Finance teams at growing companies are doing more with less: managing more entities, complexity, and reporting requirements, often with the same headcount and infrastructure they had two years ago. The tools they rely on weren’t built for where they are now. And the gap between what they want to be doing and what they’re actually doing keeps getting wider.
We wanted to understand exactly how that plays out day-to-day. So we surveyed 43 senior finance leaders at companies doing $1M to $250M in revenue, and asked them the kind of questions that don’t usually make it into vendor-sponsored research: How do you actually spend your week? What’s slowing down your close? What happened the last time you added a new tool? How are you really using AI?
The result is Finance in the AI Era, a look at the state of finance operations today — what’s working, what isn’t, and what finance leaders are planning to do about it.
Finance leaders are stuck in the wrong work
When we asked respondents how they’d ideally allocate their time, strategic analysis and decision support came out on top. In practice, they spend significantly less time there than they want to.
The gap isn’t massive in percentage terms, but across a 40-hour week, it adds up fast. Transaction processing and reconciliation are the two activities finance leaders most want to do less of — and the two they’re most stuck doing. The report breaks down exactly where that time is going and what’s keeping it there.
The close is still broken (and it’s not a people problem)
The data here is hard to ignore. An overwhelming majority of finance leaders say waiting on data from other systems is their primary source of close delays. Half cite reconciliation across systems as a persistent drag.
And when we asked how data moves between tools at their organizations? The answer, at companies doing tens of millions in revenue, is still the same as it’s always been: manually through spreadsheet exports. The report goes into detail on what that means for close timelines, and why effort and headcount aren’t the real constraints.
Adding tools made things more complex, not less
83% of respondents adopted at least one new tool or platform in the last 12 to 18 months. Nearly half said their tech stack got more complex over that same period — not simpler.
That’s not a coincidence, and it’s not a budgeting failure. It’s a structural pattern that the report documents clearly, including the types of workarounds teams ended up building and where new gaps opened. If your team has been through this cycle, the findings will feel familiar.
Finance leaders are using AI — but not inside their finance software
AI adoption in finance is happening. 39% of respondents say AI tools are already widely used across their organization. But where and how they’re using it tells a different story than the one most software vendors want to tell.
The report reveals a specific and striking gap between how finance leaders use AI in their day-to-day work and how they’re using — or not using — the AI features embedded in their finance systems. The implications (and opportunities) for the market are significant.
The ERP window is open
24% of respondents are already on an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or are currently migrating. Another 52% are actively evaluating or planning to start within the next two years. That’s a lot of movement in a category that has historically moved slowly.
What’s driving it, what’s holding it back, and what finance leaders actually want from their next platform — the report covers all of it.
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About LiveFlow
LiveFlow is the creator of finance software that completes close before you can think of it. LiveFlow offers two products for growing companies. Flow ERP is an AI-native ERP that closes your books in real-time. It’s the smartest way to escape your legacy ERP without the risk of a big-bang migration. LiveFlow FP&A automates your Consolidation, Reporting, and Budgeting on top of your existing accounting software.
