Welcome CFO Techstack Community 👋,

The first ever CFO Techstack Awards winners are here!

Our inaugural awards have wrapped, and we finally get to celebrate the people, teams and solutions doing brilliant work across this community. From challenging the move to ERP to showing just what’s possible with Xero + Mayday and a best-in-class tech stack, there’s so much to celebrate.

Also this week, Sunny Halai shares the tech behind a remarkably lean finance function at Prideview Group, and Harriet tackles how finance can earn a seat at the table earlier.

FEATURED ARTICLE

Meet the inaugural CFO Techstack Awards winners

The votes are in. The awards have been handed out. And we’re delighted to introduce the first ever CFO Techstack Awards winners.

When we launched the awards, we wanted to celebrate the brilliant work happening across this community. The people and teams pushing their finance functions forward, the transformation stories others can learn from and the solutions showing what’s possible on a Xero + Mayday tech stack.

More than 100 submissions came in, with some seriously impressive work among them. Our judges had the difficult job of choosing the winners, and now we get the much more enjoyable job of introducing them.

Nine awards. Nine very deserving winners.

Finance Leader of the Year: Katrina Bignasca, Asseti

Katrina was recognised for the impact she’s made as Group CFO at Asseti. She’s helped raise capital and secure runway to Series B. At the same time, she’s scaled the finance function with remarkable efficiency.

Finance Team of the Year: Auror

Led by Georgia Burns and Lucy Winterbourn, the Auror finance team has built an impressive finance function. They’ve maintained strong governance across multiple countries, while staying agile as one of New Zealand’s fastest-growing businesses.

FTS Consultant of the Year: Jeffrey Atizado, SMB Consultants

Jeffrey stood out for the speed of his implementations, the results he delivers for clients and his contribution back into the wider CFO Techstack community. Exactly the kind of expertise businesses need as they scale on Xero + Mayday and a best-in-class tech stack.

Stack Transformation of the Year: HFL Education

After starting down the NetSuite path, HFL Education made the decision to change course and move to Xero + Mayday. The result? Huge annual savings that, as a not-for-profit, can now be reinvested into its core purpose.

App of the Year: Cin7

Inventory has historically been one of those complex areas that can push growing businesses towards ERP. Cin7 shows there’s another way, giving teams the depth they need while allowing businesses to keep scaling on their SMB accounting software.

Emerging App of the Year: Derive

Derive is taking on the competitive spend and accounts payable space with deep functionality, multi-entity capabilities and a clean UI. Still early in its journey, but already making its mark.

Mayday MVP: Vikki Davidge, Lush

Our Mayday MVP wasn’t open for submissions. Instead, the Mayday team chose Vikki for consistently going above and beyond. She provides thoughtful product feedback and gets huge value from Mayday at month end.

Xero MVP: Andy Colalillo, RSGx

Xero chose its own MVP, recognising Andy for showing what’s possible with a Xero + Mayday tech stack. Andy and the RSGx team had already started down the ERP implementation path when they discovered CFO Techstack. They made the bold decision to scrap those plans and build a best-in-class stack on Xero + Mayday instead. A brilliant example of challenging the assumption that scaling has to mean ERP.

Community Contributor of the Year: Khalid Ahmed, EncompaaS Cloud

And then came one final surprise. Community Contributor of the Year wasn’t announced alongside our finalists. It went to Khalid, who has given so much back to CFO Techstack through panels, events, sharing his experience and our Finance Leaders Advisory Council.

Nine winners, but so many brilliant people behind these awards.

To everyone who entered, made the shortlist, shared their work or cheered someone else on, thank you.

And a special thank you to our judges: Khalid Ahmed, Fiona MacDonald, Felix Matthews, Steve Jarvis, Tyler Caskey and Laurel Millar. We’re incredibly grateful for the time and expertise they gave to choosing our inaugural winners.

Congratulations to our first ever CFO Techstack Awards winners. We can’t wait to see what you do next.

COMMUNITY INSIGHTS

🎤 How I stacked it

Sunny Halai, Finance Director at Prideview Group

Prideview Group is a property investment and asset management business specialising in commercial real estate. Its lean finance team supports a diverse group spanning property investment, agency, construction and asset

management, using a carefully integrated tech stack to operate at a scale that would traditionally require a much larger team.

As Finance Director, Sunny leads the function with just one accountant. At the heart of our setup is Xero + Mayday, which gives us a strong foundation for managing finance across multiple entities while taking much of the manual work out of intercompany reconciliation. That frees my accountant to focus on review and analysis while I spend more time on deals, funding and strategy. It means we can support a complex, multi-entity property business with a small team, without finance becoming a constraint on growth.

1. Xero is the core financial system, providing the foundation for Prideview Group's day-to-day accounting and finance operations.
2. Mayday supports the group's multi-entity finance processes, including intercompany reconciliation, chart of accounts management and tracking categories management.
3. Dext supports the accounts payable process, helping the finance team capture, process and manage supplier invoices and financial documents.
4. Monday.com is used for task management, helping the team organise workflows, track responsibilities and keep work moving across the business.
5. Joiin brings together financial data for consolidated reporting and management information (MI) packs, giving the team a group-level view of financial performance.
6. Re-Leased manages Prideview Group's commercial property tenancies, providing a dedicated system for managing the operational and financial information associated with its property portfolio.
7. Breathe HR supports the group's HR processes and employee management.
8. Paycircle is used for payroll, supporting the team's payroll processing requirements.
9. Zapier helps connect systems and automate workflows across the tech stack, reducing manual handoffs between tools.
10. Claude is used for AI-assisted modelling, giving the finance team another tool for working through financial models and analysis.
11. Plaud is used as an AI meeting note-taker, capturing and summarising conversations so key information and actions can be recorded without manual note-taking.

Prideview Group uses a bespoke CRM to manage its business-specific customer and relationship management requirements.

See Sunny's full stack

GIVE ME HOPE

Reader's question:

"Our finance team gets brought into decisions at the last minute, usually when something has already gone wrong. How do I change that without it feeling like I am overstepping?"

Harriet's answer:

I have been in this position more times than I can count. A few things help.

Get in earlier. If finance only shows up once the plan is fixed, your first contribution will always look like a blocker, even when you are right. Get into the room before the decision is made and your "no" becomes "here's how we get to yes".

Understand what they are optimising for. Growth, speed, a deal closing this quarter. Usually legitimate, just a different time horizon to yours. Show you get their goal and your pushback reads as aligned rather than obstructive.

Never bring an objection without an alternative. In my experience, "we can't do that" versus "we can't do that, but here's a version that gets you 80% of it without blowing up the numbers" is the same rigour with a completely different reception. That's the actual value you add.

Bring insight, not just correction. If every interaction is a block, that becomes the whole relationship in their eyes. Flag an opportunity occasionally, not only a risk.

Know the difference between being disliked and being wrong. Sometimes it is a real no, and that's fine. Your job is to protect the business, not be popular. But if "no" always lands as obstruction, it's likely timing, not substance.

Have a question you’d like Harriet to answer? Submit your questions here.

HAVE YOUR SAY

📣 Help shape CFO Techstack

We’ve got lots planned for CFO Techstack, but we want what comes next to reflect what matters to you.

Take our short survey and tell us where you are in your finance tech journey, what matters right now and how we can make the community more valuable for you. We’ll bring the findings back to the community, so you can see what others are thinking too.

THE STACK EXCHANGE

🧵 This week's top threads, from The Stack Exchange

The Stack Exchange is the place to connect with peers, stay on top of the latest apps and industry news, and work through the challenges that don't have an easy answer.

Take a look at what's being said:

1. AI in finance myths and practical tips
2. Has Xero changed their limits on their website?

Want to join the conversation? Sign up here.

NEW IN THE WORLD OF CFO SOFTWARE

🗞️ News from the stack-o-sphere

• Modulr launches an MCP connector that connects AI coding tools directly to its payments automation platform Learn more
• Chaser adds CSV and SFTP integrations so finance teams can bring accounts receivable data into Chaser Read more
• Mayday launches Practice HQ as part of their Mayday Partner Programme. Find out more.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS

📊 Stat of the week

49% of invoices issued by UK small businesses are overdue

Source: Business Money September 2026

MORE OF THE GOOD STUFF

And lastly, our top picks!

🎧 Podcast: "The Evolving Role of the CFO (Part 1): From Financial Steward to Strategist" with David Powell and guests. Beyond Accounting Bitesize September 2026

📝 Article: Aussie SMEs shift growth strategy as confidence falls. Australian SMEs are prioritizing productivity, operational efficiency and cashflow over expanding. By Uyen Duong, Inside Small Business

😆 Joke: Why did the CFO refuse to call it a rainy-day fund?

Because “adverse weat her contingency reserve” sounded much more professional.

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