Last week, a new set of rules under the EU Data Act around data portability and cloud provider switching rights officially took effect. A lot of people will be analyzing the implications in the weeks to come, but one thing is clear: for finance teams, it’s just the latest headache in a long line of regulation headaches.
We’ve seen this movie before. In Europe, GDPR forced businesses to re-engineer their approach to privacy, and PSD2 cracked open banking and payments. Here in the United States, we’ve had ASC 606 and Sarbanes-Oxley, not to mention the fact that the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issues anywhere from 5 to 15 accounting standard updates per year. Each wave of regulation doesn’t just add to a compliance burden—it fundamentally alters how companies make money, measure risk, and build trust.
Accounting is getting harder! The ground beneath our feet is constantly shifting. The profession is already under strain from increasingly complex business models and evolving standards. Constant regulations mean finance teams are faced with ballooning headcounts, rising audit costs, a higher risk of financial restatements, and more time closing the books. Here are five implications for them to consider in this ever-changing landscape.
Revenue Recognition Never Sits Still
Every new rule changes the game. Subscription models, usage pricing, outcome-based contracts—regulators don’t design for these. Finance teams are forced to translate messy, evolving business models into clean, compliant statements.
Imagine deciding to change how many points field goal is worth in the middle of a football game. Accountants aren’t just keeping score anymore—they’re being forced to translate new business models into compliant financial statements, and keep their management out of jail in the process!
Compliance Isn’t Free
Audits, new reporting systems, staff training, technology overhauls—it all adds up. The problem is that companies often juggle multiple ERP and finance platforms across regions. Weak integration creates blind spots, reconciliation delays, and systemic errors.
So you’re finance team is going to need to invest accordingly. These aren’t hidden IT costs anymore; they belong squarely on the P&L. If you’re not budgeting for compliance, you’re budgeting for fines.
You Need Scenario Planning Around Monetization Models
In the midst of all this chaos, your customers still want different ways to buy things. Some people love the predictability and stability of subscriptions. “Inference Whales” love taking AI companies to the cleaners on pay-as-you-go usage. As we discussed earlier with the Subscribed Institute’s Michael Mansard, still others will push for outcome-based pricing tied directly to their business results.
For CFOs and CAOs, this means scenario planning, modeling, and rapid iteration. Imagine running a monthly strategy meeting where the agenda isn’t just “variance to plan,” but three different revenue models, each with its own implications for cash flow, forecasting, and risk. Congratulations, you have a new quarterly meeting! But it’ll be worth it. Your team needs to be as comfortable modeling experimental pricing structures as they are reconciling the books.
Forecasting Gets Noisy
Traditional forecasts assume stability. Regulations inject churn. Customer cohorts behave differently, costs swing, and revenue recognition shifts. Finance leaders need to get comfortable telling the story of uncertainty.
This means adjusting revenue forecasts with greater sensitivity to potential churn shocks. Cash flow projections should incorporate scenarios where entire customer cohorts leave at once (!), or where new acquisitions spike thanks to easier onboarding. Forecasting is no longer a straight line—it’s a volatility map.
Agility Wins, Every Time
Rigid systems will break under constant change. The winners will be the companies whose financial backbone can flex—spinning up new pricing structures, aligning them with evolving compliance rules, and feeding clean data back into revenue recognition. Agility isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the strategy.
This means your systems need to not only accommodate, but actively anticipate the tsunami of customer complexity that’s coming over the horizon. A legacy billing framework locks you into yesterday’s rules. Instead, you need infrastructure that adapts as quickly as your customers and regulators do.
The bottom line is that the rules will keep changing. Your job is to stay nimble. Build systems that evolve. Budget for compliance. Treat scenario planning as second nature. And if you need inspiration? Heraclitus, Sun Tzu, Machiavelli, Bruce Lee. All masters of thriving within change.
