Alva Labs builds AI-native hiring software for fast-growing companies. The core problem they solve is one most hiring teams know well: good assessment data gets collected, then scattered. When it is time to make a decision, none of it connects, and teams fall back on intuition. Alva Labs brings assessments, structured interviews, and candidate feedback together in one system, so decisions are made on evidence.
With 70 people across Sweden, Norway, and the UK, Alva Labs moves fast. Every department, as Thobias puts it, is responsible for adopting the new way of working. Finance is no different.
Thobias Grüell · Finance Manager, Alva Labs
The problem: three countries. Three systems. One very long month-end.
Thobias managed finance across three legal entities, each running its own local accounting system. Every month-end meant the same sequence: export from Sweden, export from Norway, export from the UK, map each file into a common format, reconcile the differences, and produce something that could go to the board.
The goal was to close within five days. Some months that meant working weekends. The frustration was not that the work was hard. It was that it was easy, repetitive, and consuming the time Thobias needed for everything else.
On top of that, day-to-day bookkeeping sat with an external consultant. Thobias did not own the transactions, which meant he could not move at the speed the business required.
He asked ChatGPT. Light came up first.
Thobias managed finance across three legal entities, each running its own local accounting system. Every month-end meant the same sequence: export from Sweden, export from Norway, export from the UK, map each file into a common format, reconcile the differences, and produce something that could go to the board.
The goal was to close within five days. Some months that meant working weekends. The frustration was not that the work was hard. It was that it was easy, repetitive, and consuming the time Thobias needed for everything else.
On top of that, day-to-day bookkeeping sat with an external consultant. Thobias did not own the transactions, which meant he could not move at the speed the business required.
Three entities, one view.
What used to mean exporting files from three different accounting systems, running mapping formulas in Excel, and reconciling the differences now happens in Light. Thobias describes it simply: it feels like running finance for one entity, not three.
When a payment moves through the UK entity and needs to be tracked against the Swedish parent, the full path is visible in a single system. No delta hunting. No wondering why the balances do not add up.
Thobias Grüell · Finance Manager, Alva Labs
Set up once. Runs itself.
Alva Labs sells 12-month-plus SaaS contracts. Recognising that revenue correctly, month by month over the contract period, is non-negotiable. Before Light, that required manual attention every month. Now, Thobias sets up the templates once during onboarding. From that point, when an invoice is created, Light reads the contract period from the invoice line and recognises revenue automatically across the right months.
The two things that matter most in a finance function are accuracy and speed, in that order. Automated revenue recognition removes the human error risk from the most compliance-critical part of the job. It simply does not get missed.
Thobias Grüell · Finance Manager, Alva Labs
One button. Report ready in seconds.
Thobias built a cloud agent with read access to both Light and Alva Labs’ CRM. When it is time to produce the monthly management report, he presses one button. The agent pulls all the data, consolidates it, and the report is ready in seconds. What used to take the better part of a working week, sometimes spilling into weekends, is now a single action.
The same logic applies to budget tracking. The agent knows the budget, has read access to actuals in Light, and can surface where the company is overspending and why, immediately. Thobias can brief management on actions to take the same day, rather than at the next month-end.
This is the shift Thobias cares about most. Finance built around monthly close is reactive by design. You close, you look back, you have 30 days before you look back again. Up-to-date books, driven by automation, make the function proactive. The intelligence is there every day, every transaction.
Finance is not going to look the same in a year.
Thobias has a specific view on where this goes. It is not just about saving time. It is about rethinking what the finance function is for. The repetitive, manual work that has defined the role for decades — consolidating data, running month-end, chasing receipts, making journal entries — will be done by agents. Not someday. Now.
His advice to peers is direct: stop accepting the current process as fixed. Evaluate what you actually do each month, be honest about which parts require human judgment and which parts just require hours, and start experimenting. The tools are accessible. The agents are easy to work with. You do not need to be an engineer. Thobias describes himself as a vibe coder.
The goal he is working toward is a zero-day close. Not a target for some future quarter. For next month. With the manual work automated, the biggest blocker is gone.
Thobias Grüell · Finance Manager, Alva Labs
See Light in action
Ready to cut 80% of manual work? Let’s chat about how Light can hand the heavy lifting to AI so your team can focus on what matters.
