There’s a moment every scaling finance team is told is inevitable: “You’ve outgrown Xero. It’s time for an ERP."
But what if that moment isn’t as fixed as people think? What specific examples are there that this doesn't have to be the case?
This week, we bring it down to ground level and look at one example in more detail...
Introducing: Tracksuit
Tracksuit, a 200-person SaaS company operating across New Zealand, Australia, the US and the UK, is a concrete example of how the ERP assumption is being challenged.
Fresh off being named New Zealand’s fastest-growing company in the 2025 Deloitte Fast 50, Tracksuit have scaled rapidly. without ever moving off Xero!
And crucially, they haven’t felt the need to...
“We’re still well within Xero’s range”
Josh Hawkey, Financial Controller at Tracksuit, explains:
“Honestly, no, we haven’t seriously considered it. I feel we're still well within Xero’s range.”
In fact, his view on ERP is clear:
“I'd rather find a new job than deal with an ERP implementation!”
A different model: Xero + best-in-class apps
Rather than replacing Xero, Tracksuit has built intentionally around it.
“Xero is the glue that holds everything together.”
Their model is simple but powerful:
Keep Xero as the general ledger → run operations in specialised tools → sync everything back into a single source of truth.
“Payroll, invoicing, AR, AP and reimbursements all sit outside Xero, and sync back in.”
Rebuilding for scale (fast)
When Josh first joined Tracksuit in 2024, he knew that the stack wasn’t built for where the company was heading.
“I’ve stripped almost all of that out and replaced it with tools fit for where we’re headed.”
The key constraint? Speed.
“When you're in hypergrowth, timelines matter. By the time you've finished implementing something large and complex, you've often outgrown it.”
The stack that powers Tracksuit
Josh sums up his process for building Tracksuit's tech stack:
“We get the best tool for each use case, and they all feed back into Xero.”
Their current setup reflects his philosophy:
- Subskribe for invoicing & revenue
- Invoice Butler for receivables automation
- Airwallex for global payments & cards
- HiBob for HRIS
- Mayday for intercompany reconciliation
- G-Accon for reporting
- VendorSage for SaaS spend
- Claude for AI workflows
Instead of building heavy internal processes or moving to an ERP, Tracksuit has taken the modular approach, solving its specific requirements with focused tools, while keeping the core stack lean and tightly integrated around Xero.
So… when would they move?
Josh is realistic:
“There will almost certainly come a day when we move off Xero.”
But that day certainly isn't today!
Right now, the gaps are known and limited:
“The biggest gap is probably native consolidation, and a native quote to cash system.”
Until they are faced with real constraints rather than manageable trade-offs, there’s no urgency to switch.
The bigger shift
Tracksuit isn’t an outlier: it’s part of a broader trend.
Modern finance teams are increasingly asking:
- Why move to ERP before you need to?
- Why sacrifice flexibility for theoretical scale?
- Why not build a stack that evolves with you?
The takeaway
The old playbook said: Scale → ERP
The new one looks more like: Scale → Xero + apps → (maybe ERP later)
And Tracksuit is proving just how far that second path can go.
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