New research from Zuora highlights a growing disconnect between what recurring revenue businesses need from their finance teams and what current systems can actually deliver. Despite rising expectations for finance leaders to guide pricing strategy and growth, the report finds that many teams are still overwhelmed by manual work, fragmented responsibilities, and outdated financial systems that can’t keep pace with business demands.

The report, The Modern Finance Leader: How Technology Gaps Are Limiting Strategic Impact, draws on a survey of over 900 senior finance leaders across subscription businesses in North America and Europe. While the study is focused on software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies—where billing complexity and hybrid pricing models often emerge first—the findings reflect common challenges facing a wide range of recurring revenue models, including digital media, consumer memberships, B2B services, and e-commerce subscriptions.

Strategic Finance Is the Goal—but the Foundation Is Cracking

Across industries, 89% of finance leaders say they are expected to play a more strategic role in their organizations, contributing to product innovation, monetization strategies, and long-term planning. But 70% report that their current tech stack is limiting their ability to fulfill those expectations.

In recurring revenue businesses, where customer retention, mid-cycle plan changes, and pricing agility are essential to long-term value, this gap between expectation and reality can slow growth and innovation.

Zuora’s research shows that:

• 79% of finance teams are overwhelmed by manual work like reconciliation and reporting

• 88% say reconciliation specifically blocks time for strategic work

• 74% report their current systems cannot support the complex pricing structures required to stay competitive

• 95% say usage-based or variable pricing makes revenue forecasting significantly more difficult

These challenges are not limited to software companies. Media publishers, direct-to-consumer subscription box providers, financial services firms, and streaming platforms are all experimenting with increasingly sophisticated pricing and billing models, and many are running into the same operational constraints.

AI: Prioritized but Underperforming

Artificial intelligence is clearly on the radar. Nearly all finance leaders (93%) say AI capabilities are central to their technology investments, and 61% say AI fluency is important when hiring new finance staff. However, Zuora’s data reveals an AI paradox: even as teams invest in AI tools, most have not automated foundational workflows.

Manual reconciliation, siloed data, and outdated approval processes are still the norm, particularly in companies managing high volumes of recurring transactions. As a result, many finance teams struggle to free up time or generate the clean data required to power more advanced AI-based forecasting or analytics.

Ownership Gaps in Core Systems Are a Hidden Risk

One of the most significant structural findings in the report is the lack of clear ownership over the order-to-cash (O2C) process. These workflows include billing, invoicing, collections, and revenue recognition—functions critical to recurring revenue models.

According to the report:

• 82% say fragmented ownership of O2C causes delays and operational risk

• In many companies, these core systems are still managed by IT, limiting finance’s ability to act quickly

• Only 56% have a dedicated finance systems team within the finance department

For subscription businesses, this often translates into sluggish rollouts for new pricing or promotional strategies, limited control over billing flexibility, and friction when trying to update revenue recognition processes.

Scaling Subscription Models Requires Better Tools and Processes

Recurring revenue models succeed when businesses can experiment, adjust, and respond quickly to customer behavior. But without the right finance systems, even small changes—like adding a usage-based add-on or testing new billing cycles—can trigger months of back-end operational complexity.

Zuora describes this as a “scaling bottleneck.” Even as pricing strategies become more flexible, most finance teams still lack the automation and agility required to support that complexity. These constraints aren’t just technical—they limit the organization’s ability to test, iterate, and learn in real time.

INSIDER TAKE

While Zuora’s report focuses on SaaS, its insights should resonate across the subscription economy. Whether you run a streaming service, a membership platform, or a B2B subscription product, your finance team is likely facing similar headwinds: too much manual work, too many system silos, and not enough control over the billing and revenue processes that drive your business.

For companies that rely on recurring revenue, this is more than an efficiency problem—it’s a growth limiter. Pricing innovation, retention experiments, and product bundling all require back-end systems that are fast, reliable, and owned by teams that understand the financial impact.

To stay competitive, executives should:

• Realign ownership of finance systems under finance leadership, not IT

• Automate reconciliation and order-to-cash processes to remove manual blockers

• Test their pricing infrastructure for agility, scalability, and real-time adaptability

• Treat AI as a downstream benefit, not a starting point—without clean data and streamlined workflows, it won’t deliver value

Ultimately, recurring revenue businesses can’t afford to let their finance stack be a bottleneck. This report is a call to action: to modernize not just systems, but the way finance teams operate, collaborate, and lead.