INFORM DataLab builds a modern BI stack on Avaza — at enterprise scale
Business Type
Data & IT Professional Services
Location
Germany
Size
50+ Employees
About The Company
INFORM DataLab GmbH is a data-driven technology and analytics firm focused on turning complex information into clear, actionable intelligence. Their work spans data engineering, business intelligence, automation, and applied AI, with a sharp focus on real-world outcomes.
Story Snapshot:
INFORM selected Avaza as its Professional Services Automation platform to run core operational workflows: quoting, projects, scheduling, time tracking, and invoicing in a single system. Avaza’s APIs and webhooks automatically feed clean operational data into INFORM’s data warehouse, enabling Snowflake and Qlik to deliver accurate revenue and performance insights.
“Tracking and billing time is where we make money. Before Avaza we had a terrible setup for tracking and billing time. The hardest part was simply getting time in and invoicing it. Our project managers also need to answer ‘when can the next kickoff be?’ without digging through a bunch of Outlook calendars. With Avaza, consultants track time easily, PMs see what’s ahead, and we offload clean data through the API to our warehouse to calculate what we need.” —Gerrit Bury, INFORM DataLab
What were the challenges?
INFORM needed an easy to use PSA for their consultants, and data they could trust. Their business revenue model has two engines: (1) subscription licensing of major data platforms and (2) professional services (projects run as time & materials, pre-paid drawdowns, or fixed-fee).
They needed:
- One source of truth for delivery: Consultants needed a simple way to log time, PMs needed clear schedules, and finance required predictable billing across T&M, prepaid blocks, and fixed-fee work.
- Simple, reliable time capture (no leakage): Prior tooling made time entry clunky, leading to missed billables (“leaky bucket”) and manual reconciliation.
- Scheduling clarity for near-term capacity: Project leads needed a clear 4–6 week view to answer “when can we kick off?” without checking multiple calendars.
- BI that leaders can trust: Executives wanted clean, consistent operational data to track a simple north-star—each consultant’s billable revenue must justify their cost—without wrestling with inconsistent exports.
- Scale without heavy ERP: As a 50-person unit inside a larger group, INFORM needed PSA strength without full-blown ERP complexity.
The Solution: A single system connecting delivery, data and decisions
INFORM uses Avaza to support multiple revence models within a single operational platform. Annual licensing revenue is managed through Avaza’s recurring invoices. Professional services are primarily delivered on a time-and-materials basis, with project-level rate cards and consultants tracking time that flows direclt into invoices. Fixed-fee engagements are recorded using Avaza’s fixed-amount billing.
Across all models, Avaza acts as the system of record, with operational data feeding INFORM’s data warehouse for KPI modelling and analysis.
Quotes → Projects: Sales creates estimates for licenses and services; accepted quotes convert into projects.
Projects & Schedules: Teams plan at week-level fidelity. Consultants maintain their own schedules; an Outlook → Avaza flow (via Power Automate) keeps bookings aligned.
Timesheets built for speed: Consultants log time with minimal friction and clear billable/non-billable context.
Billing that matches commercial reality:
- Time & Materials: Confifure flexible rate cards with multiple billing methods, allowing consultant time to flow directly into customer invoices
- Fixed fee: Capture agreed fixed-fee amounts upfront and invoice only once the agreed work is delivered.
- Recurring Licence Fee: Automate annual licensing charges using recurring invoices configured with the agreed license fee.
APIs & webhooks for clean data out: INFORM pulls Avaza data (time, projects, rates, invoices, payments) into Snowflake, then models performance in Qlik/Power BI alongside HubSpot and DATEV.
We listened, we shipped
INFORM works best when operational workflows map cleanly to data. When gaps emerged, we extended the platform in the right places (e.g. at the API and event layers) so their pipelines remain accurate and incremental.
- We added/expanded endpoints and webhooks to reflect real-world lifecycle events (e.g., recurring invoices, deletes, schedule series), reducing full reloads and ensuring downstream truth.
- We surfaced key project and document attributes (e.g., start/end dates) to support precise reporting windows.
- Recurring invoices exposure: Ensured subscription billing data could be extracted reliably for license-revenue analytics.
Result: INFORM’s team models once in their warehouse and trusts that Avaza will emit the right signals as the source of record.
The Impact
For INFORM DataLab, the value of Avaza goes beyond time tracking or invoicing in isolation. It gives the consulting business a clean operational foundation for running consulting work with more control and visibility.
With projects, timesheets, scheduling, estimates, recurring invoices, and billing activity flowing through one system, their team can work with greater consistency day to day, while leadership gets more reliable data for planning, forecasting, and performance analysis.
Because that operational data is then pushed into their warehouse and BI stack, INFORM can model the business in a way that reflects how consulting firms actually operate—across utilization, project delivery, recurring revenue, staffing visibility, and broader financial performance.
Key Statistics
Modules INFORM uses
Why this partnership works
- Consultant-first UX → better data: Low friction leads to complete timesheets and fewer leaks from estimate to invoice.
- API depth → trustworthy BI: Everything important is extractable and modeled; lifecycle events are visible and auditable.
- Product velocity → fit for sophisticated teams: Requests tied to real workflows become shipped capabilities.
- Shared language on data: Avaza’s cofounders are hands-on with BI and data architecture, so conversations with INFORM move quickly from “what” to “how” and “when.” No translation layer required.
- Fast to adopt for consultants and IT engineers
- Clean operational model (projects/time/schedule/billing)
Build this at your company
- Delivery leaders: Standardize quotes, time capture, and billing across T&M, prepaid, and fixed-fee without ERP overhead.
- Ops & finance: Stop leakage, simplify invoicing, and export dependable data to your warehouse.
- Data teams: Use Avaza as the operational system of record; keep modeling/visualization in your BI stack.
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