Finance in logistics - refactored

In most €500M+ transport and logistics groups, the finance team spends 40–60% of its time on reconciliation, consolidation, and Excel assembly. The consolidated month-end close runs 18 to 22 business days — so pricing, fleet renewal, and sponsor decisions get made on data that's already three weeks old.

The cause isn't the team. It's architecture: finance infrastructure designed for a smaller, single-entity business that was never refactored as the group scaled through acquisition. Fifteen-entity groups run operating models built for three. This whitepaper lays out the fix — and why it takes 90 days, not two years.

What's inside

‍A reference architecture and a day-by-day plan, grounded in audit work across groups at this scale (illustrated through a composite we call EuroCargo).

• The "Excel tax" quantified — roughly €3.5M a year at €900M scale, across team hours, decision latency, and CFO attention
• The seven questions your sponsor will ask this quarter — and what a slow answer reveals
• The finance middleware: the missing layer between your TMS and GL, installed without replacing either
• A three-phase, 90-day plan from chart-of-accounts unification to a 7-day close
• The economics of the fix — payback under nine months — and the failure modes that quietly kill these programmes

Who it's for

‍CFOs, finance directors, and group controllers in transport and logistics groups above €500M in revenue — particularly those scaling through M&A or preparing for investor-grade reporting.

Incro leads these refactors end to end. The final page shows how to get a directional read on where your group stands today.

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