By Konstantin Dzhengozov, CFO and co-founder, Payhawk.
For most CFOs, it’s no longer enough to simply report what happened with a company’s finances after the fact. Instead, they’re being tasked to conduct how money moves— continuously, compliantly, clearly—and strategically.
Spend management remains the backbone of that work. But the operating advantage now comes from how the pieces work together.
This means that innovative CFOs do more of what I call “finance orchestration” than anything else. When they do, finance stops chasing and starts steering. And the business gets the control, visibility, and speed it needs to successfully compete.
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Finance orchestration defined
So what do I mean by finance orchestration? Think of it as a single, intelligent control layer that sits over spend, payables, and close; embeds policy where transactions actually start—not in audits after the fact—and coordinates handoffs automatically while recording everything in the ERP to provide a complete audit trail.
With a financial orchestration mindset–and the tools to pull it off–CFOs move from stewardship over finances to actually steering finances. And, in a hyper competitive business world where decisions can’t wait for month end reports, this isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have so finance becomes value add.
To make sure we were on track, we asked 350 companies what value-outcomes they most associate with the term “financial orchestration.”
No surprise, they came up with “financial control,” and “compliance and audit,” as well as “real-time visibility.” They also tied it to process automation, system integration, cash-flow management, and cost optimization. They saw the payoffs of financial orchestration like we did: fewer errors, higher team productivity, operational scaling, and strategic insights.
In short, orchestration is not another feature. It’s a way to ensure that policy, data, and execution stay connected while work is happening—not after it’s over.
AI-readiness is a new driver
Long-standing forces are now colliding to make finance orchestration top of mind. First, finance and operations continue to get more complex. Yet finance teams need to do more with fewer people. At the same time, economic pressures put a greater than ever focus on working capital. Also, companies are demanding audit-readiness be built in so that its easier to discover why this or that happened.
But the biggest new driver is AI readiness. Finance teams are adopting AI agents–and will continue to do so–to pick up more of the manual tasks that don’t add value. AI agents can successfully chase receipts, flag anomalies and help onboard new suppliers. But they won’t be successful if data is not clean and guardrails, including permissions and policies, are not clear. Orchestration provides a foundation for AI success by providing a governed process where AI agents operate under policy and write back with full context.
Start small
For many companies, moving the finance function from stewardship to orchestration will require some work. The good news is that, to get there, you don’t need to rip-and-replace. Instead, orchestration can coordinate the existing stack and strengthen ERP systems with timefly, validated entries.
As with most transformations, it’ll pay to start small. Connect banks and your ERP. Codify your existing policies. Run pilots on one entity or business unit. You might start with intake-to-pay and card-to-ERP sync. If that goes well, add accounts payable, and procurement intake, then travel.
Preventing cyber security breaches must remain paramount. Orchestration—with centralized policies and workflows with least-privilege access, role-based approvals, and full audit trails—will leave you safer than with spreadsheets, email, and multiple human handoffs.
To shift a finance function from pure spend management into financial orchestration, enterprises will also need to move:
Policy upstream. This will ensure that spending is more compliant from the get go. Instead of catching exceptions after a transaction appears, apply limits, budgets, and other guardrails at the point of spend and at the moment an invoice enters the system.
Work as one flow. All of the steps of spend management—intake-approve-pay-reconcile-close–need to be connected with exceptions routed automatically and with context preserved for audits.
Data once. Documents and metadata need to land once and travel through every step, so the ERP records validated and consistent entries.
Outcomes you can bank on
No finance team–or any executive team–is going to make a change for the sake of making a change. Instead, they need to see how an innovation, such as finance orchestration, will deliver ROI. In this case, I see our clients looking for wins such as:
Operational efficiency. This is a given when work moves with fewer touches. When approvals happen once, data is added once, and exceptions get to the right person the first time, everything becomes more efficient. This means everything moves faster. With fewer touches, and more automation, there’s fewer errors because there’s fewer human handoffs. Teams are more productive and, most importantly, empowered to use their skills on things that add strategic value.
Better financial management. When everything flows through one layer, duplicate vendors and reductant subscriptions get exposed. Controls and cash clarity become part of the daily conversation and data flow. This continuous oversight means faster closes, clearer profit and loss statements and the ability to be deliberate with working capital decisions.
Better insight. When oversight becomes continuous rather than periodic, everyone gets greater insight into what’s actually going on. The evidence–as in what cost the most this week vs. last, etc.,–is more easily discoverable because supporting data is attached to relevant transactions. That’s because compliance and audit evidence are captured as work happens and real-time visibility replaces monthly retrospectives.
No rip-and-replace
With a financial orchestration orientation, the ERP system remains firmly embedded as a system of record. The orchestration piece becomes the system of engagement and control. Make the most of it and you’ll make the most of your finance team, your capital, and your ability to capitalize on market opportunities.
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Konstantin Dzhengozov is a co-founder and CFO of Payhawk — the first Bulgarian unicorn and one of the fastest growing fintech companies with notable investors like Greenoaks, QED, Earlybird and Lightspeed. Founded in 2018, Payhawk is a global company spend management solution offering integrated company cards, bill payments, reimbursement of employees and customizable spend rules and governance.
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