“The information digging time dropped by 2/3”

For Vincent Jacobs, Partner at Van Reybrouck Corporate Finance, advising clients has always been about more than numbers. After nearly three decades in M&A, he has seen how technology is transforming the way financial experts serve their clients.

Van Reybrouck is a multidisciplinary advisory firm, active primarily in Flanders, with offices in Bruges and Brussels, employing around 60 people. The company supports entrepreneurs and families through its four business lines: accountancy, legal and tax, estate planning, and corporate finance.

The Challenge: Structuring Data to Free Up Time for Advice

In recent years, the financial advisory landscape has been flooded with data. For Van Reybrouck, the challenge was not a lack of information but how to make it useful.

“The industry is changing very quickly,” Vincent says. “Information needs to be available fast, and you need to search constantly across different tools and sources.”

And as the industry evolves, so do client expectations. “The work is changing from more repetitive tasks to more and more advice,” Vincent explains. “We need to automate the repetitive work so that we can really take our time to bring advice to our clients.”

Since 2013, Van Reybrouck has been fully cloud-based, with all client data carefully labeled and structured. “That helps us enormously now,” he says. “Because when your information is structured, you can really get to the front of the line in getting things done.”

But internal organization was only part of the equation. External data remained fragmented, difficult to access, and inconsistent in quality. “Getting access to external data is rather difficult,” Vincent recalls. “We had some tools helping us with that, but they were limited in reach and access. We were looking for a tool that brings everything together and is easy to use.”

That search led to openthebox.

The Solution: All Company Data in One Place

By introducing openthebox, Van Reybrouck replaced time-consuming data searches with an efficient, centralized platform where information is immediately available and ready to use.

“What is really strong about openthebox is that it’s easy to get your data and extract it,” Vincent says. “You can make the data work for you and combine it with your own client information.”

Van Reybrouck uses openthebox in two key ways:

1. A 360° View on Every Client

For Van Reybrouck, much of the work begins with understanding a single client in depth. openthebox brings all relevant public information into one place, giving the team an immediate view of a company’s financials, the evolution of its board, its creditworthiness, and other essential details. This unified snapshot also strengthens KYC checks before onboarding new clients. Instead of piecing data together from multiple sources, advisors can move straight into analysis with a clear, reliable overview that supports faster and better-informed advice.

2. Building Peer Groups and Sector Insights

Benchmarking has become another powerful use case. openthebox allows the team to quickly group companies into peer sets, compare performance against sector averages, and answer the questions clients ask most often about how they stack up in their market. The platform also makes it easy to explore entire sectors, from the number of active companies to typical margins and size profiles. These insights feed directly into Van Reybrouck’s advisory work, helping the team provide targeted, data-backed guidance with minimal preparation time.

The Results: Efficiency and Better Advice

Vincent summarizes the impact in two words: efficiency and quality.

“The efficiencies are much, much higher,” he says. “By creating this time efficiency, you can dive deeper into really getting the advice done because you don’t have to do the material work anymore. You can just have the data available in the way you want it and focus on the advice.”

Previously, collecting and cleaning data took most of the time in an engagement. “Now we only need a fraction of that time to get the data,” he explains. “We can offer advice of better quality because the time is freed up for what really matters.”

The improvement is measurable. “This information digging phase has really dropped by two thirds,” Vincent says. “Before, we would collect information from the National Bank of Belgium, copy it into Excel, and spend hours on formatting. Now, with one click, you get the data ready to use.”

Why openthebox Was the Right Choice

Several factors made openthebox stand out for Van Reybrouck.

“It’s really about accessibility,” Vincent explains. “A lot of tools provide data but don’t allow you to get it out of the system. With openthebox, you can export and use it as you want.”

He also points to the platform’s completeness. “The information is often fragmented across tools,” he says. “openthebox brings together all the different sources into one product.”

And cost was an important consideration. “Some larger international players have prices that are not accessible for small and medium companies like ours,” Vincent says. “openthebox is the right product at the right price.”

Smooth Adoption and Everyday Use

Getting started with openthebox was straightforward for the team. They were already familiar with similar tools and quickly recognised where the platform fit into their workflow. As Vincent puts it, “The tool is really self-explanatory… everyone was up and running quickly.” This meant onboarding required minimal training and allowed the organisation to adopt the platform almost immediately.

Van Reybrouck also built a collaborative approach around the tool. User groups were created to share tips, compare workflows, and make sure no functionality went unnoticed, especially as new features were released. This helped the organisation get the full value out of the platform from day one.

Today, openthebox is woven into the firm’s daily rhythm. Advisors consult it throughout the day to understand the structure of new inbound companies, assess whether a relationship is worth pursuing, or prepare for client conversations. It has also become central to their M&A work, where identifying potential buyers or targets now happens with far greater speed and accuracy.

As Vincent notes, “We use it on a daily, even hourly basis… it allows us to make the selection process more efficient and of higher quality.”

A Trusted Partner in a Data-Driven Future

Beyond the practical benefits, Vincent highlights the importance of having reliable partners in data. “It’s key to base your advice on correct, structured data,” he says. “That’s why we are building an ecosystem with data providers we know and trust.”

He sees openthebox as part of that long-term vision. “In the time we’ve worked with openthebox, we’ve seen the product evolve,” Vincent says. “Features we asked for have been added. It’s clear that they listen to user feedback.”

“Data is key in advising our clients correctly,” he concludes. “openthebox helps us do that faster and with more confidence.”

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