How Decupere & Partners made a well-founded choice for a new ATS

Project Overview

Who is Decupere & Partners?

Decupere & Partners is an accounting and advisory firm from Ypres, in West Flanders. Alongside bookkeeping and tax, the firm has a dedicated People & Organization department. That department guides SMEs on their HR policy: pay policy, socio-legal documents, the employee journey, and recruitment.

That last service grew fast. Where recruitment used to run for only a handful of fixed clients, demand from outside kept growing. The team noticed the process wasn't built for that. Candidates, CVs and interviews were scattered across inboxes, spreadsheets and loose systems. There was no central overview and no reporting back to the client.

The challenge

The team wanted to know whether to buy an existing system or have something custom built. And above all: where A.I. and automation could genuinely save time.

"We want to get vacancies online faster, follow up candidates better, and be able to show our clients exactly what we do. Which system do we need for that, and what can we already automate today?"

Project Delivery

The approach

We started with an A.I. Opportunity Mapping — a working session where we lay out the entire process together with the team, without needing anything written down beforehand. Eight people from HR, IT and digitalization joined for half a day.

A Business Value workshop followed. There we worked out the chosen direction further, with a cost-benefit comparison and concrete advice. Every session was recorded and transcribed with an A.I. notetaker, so the team could review everything afterwards and keep working with it themselves.

1 · A process map from intake to onboarding

We mapped the full recruitment process in ten steps.

• Intake of the vacancy with the client
• Drafting the job posting
• Publishing on the firm's own site and external job boards
• Candidate inflow
• CV screening
• Scheduling interviews
• Running interviews and writing them up
• Tracking candidate status
• Salary proposal and contract
• Onboarding

For each step we noted who does what, which system is used, and where things get stuck.

The benefit: for the first time there was one shared picture of the process, instead of a different way of working per person.

2 · A pain points and quick wins analysis

The process map surfaced eight improvements that could start right away. They cost little and work under any scenario, even if the team later switches systems. Think of making every recruitment channel measurable, fixing emails ending up in spam, recording and summarizing interviews by default, and automatically sending messages when a candidate moves to a new stage.

The benefit: the team could get started without waiting for a big decision.

3 · A list of features and requirements

We laid out what the system actually needs to do. The most important one: a client portal where a client only sees their own candidates, while the team keeps an overarching view of every candidate. On top of that, links to the calendar, the contract software and the A.I. notetaker.

The benefit: a concrete yardstick to measure every system against.

4 · A buy-versus-build comparison

We compared four existing ATS platforms on the market against a custom-built solution. For each option we listed the pros, the cons and a cost estimate, checked against the requirements from step three.

The benefit: a choice based on numbers and features, not a sales pitch.

5 · An architecture proposal for the IT lead

We added a technical section: how data would flow, where it's stored, and which integrations are needed. GDPR considerations came up too, since part of the desired functionality touches personal data.

The benefit: the IT lead could weigh in from the start instead of joining only at the end.

Results

After two sessions, Decupere & Partners had something it didn't have before: one shared picture of the recruitment process in ten steps, eight improvements ready to start immediately, a list of requirements, and a well-founded comparison of four systems against a custom-built solution.

Just as important is what the team no longer had to do. There was no more choosing between tools by gut feeling. The discussion stopped being about which tool is most popular, and became about which features the process actually needs.

The quick wins were deliberately decoupled from the system choice, so the team gains time while the decision matures, and none of that effort gets lost once the new system is in place.

Flowkify keeps supporting Decupere & Partners as its A.I. partner, from choosing the system through to implementing the automations.

Curious where A.I. could save time in your HR or recruitment process? Get in touch with Flowkify for a tailored A.I. Opportunity Mapping.