According to an industry report from automated finance business Ledge, finance professionals at technology businesses are often encouraged to increase their headcount to manage the rising workload on finance operations.

The new data highlights that as an organisation matures, the finance team grows 3.5 times, which is approximately 20% faster than all other areas of business within a company. Ledge’s findings indicate that tech companies are becoming more reliant on skilled finance professionals to manually manage complex and high-volume finance operations despite an unprecedented shortage of accountancy talent. 

The number of CPA candidates currently sits at its lowest since studies began, and 87% of businesses have stated that they are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit the necessary talent. 

The increased adoption of digital payments has supported the traditional payment infrastructure with various new methods to pay and receive payments, and transaction volumes have increased considerably as a result. Studies from PwC suggest a 42% increase in global cashless payment volumes and is expected to rise further by over 80% by 2025, increasing from 1 trillion to 1.9 trillion transactions.

The shift in the payments market has generated various challenges for finance teams at rapidly scaling businesses, who depend on spreadsheets and manual activities to manage considerable volumes of payment data that often is dispersed across disconnected systems. Around 40% of finance teams’ time is spent processing transactions, and 48% of finance teams highlight that fragmented data is the biggest barrier to them closing their books. 

Many leading enterprises still lack the necessary automated tools they need. Ledge’s study suggests that finance teams have grown 20% faster than other areas of the business, reflecting this pressure and the increased complexity and workload on tech businesses to assign additional talent to finance operations to enable the business to continue.

Tal Kirschenbaum, CEO and co-founder at Ledge explains that while the digital payments area has witnessed significant innovation, the majority of finance systems and processes have changed over the years. Finance professionals still rely on conventional spreadsheets to manage their finances and accounts, combining several fragmented variations of banks, billing systems and databases.

Skilled finance professionals at leading global businesses still lack the automated solutions required to effectively report on simple metrics, like cash position and revenue. The latest report indicates that many of these teams have been forced to increase their headcount with manual activities that significantly increase the risk of material losses, compliance challenges and costly audits.