Whether you’re building your first tech stack with Xero, moving away from an ERP, or optimising what you already have, our recommendation is the same: start with the right foundations:
Everything else on the App Map adds efficiencies, but these three cover the non-negotiables: close, control and clarity.
1. Get started with Xero
Xero is the accounting platform at the heart of the modern finance function, giving you a centralised ledger, real-time bank feeds, and the ecosystem flexibility to add the best tools as your complexity grows.
As part of your Xero setup, you also strengthen your analytics and reporting capabilities through Syft Analytics, giving you access to modern reporting and visualisation as your finance function scales.
2. Mend month end with Mayday
For in-house finance teams and multi-entity groups, month end is still dominated by manual work: identifying transactions, calculating adjustments, and posting journals. A manual close costs in-house finance teams on average 7.5 days each month, delaying vital management information and consuming team capacity.
And, because month end happens 12 times a year, these inefficiencies become a permanent drain on resources. Mayday automates the most painful, manful close operations into one-click workflows, so teams can close faster, with fewer errors, and claw back time for higher-value work.
Tyler Caskey, Partner at TheBeanCounters, explains:
“Mayday makes month end simple and reliable. It takes minutes to set up, and the reliability of the outcomes is rock solid. It’s an essential tool for any business to bring order, control, and confidence to their finance function.”
3. Strengthen financial controls with ApprovalMax
As organisations scale, approval chains widen, policies become harder to enforce, and exceptions creep in. Without structure, controls weaken, accountability blurs, and audit readiness becomes a scramble.
ApprovalMax embeds policy-led approvals, clear ownership, and a robust audit trail directly into finance workflows, strengthening financial controls while keeping teams fast and compliant.
Ivy He, Financial Controller at illumin, shares her experience with ApprovalMax.
“ApprovalMax has tremendously improved the efficiency in our invoice approval process, allowing both the finance admin team and department leaders to enjoy a centralised system to access, manage, and review all vendor bills. It has saved a lot of hours for everyone!”
Conclusion
The era of choosing between scalability and usability is officially over. As this report demonstrates, the most modern and ambitious businesses are no longer settling for clunky, monolithic systems that restrict growth. Instead, they are embracing a smarter, more flexible foundation with Xero and Mayday at the core.
This article is an extract from CFO Techstack's State of the Stack 2026.
Read the full report by downloading it here. |
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