Auckland, New Zealand · Since 2018
XLCFO is an AI-native finance function. Agents run the ledger, the compliance calendar and the reporting pack. Chartered Accountants build the forecast and own every judgement that matters. And when you are ready to raise, acquire or professionalise the board, the same team takes you there.
The problem
You hire a bookkeeper for the past, an accountant for the tax return, and a consultant when you need to raise. Three suppliers, three data sets, three versions of the truth — and none of them are accountable for the decision you actually have to make.
We rebuilt the finance function around one idea: the ledger should be automated, the judgement should be senior, and both should live in the same place.XLCFO operating thesis
Numbers land three weeks after month-end. By then the decision has already been made on instinct, and the report only confirms it.
A profit and loss tells you what happened. It does not tell you how long the cash lasts or what breaks at three times the volume.
The ledger says one thing, the board deck another, and the answer lives in a spreadsheet that one person maintains and nobody has checked.
The first serious diligence process exposes the gap: no consolidated view, no cohort economics, no model anyone can defend.
What we do
Clean books make a credible forecast. A credible forecast makes a fundable company. Funding makes governance non-negotiable. Most clients start at Run and move along the sequence — though you can engage any one of them on its own.
An AI-native ledger with a Chartered Accountant on top. Your books, tax obligations, management reporting and forecast — running as one system, not four spreadsheets.
Where the numbers stop describing the past and start shaping the decision. Three-way forecasting, consolidated group cash, and finance sitting inside the operating conversation rather than reporting on it afterwards.
Getting the capital is the easy part to talk about. Getting the structure right is what determines who owns the company in five years.
Independent directorship and governance architecture for companies that have outgrown a founder-only board — and for those about to invite an investor onto it.
The platform
A supervised network of finance agents sitting on top of your ledger. Each one owns a job. A Chartered Accountant reviews anything material before it reaches you.
Codes transactions, reconciles bank feeds and chases missing source documents against your chart of accounts.
Runs the GST, PAYE, FBT and provisional tax calendar, prepares returns and flags exposure before it becomes a penalty.
Builds the management pack, board pack and investor update — with variance commentary written against your own budget.
Maintains a 13-week cash view and a driver-based three-statement model, re-forecast every time actuals land.
How an engagement runs
We take a full read of the ledger, the entity structure, the tax position and the systems stack. You get a written finance health report: what is broken, what it is costing you, and what we would fix first. It is yours whether or not you engage us.
Deliverable · Finance health reportChart of accounts restructured to the XL Standard so the numbers actually mean something. Connectors wired into your bank, billing, payroll and payments. Historical data cleaned and re-coded. Agents deployed against your specific rules and reviewed line by line before they go live.
Deliverable · Clean, connected ledgerFive-day close. Monthly management pack with commentary. Weekly 13-week cash. Quarterly board pack. Compliance obligations filed on the calendar rather than the deadline. Your team stops chasing numbers and starts arguing about what they mean.
Deliverable · Monthly and board reporting rhythmThe three-way model gets built on top of the clean ledger: driver-based, scenario-capable, reconciling to actuals every month. Thirteen-week cash starts running weekly. This is the point at which you stop reporting history and start managing forward — and the point at which a raise becomes a process rather than a scramble.
Deliverable · Integrated three-way forecastWith a defensible base, capital becomes a process rather than a scramble. Model, data room, diligence, structure, term sheet. And where governance needs to catch up with scale, we can take a board seat or build the governance architecture around the one you have.
Deliverable · Investor-ready companyWhat we commit to
Not aspirations. If we miss them, you can tell us — and the engagement letter says what happens next.
Who we work with
You have raised, or you are about to. You need investor-grade books, a board pack that does not embarrass you, and a runway number you would defend under questioning — without hiring a finance team you cannot yet afford.
New entities, new currencies, new tax authorities. You need consolidation that holds up, transfer pricing that is defensible, and someone who has done an offshore expansion before telling you where the traps are.
Profitable, real, and running on a finance function that has not changed in a decade. You want the compliance handled properly, the reporting to be useful, and an honest view on what the business is worth and how to exit it well.
The XL Brief
One email every second Tuesday: what changed in NZ and Australian tax and reporting, what investors are actually pricing right now, and one practical finance play you can run this fortnight. No filler, no course to buy.
A 30-minute call, then a written finance health report on your actual numbers. No obligation, and the report is yours to keep.