Most small and mid-sized companies still run finance the same way they did 15–20 years ago: manual categorization, delayed month-end close, and reports that arrive long after the decisions are made. It’s not because anyone is lazy or disorganized. It’s because the system was built for a slower business world.
Today, business decisions happen daily. Finance is still reporting monthly.
That mismatch is where the stress comes from.
What’s Driving the Change
1. The Accounting Workforce Is Shrinking
This is not a narrative — it’s real and measurable.
- 300,000 accountants and auditors have left the profession since 2019 (Wall Street Journal, Dec 2022)
- 75% of CPAs are expected to retire in the next 10 years (AICPA Pipeline Report, 2021)
This means fewer people supporting more financial complexity.
2. Small Businesses Now Operate With Enterprise-Level Complexity
Even a 10–50 person company might have:
- Multiple revenue streams
- SaaS tools
- Cross-border payments
The average SMB now uses over 70 SaaS applications (Gartner SaaS Trends Report, 2023).
More tools = more financial data streams = more stitching.
3. Leaders Want Answers Faster
- 70% of CFOs now make strategic decisions weekly, not quarterly (McKinsey Global CFO Pulse, 2023)
But if the financials are still monthly, everything becomes guesswork.
4. Automation Finally Works Reliably
AI-based transaction classification now achieves 85–95% human-level accuracy when trained on context (Stanford HAI Applied ML in Finance Study, 2022).
This is the unlock:
Finance teams can move from data cleanup → to decision support.
The Real Shift
Finance is transitioning from:
“Record what happened.”
to
“Understand what’s happening now, and what to do next.”
This isn’t about replacing accountants.
It’s about letting them actually do the strategic work they’re trained for.
Finance used to act as a rear-view mirror.
It’s becoming a real-time dashboard for steering the business.
