How the finance stack has changed since mainstream AI: Four years of CFO Connect data

CFO Connect’s 2023–2026 research suggests that finance teams are favouring more connected technology stacks rather than continually adding tools. In 2026, 91% of respondents used six finance tools or fewer, 67% said their team used at least one AI tool and 23% planned to consolidate their stack. These findings mark a move towards a more selective, connected finance operating system, with AI layered into existing systems. and if i type it shows right?

For four years, CFO Connect has surveyed finance leaders about the tools they rely on every day.

Since the first report in 2023, finance technology has become more crowded, AI has moved into everyday workflows and new categories such as procurement and treasury have received more attention.

But the biggest change is that with more technology, finance teams are actually becoming more selective about what tools they add, while expecting existing tools to connect more effectively.

In CFO Connect’s 2026 survey of 215 finance leaders, 91% reported using six finance tools or fewer. 67% said their finance team used at least one AI tool, compared with approximately 17% in the 2023 survey. Meanwhile, 23% planned to consolidate their stack, while only 3% expected to expand it significantly.

The reports point towards a more connected finance operating system: a relatively small set of tools sharing data and workflows, with AI layered across them.

A stack is a list of vendors. An operating system is how those vendors work together.

Four years in one view

The four reports show a finance technology market that is changing at the edges while remaining relatively stable at its core. Across the 2023–2026 editions, 803 finance leaders shared the tools they use and recommend.

The table provides a directional view of how finance technology priorities have evolved over the years.

The list of categories tells its own story. The early reports focused on the systems finance teams need to run the function: accounting, ERP, payroll, billing, spend and reporting. FP&A was added in 2024. Procurement and treasury were introduced in 2026.

With these additions, the survey moves from the systems that record the numbers to the tools that help finance teams decide what to do with them: how to plan, control spending and manage cash.

Key findings from four years of CFO data

1. Finance stacks are relatively concentrated.

In 2026, 91% of respondents said their finance team used six tools or fewer. Most planned either to keep their stack unchanged or add only one or two tools, while 23% planned to consolidate.

2. AI is moving into operational finance workflows.

AI adoption rose from approximately 17% in 2023 to 67% in 2026. The use cases have also moved closer to core finance work, including financial analysis, reporting, forecasting, reconciliations, data queries and workflow automation.

3. Core finance platforms remain relatively stable.

NetSuite remained the leading named ERP across all four editions. Spendesk led spend management in every edition, while Stripe remained the leading billing platform.

4. Spreadsheets are still widely used for FP&A and treasury.

Spreadsheets were used by 76% of respondents for FP&A in 2026 and by 55% for treasury and cash management. This reflects the flexibility finance teams still need, but also shows where specialist software has not yet become the default.

5. Procurement and treasury remain significant opportunities for specialist tools.

Procurement and treasury were measured as standalone categories for the first time in 2026. Sixty-four percent of respondents had no dedicated procurement tool, while 17% had no treasury or cash management tool.

6. Integration and governance matter as much as adding new software.

The reports suggest that finance leaders are becoming more focused on how tools connect, who owns the data and where human control should remain. The priority is shifting from building the longest possible shopping list to creating a finance operating system that works as a whole.

Are finance teams adding more tools or consolidating their stack?

The 2026 report was the first to ask directly how many finance tools teams use.

The answer was fewer than might be expected:

• 41% use one to three tools.

• 50% use four to six.

• 8% use seven to ten.

• No respondents reported using 11 to 15 tools.

• One respondent reported using more than 16.

That means 91% of respondents use six tools or fewer. Looking ahead, 38% planned to add one or two tools, 29% planned to stay with their current stack and 23% planned to consolidate. Only 3% expected to expand significantly.

This is the first year the survey measured stack size, so it cannot show that finance stacks have shrunk since 2023. It does show that finance leaders are not generally describing their ideal future as a much larger collection of specialist applications.

There are several possible explanations.

First, suites are absorbing neighbouring jobs. Accounting platforms increasingly support invoicing, expenses and cash management. ERP systems extend into procurement, billing, inventory and reporting. A response of “None” in one category may not mean the process is unmanaged. It may mean that the process is handled inside a system the team already trusts.

Second, general-purpose AI models can solve problems that might previously have required a dedicated SaaS product. A finance team may not need a separate tool for every reporting, document or data-query use case if it can work effectively with an LLM on top of its existing data.

Third, the finance software market may be entering a more mature phase. After years of rapid SaaS adoption, finance leaders may be more aware of the costs of adding tools: implementation, training, integration, data duplication and ongoing ownership.

At CFO Connect Summit 2026, Spendesk President Rodolphe Ardant described the shift as a move towards “the CFO’s stack as a system rather than a collection of tools. Several tools but one coherent way of working.”

That is also the message in the 2026 report, which describes interconnectivity between systems as an increasingly important determinant of success.

Stack size does vary by company size, but not in a perfectly linear way. Companies with 50 to 249 employees were the most likely to report using seven to ten tools, at 16%. Among companies with 500 or more employees, 58% reported using just one to three tools.

One explanation is that larger organisations may consolidate more functions into comprehensive ERP or enterprise platforms, while mid-market companies often build a hybrid stack around a core accounting system.

The important point is that fewer tools do not automatically mean a simpler finance operation. One ERP may cover more processes than several specialist applications. Conversely, a six-tool stack can still be poorly integrated and highly manual.

AI is a layer, not a replacement stack

AI adoption has accelerated faster than any other trend measured across the reports. Here, AI includes both general-purpose tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and AI capabilities built into finance software.

Note: The surveys used changing definitions of AI adoption. These percentages illustrate directional growth rather than a perfectly comparable year-on-year trend. The original 2023 report supports approximately 17%, based on 29 of 169 responses, while the 2026 report’s retrospective chart references 13% for 2023.

In the first editions, AI was mostly associated with drafting emails, preparing briefing notes, summarising documents and adding commentary to reports.

In the 2024 report, the report included small experiments and AI features embedded in existing tools within its definition of adoption. Respondents mentioned ChatGPT, Copilot and Claude, as well as AI features in Odoo, Abacum, Notion, Google Workspace and Spendesk’s OCR and categorisation workflows.

By 2025, AI users had become the majority. ChatGPT was the most commonly named tool at 35%, followed by Gemini and Copilot at 11% each. The most common use cases were research, information gathering, reporting assistance, presentations, document retrieval and communication.

In 2026, 67% of respondents said their finance team used at least one AI tool. Among named tools, Claude led at 41%, followed by Gemini at 12%, ChatGPT at 10% and Copilot at 9%.

The most common use cases were moving closer to core finance work:

• Financial analysis: 20%

• Reporting: 12%

• Modelling and forecasting: 12%

• Reconciliations: 9%

• Data queries: 8%

• Workflow automation: 8%

The reports therefore show two changes at once. More finance teams are using AI, and the work they are applying it to is becoming more operational.

AI is no longer limited to writing and research. Teams are using it to query information, analyse data, automate workflows and support reconciliations. The 2026 report also identifies AI features embedded in Rillet, Loopfour, Spendesk, Agicap, Phacet, Syft and Datamolino.

Yet general-purpose LLMs remain more widely used than dedicated finance AI platforms. No dedicated finance AI tool was named by more than 1% of 2026 respondents.

Finance teams are therefore renting intelligence rather than buying a completely new category of software. A general-purpose model can be applied to spreadsheets, documents and existing systems without requiring a new procurement process.

That does not remove the need for governance. AI still depends on clean data, clear processes, access controls and human review.

As Rod Ardant put it in his 2026 Summit opening speech, the question is not whether finance teams become “AI-native” overnight. It is where AI can create genuine leverage, where human judgement is still needed and how the two can work together reliably.

The core holds while the edges churn

Some categories have changed leadership. Others have remained remarkably stable.

Cloud accounting is relatively stable, but company size matters

NetSuite led cloud accounting in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2026, Xero became the most-cited platform at 14%, ahead of NetSuite at 10% and QuickBooks at 8%.

The 2026 company-size results explain why the overall ranking changed. Among companies with fewer than 50 employees, Xero led at 30%, followed by QuickBooks at 14%. Among companies with 500 or more employees, SAP led at 26%, followed by NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics at 16% each.

Smaller organisations often prioritise speed, accessibility and low implementation overhead. As legal entities, currencies, reporting requirements and approval structures multiply, enterprise platforms become more attractive.

ERP is the most stable category

NetSuite was the leading named ERP in all four editions.

That does not mean every company uses an ERP. In 2025, 29% selected “None”, and that figure rose to 41% in 2026. NetSuite led the named platforms in 2026 at 14%, followed by Dynamics 365 at 11% and Odoo at 7%.

ERP is a good example of the difference between a category leader and universal adoption. A platform can lead among companies that have an ERP while a large share of the sample has not adopted one at all.

The reason ERP rankings are relatively stable is that ERP systems are deeply embedded in the finance operating model. They hold financial data, connect business functions and support reporting and control. They are also expensive and risky to replace.

Why do billing and AR tools vary by business model?

Stripe led the billing and AR ranking in 2023, 2024 and 2025. In 2026, it shared first place with Pennylane at 10%. The report notes that Pennylane’s increased share may reflect its wider adoption as an accounting platform. It also points out that many finance teams handle invoicing and payments through systems they already use, rather than adding a dedicated billing or AR tool.

The report separately profiles Stripe, Chargebee and BILL among its Top 3 AR Tools.

The category is fragmented because billing depends on the business model. Subscription companies may need recurring billing and revenue recognition; online businesses may prioritise payments and integrations; larger companies may use ERP or custom systems.

HR and payroll remain fragmented

Personio led the payroll and HR category from 2023 through 2025. In 2026, BambooHR ranked first at 11%, followed by Personio at 9%, Lucca at 8% and HiBob at 7%.

No HR or payroll provider has achieved the same concentration as NetSuite in ERP or Power BI in the earlier BI rankings.

This reflects the local nature of payroll compliance, as well as different requirements around benefits, onboarding, employee self-service, workforce planning and international employment.

The reports suggest that geography matters. Personio and Lucca are particularly strong in European markets, while BambooHR and Gusto are associated more closely with US companies.

The spreadsheet problem is still unresolved

The reports show that specialist finance software has expanded, but spreadsheets remain central wherever teams need flexibility.

In 2025, 61% of respondents used spreadsheets for FP&A and 10% used no FP&A tool. In 2026, 76% used spreadsheets and 7% used no tool. Taken together, that means 83% of respondents in 2026 were either spreadsheet-led or had no dedicated FP&A platform.

Spreadsheets also led treasury and cash management in 2026, at 55%. A further 17% reported having no treasury tool, while 9% said the capability was built into their accounting software.

Spreadsheets remain popular because they are flexible, familiar, inexpensive and easy to adapt to company-specific processes. They are also useful when data sits across systems that do not integrate well.

Their weaknesses are equally familiar: version control, manual work, fragile formulas, limited auditability and dependence on individual knowledge.

The lesson is not that spreadsheets are inherently bad or obsolete. It is that their continued dominance shows where finance software has not yet matched the flexibility finance teams need.

A spreadsheet may be the right tool for an exploratory scenario model. It is less suitable as the uncontrolled source of truth for a recurring forecast, board report or multi-entity cash process.

Where are the biggest gaps in procurement and treasury?

Procurement and treasury were introduced as categories in 2026, so there is no earlier baseline.

The results show significant whitespace.

In procurement, 64% of respondents reported having no dedicated tool. Spendesk was the leading named platform at 13%, followed by Zip at 4% and Ramp at 3%.

In treasury and cash management, 55% used spreadsheets, 17% had no tool and 9% relied on functionality built into accounting software. Agicap was the leading named specialist platform at 6%.

These results do not necessarily mean that procurement and cash management are unmanaged. Many teams may use ERP modules, banking portals, accounting tools or manual workflows.

They do show that many companies have not yet created a dedicated operating layer for purchase requests, supplier management, committed spend, cash forecasting, liquidity reporting and reconciliation.

As companies grow, those processes become harder to manage through email and spreadsheets alone.

Spendesk has led the move from expense management to spend management

Spendesk has ranked first among CFO Connect respondents in the spend management category in every edition of the Top Finance Tools report from 2023 to 2026.

In 2023, Spendesk led the category by vote count. In 2024, it was the clear top-ranked platform at 32%. It remained first among named platforms in 2025 at 20%, and extended its lead in 2026 with 25% of responses, ahead of Ramp at 7%.

That consistency makes Spendesk one of the clearest recurring leaders in the four-year dataset, alongside NetSuite in ERP and Stripe in billing and accounts receivable.

The category itself has also expanded. Earlier reports focused more heavily on expense tracking, reimbursements and company cards. By 2025 and 2026, finance leaders were evaluating broader spend management capabilities, including:

• Payment and virtual cards

• Expense management

• Invoice processing

• Approval workflows

• Budget monitoring

• Procurement

• Accounting automation

• Visibility across entities and business units

Spendesk’s continued leadership reflects that broader definition. Respondents highlighted the value of combining employee flexibility with finance control: employees can spend within clear boundaries, while finance teams retain visibility over budgets, approvals and company-wide commitments.

Spendesk also led the procurement category when it was introduced in 2026, with 13% of responses. This suggests that its relevance extends beyond expense management into the wider purchasing and payables workflow.

Its strongest results came from growing and mid-market companies. In 2025, Spendesk ranked first among companies below 500 FTEs, including 33% of respondents in the 250 to 499 FTE segment. In 2026, it led among companies below 250 FTEs and reached 34% among companies with 50 to 249 FTEs. Among companies with 500 or more employees, it shared first place with SAP Concur at 14%.

This pattern is consistent with Spendesk’s role in the market: a platform designed to help growing finance teams establish visibility, control and automation without adding unnecessary complexity.

The repeated first-place rankings also point to a broader shift in finance priorities. Controlling spend is increasingly one of the first priorities for finance leaders entering a new role. In the 2026 report, spend management was the most commonly selected first-90-days technology priority, at 21%.

Book a free Spendesk demo.

What should CFOs consider before adding another finance tool?

With finance teams moving towards leaner, more connected stacks, every tool must earn its place. 

Before adding a tool, ask four questions:

1. What problem does it solve?

2. What does it need to work?

3. How does it connect to the rest of the stack?

4. What should remain under human control?

Those questions come directly from Ardant’s opening speech at CFO Connect Summit 2026.

Finance leaders should also:

• Start with the workflow causing the most friction.

• Map the existing system of record before buying new software.

• Distinguish a tooling problem from a process or data problem.

• Evaluate tools against company size, revenue, entity structure and regulatory requirements.

• Give every system a clear owner and defined data flows.

• Introduce AI in structured, measurable and reviewable workflows.

• Improve data quality before automating unreliable processes.

• Decide which spreadsheet processes are useful and which have become too risky.

• Prefer connected workflows over isolated features.

For AI, the best starting point is usually one workflow rather than an entire department. Reporting assistance, reconciliation, forecasting support or a repetitive data process can provide a measurable test case.

The objective is not to automate judgement. It is to remove enough mechanical work that finance professionals have more time to exercise it.

What will the future CFO technology stack look like?

The finance stack has changed since 2023, but its evolution has been more layered than disruptive.

ERP, accounting, billing and spend management systems remain central because they hold the data, move the money or set the rules. Spreadsheets remain important because finance teams still need flexibility that specialist platforms do not always provide. AI has become mainstream, but mostly as a capability applied across existing systems rather than as a replacement for them.

The 2026 findings suggest that finance leaders want a relatively concentrated stack, not an ever-growing shopping list. They are adding capability, but they are also thinking more carefully about integration, ownership and consolidation.

The future CFO stack will not necessarily be the largest or most sophisticated. It will be the one that gives finance reliable data, connected workflows, appropriate controls and enough time to focus on decisions rather than administration.

Frequently asked questions

How many tools does the average finance team use?

CFO Connect did not publish an average number, but 41% of respondents in 2026 used one to three tools and 50% used four to six. In total, 91% used six tools or fewer.

What percentage of finance teams use AI?

The 2026 survey found that 67% of finance teams used at least one AI tool, compared with 56% in 2025 and 31% in 2024.

What AI tool do finance teams use most?

Claude was the most commonly named AI tool in 2026, at 41% of responses, followed by Gemini at 12%, ChatGPT at 10% and Copilot at 9%. These figures come from a multi-select question in the CFO Connect survey to 215 finance leaders.

What is the most popular cloud accounting software?

Xero was the most-cited cloud accounting platform in 2026 at 14%, ahead of NetSuite at 10% and QuickBooks at 8%. NetSuite led the category in 2023, 2024 and 2025.

What do finance teams use for FP&A?

Most finance teams still use spreadsheets. In 2026, 76% used spreadsheets for FP&A and a further 7% reported using no tool. Abacum was the leading named specialist platform at 5%.

What is the most popular spend management platform?

Spendesk ranked first among CFO Connect respondents in the spend management category in all four editions of the Top CFO Tools report, reaching 25% in 2026.

Which tools do CFOs prioritise in a new role?

Spend management was the most commonly selected first-90-days category in 2026, at 21%, followed by cloud accounting and FP&A at 16% each, and ERP at 15%. Respondents could select up to three categories.

About this data

Each of the four reports surveyed between 155 and 253 members of the CFO Connect community. Categories, wording, respondent mix and company-size bands changed between editions. Percentages are rounded, and some questions allow multiple selections.

The reports should therefore be used to identify patterns and questions for CFOs, not to make precise market-share claims. Procurement and treasury were first measured in 2026. Stack size was also measured for the first time in 2026.

The AI baseline in the 2023 report supports approximately 17% based on 29 of 169 responses, the 2026 report included a revised figure of 13%.