Inside the Finance Function at Cloud Capital
When Emma Knight stepped into her role at Cloud Capital, there wasnât much waiting for her.
"The basics were set up, three Xero accounts for three entities, a bit of light bookkeeping. But that was it," she says. "There was no way to consolidate, no way to handle intercompany, and no controls around cost allocation."
Her priorities were clear from day one:
- Intercompany and consolidation
- Rebuild the forecast
"The early forecast had helped get us this far, but it wasnât set up to report actuals and scale. And given Cloud Capitalâs whole value proposition is built around delivering finance-grade forecasting for our customersâ cloud spend, it was important our own finance function ran to the same standard."
To solve the multi-entity challenge, Emma began by trialing tools in the Xero ecosystem. She started with community recommendations and ran side-by-side tests of different platforms.
"I trialed both Mayday and Translucent. Translucent looked nice but didnât have the depth I needed. Mayday was clear, transparent, and actually solved the problems I was facing. Using Mayday for intercompany and transaction matching makes such a difference. I donât have to dive through Xero like I used to. Itâs speeded up month-end by at least a couple of hours every month.â
She paired it with Joiin for consolidation.
"Mayday and Joiin are a great combo. Mayday handles the intercompany details; Joiin gives me consolidated reporting. I canât imagine not using them now."
Cloud Capital use Rippling to run payroll across the three entities, and Mercury and Airwallex for banking.
"Mercuryâs UX is lightyears ahead of traditional banks. Airwallex works really well for our international structure. The combination just makes operations smoother. Itâs the same approach we take with our platform - picking tools that make complex operations feel simple and transparent."
Scaling controls without red tape
Despite being small, Emma knew she had to build in some governance.
"We didnât want layers of approvals that slow things down. But we needed a procurement process. So for now, any spend needs my sign-off and a founderâs sign-off. Itâs light-touch, but it works."
Itâs a pattern that runs through her entire approach: set up scalable processes now, so you donât have to tear everything down later.
"Weâre laying pipes, not just plugging leaks. Thatâs exactly how we think about cloud spend for our customers - building the right guardrails early so they can scale without hitting avoidable financial roadblocks."
Next priority: Credit and compliance
Emmaâs focus now is on credit assessment processes.
"We purchase cloud commitments on behalf of our customers. That means we need to assess credit risk," she explains. "Right now, we use Plaid, Heron Data and Creditsafe. Weâre constantly monitoring whatâs best for us as we scale."
Because commitment management is central to our offering, our own credit and compliance process isnât just internal hygiene - itâs core to how we deliver risk-free savings for customers. We have to hold ourselves to the same bar we promise them.
To improve the process, sheâs doing what she always does: researching tools and validating with her network.
"I start with a market scan, whatâs out there, whoâs solving this? Then I go to the community. Whoâs used it, what went wrong, what did they wish they knew?"
And once a tool is shortlisted, she tests it.
"Always trial before you buy. Thatâs how I did it with Mayday. You donât need a deep dive, but enough to know whether itâll solve your problem."
Emmaâs advice for building a stack from scratch
"Start small. Focus on clarity."
Emma says too many finance teams try to be sophisticated before they have to be.
"We still forecast in Google Sheets. Weâre not big enough for a full FP&A tool yet. But our model works because itâs clear, accurate, and tailored to what we need."
She also encourages leaders to invest in good infrastructure early.
"Itâs tempting to duct tape everything together when youâre small. But thatâs how you end up with three different systems that donât talk to each other. If youâre going to scale, you want to be able to grow into your systems, not replace them. Thatâs why Cloud Capital is built to integrate cleanly into a finance function - so teams can scale without having to rebuild their entire approach to cloud spend."
Cloud Capitalâs referral program
The same forecasting discipline Emma has built inside Cloud Capital is exactly what they now deliver to other finance teams facing fast-growing, hard-to-predict cloud costs.
If youâre a startup CFO wrestling with these same challenges, or you know one, Cloud Capital can help. Their free platform plugs straight into AWS, delivers a finance-grade forecast, and shows where savings are hiding without locking teams into risky long-term commitments. And if an introduction leads to someone joining, theyâll thank you with $1,000. Learn more here.
Because the earlier a company gets clarity on cloud spend, the easier it is to scale without financial surprises.
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