M2 streamlines time tracking and billing with Aerion
Customer Story
M2 is a Berlin-based IT and cloud consulting firm operating across the entire data-value chain. With projects ranging from short-term engagements to multi-year contracts, the company needed a more robust solution for resource management, project oversight, and financial control.
Situation
M2’s existing tools, Harvest & Harvest Forecast, could not keep up with the growing complexity of their workload. Resource allocation was inconsistent, budget monitoring was prone to overbooking, and time tracking lacked user-friendliness. Billing across diverse project models required manual adjustments and frequent corrections. Workflow automation was minimal, leaving critical processes dependent on emails and manual intervention.
Challenge
The firm struggled to consistently track resources across departments, manage absences transparently, and monitor budgets in real time. Without reliable alerts, projects were often overbooked, and unused budgets went unnoticed. Time tracking was cumbersome, discouraging employees from entering data accurately. Billing was slow and error-prone, with complex project models managed manually in Excel. Automation potential remained untapped, as only a few triggers were tied to project status changes. As Stefan Grube, Lead PMO, explained: “Our previous system made it difficult to track resources consistently and made budget monitoring unreliable.”
Impact
The shift to Aerion transformed M2’s operations. Resource management became transparent, with automated tracking of assignments and real-time visibility enabling agile decision-making. Financial control improved significantly, with dashboards that prevent overbooking, trigger alerts when budget limits are reached, and make project monitoring easier. Time tracking was modernized with intuitive interfaces and Jira integration, making the process faster, more accurate, and motivating for employees. Billing is now reliable and efficient, as time entries can be marked as invoiced and external costs such as hosting fees are managed directly in Aerion. Automation also reached a new level: integrations with Salesforce and sevdesk eliminated manual handovers and streamlined approvals across teams.
“Everything is now streamlined, transparent, and automated, making our processes faster, more accurate, and much easier to handle.”
— Stefan Grube, Lead PMO