Financial systems that produce numbers you can trust.
Selection, implementation, and guidance for the systems behind your numbers: accounting and ERP, close and reconciliation tools, billing and revenue, planning, reporting, and the integrations between them. Megan VanWinkle, CPA, MBA, manages financial systems at Disney as her day job and has spent years in finance and accounting before that. Vendor-neutral, no referral fees.
Six systems, one set of numbers
Most finance teams have all six. The problem is the spreadsheets and the exports in between, and the one person who knows how they fit.
Accounting and ERP
Whether to stay on the starter system or move. Selection, chart of accounts design, multi-entity, and the migration done after a clean close.
Close and reconciliation
A close calendar, task ownership, reconciliations that aren't spreadsheets, and the controls an auditor will ask about.
Billing and revenue
Invoicing, subscriptions, revenue recognition, and deferred revenue, connected to the product and the ledger instead of re-keyed between them.
Planning and forecasting
A model that ties to actuals and a planning tool that fits your size. A spreadsheet is fine until it isn't.
Reporting and dashboards
Management reports and board metrics produced by the system, on a schedule, with the same definitions every month.
Integrations and data
Payroll, expense, banking, CRM, product usage, and the data warehouse. The handoffs between finance and engineering, owned instead of assumed.
Assess, select, implement, hand off
Every engagement opens with an assessment and a written plan you keep, whether or not we do the implementation.
Assessment
How the numbers are produced today: systems, exports, spreadsheets, owners, and the failure points. A scope, a timeline, and a recommendation.
Choose the system
Requirements, a shortlist, demos scripted around your real transactions, references, and contract review. No reseller in the room.
Build and migrate
Chart of accounts, configuration, integrations, data migration, parallel close, and training. Cutover tied to your close calendar.
Hand off and support
Documentation, the close runbook, and a team that can run the system without us. Ongoing guidance on a fractional cadence if you want it.
The systems problem is usually a handoff problem
- Billing lives in the product. Usage, plans, and invoices start in engineering's systems and end in the ledger. Someone has to own the whole path.
- Revenue data has two owners. Finance needs it recognized correctly. Product needs it in the warehouse. The same pipeline can do both if someone designs it that way.
- Integrations break quietly. A sync that stops on a Tuesday shows up as a close problem in three weeks. Monitoring and ownership prevent that.
- One practice, both sides. Megan owns the finance side and Justin the technology side, so the integration work doesn't fall between two vendors.
Megan VanWinkle, CPA, MBA
Financial systems is Megan's day job, not a side skill. She manages financial systems at Disney after years in finance and accounting there, which means she has lived with the systems after go-live, not just configured them and left.
Meet Megan →Financial systems questions
What counts as financial systems?
The accounting system or ERP, the close and reconciliation tools, billing and revenue recognition, payroll and expense, planning and forecasting, reporting and dashboards, and the integrations and spreadsheets that connect them. If a number leadership relies on passes through it, it counts.
When should we move off our starter accounting system?
When the close depends on exports and spreadsheets, when you need multi-entity or multi-currency, when revenue recognition is manual, when an audit or an investor needs reporting the system can't produce, or when one person is the only one who knows how the numbers come together. The assessment tells you whether now is the time.
Do you recommend a specific ERP or accounting platform?
Only after the assessment. Selection is vendor-neutral and based on your size, your stack, your revenue model, and who will run the system after the engagement. We don't resell software and we take no referral fees.
Do you do the implementation or just advise?
Both. Megan can lead the implementation end to end, manage a vendor's implementation team on your behalf, or advise your team while they do the work. Which one fits depends on your team and your timeline.
How long does a financial systems implementation take?
It depends on the system and the scope. The assessment produces a scope, a timeline, and a cutover plan tied to your close calendar, so you go live after a clean close and not in the middle of one.
How does this connect to the technology side?
Billing, revenue data, product usage, and the data warehouse are where finance and engineering meet. Justin VanWinkle leads the technology side of the practice, so the integration work doesn't fall into the gap between the finance team and the engineering team.
What does financial systems work cost?
The assessment is scoped and priced after a call. Implementation and guidance run as a scoped project or a monthly retainer, settled in the first conversations and written into the agreement. Software licensing is a separate cost you contract directly.
Numbers held together by a spreadsheet?
A free 30-minute call. You'll leave with a read on whether the system or the process is the problem.