I agree with the direction, especially the zero day close. The part I’d question is whether data has stopped being the bottleneck. Getting it is easier. Knowing you have all of it and that it reflects what actually happened is still hard, especially in commerce with exchanges, partial refunds, and duplicate payments across systems.
We’re building technology around this in commerce, continuously reconciling transactions and helping teams resolve discrepancies with evidence. That’s a big part of making a zero-day close and continuously updated forecasts something finance teams can actually trust.
Yep, this is what I’m building today. I’ve stopped doing the work, Claude is doing all the finance and I’m managing the work and ensuring it’s accurate.
The system architect will keep their job, but the rest of the team will get automated if they don’t also become an architect.
Great post. Finance engineers are such a rare and valuable persona. I’m meetings some promising ones through my work as an accounting AI seed stage investor at my firm, Seguin Ventures and via my publication, The Accounting VC.
Fire 🔥 him
I agree with the direction, especially the zero day close. The part I’d question is whether data has stopped being the bottleneck. Getting it is easier. Knowing you have all of it and that it reflects what actually happened is still hard, especially in commerce with exchanges, partial refunds, and duplicate payments across systems.
We’re building technology around this in commerce, continuously reconciling transactions and helping teams resolve discrepancies with evidence. That’s a big part of making a zero-day close and continuously updated forecasts something finance teams can actually trust.
Yep, this is what I’m building today. I’ve stopped doing the work, Claude is doing all the finance and I’m managing the work and ensuring it’s accurate.
The system architect will keep their job, but the rest of the team will get automated if they don’t also become an architect.
I shared this article with several of my friends. Thank you.
I have a pet peeve about search tools versus audit tools. If you’re traveling for business, and feel like having Thai, you have a Search problem.
if you’re a health inspector, with the legal responsibility of inspecting all of the restaurants in your zip code, you have an Audit problem.
If one item is missing, for a Search problem you won’t even notice. For an Audit problem, being off by one is a big problem.
I worry that the confidence of LLMs is leading people astray, especially those with Audit problems.
Really insightful and on point re: the evolution, focus and capabilities at hand for the role over the decades
Great post. Finance engineers are such a rare and valuable persona. I’m meetings some promising ones through my work as an accounting AI seed stage investor at my firm, Seguin Ventures and via my publication, The Accounting VC.
100%