As a CPA who specializes in implementing financial systems for high-growth businesses, I’ve seen my fair share of “we’ll figure it out later” tech setups. But one recent project stood out—not because of the complexity of the software, but because of the simplicity of the initial oversight: finance wasn’t part of the system design conversation.

The result? A sales cycle architected entirely by developers, optimized for speed and customer experience, but completely disconnected from the accounting reality we need to close the books.

Let me walk you through what happened—and how we fixed it.

The Problem: A Disconnected Sales-to-Cash Flow

The company’s entire sales cycle was built inside a custom platform developed by the software team. Every piece of the transaction lived there: quoting, contracting, invoicing, and payment execution.

Here’s where it got tricky:

• Stripe handled payments, but only as a passthrough. No reconciliation workflows. No financial reporting.
• Invoices were generated in the custom platform, not NetSuite or Stripe. Migrating that to another system would disrupt the customer experience. (according to the software engineer)
• No integration with NetSuite, the company’s ERP, meaning the finance team had to manually interpret Stripe data and chase down records to piece together monthly reporting. This took the offshore team days to weeks to complete due to the high volume of acitvity. A one week financial close was nothing but a dream.

This design worked well for product and ops—but it left finance in the dark, struggling with incomplete data and no audit trail.

The Impact: Manual Workarounds, Broken Workflows, and Reporting Risks
From a finance perspective, this setup introduced several risks:

• Revenue Recognition Challenges: Without standardized invoicing and GL coding in NetSuite, we couldn’t automate rev rec.
• No Real-Time Visibility: Key metrics like accounts receivable, cash collected, and deferred revenue were trapped in Stripe and the custom platform.
• Time-Consuming Reconciliation: Stripe payouts didn’t match invoice records 1:1, creating a minefield of manual matching.
• Audit and Compliance Gaps: Without a system of record in the ERP, the audit trail was fragmented—creating potential red flags for future investors.

We needed a solution that respected the customer experience but brought financial visibility and automation back into the fold.

The Solution: Using Metadata to Build a Financial Bridge

Here’s where the magic—and heavy lifting—came in.

We leveraged Celigo to build a Stripe-to-NetSuite integration, but with a twist: Since we couldn’t touch the invoice logic or Stripe payment behavior, we used transaction-level metadata as the source of truth. This wasn't my first choice but the only one that I was able to work with.

Here’s how we made it work:

• Mapped metadata fields (like customer ID, invoice number, plan type) from the custom platform to Stripe.
• Extracted Stripe events via Celigo flows and validated them against expected transaction patterns.
• Pushed enriched transaction data into NetSuite with proper GL coding, customer matching, and invoice linking—creating journal entries that mirrored the business logic without duplicating the invoice or disrupting the UX.
• Built custom dashboards in NetSuite for revenue and collection forecasting, powered by near real-time data.

This wasn't just about connecting systems. It was about restoring integrity to the financial data while working within the operational constraints of a product-led team.

Lessons in Implementation Leadership

Integrating systems is one thing. Leading change in environments where finance wasn’t part of the original conversation is another.

Here’s what I learned (again):

• Finance must be at the table early. Systems built in silos become liabilities.
• Collaboration is key. We worked closely with product, ops, and engineering—not to fight the architecture, but to find a path that respected it while enhancing data accuracy.
• Metadata is underrated. In modern finance stacks, it’s the hidden gold that can make or break system integrations.

Results

• Reduced monthly reconciliation hours by 75%
• Reduce monthly offshore spend by 60%
• Achieved real-time visibility of revenue and receivables in NetSuite
• Improved audit readiness with centralized, traceable journal entries
• Zero disruption to customer invoicing or payment experience

Are You in a Similar Spot?
If your business is running payments and sales through platforms that finance can’t access—or you’re constantly pulling manual reports from Stripe just to close the books—it’s time for a better solution.

Let’s talk.

👉 Send me a message Contact Stefanie. I’m always happy to chat with founders, CFOs, and operators who are trying to make finance work in product-led environments.