Why the Office of the CFO Is Consolidating on One Platform

The office of the CFO is still lightly automated. Surveys of finance leaders consistently find that only a small share have automated the majority of their processes, and that most teams still run core work through spreadsheets and manual handoffs. As finance organizations close that gap, they face a second decision alongside the first: whether to adopt automation one function at a time, or on a platform where the pieces share data and a common view of cash.

Houlihan Lokey, in its research on office of the CFO software, describes a broad and fragmented market that is, in its words, working toward a unified platform solution. The category spans accounting, payments, spend, treasury, planning, and more, and most of it is supplied by specialists that solve a single problem well and connect poorly to the rest. This paper makes a narrower argument within that landscape. The functions that manage cash are the ones that most need to operate together, and mid-market finance teams are best served by adopting them on one platform native to the ERP.

Finance automation is still early

Other parts of the enterprise have been automating for years, yet the office of the CFO remains a laggard. McKinsey's 2024 CFO Pulse survey found that only 1% of finance leaders had automated more than three quarters of their finance processes. Houlihan Lokey's research shows a wide distance between a small group of high performers, which automate roughly 90% of routine transactions, and typical peers, which sit closer to half that. For most finance teams, the majority of the daily work is still done by hand.

That low base matters for how a finance organization should think about what it adopts next. The question is not how to rationalize a mature, over-automated stack. It is how to automate the large share of work that remains manual, and in what order, so the pieces put in place early do not become the integration burden of tomorrow.

The software market itself is fragmented

The software a finance team can buy is as fragmented as the work it performs. Houlihan Lokey reports that finance organizations contend with as many as 20 to 30 point vendors across the office of the CFO, each covering a slice of the function and each holding its own copy of the same suppliers, customers, and transactions. The category was built up by specialists rather than by any single provider, which is why adopting automation function by function tends to mean signing up to connect and reconcile the pieces afterward.

For a finance leader, that fragmentation turns every purchase into two decisions. There is the value the software delivers on its own, and there is the cost of making it agree with everything around it. The second cost is easy to underestimate at the point of sale and expensive to carry for years.

What fragmentation costs

The cost of a fragmented finance stack does not show up as a line item, and it compounds quietly. Houlihan Lokey's research finds that 40% of CFOs lack full visibility into spend across the company, a direct consequence of expense, payables, and forecasting sitting in separate systems that never resolve into a single picture. The same body of research finds that 70% of finance leaders say poor data reconciliation delays insight, because systems holding overlapping records disagree, and resolving those disagreements is manual work that pushes the close later and pushes analysis to the back of the queue.

These costs scale with the business. As a company adds entities, banks, and transaction volume, the number of reconciliations rises with it, and the finance team spends a growing share of its time keeping disconnected systems in agreement rather than acting on what they show.

Cash is the part that has to connect

Not every function in the office of the CFO needs to share a system with every other. Tax filing and statutory audit can sit reasonably apart from the rest of the stack. The functions that move and measure cash are a different matter, because together they describe a single flow of money through the business. Accounts payable governs what leaves the company and when. Accounts receivable governs what comes in and how quickly. Expense and corporate cards represent a further stream of outflow. Cash forecasting depends on all of them, since a forecast is only as reliable as the payables, receivables, and bank balances that feed it.

When these functions run on separate systems, the forecast has to be rebuilt by hand from exports that are out of date the moment they are pulled. The operational decisions that rest on it, which suppliers to pay now and which collections to pursue first, then get made without a current view of cash. This is the part of the office of the CFO where disconnection is most expensive, and the part where working from one set of records pays off most directly.

The trade-off finance leaders think they have to make

For years, buyers assumed they faced a choice between depth and integration. They could select the strongest specialist in each function and absorb the work of connecting them, or they could accept a suite in which every function was shallower than the best available option. That assumption is becoming outdated. A platform can now deliver applications that are genuinely strong in each function and connect them so they share one set of records and one view of cash. For the cash-management functions, where the cost of poor connection runs highest, that combination is where the value concentrates.

What one connected platform looks like in practice

On a single platform, the cash-management functions reinforce one another rather than sit beside one another. Accounts payable captures and codes invoices, matches them to purchase orders, routes them for approval, and pays them, with suppliers onboarded directly. Accounts receivable accelerates collections and applies incoming cash automatically, lowering days sales outstanding while making payment simpler for the customer. Expense and corporate-card activity stays controlled and posts to the ledger as it happens. Cash forecasting draws on all of it in real time, using actual payables, receivables, and bank data to guide which suppliers to pay and when, which collections to prioritize, and how cash will behave as conditions change.

Because every application reads and writes the same records, and because the platform is native to the ERP, the reconciliation that consumes disconnected teams is largely removed. The finance team works from one current account of where cash stands and where it is heading, instead of assembling that account by hand each period.

Built for the mid-market

The argument is strongest for mid-market finance teams. Smaller companies have simpler needs that lighter products serve well, and the largest enterprises can staff the ongoing integration that a best-of-breed stack demands. Mid-market companies sit between the two. They run genuine complexity, often across multiple entities and banks on a full ERP, with finance teams too lean to absorb the work of stitching separate systems together.

For that group, adopting the cash-management functions on one connected platform is the practical path to automating finance without adding headcount the business is unlikely to approve. It closes the automation gap and the connection gap in the same step.

Proof it works

These gains are measurable. FC Cincinnati, a Major League Soccer club, reduced days sales outstanding from 106 to 67 after automating its collections process, a decline of roughly 37% that pulled close to 39 days of cash forward on the same revenue. Synergy HomeCare recovered more than 40 hours a month after moving payables off manual processing. Both results came from replacing manual, disconnected work with connected automation in the functions that manage cash.

Where this leads

Finance automation remains in its early stages across the office of the CFO, and the software market that serves it is still fragmented. As finance teams close the automation gap, the order and shape of those decisions matter. The functions that manage cash, payables, receivables, expense, and forecasting, gain the most from working together and lose the most when they do not. For mid-market teams in particular, adopting them on a single platform native to the ERP delivers automation and a current, connected view of cash in the same move.

Sources: Houlihan Lokey, Office of the CFO Software research (CFOs use as many as 20-30 point-solution vendors across the category; 40% of CFOs lack full visibility of spend across the company; 70% say poor data reconciliation delays insight; high performers automate roughly 90% of routine transactions versus about half that for peers). McKinsey CFO Pulse, 2024 (126 finance leaders across 26 countries; 1% have automated more than 75% of finance processes). L.E.K. Consulting, 2025 Office of the CFO Survey (56% of finance leaders prefer capabilities embedded in their finance platform versus 31% favoring standalone point solutions). Customer results from published Centime case studies: FC Cincinnati (DSO reduced from 106 to 67 days; collections effectiveness up 42%), attributed to Becca Riley, Head of Accounting and Finance; Synergy HomeCare (more than 40 hours per month recovered on payables), attributed to Janice Helzer, Accountant.