State of the Stack 2026 recently surpassed 1,000 downloads! That's 1,000 forward-thinking finance leaders learning how to build smarter stacks with Xero + Mayday + best-in-class apps.
This week, we'll be taking a closer look at the 'Cost of the Stack' section of the report, where we seek to answer one of the most practical questions finance leaders ask when designing tech stacks: what will it actually cost?
If you haven't already, you can download the report here!
FEATURED ARTICLE
State of the Stack: Cost of the Stack
In this section, we move beyond category recommendations and reveal the real monthly price tag of a modern tech stack with Xero + Mayday at the core.
Katrina Bignasca, Group CFO at Asseti
Katrina Bignasca, Group CFO at Asseti, shares how she runs a tech stack using Xero & Mayday as core infrastructure, costing AUD $3,190.71 (£1584.83) per month.
Asseti is an asset performance management platform, designed to revolutionise the way asset managers predict, plan and operate property assets. Initially set-up as one business operating unit in 2021, Asseti has expanded with an SaaS product and now 6 entities spread across the globe.
Katrina is responsible for finance, Payroll, ISO and support across sales, operations and processing. She highlights the benefits of a solid finance tech stack on Xero: "Xero's been great because it has been able to scale with us."
Katrina shares a breakdown of the cost of her stack, detailing monthly costs per app:
If you're interested in hearing more from Katrina about her tech stack, don't miss the State of the Stack 2026 Live Webinar - see Upcoming Events below.
Martin Goodwin, Group Financial Manager at Open Box Software
Martin Goodwin, Group Financial Manager at Open Box Software, shares how he runs a tech stack using Xero & Mayday as core infrastructure, costing £2,636 per month, including DataSights for Data Extraction, Deel for Payroll, Projectworks for Revenue Forecasting and PowerBI for Reporting.
Open Box Software is a property technology firm. Since 2001, they’ve provided high-profile clients with intelligent, practical, and cost-effective technology solutions. Their expertise includes custom development, digital transformation, data and analytics, MRI and Yardi support, Salesforce services and modern workplace solutions.
Operating across 7 entities in South Africa, the UK and the US, they have offices in Cape Town, London, and New York.
When Martin Goodwin joined the business as Group Financial Manager, he quickly found that NetSuite, their current ERP, didn’t fully meet their needs. Martin led their transition to Xero, focusing on maximising automation, boosting efficiency, and delivering real-time insights to the management team.
Below, Martin shares a breakdown of the cost of his stack, detailing monthly costs per app.
This article is an extract from CFO Techstack's State of the Stack 2026.
Craig Geiser, Finance Manager at Whitmore, shares his tech stack.
Whitmore is a commercial property investment and funds management group based in Adelaide, Australia. They acquire and manage commercial property assets and deploy investor capital through unlisted property funds, supported by an integrated property, asset and development management capability.
As Finance Manager, Craig Geiser leads financial operations across the group, spanning management reporting, forecasting and statutory compliance.
Here's what Craig and his team are using:
Xero HQ for User Permissions: I’d like to give a special mention to Xero HQ. It has been highly valuable in our multi-entity environment - we manage close to 50 entities across the group. It enables centralised management of user access and permissions, chart of accounts consistency and reporting, which significantly reduces the admin involved in managing that many entities.
Syft Analytics for Reporting:Syft’s multi-entity capability has been particularly valuable, especially where some entities are themselves consolidations. It allows us to view fund-level balances across complex structures in a single report, which wasn’t possible in some of the other tools I trialled. The forecasting functionality has been more limited - driver-based inputs and outputs sit separately, and the inability to reference rolling averages (only current, last month or last year) makes smoothing assumptions less simple.
Mayday for Month-End Automation:Mayday has been particularly strong for tracking category allocations. We allocate by business line and can get very granular with minimal friction. It was easy to implement, and the customer support has been excellent.
Employment Hero for HR & Payroll: We use Employment Hero for HR and payroll, but they operate as separate systems, which can create syncing issues between the two. It’s a comprehensive platform, but arguably more detailed than necessary for finance users who only interact with it once or twice a month.
Hubdoc for Receipt Capture: We use Hubdoc primarily for receipt capture, and it works well in allowing staff to upload receipts and include notes on the nature of the purchase. Clearer retention of sender details would strengthen the audit trail and make follow-ups easier when the purpose of an expense isn’t obvious.
Cirrus8 for Property and Facilities Management:Cirrus8 works well as a holistic commercial property and facilities management platform, particularly around lease administration, recoveries and handling items like prepayments, deferrals and accruals. Practice-level reporting could be stronger, particularly around visibility of managements gained and lost and rent roll movement over defined periods.
Keen to share how you stack it? Email: emily.lockyer@getmayday.com
"Think you need monolithic software to scale? Think again."
For years, the assumption has been clear: as businesses grow, they must 'graduate' to rigid, enterprise-grade systems.
The data from the State of the Stack 2026 Report tells a different story. And, with 1,000+ report downloads, there's no better time to talk about it.
Join David Tuck (Co-Founder & CEO, Mayday & CFO Techstack), Angad Soin (Managing Director, ANZ & Global Chief Strategy Officer at Xero), Tyler Caskey (Partner at TheBeanCounters) and Katrina Bignasca (Group CFO, Asseti), for a live discussion unpacking what forward-thinking finance leaders are actually building in 2026.
They'll explore:
Real trends emerging from the report
Why modern finance teams are choosing modular, best-in-class stacks over monolithic systems
How Xero enables a scalable, adaptable ecosystem
What the modern finance tech stack actually looks like in practice
Whether you’re reviewing your current stack, planning a migration, or building for scale, this webinar will give you practical insights into how ambitious finance teams are designing systems with Xero at the core and best-in-class apps around it.
🧵 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 events, helping you transform your finance function into a strategic powerhouse.
Here are this week's top 3 discussions from The Stack Exchange:
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