Scaling the finance function: the big switch from execution to strategy

The €1 million wall: when Finance becomes a brake on growth

Your revenue takes off, your CFO overheats

Your Tech SME, ESN, or SaaS platform has broken past the €1 million Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) mark. Congratulations! The indicators are green, hiring is accelerating, and investors (or bankers) are knocking on the door.

Yet, this explosive growth reveals a critical flaw: your Finance Department is hitting a wall. The CFO, often flying solo, is buried under administrative tasks (receipts, chasing payments, late closings) and spreadsheets that multiply faster than your customer base.

You no longer have a CFO. You have a "Firefighting CFO," extinguishing crises instead of charting the path toward international expansion or the next funding round. The challenge is no longer about managing, but about scaling the finance function.

At Blendy, we call this the Big Switch: moving from a reactive, executive function to strategic, "Augmented Financial Steering."

The unmistakable symptoms of the "Firefighting CFO"

The right time to scale is not dictated by a single rule, but by clear warning signs. If you recognize your company in the following situations, urgent action is needed:

The Reporting Shadow Play

Your visibility on cash flow is monthly, or even quarterly. Instead of having a real-time dashboard of key metrics (MRR, Churn Rate, LTV/CAC for SaaS), you spend two weeks a month collecting data, frustrated by missing expense reports and data entry errors.

Investors hate surprises, and a CFO who doubts their own numbers is a major one.

The Urgent Need for International Structuring

Launching an entity in Germany, Canada or the U.S. immediately complicates finance. Managing currencies, local taxes (VAT/Sales Tax), payroll, and regulatory specifics can no longer be handled by a single generalist profile.

International expansion requires country-specific experts and a headquarters structure capable of oversight.

The "Going It Alone" Syndrome

Starting around 80-100 employees, a solo CFO becomes a bottleneck. They pile up finance, legal, and sometimes HR responsibilities. This is a disproportionate risk strategy.

Time spent on operational tasks prevents the essential strategic perspective needed for tax optimization, M&A, and business planning.

The Big Switch: The Three Pillars of Augmented Financial Steering

Scaling a Finance Department in the Tech industry or in a scale-up means adopting an architecture based on three pillars: Intelligence, Automation, and Strategy.

Pilar 1: Fractional Intelligence – End of the Skills Compromise

The classic mistake of growing SMEs is hiring a single full-time CFO expected to be a SaaS modeling expert, an international lawyer, and a risk manager all at once. This profile is non-existent, or prohibitively expensive.

Modern scaling relies on Fractional Intelligence:

• The Fractional CFO: Rather than immediately recruiting a Senior CFO full-time whom you cannot yet keep 100% occupied with strategic tasks, call upon an expert for 2 or 3 days a week. They bring high-level skills (Due Diligence preparation, WCR optimization, process structuring) and lay the foundation for the future department.

  
  

• On-Demand Specialists: The real luxury for a growth company is not the full-time employee, but instant access to specialists. R&D tax credit, acquisition audit, complex international social legislation... These strategic functions must be outsourced to firms capable of supporting you fluidly and scalably (like Blendy) before any internal hiring.

The Advantage: You gain access to an expertise level usually reserved for large enterprises, without the structural costs, while minimizing recruitment risk (which, in finance, can be devastating).

Pilar 2: The Integrated Platform – Hyper-Automation for Real-Time Data

Spreadsheets can no longer be the backbone of your finance function. For a DAF/Finance function to be scalable, it must guarantee data reliability and process velocity.

The "Modern Finance Stack" for a Tech SME is built around interconnected SaaS solutions:

Function	Tool (exemples)	Key Scaling advantages
Accounting / ERP	Pennylane, Sage, Netsuite, QuickBooks	Natively connected to banking, payment tools and additional business apps for a J+5 closing (not M+1).
FP&A / Budgeting	Finthesis, Fathom	Replacing Excel with a dynamic, collaborative budgeting and planning tool, enabling rapid simulations (SaaS or e-commerce model).
Expense Management	Spendesk, Expensify, Dext	Eliminating manual entry, digitalizing receipts, and enabling real-time expense validation by operational teams.
HR / Admin	Silae (SIRH), Wagepoint, Docusign	Automating payroll, time-off, and signatures to free up the CFO's time.

The goal is not to multiply software, but to centralize information to make it easily accessible to everyone. The CFO stops producing numbers and starts analyzing trends.

Pilar 3: The Data-Driven Culture – The CFO as the CEO's Partner

If the first two pillars optimize resources and automate execution, the third defines the new role of the CFO: that of a Strategic Architect.

During the scaling phase, the CFO must absolutely:

• Become the Risk Manager: Implement rigorous internal control from the start. Manage risks related to hyper-growth, international margins, and reliance on non-dilutive financing (e.g., R&D grants).

  
  

• Focus on 5 to 7 actionable KPIs: Forget complex indicator overload. To steer the company, the CFO must translate financial complexity into a small number of simple metrics understood by Marketing, Sales, and Product (e.g., CAC Payback, Cash Runway). It is the CFO's role to challenge the CEO and operational teams on future profitability, not just the past.

  
  

• Maintain the Human connection: This is the most delicate consequence of scaling: the CFO becomes a manager of managers. They must dedicate time to their nascent team, ensuring skill development and cohesion around a common mission.

Blendy and the €5 million horizon: concretizing the Roadmap

A scalable Finance Function is built brick by brick, starting with the foundation.

The Ideal Internal Hiring Sequence

Your hiring plan must be progressive and rigorous:

1. The Accountant (Technical Expert): The first urgency is often to internalize mastery of the General Ledger and secure accounting production. This profile must be technically impeccable and highly rigorous.

   
   

2. The Financial Controller (The Bridge): Once production is secure, the Financial Controller becomes the centerpiece. They are the link between the CFO (Strategist) and the operational teams (Marketing, Sales, R&D). They manage the budget, build reports, and feed the FP&A tools.

   
   

3. The Treasurer / The Legal Specialist: These hires occur when international transactions, recurring fundraising, or legal disputes become a risk factor or a workload too heavy for the CFO.

The Role of the CPA in Your Scaling Journey

At Blendy, international CPA based in Paris, Montreal and Miami, our mission is to be the partner that makes this "Big Switch" seamless for your SME/Scale-up.

We often intervene upstream of a full-time CFO hire:

• Pre-Structuring: We help you select and implement the best "Modern Finance Stack" for your business model (SaaS, E-commerce, Services) to ensure data integration and compliance from the outset.

  
  

• Fractional Steering: We provide Senior DAF/CFO expertise, often more experienced in international challenges and funding rounds (Series A/B), to structure the team and processes before handing over to an internal CFO.

  
  

• Tax and Financial Optimization: We secure international setups (subsidiaries, transfer pricing) and innovation aid schemes (R&D tax credits) which are essential growth levers for digital companies.

Scaling is not just about adding people and tools. It's about transforming the mindset of your finance function into a predictive and agile growth engine.

For your Tech SME targeting €10M and beyond, this Big Switch is the only path to sustainability.

Are you ready to assess the maturity of your Finance Function and define your scaling roadmap? Contact the Blendy experts today.

CONTACT US!

With Blendy, an international digital CPA based in Paris, Montreal and Miami,, take advantage of all the benefits of digital accounting to accelerate your financial processes and grow your business.

Certified by Pennylane, Dext, QuickBooks and Stripe, we support digital, eCommerce, IT services, and SaaS companies in France and internationally.