Lara Manton of ACE-XL on Scaling Finance Teams Without Scaling Costs

Most growing businesses solve a finance bottleneck the same way: they hire more people to do things exactly as they have always been done. Lara, founder of ACE-XL, saw that this is an expensive way to grow. After 15 years working inside scaling companies, she knew that highly trained finance teams often understand the technical work but are never taught the software, the workarounds, or how to piece systems together in practice.

That gap led her to build ACE-XL, a consultancy that tweaks, implements and trains finance teams to get more from the people they already have. Her work recently earned her Digital Transformation of the Year at Accounting Excellence. The winning case study began 2.5 years ago with a client processing 150 supplier bills a month across 2 entities. Today they handle 800-900 a month across 6 entities, with turnover doubled and a team three times the size. Suppliers are now paid in an average of 21 days, and approvals can be done on the go.

Her advice for women founders is simple: don't undervalue yourself, and don't compare. We are conditioned to be helpful, which can lead us to discount our own work. Her tool for pushing back is "Yes, but...", whether that means yes, but it will cost x, yes, but it will be done tomorrow, or yes, but to work with me you need to do y.

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Q: What led you to launch ACE-XL alongside LJM Bookkeeping, and what gap were you seeing in how businesses handle their finance processes and systems?

ACE-XL came about because I saw businesses that had highly trained finance staff, but they knew how to do the work technically, but not in practice. I was being brought in to support larger, scaling businesses, because I could do the work quickly and efficiently, because I knew the processes and systems. But that was just a stop gap solution as the business scaled. So I built ACE-XL to help those businesses, by consulting on their systems and processes, tweaking and implementing and training to make it more efficient with the team they've already got. If the way you scale is to hire more finance people doing everything the way it always has been done, then that's an expensive way to grow. In industry you're not taught about the software, the workarounds, how to piece it together - that's the bit I've learnt through 15 years of experience.

Q: As a multiple award-winning bookkeeper and Xero Innovative Partner, can you share an example of how the right automation or process change transformed a client's business?

A great example here is the case study I have just won Digital Transformation of the Year at Accounting Excellence with. They brought me on 2.5 years ago to help process 150 supplier bills a month for 2 entities. Now they process 800-900 a month, across 6 entities, with a turnover that has doubled and a team three times the size. We've tweaked their approval system to give them better visibility and sped it up, streamlined the whole process so that suppliers get paid on an average of 21 days, and given people a tool that allows them to do approvals on the go. Fewer bottlenecks, less time needed to actually do approvals, and a finance team that has more time spent on strategic planning for growth.

Q: What's one piece of advice you'd give other women building a business around a skill they've spent over a decade mastering?

Don't undervalue yourself and don't compare. We're conditioned to be helpful and want to do our best. But sometimes that leads to us discounting the value of our work. 'Yes, but…' can be your best friend here. Whether that's 'yes, but it will cost x' or 'yes, but it will be done tomorrow' or even 'yes, but to work with me you need to do y'.

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