The Finance Leaders Advisory Council (FLAC) is CFO Techstackās representative body of senior in-house finance leaders on Xero.
FLAC members typically lead the finance functions of complex mid-market businesses operating with Xero at their core. They have outgrown small-business tooling, but they are far too lean, efficient and pragmatic for six-figure ERPs.
These leaders donāt want to leave Xero, they want to go further with it.
So, when Intuit launched the Intuit Enterprise Suite (IES), it landed as a relevant industry moment. The IES is Intuitās answer to mid-market teams who need more scale and structure without leaving the QuickBooks ecosystem. It is positioned as a scalable and integrated accounting suite for businesses growing beyond traditional SMB accounting.
This naturally raised an interesting thought experiment:
If this is what IES looks like, what could a Xero Enterprise Suite look like?
We put this question to the room at the first-ever APAC FLAC Forum on 13th November. What followed was a sharp, practical conversation between experienced finance leaders.
The key ideas they raised are captured in this article.
Establishing the foundation: What ideas do the FLAC have for a core Xero Enterprise Suite product?
Before diving into specifics, the APAC FLAC aligned on a simple truth: nothing works without a rock-solid general ledger.
Xero is already strong here, but the FLAC wanted to identify what upgrades could be included in a hypothetical āEnterpriseā layer.
The finance leaders voiced their opinions based on key pressure points felt by mid-market businesses running on Xero today.
The first point raised was around transaction limits. Some FLAC members highlighted that when files reach hundreds of thousands of transactions, critical reports can begin to struggle.
āI canāt run a detailed cash flow report. One entity has too many transactions and it times out.ā
- Ernest Chunge, CFO & Financial Controller at Carbiz
The FLAC also mentioned granular user permissions, stressing that mid-market teams need tighter control across distributed teams and shared service functions. And the FLAC also emphasised tracking flexibility as key, highlighting that two tracking categories can be limiting for complex businesses.
āTracking categories: Iād go to ten easily, and make them mandatory or optional. That alone gets my applause.ā
- Tyler Caskey, Partner at TheBeanCounters
There are currently plenty of successful workarounds for these pain points (apps, sub-ledgers, naming conventions), but, in a Xero Enterprise Suite, the FLAC could imagine solutions being built into the core product.
Delving into the specifics: What pain points do mid-market businesses on Xero face?
Once the APAC FLAC were aligned on the core Xero product offering in a hypothetical Xero Enterprise Suite, the conversation shifted to where friction is sharpest: multi-entity operations.
Leading a finance function in a multi-entity business operating on Xero currently requires innovation and manual workarounds, but, with a hypothetical Xero Enterprise Suite, these operations could be native.
So, what upgrades would be useful when it comes to group structures?
The FLAC highlighted the benefits that could come from: group AP workflows, group bank reconciliation (BRAG-style), and shared supplier and customer records.
āIntercompany was painful. The team spent hours posting journals across Xero files each month.ā
- Alex Merchant, CFO at Kikada Lane Dental
Also, for group-level configuration, the FLAC emphasised the importance of a centralised chart of accounts and group-level user management. They highlighted that it would make sense to include features like these in a Xero Enterprise Suite.
Looking wider: managing the tech stack at scale
Once multi-entity processes were surfaced, the conversation broadened.
Mid-market businesses operate on Xero successfully by building tech stacks around it for their specific requirements. But, the trade-off is clear: while more apps bring more automation, they can also add operational risk, maintenance and overhead.
This raised the next question for the room: as stacks get bigger, what could an Enterprise Suite version of Xero do to keep control without killing flexibility?
The FLAC highlighted the risks around API connections:
āThe danger with an app stack, and where you eventually might need to go to NetSuite, is maintenance. Each vendor changes their API or schema, and somebody has to maintain all the connections.ā
- Ernest Chunge, CFO & Financial Controller at Carbiz
FLAC members also raised issues around identity & access management. On-boarding and off-boarding across 10ā20 connected tools can become a manual burden.
āIf removing someone in Xero could remove them everywhere, that would be life-changing.ā
- Tyler Caskey, Partner at TheBeanCounters
So, given these points, what do the FLAC think a hypothetical Xero Enterprise Suite could include?
- Unlimited API connections for large groups
- A native app registry with health monitoring
- Single sign-on + identity anchoring
- Centralised user provisioning
For FLAC leaders, this would achieve the ultimate goal of solid control without sacrificing flexibility.
Looking to the future: AI as the next frontier
With the operational landscape mapped, the FLAC turned to whatās coming next.
The general consensus was that AI will define the next generation of Xero-scale finance teams: not as a novelty add-on, but as a structural capability.
The FLAC considered: what could AI unlock in a Xero Enterprise Suite?
Responses were extensive: natural-language querying of the ledger, predictive cashflow and forecasting, automated variance explanations.
āIād love to see how a generative AI tool could plug into Xero so you can query the GL directly.ā
- Khalid Ahmed, CFO at EncompaaS
However, the FLAC also stressed this all requires something critical: a permission-aware AI layer. AI would have to respect roles, permissions and sensitive data boundaries across entities and users in order to be useful in the hypothetical Xero Enterprise Suite.
The CFOās Interim Playbook: what to do now?
The forum ended in pragmatism. Whatever Xero builds next, CFOs must continue to operate today.
The question therefore became: how are the most sophisticated teams already stretching Xero to its full potential and building their own custom suites specific to their needs?
The FLAC agreed on an "interim playbook":
- Treat Xero as a general ledger engine, not an all-in-one system
- Use best-of-breed apps for AP & approvals, payroll, intercompany, expenses, revenue recognition, consolidation, FP&A
- Standardise the chart of accounts across entities
- Invest early in BI tools, DataSights, and warehouses
- Submit ideas into Xeroās Product Ideas pipeline
- And above all: Keep control over your stack
The FLACās vision
This thought experiment was an exploration of a hypothetical Xero Enterprise Suite.
The APAC FLAC established that a Xero Enterprise Suite would need to protect the simplicity and flexibility that finance leaders love about Xero, while adding the scale, control and intelligence required by mid-market businesses.
They outlined the essential components of this hypothetical future:
- A stronger, more scalable core ledger
- Native solutions to multi-entity pain points
- Centralised control of increasingly complex app stacks
- An AI layer that is permission-aware, secure and embedded
These insights reflect the underlying sentiment within the FLAC: finance leaders donāt want to outgrow Xero, they want Xero to grow with them.
A Xero Enterprise Suite, as imagined by the FLAC, isnāt about turning Xero into an ERP. Itās about building the next logical evolution, so that the most sophisticated mid-market finance teams donāt have to leave the ecosystem that works for them.
Have any thoughts or ideas? We want to hear from you.
Email: emily.lockyer@getmayday.com
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