Your weekly go-to guide to transform your finance function into a strategic powerhouse.
Welcome CFO Techstack Community 👋,
In last week’s newsletter we talked to Vikki Aldworth on how being part of a finance community has transformed her approach, from discovering game-changing tools to refining workflows with real-world insights.
In this week’s feature, we’re wrapping up our New Year, New You series with key takeaways and actionable insights to help you transform your month-end process for good. Our community shared their biggest challenges—from misclassified transactions to slow close times—and, more importantly, the solutions that are making a real difference.
FEATURED ARTICLE
New Year, New You: Revolutionising month-end for 2025
As finance leaders settle into 2025, there’s one resolution that stands above the rest: making month-end faster, smoother, and more insightful. That was the driving force behind our latest webinar, The Worst Month-End Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make in 2025, hosted in partnership with Syft Analytics. With insights from David Tuck (Mayday), Jodilee Manuel (Syft Analytics), Chay Stockdale (Iridium Business Solutions), and Paresh Makwana (Outernet London), we explored the most common month-end pain points and how top-performing finance teams are tackling them head-on.
Kicking off the year with the theme "New Year, New You: Revolutionising Month-End for 2025", we engaged the CFO Techstack community in a series of polls throughout January. These surveys revealed the most pressing challenges finance teams face and the strategies they’re using to overcome them. As the month drew to a close, we culminated this discussion with an insightful webinar, bringing together all the data, learnings, and expert insights shared over the past few weeks. This article serves as the final piece in our January theme, consolidating key takeaways and actionable steps to help finance professionals redefine their month-end processes for the year ahead.
The pain points holding finance teams back
Finance professionals across industries shared their biggest frustrations with month-end, and two key themes emerged:
Misclassified transactions (58% of poll respondents) – Incorrect coding at the start of the process creates a ripple effect, leading to inaccurate reporting, lost trust in the numbers, and wasted time fixing errors.
Slow close times – 60% of attendees said their dream CFO superpower would be closing the books in 24 hours. The reality? Many teams still take a full week or longer to finalise their numbers.
What’s changing in 2025?
When asked about their top finance resolutions for 2025, attendees prioritised three key areas:
Reducing manual work (43%) – Automation is a game-changer. Eliminating spreadsheets, manual reconciliations, and repetitive data entry frees up time for more strategic work.
Making reports more insightful (36%) – It’s not just about getting the numbers out faster; it’s about understanding them. Teams want better visibility into real-time financial data to drive smarter decisions.
Speeding up the close (21%) – The goal is to move from a 7-day (or longer) close cycle to a 3-5 day process—or even faster.
How leading finance teams are winning the month-end battle
Automating the reconciliation process Paresh led Outernet London’s move from Sage Intacct to Xero’s ecosystem, leveraging Mayday for intercompany recharges and bank reconciliations. The result? Hours of manual work slashed, with Mayday automatically matching intercompany transactions and eliminating errors.
Streamlining consolidation & reporting With over 50 entities in its group, Outernet London also implemented Syftto consolidate reporting effortlessly. What used to take hours in Excel is now automated, with real-time insights available at the click of a button.
Preventing errors before they happen Chay from Iridium highlighted the importance of reviewing misclassified transactions before month-end using Syft’s data review tool. By catching errors early, finance teams avoid rework and ensure accurate, reliable reports.
Shifting to a continuous close mindset The key to speeding up the month-end isn’t just technology—it’s changing the approach. As David Tuck pointed out, “Month-end doesn’t start when the calendar flips. It starts throughout the month with proactive automation and clean data.”
Final takeaway: 2025 is the year to work smarter, not harder
The best finance teams aren’t waiting until month-end to fix broken processes. They’re using tools like MaydayandSyft to eliminate manual tasks, improve reporting, and close the books faster than ever before. Ready to join them? Explore how automation can transform your finance function, and make 2025 the year you finally master month-end.
Want to be part of more discussions like these? Join our CFO Techstack’s Slack community–The Stack Exchange–for more insights, expert tips, and peer-to-peer learning.
COMMUNITY INSIGHTS
🎤 How I stacked it
Paresh Makwana, Head of Finance at Outernet London, shares their tech stack
Outernet is a global media and entertainment business blending digital and physical realms to deliver impactful, multi-sensory experiences.
Their city-center districts, like Outernet London, feature the world’s largest digital screens and versatile event spaces, creating vibrant hubs for music, lifestyle, sports, and arts. Launched in November 2022, Outernet London connects Denmark Street’s creativity with Soho’s diversity and the West End’s vibrant scenes. It attracts over 400k daily visitors for brand launches, live events, and exhibitions.
Paresh told us, "At Outernet London, we manage over 50 entities with Xero and are rapidly growing. As Head of Finance, my tasks vary daily, focusing on cash management, cash flow, and team queries. Lately, I've been focused on making sure our systems are updated after switching from Sage Intacct to Xero eight months ago. My job involves month-end tasks, reporting that comes in sporadically throughout the quarter, VAT returns, and planning for cash flow and payments. My days can be quite different, and sometimes unexpected things come up. Fortunately, our new system has helped reduce those surprises and made things run more smoothly."
Here's what Paresh and their team are using:
Mayday for Intercompany: Mayday has been an absolute godsend for us. We used to do our bank and intercompany reconciliations manually in Excel, but now Mayday handles all that. It quickly spots transactions causing issues, saving us a ton of time. It also takes care of intercompany interest agreements and helps with bank reconciliations for payments between entities, which is super helpful. The feature for invoicing between entities has been great too. Plus, the intercompany matrix feature has been a game-changer. Instead of checking each entity's balances individually, we can manage everything in one place. It’s made our work so much easier.
Syft Analytics for Reporting: I find Syft very useful for reporting. Right now, I'm building out our reports in Syft and we've created a management accounting pack for most of our entities, which is distributed each month. I like that you can categorise costs and customise the P&L and balance sheet for each entity. Another great feature is the live reports we can schedule and issue to the business. When someone hovers over a chart, it provides a description of the data, which helps everyone understand what's happening in that area of the business.
Pento for Payroll: Before moving to Xero, we were using Moorepay and external accountants to manage payroll. Since then, we’ve transitioned everything internally to Pento, which integrates seamlessly with Xero and our HR system, Bamboo. This has significantly reduced the need for manual intervention in our payroll process. This integration has been incredibly useful and streamlined our operations.
Soldo for Spend Management: We currently use Soldo for spend management, which works fine, but I'm exploring better alternatives and considering Pleo, though we haven't decided yet. I'm approaching this transition in phases. Part of the challenge is that I've noticed some issues with compliance—people aren’t always following the procedures I've set, which is more of a control issue. For instance, if receipts aren't submitted, we need a system that can immediately stop the card usage. Additionally, integrating with our previous system, Sage Intacct, was a bit cumbersome, so moving to a new platform might streamline the process and make integration easier.
Get ready Australia–Stacked 2025 is coming to Sydney!
The ultimate event for in-house finance teams! Gear up for a massive day, full of insightful speakers, incredible tech exhibitors and unmatched peer to peer networking. This is the event of the year for in-house finance teams!
Expect incredible speakers like:
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from Jeffrey and a panel of implementation experts and ecosystem gurus as they reveal how to get the most out of SMB accounting solutions. Hear what they’ve seen in the field—the wins, the challenges, and the untapped potential—and walk away with actionable insights for your tech stack!
Cutting-edge exhibitors like:
Renowned for outstanding customer support and intuitive design, Fathom is a powerfully simple tool to guide smarter strategic decisions.
Fathom turns financial data into beautiful reports, powerful forecasts and timely insights for over 90,000 businesses worldwide.
THE STACK EXCHANGE
🧵 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:
As finance leaders gear up for 2025, digital transformation, AI advancements, and integrated technologies continue to drive change. Navigating these trends effectively is crucial for building resilient and forward-thinking strategies in an uncertain economic landscape.
In this webinar we will take a look at the key benefits of implementing Lightyear. From increased efficiency to reduced errors, automation can improve your accounts payable process.
Discover seven tried and tested strategies that helped businesses like yours prevent late payments. Learn from industry experts who will provide practical advice, answer your burning questions, and guide you toward effective credit management.
.png?upscale=true&width=1196&upscale=true&name=Untitled%20design%20(42).png)
