Finance leaders on how their teams use AI
The Agent CFO is where CFOs and finance leaders keep up with AI in finance: software compared side by side, news on the tools, the questions to put to a vendor, and what other finance teams have learned.
Start with your job
Three places to begin, by the seat you sit in.
- CFO
Where the money goes, what to build and what to buy.
- Controller
Payables, receivables and the close, with the controls around them.
- FP&A lead
Planning tools, the forecast and the data underneath.
Buyer guides
Each guide compares the tools for one finance job: price where it is public, the AI features, what it connects to, recent news and the catch.
Best AI agents for accounting and finance
Which finance AI agent fits: Basis for close and tax, Auditoria.AI for AP and AR, or agents built into your ERP.
Best AI tools for month-end close
Compare Numeric, Nominal and Rillet on flux drafts, auto-reconciliation and close checklists run by agents.
Top 6 tools for accounts payable automation
From the vendor invoice in the inbox to the payment: who publishes prices and which accounting systems each tool syncs with.
Top 6 AI tools for FP&A teams
Planning tools from Anaplan at the enterprise end to Cube and Datarails for teams that stay in Excel or Google Sheets.
Best AI solutions for NetSuite
Compare NetSuite's own Ask Oracle with add-ons like Zone & Co, Stampli and FloQast.
Best reconciliation automation software
Compare BlackLine, Trintech and Duco on high-volume matching, exception handling and AI agents.
Top 6 AI assistants for finance teams
ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity compared on price, data controls and spreadsheet work.
Top 6 ERP systems for mid-market companies
Cloud ERPs for companies that have outgrown entry-level accounting, from NetSuite and Sage Intacct to Odoo.
Finance software news
The newest releases, deals and changes from the vendors in the guides, with the date of each.
- 14 Oct 2026
Optro AI Governance
Introduced GRC Intelligence and expanded AI governance features at its CRX '26 conference.
In the AI governance guide - 13 Oct 2026
Yooz
Named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape for AI-enabled AP automation software for the midmarket (September 2026 report).
In the SAP Business One AI guide - 13 Oct 2026
Workday Financial Management agents
Made its Trusted Agent Platform headless: Agent-Ready Tools (MCP), Workday Data Cloud, Developer Agent and Custom Agents became generally available.
In the AI agents for finance guide - 8 Oct 2026
Zone & Co
Introduced Zone AgentHQ, its first agents that take approved write actions directly in NetSuite.
In the AI for NetSuite guide - 6 Oct 2026
Vena
Launched the Analytics Agent in open beta and expanded Vena MCP for tools such as Claude Cowork and ChatGPT Work.
In the Dynamics 365 AI guide - 6 Oct 2026
Auditoria.AI
Expanded its Autonomous Cash Cycle offering for Workday Financial Management customers, added Agent Policies and extended SmartResearch into AP and AR actions, ahead of Workday Rising 2026.
In the AI agents for finance guide
What it costs, where vendors say
About half of the tools in the guides publish a price. The rest sell by quote, and each guide says which.
| Tool | Published price | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central | $80 (Essentials) or $110 (Premium) per user a month, annual | Mid-market ERP |
| BILL Accounts Payable | $49 to $89 per user a month, plus payment fees; Enterprise by quote | AP automation |
| Ramp Bill Pay | Free plan; Plus $15 per user a month plus a platform fee | AP automation |
| Jirav | $10,000 a year (Starter), $15,000 (Pro) | Budgeting and forecasting |
| Microsoft 365 Copilot | $30 per user a month (annual) | AI assistants |
| Microsoft Power BI | Pro $14, Premium Per User $24 per user a month (annual) | Data warehouse tools |
| IBM Process Mining | From $4,250 a month (SaaS) or $2,885 (on premises) | Process mining |
| MarginEdge | $350 per location a month | Restaurant and hospitality accounting |
Ask this before you sign
Each guide ends with questions to put to the vendor. Here are six of them.
Which AI agents come with the per-user price, and which run on credits or a separate subscription?
From the Mid-market ERP guideWhich of the agents you just showed are generally available today, and which are in preview or marked coming soon?
From the AI tools for FP&A guideWhat are the per-invoice and per-payment fees on top of the subscription?
From the AP automation guideWhat will year one cost at our invoice volume, in writing?
From the AR and collections guideDoes this cost figure come from the provider invoice or from token counts and public prices?
From the AI and token spend guideHow will the bill change as our row counts and query volume grow?
From the Data warehouse tools guide
What finance teams have learned
Lessons from finance leaders who have put AI to work, written up with the reasoning behind each one.
Deterministic work should not burn tokens
Pulling a report and transforming the data is if-this-then-that work, so SeatGeek gives it to RPA or middleware and saves AI for work nobody had time for.
Teddy CollinsEVP of Finance, SeatGeek
Building your own ERP carries an opportunity cost
Craig Sullivan's test is what those cycles, AI or human, would produce if spent on running the business instead.
Craig SullivanGroup VP of Product Management, NetSuite
Ledger data is too noisy for machine learning forecasts
Accruals, adjustments and timing bury the pattern in ledger data, so forecasting models need operational data.
Paul BarnhurstThe FP&A Guy
CFOs overestimate AI on numbers and underestimate it elsewhere
Complex models with refreshing data do not come back the way a CFO needs, while the time savings show up in meetings and follow-up email.
Chris OrtegaFractional CFO and CEO, Fresh FP&A
Annual budgets go stale by February
After all the December work the budget is off by February, so Jason Yocum would keep a live monthly forecast.
Jason YocumFractional CFO; previously CFO, Vivino
Point-in-time close work should become continuous
Caitlin Haberberger wants the monthly close and the annual budget to become rolling, instead of a few days when everyone is swamped.
Caitlin HaberbergerCFO, Verdant, and investor
What finance leaders keep coming back to
The same questions come up in conversation after conversation. Here is where each one is discussed.
Build, buy or leave it alone
SeatGeek's finance team builds some tools and buys others. NetSuite's Craig Sullivan asks what building your own software costs in time that could go into running the business.
Keep the math deterministic
Paul Barnhurst says number work needs a deterministic solution. Teddy Collins keeps repeatable data work out of AI, so his team is not burning tokens on it.
Why transformation projects fail
Vin Messina, Ilana Esterrich and Jason Yocum each explain why most finance transformations fail and what to do differently.
Episode 5: Vin Messina and Ilana EsterrichEpisode 2: Jason Yocum
Budgets and the annual cycle
Caitlin Haberberger on budgeting red flags. Jason Yocum on the death of budgeting.
The junior analyst
Teddy Collins on the future of the junior analyst.
Finance on the floor
Samantha Singer-Guindi on leaving the desk to work next to operations, and why every line of a hospitality P&L moves together.
In their words
“It's a large language model. It's not a large math model.”
Paul BarnhurstThe FP&A GuyWatch the interview“With food waste, you are literally taking your margins and throwing them in the garbage.”
Samantha Singer-GuindiFinance leader in hospitalityWatch the interview“You don't have a technology problem, you have a story problem.”
Vin MessinaCo-author of a forthcoming book on finance transformationWatch the interviewInterviews with finance leaders
Conversations with finance leaders from SeatGeek, NetSuite, Vivino, Verdant and many more.
To AI or Not? Token Costs and Build vs Buy
Teddy CollinsEVP of Finance, SeatGeek
How SeatGeek decides what finance builds, what it buys and what it keeps away from AI. Teddy's team runs scripts on a finance data warehouse to generate accruals and revenue entries, and tracks token spend by model and by person.
Notes and chapters-
25 minEpisode 9: ERP: Buy vs Build?
Craig SullivanGroup VP of Product Management, NetSuite
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25 min
Episode 8: You Can't Cut Your Way to Better Margins
Samantha Singer-GuindiCFO, controller and director of finance in hospitality
-
27 min
Episode 7: The Missing Pillar in FP&A
Paul BarnhurstThe FP&A Guy
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42 minEpisode 6: Vibe Finance, AI Risk and Why CFOs Are Overestimating AI
Chris OrtegaFractional CFO and CEO, Fresh FP&A
Be a guest
Guests so far include CFOs, VPs of finance, an ERP product leader and FP&A advisers. If you run a finance team and have put AI to work, or chosen not to, pitch a conversation.
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