Your weekly go-to guide to transform your finance function into a strategic powerhouse.
Welcome CFO Techstack Community đ,
In last weekâs newsletter, we explored where to start with AI, highlighting why itâs smarter to fix your foundations first, pick tools based on pain points (not hype), and test small with fast time-to-value.
How do you build on that momentum without creating a mess? In this weekâs featured article, we unpack how top finance teams are scaling their use of AI without losing control, fragmenting workflows, or accidentally reinventing manual work in a shinier format.
FEATURED ARTICLE
How to scale your use of AI in your finance function without overcomplicating everything
Hereâs how the best finance teams are scaling their use of AI without losing control, creating chaos, or making it someone elseâs mess to clean up.
1. Think playbook, not patchwork
One tool is helpful. Two tools might be better. But five uncoordinated tools that donât talk to each other? Thatâs a mess waiting to happen.
Instead of thinking in individual tools, start building a playbook.
Ask yourself:
Whatâs our end-to-end workflow for [month-end / AP / reporting]?
Where do we still rely on manual intervention?
Which of those steps could be accelerated, checked, or enhanced by AI?
The goal is not full automation. The goal is a reliable, repeatable system where AI lightens the load and your team retains oversight.
2. Appoint someone to own AI in your function
Scaling AI use without a clear owner is a fast track to confusion.
You donât need a dedicated AI manager. But someone on your team maybe your most tech-savvy analyst, maybe you, should be responsible for:
Keeping tabs on whatâs working and whatâs not
Staying across updates from your AI vendors
Capturing feedback from the team
Spotting new opportunities to automate or improve workflows
Without clear ownership, AI efforts stall, get siloed, or result in duplicated tools solving the same problem differently.
3. Keep control of your data
AI tools learn from the data you give them. Thatâs a double-edged sword.
On one hand, this makes them powerful. On the other, it raises questions about:
Data accuracy â Are you training models on clean, correct information?
Access control â Who can see what, and should they?
Vendor trust â Do you know where your data is going, how itâs stored, and whether itâs being used to train anyone elseâs AI?
As you scale, make sure your data governance grows with you. Set rules. Document your practices. And donât compromise on control for the sake of convenience.
4. Measure what matters: Impact, not just hours
Itâs easy to focus on how many hours a tool saves. But some of the best results from AI donât come from time savings alone.
Instead, track:
Error reduction (e.g. fewer rework loops or missed anomalies)
Faster insights (e.g. board packs delivered ahead of time)
Improved morale (e.g. less grunt work, more analysis)
These are the changes that compound over time and help make the case for further investment in AI across your function.
5. Share the wins (and lessons) with the wider business
AI is still new territory for most teams. Sharing your learnings, good and bad, can help build buy-in across the business.
That might look like:
A quick internal write-up on a successful pilot
A live walkthrough in your next leadership meeting
A shared document tracking experiments, results, and tool evaluations
Youâre not just scaling AI. Youâre building an internal culture of continuous improvement, driven by curiosity and experimentation. That matters.
Itâs normal to hit resistance or get overwhelmed, especially if early experiments didnât go perfectly. But donât let that stall your momentum.
Final thought: You donât need to do everything. You just need to keep going.
The finance teams getting the most value from AI arenât the ones with the biggest budgets or flashiest tools. Theyâre the ones who keep iterating.
One bottleneck. One process. One tool at a time.
You donât have to be first. You just have to be intentional.
COMMUNITY INSIGHTS
đ¤ How I stacked it
Katy Johnson, Founder and CEO at AFI Balance Pty Ltd, reveals their tech stack
At AFI Balance, founder Katy Johnson has built more than just a fractional suite of financial services. She has architected a remote-first, tech-powered advisory firm that is helping businesses across Townsville, Brisbane, and beyond grow with confidence.
Katy has built a fully remote, tech-first advisory practice that is helping fast-growing businesses across Australia, and soon the UK and US, access strategic financial leadership without the full-time CFO price tag. With over 45 years of combined team experience, Katy and her team are proving that boutique size is a strategic advantage, especially when paired with the right technology.
From bookkeeping to fractional CFO and Finance Director services, AFI Balance is about freeing business owners to focus on growth, not admin. Their remote model breaks geographical limits while delivering quality service that is face-to-face. Every tool in their ecosystem is chosen with the purpose of helping them work smarter, deliver faster,
and show up as true partners for their clients.
Hereâs what Katy and their team are using:
Perplexity AI for Market Research: Perplexity AI isour go-to for rapid market research and internal knowledge access. What used to take hours now takes minutes.
POE AI and NotebookLM for AI Assistance:POE AI and NotebookLM is our secure setup for AI assistance, podcast and collaborative mind mapping. A smart companion for thinking, creating, and sharing ideas.
Microsoft 365 and Teams for Communication: Microsoft 365 and Teamsare the backbone of our remote setup, keeping communication seamless and documents secure. Everything we need to collaborate and stay in control.
Mayday for Intercompany: Mayday is a game-changer for reconciling intercompany loans and automating recharges. It takes the mess out of month-end and keeps our group accounts clean and compliant.
Monday.com for Workflows: Monday.com keeps client workflows running smoothly across multiple projects. Itâs how we stay on top of deliverables, deadlines, and team coordination.
Dext and ApprovalMax for OCR and Approvals:Dext and ApprovalMax are a powerful combo for expense management. Dext handles the heavy lifting with OCR, while ApprovalMax gives us control with custom approval workflows.
Ignition for Proposals:Ignition is our all-in-one tool for proposals, invoicing, and AR automation, used well beyond just accounting clients.
Canyou for Employee Onboarding:Canyou is our secure, automated employee onboarding with seamless one-click sync to Xero. It takes the admin out of hiring and gets new starters set up in no time.
Tanda for Payroll: Tanda (now Workforce.com) is a Brisbane-based payroll solution. It handles award interpretation, shift tracking, and compliance, without the headaches.
Syft for Reporting:Syft is our go-to for advanced analytics, KPI tracking, and benchmark reporting. It turns raw data into clear insights for strategic advisory and decision-making.
XBert for Risk Assessment:XBert (in pilot) automates risk detection within our accounting systems, flagging issues before they become problems. A proactive layer of quality control weâre testing out.
𧾠This week's top threads, from The Stack Exchange
The Stack Exchange is a Slack forum for connecting with peers, sharing insights, and staying updated on apps and industry eventsâhelping you transform your finance function into a strategic powerhouse.
Here are this week's top 3 discussions from The Stack Exchange:
AI isnât replacing advisors but it is reshaping how clients arrive at your door. Like patients showing up to the doctor with a self-diagnosis, clients will increasingly come with a clearer idea of what they want to achieve and how they think theyâll get there. We believe thatâs a good thing.
Join us in conversation with Renais Spirits and BKB Accountants to learn how the smartest payment tools can deliver cleaner books, fewer errors, and more time back without creating more work for your team.
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Todayâs small businesses face real challenges: Keeping up with AI, tech overwhelm, admin overload and constant pressure to grow with limited resources. But what if weâve been looking at productivity the wrong way?
Join our session with Employment Heroâs Insights Lead and expert guests as we unpack the key findings from our new report âWork That Worksâ.
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