The Case for Finance-Led O2C
In the lifecycle of growing companies, there comes a pivotal moment when managing the Order-to-Cash (O2C) process becomes increasingly complex. While engineering teams often spearhead O2C in the early stages, this approach creates significant challenges as organizations scale.
For many scaling businesses, the symptoms are familiar:
These aren't merely operational inconveniences — they're warning signs that your O2C framework needs strategic leadership. The solution to these growing pains lies in optimizing the team structure, processes, and systems that manage O2C. While Engineering often takes the lead in the early stages, as companies grow, leaving O2C solely to Engineering can create significant issues with compliance, audits, and revenue recognition.
When Finance owns O2C, businesses gain a strategic advantage. A well-structured O2C framework accelerates go-to-market strategies by allowing for faster product launches and seamless pricing updates. It fosters stronger alignment between Finance and Sales, ensuring deal structures are optimized for long-term revenue growth. Most importantly, it allows companies to scale without getting bogged down by inefficiencies that hinder expansion.
The Evidence: Real-World Success Stories
BigCommerce
BigCommerce’s journey from product-led growth to enterprise B2B sales demanded a fundamental O2C transformation. Chief Accounting Officer Hubert Ban didn't wait for problems to emerge when he recognized growing compliance risks tied to more complex deals and billing terms. He proactively assembled a cross-functional team of O2C and financial systems experts to select a unified O2C platform. This strategic move not only streamlined audits and ensured accurate revenue tracking but positioned BigCommerce to support sophisticated sales strategies with remarkable agility.
The benefits of Finance-led O2C extend far beyond operational efficiency. Companies experience accelerated go-to-market capabilities, stronger finance-sales alignment, and truly scalable growth infrastructure.
PagerDuty
PagerDuty's experience offers compelling evidence of this transformation. As they expanded into larger enterprise contracts, Jane Koltsova, the company’s former Senior Director of Global Revenue Control, recognized that deal complexity demanded finance integration from the earliest stages of the sales process. Rather than keeping finance siloed from sales discussions, her team embedded finance expertise before deals were even fully conceptualized. By fostering cross-functional collaboration between Finance, Sales, and Operations, PagerDuty ensured new pricing models and contract structures aligned with revenue recognition requirements from the start. This proactive approach enabled them to scale efficiently without introducing operational friction that would have otherwise slowed growth.
“There’s a misconception that Finance always says ‘no,’ but we’re here to understand the underlying issues and figure out a path forward.” – Jane Koltsova, Senior Director of Global Revenue Control, formerly of PagerDuty
Hudl
Hudl's experience further validates the Finance-led approach as they scaled their SaaS operations to serve over 20,000 teams worldwide. Stephanie Thorin, Senior Manager of Revenue Accounting, faced the classic challenge of scaling financial operations to match business growth. During high-volume periods, her team struggled with manual reconciliation, often working late into the night to close the books due to disconnected systems and processes. As the company expanded, revenue recognition became increasingly complex, particularly when dealing with bundled software and service offerings, variable discount structures, and enterprise contracts.
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“During close, I used to spend a lot of time in the evenings, working until 12pm or 1am in the morning. I do not need to do that anymore. I have three kids, and I used to work while they were sleeping- I’m sleeping much better myself now.” – Stephanie Thorin, Senior Manager of Revenue Accounting, Hudl
The solution wasn't incremental improvement of existing processes. It was a fundamental shift to Finance leadership of the entire O2C framework. By consolidating their O2C system under finance leadership, Hudl transformed their approach to revenue recognition from reactive to proactive. Rather than struggling with after-the-fact compliance, they built revenue recognition considerations into their O2C framework from the ground up, significantly reducing closing times and improving overall financial accuracy.
A Holistic Transformation
What connects these success stories isn't just a series of isolated improvements but a holistic approach that places Finance at the center of O2C strategy. The most compelling evidence for Finance-led O2C comes from companies that have moved beyond fragmented systems to consolidate their entire process into a unified framework.
Many organizations begin with basic billing solutions, spreadsheets, or fundamental accounting software — approaches that quickly become unsustainable as growth accelerates. While ERP implementations address some challenges, they typically require significant customization and maintenance. Similarly, piecing together O2C by integrating separate CRM, CPQ, and ERP solutions creates ongoing synchronization issues that worsen as transaction volumes increase.
The companies achieving the most remarkable results consolidate their entire O2C process into a unified system providing a single source of truth for bookings, billing, and revenue. This approach dramatically simplifies audit readiness while supporting diverse sales models and complex deal structures, all while reducing reliance on development teams and lengthy IT projects.
Beyond Operational Efficiency
What's particularly striking about these examples is that Finance-led O2C isn't merely about operational efficiency — it's a strategic transformation that enables growth. When these companies empowered finance to lead their O2C processes, they didn't just solve immediate problems; they built infrastructure for sustainable expansion.
Finance leadership brings unique advantages that Engineering simply cannot provide. Finance teams intuitively understand revenue recognition implications, compliance requirements, and how deal structures impact financial reporting. By placing these considerations at the center of O2C design rather than retrofitting them into Engineering-led systems, companies create frameworks that scale seamlessly as they grow.
This expertise becomes increasingly valuable as companies move from simple subscription models to complex enterprise deals with custom terms, bundled offerings, and variable pricing structures. Finance-led O2C provides the flexibility to support these evolving business models while maintaining the compliance and reporting accuracy that stakeholders demand.
The Path Forward is Clear
The evidence from BigCommerce, PagerDuty, Hudl, and many others makes the case compelling: as SaaS companies scale, Finance leadership of O2C becomes not just beneficial but essential. This transition isn't merely about transferring responsibility from one department to another — it's about fundamentally reimagining how O2C supports business growth.
When Finance leads O2C, the entire organization benefits. Sales teams gain greater flexibility to structure deals that win business while remaining compliant. Finance teams spend less time on manual reconciliation and more on strategic analysis. And the business as a whole gains the agility to pursue new revenue models, enter new markets, and scale operations without the friction that typically impedes high-growth companies.