About
About Mistlight
Mistlight is a modern software and analytics company. We build planning and analytics software to order for companies that make, move or sell goods, and we build it quickly because we know how these businesses run.
Why we started
Every business we have worked in ran on the same two things: a reporting system that answered nine questions in ten, and a set of spreadsheets that answered the tenth, rebuilt by hand each month. The tenth question was always the one the board asked. What did this product cost to make? Where did the margin go? Can the plan actually be made?
The software that could answer it was built and priced for the largest companies. Developers working from a requirements document could build something nearly right, and nearly right is where finance goes back to Excel. So we built the software ourselves. Mistlight exists to build it for each company around its own processes, and to keep building as the questions change.
Who we build for
Companies that make, move or sell physical goods: manufacturers in food and drink, consumer goods, packaging, chemicals and materials and industrial components; contract and private-label producers; FMCG and consumer-goods brand owners; distributors, wholesalers and trading companies; and retailers.
What we build for each depends on how it works. A manufacturer may start with product cost or the production plan, a distributor with stock and purchasing, a retailer with replenishment. All of them sell, so commercial analytics fits every one of them.
What we build
We build whatever a business needs in analytics and process automation. Places to start include five areas that share the same figures: commercial analytics; S&OP planning; budgeting, forecasting and board reporting; product cost and production analytics; and strategy and the long-range plan. We also build for new product launches, pricing and promotions, purchasing, workforce planning and month-end reporting, and adding more later is normal.
Each client gets a system of its own, with its definitions built in and its people signed in on named accounts. See What we build for examples of the software.
How we build
Definitions first, then screens.
What gross sales, deductions and cost of goods mean in your company is agreed in writing before any screen is built on them. The first thing we check on a new build is that its totals match the figures you already report.
We specify every screen ourselves.
We have had to stand behind figures like these in front of a board. That is why discovery is short, and why the screens answer what a board asks.
Fast, and production-grade.
We build full-stack, production-grade software with modern generative-AI engineering. The AI writes code alongside us; we design the system, review what it writes and test every change. Automated tests run before anything reaches your system, including tests that check the arithmetic of every bridge against worked examples.
Open about how the numbers are made.
We want your teams to see how the most important figures are calculated. Key tables and calculations export to Excel with their formulas intact, so anyone can follow a figure back to where it came from and keep analysing it.
Your data stays yours.
Each company has its own system and its own database. Nothing leaves it unless you ask for it, and we never use your data to train models. How an engagement runs has the detail.
The experience behind the software
We have run finance at board level on both sides of the shelf: in consumer-goods manufacturing and in retail. We have worked closely with every part of those businesses: sales and marketing, new product development, planning, operations, purchasing, logistics and HR. We have built the analytical reports, run the monthly business reviews and the S&OP meetings, and owned the budget. Our background also includes many years in corporate finance: valuation, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence, restructuring and IFRS. Our qualifications include ACCA and ASA.
We have also built the systems ourselves. We design the data models and databases, write the back ends and the screens, connect them to ERP systems and data warehouses, and put them into daily use. We have led ERP and BI implementations, and replaced reports that only one person could rebuild with systems a whole department can run.
That depth is what our software is specified from. Company details are in the imprint.
Tell us what you need to build.
Tell us your business need, or ask for a worked example on your figures — we want to hear it.
Or email support@mistlight.eu