Return to all articles

How to make cash flow management your competitive advantage: the case of a real estate company from Turkey

Company «AIRT» — Turkish Association of Independent Realtors, sells and rents property in Turkey.  
Сайт: https://airt1.com

Ilgiz Yusupov — founder of the company «AIRT»
Instagram: @ilgizyusupov
For 7 years he has been involved in real estate in Turkey

Has been using Finmap in his business for about a year
For him, cash flow management with Finmap is an opportunity to reflect on his company’s financial health and plan for the future, while quietly enjoying a cup of coffee.

Best price, caring service, high quality… What other advantages can a business use to get ahead of the competition?

One Finmap user, the founder of a real estate company in Turkey, realized that orderly business finances could also help him get ahead. Why and how? We tell you in this user case study.

Given

AIRT deals with real estate in 4 cities in Turkey (Istanbul, Antalya, Alanya, Ankara). AIRT’s core business is the sale of flats in new buildings. However, they also deal with rentals, commercial properties and secondary housing.

There are now 12 employees in the team. But as Ilgiz, the company’s founder, says:

«All of our brokers are independent individuals with their own life stories. They are not employees, but partners».

The company has a turnover of about $1 million a month. Ilgiz has ambitious plans for the business:

  • to develop the company in other cities in Turkey and around the world;
  • to make the property market more professional and reduce the level of fraud.

Among other things, the Association of Independent Realtors was set up for this purpose.

«Our aim is for the Association to be at a national level. We hold broker conventions and create workable rules in the market, so people can understand what is effective and what is not».

In order to work systematically towards these goals, Ilgiz, as the founder and manager of the company, needs to understand exactly what is happening in the business and make informed decisions. So, he decided to introduce financial management.

Task

Ilgiz was immediately looking specifically for a financial management tool. He already knew that just accounting was not enough.

«I was purposefully looking for a financial tool. Because in Turkey an accountant deals with many things,  but not with finances. He does some invoicing, some tax calculations, but he doesn’t keep the finances. As a result,  there is no way to understand where there are  expenses and where there is  income, even by using  Excel».

It was important for  him to:

  • Clearly understand what the company’s expenses are and how much revenue the business generates.
  • Keep track of this data regularly and, preferably, have it all in one place.
«I needed one programme where I could go in and clearly see the main indicators I needed in dashboard form, especially income and expenses. In general, any entrepreneur needs to understand income and expenses at least once a week. This helps to make decisions in terms of saving or, hopefully, expanding».

He found out about Finmap by chance: I came across an advertisement, looked at the information about the service and immediately began to implement it.

Finmap solution

Ilgiz manages cash flow in his business on Finmap by himself, without delegating to the staff.

«Finmap is an enjoyable activity for me. I try to set aside an hour or two a week, brew some fresh coffee, sit down and enjoy doing it».

So far, all the data is entered manually, including the company’s expenses and income. There are only 3 buttons in the service for entering transaction data: Income, Expense and Transfer. It is therefore easy to understand at a glance.

To make the analytics clearer and more accurate, user can specify not only the amount, but also, when entering transactions:

  • Category — the type of income and expenditure, e.g. targeted advertising expenditure, income from renting commercial real estate.
  • Counteragent, i.e. from whom income is received or to whom the company has made the payment — expense;
  • Tags — further option to specify the data on the transaction. For example, you can add tags with brokers’ names so that Finmap can then filter out all revenues that came from a particular broker in its reports.

* Example of adding an operation to Finmap.

Since Ilgiz started using Finmap, we have added integration with Turkish banks, including  Akbank Direkt, DenizBank, Garanti, Ziraat Bank and Yapi ve Kredi to Finmap.

* This is what the features of connecting integrations with banks and services inside Finmap look like.

This will help our users from Turkey and those with Turkish bank accounts save time. Thanks to the integration, all bank account transactions (receipts and expenses) will go into the service automatically and manual entry of transactions will not be necessary.

The most important report for Ilgiz now is Money/Cash Flow*. It shows cash flow and allows us to systematize what amounts are received and what amounts are spent by the company.

* This is what the Money/Cash Flow report looks like in Finmap.

Ilggiz can now clearly see on one screen all revenues and expenditures of the business comprehensively or by specific parameters. For example, he can filter income by Category, «Sales in new buildings».

* This is how users can use the filters in the Money/Cash Flow report in Finmap.

«It’s so convenient and easy to read. Before I would get dizzy trying to understand endless columns on spreadsheets.  When deals go through and you start increasing your staff or buying some additional software without checking your financial records, there are consequences. In this respect Finmap is a wakeup call, alerting me to my business’ finances».

Ilgiz is still exploring how Finmap’s other reports can help his company (Profit/P&L, Projects, Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable).

* This is what some reports look like in Finmap. They are generated automatically.

His plan for the future is to get additional training in order to gain a deeper understanding of finance to make the most of financial management.

What is the result

«Finmap is absolutely the right thing to do».

✅ All company income and expenses are now organized. They can be analyzed at any time without wasting a lot of time and without waiting for reports from the accountant/finance director.

«It literally takes  five minutes. I go into Finmap, look at my expenses and my income. That’s it. It really helps».

✅ It has become easy to make decisions based on numbers, not to inflate costs where they are unnecessary, but also not to save too much.

«It’s just the kind of time when I can reflect a little bit on the numbers, see what’s going on. Because in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, you don’t see what’s going on. But when you sit down and look at the numbers, and they are in a convenient format, everything is clear».

✅ Ilgiz realized that he could increase his advertising budget without falling into a cash gap (a situation where a business temporarily lacks money to cover expenses).

✅ Systematic cash flow management has become a competitive advantage for the company.

«Of course, this is a competitive advantage. Because if 50% of the market does not use cash flow management, they will get into financial holes, recruiting a large number of employees or increasing money for advertising when they can’t afford it.  In the meantime, I can  pull ahead by making sound financial decisions».

It is now much easier for the Association of Independent Realtors to move towards the goal:

«The plans for the future are for the Association to become a place where every foreigner can come, not just to buy a property, but to find one specifically tailored to their needs and objectives».

We are sure that with such a systematic money order everything will surely work out😊

If you too are setting ambitious goals for your business, you need a well-thought-out plan and a clear picture of your company’s financial situation. Connect Finmap to get rid of money chaos and make informed decisions based on numbers. 14 days free.

Try Finmap