Author: Charitarth Sindhu, Fractional Business & AI Workflow Consultant
Finance teams build reports. They refine dashboards. They track every dollar down to the decimal. Yet across industries, the people closest to the money say the same thing: the finance world keeps solving the wrong problems.
We asked eight industry leaders, from hospitality operators and steel distributors to plumbers, swim school owners, and fintech founders, one simple question: what have you learnt about finance that finance professionals tend to overlook?
Their answers point to a gap that no software update can fix. It sits between the spreadsheet and the shop floor, between the quarterly report and the Tuesday morning cash crisis. And it costs businesses more than most finance teams realise.
The behaviour problem that better tools cannot solve
Research from the U.S. Small Business Administration shows that 82% of small business failures trace back to cash flow mismanagement [https://www.score.org/resource/blog-post/1-reason-small-businesses-fail-and-how-avoid-it]. The instinct is to throw technology at the problem. Build a faster dashboard. Automate the bookkeeping. Add another integration.
However, the operators we spoke with say the real bottleneck is not technology. It is behaviour. Financial tools assume that accurate data leads to good decisions. On the ground, the story looks very different. Managers who do not understand the “why” behind targets will ignore them. Teams who cannot connect daily actions to weekly cash will keep overspending. No amount of reporting accuracy can fix a habit problem.
“In hospitality, I’ve learned that “better” financial tools don’t fix weak financial habits. Finance teams often assume if reporting is accurate and timely, the business will naturally make better decisions, but on the floor the real bottleneck is behavior: inconsistent cost coding, managers who don’t understand the why behind targets, and teams who can’t connect daily actions to weekly cash.
Practically, I’ve found the biggest unlock is translating finance into operational triggers: a simple weekly cash cadence, a few non-negotiable KPIs tied to labor and yield, and clear guardrails for spend approvals. If fintech wants to matter to non-finance operators, it has to reduce decision friction in the moment (e.g., “can we staff this shift?” “can we comp this?” “can we buy this now?”), not just produce nicer dashboards after the fact.”
- Damien Zouaoui, Co-Founder, Oakwell Beer Spa
The pattern holds across industries. In marketing, the same disconnect plays out between what the data says and what the business owner feels confident enough to do with it.
“Running a marketing agency taught me something that most finance professionals never see firsthand: the gap between what the numbers say and what the client feels. I work with small business owners in Canberra who sometimes have strong revenue on paper but are terrified to spend on marketing because their cash position feels fragile. Their P&L looks healthy, yet they cannot commit to a six-month SEO campaign because next month’s payroll is uncertain.
What I have learnt is that most financial reporting looks backwards. It tells you what happened, not what to do next. When I sit with a client and show them that their website generated 47 qualified leads last month, they can make a spending decision on the spot. However, when their accountant sends a quarterly BAS summary, it rarely changes how they operate day to day. The best fintech tools would bridge that gap by connecting marketing spend directly to revenue outcomes in real time. Instead, most of them just produce prettier versions of the same reports that small business owners already ignore.
Finance professionals tend to assume that accurate data leads to good decisions. In my experience, the bottleneck is never the data. It is whether the person reading the report knows what to do with it. If you want a tradie or a salon owner to make better financial decisions, stop giving them spreadsheets and start giving them clear answers to simple questions like “is this working?” and “can I afford to keep going?””
- Callum Gracie, Founder, Otto Media
When the official system fails, shadow spreadsheets take over
Every organisation has two sets of books. The official one lives in the accounting platform. The unofficial one lives in the spreadsheets, sticky notes, and workaround tools that employees build because the official system does not match how work happens. This is not laziness. It is a rational response to systems that were designed for auditors, not for the people entering data at 6am before a shift starts.
Research shows this is not a fringe problem. A study by Productiv found that 42% of the average company’s applications qualify as shadow IT [https://jumpcloud.com/blog/shadow-it]. Meanwhile, a landmark 35-year literature review published in Frontiers of Computer Science found that 94% of business spreadsheets contain faults [https://www.nextprocess.com/uncategorized/why-94-of-financial-spreadsheets-contain-errors-and-what-it-costs-you/]. These are the tools that real businesses rely on when official systems feel too rigid.
The people who see this most clearly are the ones running large software implementations. When a system is built for compliance first and usability second, the people doing the work find their own way around it.
“Finance professionals tend to focus on making sure the final report is accurate, but they often forget about the “friction cost” of collecting data at the operational level. I have run large ERP implementations and I believe the largest threat to the accuracy of finance is not an inaccurate algorithm but a workflow that is too rigid for the people performing the actual work. If a system has been developed solely to ensure compliance with accounting regulations without taking into consideration how that system will impact the operations of the organization, then employees performing the work will revert to maintaining “shadow finance,” i.e., maintaining their own spreadsheets to get their work done.
The result of this disconnect is a tremendous lag between what is happening on the floor and what is reflected in the financial statements. Genuine financial visibility is not achieved through tighter controls but rather by making it easier for an operations manager to record a transaction. If a fintech solution does not solve a real-world problem for the person recording the transaction, it is exceptionally unlikely that the data will be entered correctly or in a timely manner.
It is easy to forget that every data point represents a person trying to achieve 12 conflicting priorities. Therefore, when we build systems that honor their time and limitations, we not only develop better operations but we also provide the financial clarity that decision-makers need to make informed decisions.”
- Girish Songirkar, Delivery Manager, Enterprise Software Engineering, Arionerp
That same friction shows up in industries you might not expect. Running a swim school across four locations means tracking enrolments, cancellations, and rebookings week by week. By the time a quarterly report flags a drop in numbers, three months of potential revenue have already slipped away.
“I have been running a family swim school in Canberra since 2002, and one of the hardest financial lessons came from managing four pool locations with seasonal demand swings. In summer, enrolments spike and cash flow feels comfortable. In winter, numbers drop, but our costs stay the same because heated pools, qualified instructors, and facility maintenance do not take a break.
Finance professionals often look at annual figures and see a profitable business. What they overlook is the weekly rhythm. I learned early on that I need to track enrolments, cancellations, and rebookings on a weekly cycle because by the time a quarterly report flags a problem, we have already lost three months of potential revenue. Our instructors are often the first to notice when families start pausing lessons or switching to fortnightly bookings. That frontline insight is more valuable than any dashboard because it gives us time to respond.
The other thing finance professionals miss is the emotional side of pricing in a service business built on trust. Parents are not comparing us on price alone. They are weighing their child’s safety and comfort. So when costs rise, whether from energy bills, insurance, or compliance requirements, we cannot just pass them straight through to families without risking enrolment drops. Fintech tools that only track margins miss the relationship dynamics that keep a business like ours alive. We need tools that help us forecast based on behaviour patterns, not just transaction history.”
- Alena Sarri, Managing Director, Aquatots Swim School
Profit on paper, panic in the bank account
Ask any small business owner what keeps them up at night and the answer is rarely profitability. It is cash flow. A business can look healthy on every financial metric and still struggle to pay next week’s bills. The gap between when money goes out and when it comes back in is where businesses live or die. Finance professionals tend to view cash flow as a line item. Operators experience it as a daily survival test.
This is especially brutal in industries with long payment cycles and volatile input costs. In construction, the average payment takes 83 days from invoice to receipt [https://cmicglobal.com/resources/article/How-to-Resolve-Cash-Flow-Issues-in-Construction]. In hospitality, net profit margins typically run between 3% and 5% [https://www.pacificabs.com/knowledge-center/blog/why-restaurants-struggle-with-cash-flow-how-to-fix-it-for-good/]. There is simply no room for timing errors.
“One of the biggest things I’ve learned running a small business is that profit on paper doesn’t always equal survival. Cash flow is everything. When your distributors suddenly raise prices, you might see a good profit on paper. But you could still struggle to pay for your next order. Finance professionals often don’t experience this reality directly when using models and spreadsheets.
The other thing I’ve learned is that pricing is never set and forget. In the real world, you need to act quickly when costs change. This could mean adjusting your shipping threshold or updating your inventory pricing overnight. A spreadsheet can show your margins, but it can’t capture how fast things change when you run a business daily.”
In steel distribution, the timing problem is compounded by price volatility. Stock bought at one price might need replacing at a completely different price, and the margin only becomes real when payment clears.
“I have been in steel distribution for over two decades, and the biggest financial lesson the industry has taught me is that your margin means nothing if your timing is wrong. Steel prices move fast, sometimes weekly, and the gap between when we buy stock and when our customers pay can stretch to 60 or 90 days. On paper, a job might show a 15% margin. In practice, if the price of steel drops before we collect payment, that margin evaporates.
Finance professionals tend to think about profitability as a fixed number on a completed transaction. In steel, profitability is a moving target that depends on when you bought, when you sold, when you got paid, and what the replacement cost is when you restock. Most accounting software treats a sale as a sale. It does not factor in the fact that the product we need to replace tomorrow might cost 10% more or less than what we paid last month.
What I wish fintech understood is that businesses like ours need tools built around inventory cycles and supplier payment terms, not just invoicing and bookkeeping. We juggle three branches across South-East NSW, each with different stock levels and demand patterns. The financial picture changes depending on which branch you look at and which week you look at it. A single set of monthly financials cannot capture that complexity. We need real-time visibility into cash position by location, tied to stock movement, not a report that tells us what happened 30 days ago.”
- Darren Tredgold, General Manager, Independent Steel Company
For tradespeople, the cash flow crunch is even more immediate. Materials come out of pocket weeks before the client’s final payment lands. One late payment can cascade across every other job on the books.
“After 15 years as a plumber and now running both a plumbing company and a renovation business in Canberra, the financial reality I live with every day is one that most finance professionals would find uncomfortable. We can finish a $40,000 bathroom renovation, do excellent work, and still be short on cash the following week because the materials came out of our pocket 30 days before the client’s final payment clears.
What finance professionals overlook is the physical cost of money being stuck in transit. When I am waiting on payment from a builder, I am also paying my team, buying materials for the next job, and keeping two trucks on the road. A spreadsheet shows a profitable quarter. My bank account tells a different story on any given Tuesday. The trades run on a cycle where you spend before you earn, and if one payment is late, it creates a domino effect across every other job.
The fintech tools I have seen are mostly designed for people who sit at desks. They are not built for someone covered in dust on a job site who needs to know in ten seconds whether they can approve a materials order. I do not need a dashboard with 15 charts. I need a simple answer: “Can I spend this right now without putting Friday’s payroll at risk?” Until fintech solves that specific moment of decision for tradespeople, it will keep missing the biggest market in the country.”
- Jesse Fowler, Founder, J&J Plumbing Services & J&J Renovations
The people fintech forgot entirely
Most fintech tools assume their users already have a business entity, a tax number, and a bank account set up for commercial use. For millions of skilled workers around the world, that assumption is wrong from the start. The global freelance workforce continues to grow, yet the financial infrastructure designed to support it still caters to corporations first and individuals second.
Cross-border freelancers face a version of the same friction that operators and tradespeople describe, except their problem is not just timing or cash flow. It is access to the financial system itself.
“Before building Remotify, I spent years managing projects with freelancers across multiple countries. That experience taught me something that finance professionals rarely encounter: the sheer friction of moving money across borders when you are not a corporation.
For a freelancer in Turkey billing a client in Germany, the simple act of getting paid can involve currency conversion fees, compliance documentation, VAT mismatches, and bank transfer delays that eat into already tight margins. Finance professionals tend to see cross-border payments as a solved problem because their world has SWIFT codes and corporate banking relationships. For a solo designer or developer without a registered company, the same transaction can take two weeks and cost 8% to 12% in combined fees and losses.
What we learnt building Remotify is that the biggest barrier to financial inclusion for freelancers is not technology. It is paperwork. Over 10,000 freelancers now use our platform, and the number one reason they signed up was not better rates or faster payments. It was the ability to send a VAT-compliant invoice without registering a company. Finance professionals design systems assuming everyone has an ABN, a VAT number, or a business bank account. Millions of skilled workers around the world do not, and that assumption locks them out of the formal economy entirely. Fintech’s biggest missed opportunity is not building better tools for existing businesses. It is building the entry point for people who cannot access the financial system at all.”
- Hasan Can Soygok, Founder, Remotify
The common thread
Eight different industries. Eight different perspectives. Yet the message is remarkably consistent.
Finance professionals build systems for finance professionals. The people who spend the money, earn the revenue, manage the stock, and serve the customers are left to figure things out on their own. They track cash flow by gut feel because the official tools are too slow. Shadow spreadsheets replace the ERP because it is too rigid. Pricing decisions come down to relationships and instinct because the dashboard cannot capture what these operators know.
The opportunity for fintech is not another layer of reporting. It is meeting these people where they are: on the job site, at the pool deck, in the warehouse, at a kitchen table in Istanbul. The question is simple and the same everywhere: “What should I do right now?”
Until fintech answers that question for the people closest to the money, the floor will keep knowing things the spreadsheet never will.