8 finance leaders. 8 Survivors. 1 message:
Scarred by rigid ERP systems, the modern finance leader builds flexible, scalable finance functions with Xero at the core.
Over the past 2 months, the ERP Survivor series has taken us into the trenches with finance leaders across SaaS scale-ups, global groups and non-profit organisations.
We’ve seen first-hand what it meant to battle rigid systems, rebuild and reclaim autonomy after years inside an ERP, and each leader brought their own lived experience to the table.
Despite their differences, the same patterns appeared again and again:
- The misconception that an ERP is a requirement for maturity
- The reality that heavyweight systems are expensive and often slow teams down
- The power of a modern Xero + apps stack
This series wrap-up brings their insights together, highlighting the biggest themes from our ERP Survivors and the stories that shaped them.
ERPs promise control… but often take it away
Our Survivors all agreed that ERPs come with a compelling pitch: an all-in-one system that centralises processes and gives finance full control. However, they found that in practice, the opposite happened.
Control shifted away from finance; what was supposed to be empowerment became dependency.
Jacqueline Hasler, CFO at XY Sense, captured this perfectly:
“We thought the ERP would make life easier. Instead, it made us dependent.”
Jack Ducat, Co-Founder of Gojee, experienced the same rigidity:
“Our bookkeeper was the only person who had any idea how to run the system. It's a very complicated, technical and non-user friendly system. It takes a lot of training to understand.”
For Helen Wilson-Town, Finance Director at Balena, the ERP became a constraint rather than a foundation:
“I was kind of trapped with the way it all worked.”
Ultimately, across it has become clear that centralised data doesn’t equal centralised ownership, especially when the system is so complex that finance can’t easily access, interpret or run it without specialist training or help.
Complexity ≠ sophistication
Across the industries, from retail to SaaS to global operations, the same issue emerged again and again: complexity created noise, not sophistication.
Workflows became heavier rather than smarter and processes slowed down instead of speeding up.
Khalid Ahmed, CFO at EncompaaS, felt this acutely in his high-growth SaaS environment:
“At a time when everything was so new, we were literally inventing ways that businesses could operate. With an ERP, it was rigid and inflexible.”
Tyler Caskey, Partner at TheBeanCounters, has seen companies mistake size for necessity:
“They were in the mindset that, because they were a 100-person firm, they had to be on something big and expensive. But most of what we needed could have been done with much simpler tools.”
And Florentina Sandu, Founder of Migrate My Accounts, crystalised the modern alternative:
“With Xero, you combine apps like Mayday, Joiin, ApprovalMax, Dext, and you get enterprise functionality at a fraction of the cost.”
Our ERP Survivors proved that sophistication isn’t complexity, it’s clear responsibilities and systems that can move at the pace of the business.
Good data & insights beat a big system
Another strong theme across all eight ERP Survivor stories was that good data matters more than big systems.
Clean workflows, quality input and well-structured models consistently outperformed expensive, rigid platforms.
Jack Ducat saw clarity return the moment his business moved to simpler tools:
“We very quickly had a basic PnL working with a bank account that could be reconciled easily. Suddenly we could actually see what was going on!”
Khalid Ahmed emphasised the power of the evolving app ecosystem:
“The ecosystem changes so rapidly that as we scale, there’ll always be something that fits.”
And Mark Ashley, CFO at Altered Capital, didn’t hesitate to imagine a different path:
“If Mayday had existed back then, we 1000% would have used it.”
Migration isn’t a moonshot
One of the biggest myths in finance is that switching systems will take quarters and cost a fortune. Our ERP Survivors proved the opposite.
Xero migrations took weeks, sometimes days, and teams described the process as a return to clarity, not a leap of faith.
When Jack Ducat finally made the switch:
“I’d heard about Xero: this new, simple, easy system. We held off for a while and then eventually thought, let’s try it. It wasn’t complicated to set up.”
And Tyler Caskey compared the difference directly:
“Adding Employment Hero to NetSuite took three to four hours. Adding Employment Hero to Xero took 15 minutes!”
Migration turned out to be a true empowerment decision for our ERP Survivors.
The ROI of leaving an ERP is real
For every Survivor, the benefits of moving away from an ERP were tangible, immediate and measurable.
- Time: faster closes, faster consolidation
- Cost: avoid six-figure upgrades
- Agility: automation without waiting
- Accuracy: fewer errors, clearer workflows
Mark Ashley explained this shift succinctly:
“Xero’s a dream compared to an ERP.”
Khalid Ahmed highlighted the impact of flexible tooling:
“Where an ERP needed someone to spend a day recoding everything, with the right app, it was only a few clicks.”
Helen Wilson-Town quantified the practical benefits:
“You can have an ERP, but it’ll cost this much and take this long. Or, we're currently paying a couple of hundred pounds a month for Xero and can quickly implement add-ons to solve our problems for minimal extra cost or disruption. Let's stick with Xero.”
And Tyler Caskey shared one of the most dramatic transformations:
“They were closing month end on day 20. Month end went from day 20 to day 6, then day 4!”
The ROI wasn’t theoretical. It showed up in every close, for every finance leader.
Bigger picture: survival wasn’t the point, autonomy was
Across all eight stories, one lesson stood out: finance must own its systems.
That’s why so many Survivors moved to Xero at the core, with a flexible app stack around it: a setup that adapts as the business evolves, and that finance can actually run day to day, tools should bend to the business, not the other way around.
The Survivors were anti-ERP, not out of ideology, but because they’d lived the trade-offs: slower close cycles, rigid workflows, and control drifting away from finance into whoever could operate the system.
What they were building instead were modern finance functions, designed for speed, clarity and adaptability, with tools that finance can actually own, evolve, and scale as the business changes.
Tyler Caskey put it simply:
“You lose the anxiety of being wrong. The visibility gives you control.”
That’s the lesson of ERP Survivor: finance teams thrive with Xero + connected apps, not systems that slow them down.
A huge thank you to all of our ERP Survivors for sharing their stories!
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