Customer Story
Bordeaux Métropole Énergie (BME) faced the challenge of managing eight entities, two fiscal year-ends, and countless Excel workbooks. To streamline their processes, the finance team replaced their outdated software with Lucanet. Today, they automate daily data imports and manage consolidation, budgeting, and reporting—all within a single, efficient solution.
Founded in 2018 as a holding company, Bordeaux Métropole Énergie brings together legacy brands Regaz (gas networks) and Gaz de Bordeaux (energy supply) with newer initiatives like Mixener (district heating) and Neomix (renewables). Together, they generate, distribute, and deliver energy to municipalities, businesses, and households—offering green gas, solar power, renewable heating and cooling, and energy renovation solutions.
With Lucanet, we can build any report or profit-and-loss statement on demand for stakeholders, without needing consultants or IT specialists.
Pascale Rumeau
Deputy CFO, Bordeaux Métropole Énergie
BME’s finance team used to spend every month manually consolidating trial balances from eight separate entities. The team relied on an outdated consolidation tool and large, complex Excel spreadsheets to get the job done. Reporting was even more complicated: every concession contract required its own profit and loss statement, and allocating costs across 46 municipalities meant managing huge spreadsheets full of allocation keys. “Just updating those files could take 20 minutes or more – no exaggeration,” recalls Pascale Rumeau, BME’s Deputy CFO.
The workload spiked whenever a subsidiary closed its books. Two entities reported on December 31, while the others closed on September 30. That meant reconciling calendars, remapping charts of accounts, and explaining variances to regulators such as France’s energy authority (CRE). The finance team needed a single platform that could handle consolidation, budgeting, and in-depth analysis – all without sacrificing speed or efficiency.
Following a public tender, BME selected Lucanet for its drill-down transparency, ease of budgeting within the tool, and flexible dimensional model. Implementation was very quick: “Within one week we had essentially everything in place,” says Rumeau. Two consultants loaded monthly trial balances and the full analytical structure, then trained the team to build reports on their own.
Next, a connector was used to link Lucanet to Microsoft Dynamics AX – and later to D365, the subsequent ERP system – so that new journal entries, fixed-asset movements, and PDF invoices would flow into the database overnight or on demand. "Now, we simply press a button every day, and the data gets updated," Rumeau adds.
The finance team also leverages Lucanet’s scripting engine to automate complex allocations: one version produces a column-per-municipality P\&L, while another reallocates HR, IT, and facilities costs from corporate departments to subsidiaries using dynamic keys such as headcount or square meters. Because the scripts are maintained in-house, the model evolves as fast as the business – no external developers required.