The 2026 Controller’s Report: Inside the cost control strategies shaping finance next year

Finance leaders face mounting pressure to cut costs, and Controllers carry much of the execution work. To better understand how teams are adapting, we asked 100 Controllers how they’re responding to shifting demands and priorities. The results?

• 53% regret at least one cost cut they made last year
• 93% are still making cost decisions without a structured framework
• And AI? It’s happening, but not in the ways most executives expect

Join Saut Sinaga (VP Corporate Controller) for an exclusive executive session on the findings from The 2026 Controller’s Report: Cost control strategies for the year ahead.

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Transcript

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Michelle Voznyuk: Hi, everyone, and welcome. Thanks for taking the time to join us.

Today's session is all about the 2026 Controllers Report. While we wait, feel free to introduce yourself in the q and a and let us know where you're joining from.

We'll just give people a couple minutes to hop on. Alright.

As people are filtering in, just wanted to start off with a few house keeping items. For the today's session, we have disabled the chat just to keep focus on the presentation.

However, we do encourage you to use the Q & A feature throughout the webinar to submit your questions. We have some moderators that are standing by to answer those, and then we've also left some time at the end of today's session for Q & A.

Just a reminder, this session will be recorded. We'll send out a copy of the deck that is shared today as well as a link to the full report.

But if you want to download the report, there's a button above your screen. You can click that and it will open it up in a new window for you.

Here's a quick look at our agenda for today. We'll start off with an intro into who Zone & Co is in case you're new, followed by a quick outline of the twenty twenty six controllers report, including how we surveyed a 100 controllers to uncover the best biggest cost control challenges and priorities.

Then we'll take a look at the state of cost control today, lessons from that's gone wrong, and the role of AI and cost strategy. And then lastly, we'll wrap up with our session, with Q & A.

So for those who are new to Zone, we're not just another software company. We build native NetSuite apps that solve the most painful finance and accounting problems.

Over 4,000 companies trust us globally to help them with everything from billing and payroll to AP approvals and reconciliations. Our products work seamlessly within NetSuite, which means you'll get automation without having to manage another disconnected tool.

And if you have any questions about our solutions, you can see the full suite of solutions here. Please don't hesitate to reach out, and we'll make sure that you get connected with someone from our team.

So setting the stage, the controller's report digs into what's really on the minds of finance leaders heading into 2026. So to lead the conversation, I'm excited to introduce today's host, Saut Sinaga, VP Corporate Controller here at Zone & Co.

Saut brings years of experience leading accounting and finance teams at high growth companies. At Zone & Co, he's focused on modernizing finance operations, helping teams move beyond manual processes to more strategic automated ones.

And with his hands on experience and real world perspective, there's no one better to unpack what's really happening in finance today. So with that, I will pass it over to Saut.

Feel free to take it away.

Saut Sinaga: Alright. Thanks, thanks, Michelle.

Thanks for the introduction there, and thanks for, joining us today, guys. I think it's important to understand, why we did this research.

Right? Why we did this this survey. And just like many businesses out there and, some of you may be experiencing this or may have experienced this in the past that being part of a growing company comes with some growing pains.

That's just natural. Right? And when a leadership pushes for cost control, it often feels like a very reactive move that requires us as a controller, as the accounting team, to navigate around some of the obstacles to, to control some of the downward pressure.

Right? But then, you know, we also need to understand what's working. What's the downstream impact, not just to your team's bandwidth, but then the strain that it puts to your existing workflow and establish tech stack.

Right? This then gives the opportunity to, for your team to to pause, recalibrate, and do any necessary course corrections. And just because we're experiencing all of these pressures, we know for a fact that business doesn't stop.

Right? The sales gonna keep selling, renewal team will keep renewing customers. The demand does not stop.

The the accounting team must work smarter. They need to be able to trust the data, Right? So they can make a more confident and also informed decision as we head into 2026.

So as Michelle mentioned earlier, we we we surveyed about a 100 controllers, from all over the world, from North America, from APAC, EMEA. And these controllers have, you know, came from many different backgrounds and also industries.

The the top three findings that that I have seen here coming out of the survey is that many controllers did regret at least one cost cut that was made last year, mostly around people and automation. Yeah.

Secondly, controllers are a bit possessive. I know I'm a bit possessive when it comes to, prioritizing the integrity of my ERP system.

Right? I need to be able to prioritize my ERP system, my team, to maintain the automation and process optimization because we know that maintaining financial integrity is very crucial. We have external obligations that we have to meet.

We have to report to the board. We have to meet the audit requirements, the story audit requirements, what have you.

Right? And and lastly, many teams have, restructured at least one major workflow last year and this year. Whether that's their close process, they're trying to be faster to close the books at the end of every month, optimizing the accounts payable process or even automating the, the billing process.

So to summarize it all, I listened for for some of the keywords here. The two keywords are human capital management and process optimization, whether that's through automation or building a more streamlined process is the ongoing theme here.

And as we all know, and you may have experienced this in the past as well. So all of these cuts, if they're not being done diligently, intentionally, and smartly, it will lead to a long term inefficiencies.

And the downstream impact is is is pretty great, and that's when the finger pointing starts to happen. Look, the reality here is that, most accounting teams tend to be one of the leanest teams in in any organizations already.

Right? Every day, I challenge my team to keep finding ways to optimize our processes, keep optimizing ways of doing things, without compromising the integrity or the quality of the output. Basically, be 1% better every day.

Right? Be 1% better every day, but at the end of the year, you're at least three times better than at the beginning of the year. You know, I I I asked himself to move away from just being a processor, be more of a thinker, be more of a strategic partner for the business, and also find ways to build a more repeatable process that can be leveraged to to handle future growth.

Now, to give you all an example here, on the on the revenue accounting side, we can think of it as how would you how would you build your process within the ERP or, we can take one step further, to the CRM level when a sales rep sends sends in a deal for review and approval? How would you enable your team, your accounting team, to review those deals just once? Right? Set it and forget it. And set everything else on autopilot, meaning that revenue will be recognized accordingly every single month.

Invoices go up when they're supposed to, and the collections team know when to pick up the invoice and, all of the dunnings are set on autofire based on maybe on the type of the invoice, amount of the invoice, subsidiary, what have you. Basically, there there needs to be some intentionality to it.

I I know this requires some work within your order to cash process workflow from the architecture side or maybe systems customization side. But once you have it configured, once you've made that investment to configure your order to cash process, it removes some of the manual work by your team.

Right? So that lessens the exposure when there's a cost cut. And then on the procurement side, be kind to your future selves.

That's what I like to tell my team and myself. How do you leverage the partnership that that you currently have today with with your legal team, FP&A, or even security team before before the business leader decides to buy something.

Set up a sustainable term. So in the event of upgrades, renewals, you know, changing seats, changing package, or changing subscriptions, whatever you're buying, right, the process is gonna be a lot smoother.

It could it consumes less time to negotiate and to review the the the the order form itself. Basically, review it once, be that as the guiding principle for future partnership.

So that way, expect the the expected. Right? Well, control what you can control.

That's what I'd like to say so you know how much the renewal price cap is going to be, we know what is the cancellation clause and what whatnot. Basically, control what you can control.

And one of my primary business partners here, at Zone & Co and my previous roles has has has has been the rev ops team. There's another great example.

I view them as the quarterback to ensure deals are getting booked properly in the CRM. This this is us as a controller and accounting team taking a step further here.

How how do we leverage the rev ops team to make sure that there's a good sense of data integrity? Because at the end of the day, we need to leverage their set of expertise and influence the design process of the quoting and booking process, so this will eventually yield to cleaner data. Those data will for sure go through your ERP so you can recognize the revenue and also invoice out customers.

Right? And in my experience, I have personally leveraged Salesforce as our CRM. We build control within the Salesforce for, as an example, discount allowance, billing frequency, and building some kind of approval cadence where, you know, if if something is out of the ordinary goes to the VP of Sales or CRO or even the controller or CFO for extra discounting.

Define that playbook. Right? Define that playbook from accounting perspective and leverage the system to support that playbook.

Make that as part of the workflow in order to maximize a collaborative environment to achieve your goals. Right? Only then your team will be viewed as a strategic partner instead of just back of the office function.

Got it. And speaking of just, you know, taking a step further here, more than just being a back of the office function, we're seeing that, I'm seeing that more and more, controllers are shifting their role from a compliance focused role to a strategy focused role.

What I mean with this is that, we're we're being asked to deliver real time insights into spend, as an example, and company performance. This is being done in order to drive efficiency without sacrificing control.

Right? As an example, how do you partner with the sales team to structure deals so we can book it and recognize revenue and collect on a payment? Right? To be strategic on this, you need to understand the process upstream. That's why I talked about the CRM earlier even though it's not really within our control.

You know, you need to understand the process upstream, so you're confident with the data that you are, you are reporting. You know, this is one of the examples why partnering with RevOps is important to me and my team.

So you can paint a really good story by trusting the data. Okay.

We need to make the news, not only report on the news, and we can only, make the news with good data. And from revenue accounting side, we're relying on the data that's coming upstream, which is CRM.

Now signals are very important. Getting signals are really important.

You are, in the controllership, seat, You're in the accounting leadership seat or you're in the accounting team. Right? Accounting group.

You you are one of the closest people or group to the financial information. You already have the in on it.

Right? You already know what's going on within your, balance sheet, P&L. And, you know, I typically like to have a constant alignment with, my CFO and FP & A partners.

Look for the signals when you're, having that conversation with them. Right? From from this conversation and ongoing alignment, you can you can typically get a sense on what they're thinking.

Right? That's why I call signals. Therefore, interestingly enough, when I saw the survey, I could not agree more when the survey shows that, most controllers do resolve with their CFO with the influence of FP&A and a few other business leaders on cost decision.

Okay. And one of the biggest lessons that I've learned in my career from cuts gone wrong, not just from the controllership role that I have for, today, but from, you know, my previous accounting leadership role as well in general, is that most of the time, you can't control the macroeconomic situation.

When that time comes, if you have made the investment ahead of time and you're not caught off guard and already have alternative plan in place, that will put you one step ahead of your competitor. Right? Because when that time comes, you already have your plan b, plan c, and plan d, and you know how to action, take action on those plans.

Now lack of investment in your human capital development and also process development could definitely lead to a long term inefficiencies, and this way where the finger pointing starts to happen, which is very toxic. Also, this goes without saying, take care of your employees and they will take care of you and and the business.

A simple word of affirmation and recognition works really well and goes a long way. Don't forget to pause, celebrate, especially on those important milestones.

And, you know, this is something that AI for sure cannot do, at least not today. Who knows what's gonna happen a year from now.

So a 100%, there needs to be, some intentionality to it. A 100%, there needs to be some strategy around it to maintain, your company as the industry standard as as the industry leader and, to remain focused on the long term health of of your company.

And to get ahead of some of this pressure, interestingly enough as well, which I agree with, the survey also shows that many of you are already investing in automation and process optimization instead of pulling back on them, which is great. It makes sense.

Makes total sense to me because you want to leverage this technology and, improve process to tackle some of these, manual processes, right, and have control within within your workflow. And take a take another layer onto into this, it appears that more, more of most SaaS companies, tech industries are already taking the lead in automation adoption, and, retail and manufacturing follow suit.

So it's it's it's a clear picture that more and more controllers are are not just waiting around for cuts to happen. They are already optimizing the operations, the workflow, and, their human capital.

The key here is to reach scalability through automation. Right? Build that sustainable process to support future growth.

Importantly, embrace the growing pain. Keep looking for ways to increase working capital, whether whether that's through collections, you know, improving your collection strategy or revisiting your procurement process, be creative on your AR collections, always leverage leverage internal collaboration to increase efficiency.

So as an example here, hey. You know, if you have a customer that's past due, reach out to your sales team or reach out to your CS team or renewal team or the customer facing team.

They're working a lot closer, with the client than you are. So leverage them, ask them about payment status.

Keep aiming for that North Star. All invoices should go up within seventy two days (hours) when they're supposed to so you can gain that momentum.

And the reason why is that seventy two hours here, what's so special about seventy two hours or three business days? Because customers are still very excited about the stuff they just bought, about the agreement they just signed. They remember the structure of the agreement.

They, they they they still remember what the billing schedules that they agreed to and for how much. They can eventually approve these invoices a lot faster, and they can be routed to the AP department for payment a lot faster as well.

At the end of the day here cash is king. The sooner we get cash, the sooner we can use it.

Right? Maximize your working capital. Now and, you know, this goes without saying as as the technology evolves, leverage AI as much as possible, as much as you trust them.

But, you know, keep in mind that AI is strongest when when it supports compliance and speed. Right? But, try not to replace human judgments with AI, at least not yet.

Again, who knows what's gonna happen a year from now? Look, I mean, that's, that that that that is all. I hope you, you know, you find this webinar to be, to be very useful.

And I think there is a download button right on top of the screen if you wanna get a copy of the of the survey results. But, you know, Michelle, let's open it up for Q & A.

Michelle Voznyuk: Yeah. Thanks, Saut.

We did have a question come in earlier about using the terms controller and CFO synonymously, and I know you touched on this briefly, kind of what that relationship and ongoing alignment with the CFO looks like, but just wanted to see if you had anything else to add there, Saut, about your relationship with Chad, our CFO, when it comes to cost decisions. Any other tips you wanna share with the audience?

Saut Sinaga: Sure. Yeah.

I mean, I I you know, Chad and I get each other's back, and that's a constant alignment that we must have between controller and CFO. Right? We need to be in sync.

We need to be speaking the same. We need to be, to be on the same term on everything.

We can go in front of our CEO, and I'll be saying one plus one equals three, and he's saying one plus one equals two. We need to be united front on our answer.

So I do have, constant alignment with our CFO. And the reality here is that some of you are also in the remote environment.

Right? Re working remotely. You may not see your CFO every single day.

What I'd like to do just to stay aligned with my CFO is to, you know, hey, Let's do an, you know, an old school communication. I just reach out to him via via phone, give him a call out of the blue if I have any questions or if I need to plan something, you know, if I need to plan the seat, early on or if I need to give them signals, you know, without creating a formal meeting.

So that's just one of the ways that I stay aligned with my CFO. So by the time they hear the official report from me, it's not a surprise anymore.

Michelle Voznyuk: Great. Other than the ERP itself, what is the most vulnerable piece of technology within the accounting team?

Saut Sinaga: Yeah. I mean, I I look.

I earlier in this webinar, I stressed the point of, the integrity of the ERP is very important, and the integrity of our financial information is also very important. But a well, let's put it this way.

A very well built ERP is a is an ERP that is very well connected, that that is very well integrated. That's what a powerful ERP should look like.

What that means is that, in in most cases, there are some supporting software or solutions that are connected to this ERP. Right? And, at the end of the day, most companies still need to be able to run their payroll.

Right? And, they need to be able to send out invoices and collect payments and pay their vendors. So whatever they need to do to maintain that integrity within the ERP and all the softwares that are connected to the ERP, so they can keep supporting the business, I think those are the secondary, items that needs to be prioritized.

Michelle Voznyuk: Got it. Just to go back to your previous question, we had a clarification come in, that not every business might have a controller and CFO.

It just depends on how large the business is. I don't know if you have any other, points you wanna add about that when they are kinda interchangeable there.

Saut Sinaga: Yeah. I think the key point there is that be a strategic partner to your business leader.

Right? Be be a strategic partner to your business leader and your CEO as well. I get that not all businesses have both controller and CFO.

CFO role tends to be more on a very high level role than than controller. I've never been on a CFO role before.

But, you know, just make sure to have that strategic alignment with your CEO and also other business leaders in order to make an informed decision.

Michelle Voznyuk: Great. The next question is where should businesses make the immediate investment to best prepare for unexpected cost cuts?

Saut Sinaga: Let's see. I could think of three to four points here.

First one would be, to invest to invest in financial and operational feasibility. You know, real time data is the oil here.

Real time data is important. That way you can make informed decision.

Invest in efficiency and automation. Automate those repetitive tasks.

This frees up your employees' time, right, for higher value work that can be easily cut out. Back to my earlier point, shift the mindset of the, you know, of the, of your employees from being processor to a thinker and become a to become a strategic partner to the business.

Also think about being agile, you know, invest in agility and flexibility as well. Having a really good sense of role clarity, and especially cross functional training is very powerful.

This is a low cost investment in my mind. It's so critical to you know, so that way critical task don't don't grind to a halt.

A a versatile team is a resilient team. And lastly, you know, start building that cash reserve.

Maximize your working capital, cash is king.

Michelle Voznyuk: Love it. Well, that's it for the Q & A today.

If there are no other questions, we can go ahead and wrap here. Thank you, Saut, for everything that you've contributed to the conversation today.

As a reminder, again, this session was recorded. We'll go ahead and send out an email, with the session link if you wanna share it to your team along with a link to, download the report.

So thank you everyone from for joining. There is also a survey at the end of this.

So if you wouldn't mind just taking, twenty to thirty seconds just to fill that out. It helps us know where we can, you know, put our energy and provide the best information for you moving forward.

So thank you all for joining, and hope you have a great rest of your day.