evolved not from a technical solution, but out of knowledge of a specific service, that is the service management capacity and control over the service occurs naturally and is not acquired over time.
Who is VeeRa for?
VeeRa does not need to be a tool merely for specialists who are extremely knowledgeable with regard to finance and Excel. It is important that the smart solution would also be a pleasant tool for the managers of sub-units of organisations, such as schools, nurseries, cultural and sports institutions, departments, facilities, etc.) An increase in the level of responsibility of employees is also an important result.
There is a big difference in whether the budget is prepared in the office of the CFO on the basis of verbally communicated information or the manager of each unit enters their own expenses. When planning the budget in VeeRa, the sub-unit manager is able to provide context to the numbers either by commenting them or adding price quotes, base calculations, product images and other needed information. Budgets can be commented on by expenditure line, etc. This creates a situation where the responsibility for financial planning and use becomes clearer and more transparent and can be linked to individuals. Also, the convenient entry-level functionality allows everyone to monitor budget execution on a daily basis, down to the smallest detail.
VeeRa’s possibilities
VeeRa is currently interfaced via a secure API link with 9 different business applications that include SAP BO, Microsoft Business Central, Microsoft Axapta, Directo, Merit Aktiva, Standard Books, SAF, Rapid and PMen.
An interface with the Horizon business software, widely used in Latvia, is being created, among other additions. The most exotic VeeRa clients today, for example, are located in Zambia.
Data visualisation
A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. In addition to managing numbers, many of VeeRa clients also wish to visualise data. Besides VeeRa, the company offers standalone interactive visualised management dashboards and views created on the basis of Power BI. Power BI (Power Business Intelligence) is a global leader among scalable business analysis solutions created by Microsoft which allows offering interactive visualisations and business information solutions along with external interfaces. For instance, the VeeRa team has created Power BI-based public views of budgets on websites for many local authorities across Estonia and internal management dashboards for companies. Other external databases can be interfaced with Power BI in addition to VeeRa, including Excel.
VeeRa’s future
During 2023, the new VeeRa Pro application, developed on the React platform, will be launched, allowing further development of the product in a modular way, convenient management of big data, planning of budgets on a monthly basis, free selection of the classifiers used for budgeting, etc. The aim is to win more and more private sector clients with the new product, to meet the higher expectations of big clients and to move more vigorously into export markets. The VeeRa Pro development is also supported by the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Foundation.