freee Publishes Case Study on Onozaki Co., Ltd.'s Utilization of freee Products

freee Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Daisuke Sasaki; hereinafter 'freee') announced the publication of a case study on the utilization of freee products by Onozaki Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture; Representative Director and President: Yuichi Onozaki; hereinafter 'Onozaki'), a company founded in 1923 engaged in fresh fish retail, wholesale, manufacturing, food service, and e-commerce.

Onozaki, a long-established fresh fish store founded in 1923, faced a management crisis on the verge of bankruptcy with 16 consecutive years of deficit due to disasters and lifestyle changes. Yuichi Onozaki, who became the 4th generation representative in 2020, determined that dramatic efficiency improvements in back-office operations were essential for reconstruction. At the time, analog operations using paper and spreadsheets were prevalent, leading to delays in information and business decisions due to day-long payroll calculations and monthly financial closings not finalized until the end of the following month. Given this background, with limited human resources, Onozaki decided to introduce freee HR and freee Accounting with the goal of 'lightening management'.

After the introduction of freee products, the most significant achievement was the overwhelming improvement in operational speed. Payroll calculation, which previously took one day, was shortened to just 30 minutes, and the monthly financial closing system shifted to provisional finalization by the 15th of the following month. This enabled speedy business improvements linked to on-site enthusiasm and the latest figures. Furthermore, due to the intuitive UI unique to freee products, even staff without prior accounting or labor experience could operate immediately. By integrating data with on-site applications via API, the back-office team was reduced from six to two or three members, successfully reallocating freed resources to management improvement tasks.

Representative Yuichi Onozaki positions freee products as the 'second left brain' supporting management, enabling quick decision-making by grasping company information anytime, anywhere with just a smartphone. The reduced difficulty of tasks has eliminated the 'personnel-dependent' issue unique to small and medium-sized enterprises, where only the 담당자 (person in charge) understands, promoting multi-skilled development through job rotation in administrative departments. Moving forward, Onozaki aims to leverage freee products as a robust digital foundation to achieve both advanced management decisions based on numerical data and an organizational structure where each employee can act independently. With trust cultivated over 100 years since its founding, the company will accelerate reforms to embody its mission of 'making the town more diverse and interesting'.

Onozaki Co., Ltd. Company Overview: Company Name: Onozaki Co., Ltd. Representative: Representative Director and President Yuichi Onozaki Year Established: 1923 Location: 80-1 Hirashonai-cho, Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture, 2F URL: https://onozaki.net/

freee Co., Ltd. Company Overview: Company Name: freee Co., Ltd. Representative: CEO Daisuke Sasaki Date Established: July 9, 2012 Location: Art Village Osaki Central Tower 21F, 1-2-2 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo https://corp.freee.co.jp/

freee's mission is 'To make small businesses the protagonists of the world.' It aims to realize an integrated management platform where anyone can manage freely. As a Japan-originated SaaS cloud service, it builds an open platform by collaborating with partners and financial institutions, continuously delivering 'true value'.