Words and promises are one thing; concrete results are another. On this page, I’m proud to share a selection of projects that showcase how my expertise has delivered a notable added value to organizations.
From substantial financial gains and significant time savings to empowering teams – see how Mastl can make a difference for you.
In late November 2018, SOS Children’s Village Imst was about to miss out on a vital €575,000 grant, if a very specific set of documents wasn’t submitted to the Tyrolean Regional Tax Office within five working days.
As their standard accounting software was not up to the task, their in-house ERP system was the last resort.
The chief accountant asked me to create all documents and files to official specifications and have them delivered within 5 workdays if possible.
I lost no time in tackling this daunting but crucial task:
Thanks to my rapid intervention, SOS Children’s Village Imst submitted their application correctly and on time. The full grant of €575,000 was awarded, providing immense financial relief for the children’s village.
The team was incredibly appreciative. The head of SOS Children’s Village Imst emailed the board, specifically thanking me: “Ein spezielles Dankeschön möchte ich noch an Mark Stals aussprechen, der jetzt bei der pragmatischen Umsetzung am Ende eine große Hilfe darstellte.” (I’d like to extend a special thank you to Mark Stals, whose pragmatic approach was a tremendous help in the final stages.)
The success was even celebrated with cake and wine!
The intricate Belgian ‘cliquet-system’ (introduced in 2003) for recovering excise duty on professional diesel (for commercial vehicles over 7.5 tons) posed a significant hurdle for logistics companies.
It demanded an impeccable, detailed record of every refuelling event and tracking daily fluctuating ‘cliquet’ rates.
For Van Gansewinkel (now Renewi), this was a daunting administrative task but also a clear opportunity.
My existing SQL Server fuel management application needed to be extended. The key was to meet all stringent legal demands and extensively automate every process:
Working with the CFO, I refined all our fueling processes and cleansed existing data. I translated complex legislation into precise calculation rules and built modules to automate all declaration submissions.
The system passed the inspection by the Ministry of Finance with flying colours.
Van Gansewinkel became the first company in Belgium with a large fleet to successfully recover excise duties under this demanding legislation.
This led to an initial refund of €250,000, followed by monthly refunds of €15,000 to €20,000, providing a significant and lasting competitive advantage.
In May 2024 an internal audit at ZAS (Flanders’ largest hospital group) revealed a problem: due to incorrect ERP parameterisation, a specific anaesthesia product was never registered, with a direct impact on turnover and fees.
This concerned more than 180,000 interventions – manual correction was unfeasable.
In my role as SQL Developer for the billing department, it was up to me to identify all missing interventions and register them correctly, without disrupting the operation of the live ERP system.
After development and validation of specific SQL Server stored procedures in the acceptance environment, I implemented an automated solution. To prevent overloading the live system, the 180,000+ performances were safely inserted in small batches.
The whole intervention was successfully completed in one weekend.
All missing performances were correctly registered in record time. ZAS was able to recover €90,000 in revenue. In addition, the fee calculation was accurate again.