Your weekly go-to guide to transform your finance function into a strategic powerhouse.

Welcome CFO Techstack Community 👋,

What an amazing day we had at our very first Stacked conference on Thursday 12th September! We aimed to capture the dynamic energy and insight of Xerocon while tailoring the experience specifically for in-house finance leaders.

From transformative talks to invaluable networking opportunities, the day was filled with such an incredible buzz. A massive thank you to our sponsors, speakers, and all attendees. Your enthusiasm played a huge role in making the event a success, and we’re already looking forward to what comes next.

Have a look at some of the highlights below—we hope you enjoy reliving the moments as much as we did!

FEATURED ARTICLE

The debut of Stacked

An unforgettable day for finance innovators

Last Thursday, 12th September, we hosted our inaugural Stacked conference – and wow, what an event!

We set out to create something that delivers the same level of insight and inspiration that Xerocon does for accountants and bookkeepers, but focused on the in-house finance leaders we serve through CFO Techstack. The result? A day packed with transformational talks, actionable insights, and a community of finance professionals who are as excited about the future as we are.

We wanted to create a precedent – to normalise scaling with Xero and its ecosystem, rather than falling into the "horrible and hectic" ERP move. Judging by the feedback, we’ve already had so many messages from attendees telling us how Stacked changed their perspective and gave them insights they can immediately put into practice.

A huge thank you 

First, a huge thank you to everyone who supported Stacked and helped make it such a brilliant event. A special shoutout to our exhibitors – Joiin, Tipalti, Chaser, Payhawk – and our headline sponsor, Xero. Your presence not only added incredible value, but it was amazing to hear how delighted you were with the quality conversations you had with attendees.

What we covered

Here’s a quick rundown of the talks we had throughout the day:

Opening keynote

Our Co-Founder and CEO, David Tuck, shared three key messages that really resonated:

1. The tech stack is essential to our success as finance leaders.
2. Just because a business has an in-house finance function, doesn’t mean it needs an ERP system.
3. There’s still so much more to do.

Vision to Victory: Inspirational CFO Stories

We heard from Tyler Caskey, Partner at TheBeanCounters, Corinne Thompson, CEO at Ecap Financial, and Patrick Dobson, Interim CEO and CFO at Sofar Sounds, about their career journeys. They shared the wins, challenges, and strategies that helped them find success, proving that there's no one set path for finance leaders.

Trailblazer Tales: Scaling with Xero Stories

This session showed us how trailblazing finance leaders, Harriet Hope, VP of Finance at Arbolus, Cathy Collins, Finance Director at Pure Escapes, and Steve Jarvis, CFO at Terrafend, have scaled up and streamlined their processes using Xero, with practical insights you can apply to your own growth journey.

Decoding Stakeholder Needs and Demystifying Finance

Finance professionals and business leaders, Sophie Conaghan, Finance Lead at CharlieHR, Christian Owens, Founder at Paddle, and Phil Chambers, CEO at Orbex, got real about the importance of understanding your stakeholders and how finance can be a strategic partner and transform the way your company operates.

Optimise Your Finance Tech Stack: Insider Strategies from Tech Stack Advisors
This one was all about practical tips for fine-tuning your tech stack, with insights straight from our CFO Techstack certified advisors, Hilary Dyson, Founder at Bridge Financials, Matt Flanagan, Managing Director at BlueHub, and Tyler Caskey, Partner at TheBeanCounters, on how to get the most out of your tools.

Xero + CFO Techstack Fireside Chat
We caught up with Michael Green, GM of Partnerships at our headline sponsor company, Xero. We explored how CFO Techstack and Xero are working together to shape the future of finance for Xero using in-house finance teams who represent the M of SME.

Charting a Successful Career Trajectory
We heard from experts Andrew Waters, Co-founder at Zanda, and Catherine Marks, Finance Team Training Director at Grow CFO, about climbing the finance career ladder. This talk covered everything from building leadership skills to navigating an ever-changing business landscape.

How Finance Teams Can Leverage AI
AI is revolutionising the way finance teams work, and we caught up with Tim Hamer, Founder at Attelas, James Scott-Griffin, CPTO at Mayday, and Stephen Edgington, CPTO at Dext, for their perspectives on the use case for AI in finance. 

"So often those [AI] parts of conferences are simply fillers because the organisers think that they should have a section on it. Not this time! The expert panel was genuinely insightful and I've come away with clear actions to take back into my business" - Steve Jarvis, CFO at Terrafend

Selling the Stack
To close the day, Tyler Caskey took to the stage with his guide on how to get stakeholders on board with your finance tech investments – and why a solid tech stack is the key to driving real change.

Shoutout to Our Finance Leader Advisory Council (FLAC)

We were also super excited to have members of our FLAC not only in the audience but also up on stage, sharing their insights and helping to guide the discussions. Their presence really added another layer of expertise to the event.

Our new look!

To top it all off, we also unveiled our brand-new logo and branding at the event! It’s a fresh look that we feel represents who we are and where we’re going as a community. Keep an eye out for it as we roll it out across all our channels!

A special day for our community

Stacked was the flagship event for our CFO Techstack community, and we couldn’t have asked for a better first run. It was such a special day, and we're beyond grateful to our incredible speakers who shared their insights and experiences, and to everyone who contributed to making this event such a success.

We can’t wait to do it all again next year!

COMMUNITY INSIGHTS

🎤 How I stacked it

Lee Maughan, CEO at Green and Purple, shares his tech stack

Green and Purple provides scalable finance teams for seed and growth-stage businesses. Their specialist sectors are Creative, Tech and Biotech with the majority of clients from across Cambridge and London.

That means they work with everything from pre-revenue university spin-out businesses to scaling agencies looking for a potential exit.

Lee told us, "As the scalable finance team we can provide all the functions of a full in-house team paid for as needed to scale with the business.  That means the team are looking after everything from recording sales and purchase invoices to forecasting cash flow and profitability. The month-end rush is normal for us when we're reporting management information to the founder/CEO and their investors.  Every day will vary depending on the life cycle of the business and what projects they're currently working on.
It can be very varied from supporting with an Innovate UK grant application, to preparing a VAT return or responding to auditors' queries."

Here's Lee's recommended tech stack:

We've decided that combining depth of knowledge from the team with best-of-breed apps is our way forward. We've chosen key partners in each functional area, for instance, BrightPay for payroll, Hubdoc for OCR, ApprovalMax for approvals, G-Accon for data integration, and so on.

But here's a more in-depth look at some of the standout apps for us:

1. Pleo for Expenses: Expenses and credit cards used to be so painful for the clients and our teams but not with Pleo. The user experience is simple and fast meaning a much greater rate of providing copy receipts in a timely manner. There is complete flexibility over how credit is used and approved across the team that far exceeds what's available with high-street banking solutions.
2. Mimo for Payments: We love the fact that new features are always being worked on and released to improve the app further. Mimo makes supplier payments very simple and their security features avoid duplicate or incorrect payments. The Mimo team are super friendly and so responsive in taking our suggestions on board
3. Fathom for Reporting: We love the visual element of reporting using Fathom, it brings the client's numbers to life and so many founders are non financially minded so it helps give them clarity on their position. It's brilliant at connecting to multiple data sources meaning we can combine CRM and accounting data for example to produce truly insightful reporting.

Keen to share how you stack it? Email to zoe@cfotechstack.com 

NEW IN THE WORLD OF CFO SOFTWARE

🗞️ News from the stack-o-sphere

• ApprovalMax released a new review feature that is used before the approval process begins to check the accuracy of each request to ensure it’s ready to enter the approval workflow. Learn more.
• Causal introduced Target & Event lines to your line/bar charts, to provide additional context alongside the data on the chart. See the latest updates.
• Payhawk's new Fall '24 edition includes real-time budget tracking, custom cards for every need, in-app communication, a seamless Sage Intacct integration, centralised workflows, and more. Check it out here.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS

📊 Stat of the week

Only 16% of finance leaders describe their finance function as delivering best-in-class performance.

Research by EY.

UPCOMING EVENTS

🗓️ Save the date

Webinar: How Automating Your Finance Function Will Transform How You Work

Wed 18 Sept, 2:30pm BST

Are you being swamped by manual processes? In this session, Taylor Andrew from AccountsIQ shares his expertise on addressing these challenges and transforming your finance function with automation. 

Webinar: How to 10x your financial controls, reporting, and workflows with automation

Thu 19 Sept, 4pm BST

ApprovalMax, Syft Analytics, and Ignition are hosting a webinar with our experts to share what we believe to be the gold standard in financial controls, automated workflows, data insights, and reporting.

Webinar: Tackling Price Rises with Xero's Hospitality Apps

Wed 25 Sept, 11am BST

Tailored for hospitality finance professionals, this panel discussion features Lightyear and Tevalis alongside Xero to uncover how technology improves data consistency to help overcome constant price rises in the industry.

MORE OF THE GOOD STUFF

And lastly, our top picks!

🎧 Podcast: The Profit-Boosting Power of Experiential Learning with Dan Wells, ep. 200, The Grow CFO Show

📝  Article: How to build a highly effective finance team

😆  Joke: Why did the CFO become a gardener? Because they were great at "hedging"!

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