Building a financial technology stack with the right fintech tools has never been more important for organizations in the era of remote work. Finance and accounting teams can now leverage the best tools to digitize their regular processes and systems and enable mobile access.
What is fintech?
Fintech is the term for software companies that provide finance and accounting products or services to organizations.
In fact, Anna Khan, General Partner at CRV, calls this “ finance-as-a-service, a subsector of SaaS that is proving to be equally if not more valuable in the long run,” when compared to traditional back-end financial and accounting processes.
The numbers are rapidly growing too. Just scan through a recent article published on Forbes by fintech influencer Ron Shevlin about all the fintech firms providing free technology during the coronavirus crisis: good luck trying to scroll to the end of the page! One thing is clear: it’s fintech’s time to shine.
What is a fintech stack?
A fintech stack, or financial technology stack, is a group of connected fintech tools used to run, support, improve and optimize finance, accounting, and operational processes at an organization.
In the marketing world, the infamous Martech 5000 was built in 2017 to summarize the 5,000+ different marketing technology organizations across the industry. It’s allegedly the most frequently shared slide of all time. With the growth of fintech companies and the rise of heightened spend controls during the economic lockdown, it’s now critical to create an equally important fintech stack.
Why is a fintech stack important?
The fintech industry is growing rapidly and financial technology is becoming more vital to a CFO’s portfolio of tools. Long gone are the days of relying on paper documents and Excel spreadsheets. Accounting and finance teams are now replacing their technology toolkits to leverage value-added services such as insights and reporting, while automating as many processes as possible. While Excel is still widely used for some processes such as financial modelling, faster tools can improve data capture and other workflows.
As back-end processes evolve with the rise of technologies, CFOs need to know what tools to invest in and where to prioritize their budget. Organizations need more than one tool to keep daily operations running smoothly. Also, different companies require different financial tools depending on sector, stage of growth, and business goals.
What is the core fintech stack?
We’ve created a visual infographic to help companies understand the growing fintech landscape. The core categories include:
- Accounting ERP software
- Spend management systems
- Expense management
- Accounts receivable and billing systems
- Accounts payable and payment systems
- Payroll systems
Learn how the core fintech tools integrate together and the jobs they do in the infographic below.
Example of Fintech Stack
Here’s the fintech stack with recommended tools from CFOs.
The bottom line: what you need to know about building a fintech stack
With the growth of AI, machine learning and cloud-based systems, technologies will only continue getting faster, smarter, and more valuable.
“In years past, the finance function within a company was a limited role. The person or team responsible was usually slated to make sure the accounting was in line and taxes were prepared for the year. With the growth of cloud, functions that were previously manual like billing customers, managing expenses, and forecasting budget, became actions that could be productized — which led to a better experience for the user (the finance role) and the end customer (the payee, the customer, and one’s own employees.) Growth in cloud was one big change .”
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