At a Glance

  • Earlier this month, OneStream CFO Bill Koefoed said in an exclusive interview that economic uncertainty stemming from President Donald Trump's shifting tariff moves could be a 'tailwind' for the financial software maker's business.
  • Koefoed believes the current period is comparable in some ways to the spring of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic threw financial planning and analysis teams into disarray.
  • 'We saw significant growth in demand during 2020,' the finance chief said. 'The world today is similar to that time in many cases.'

Deep Dive

OneStream, headquartered in Birmingham, Michigan,saw total revenue jump to $132.5 million in the fourth quarter of last year, a 29% year-over-year increase, a result released last month.

'Overall, despite some short-term headwinds, demand for OneStream remains strong, and we are optimistic about the new year and confident in our long-term opportunities,' CEO Tom Shea said on the earnings call at the time.

Despite the surge in overall revenue, the software vendor reported a GAAP operating loss of $47.4 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $200,000 in the same period last year. In its 10-K filing submitted on February 27, the company stated it expects to continue generating net losses for the 'foreseeable future' as it 'continues to scale its business.'

On last month's earnings call, Shea cited fourth-quarter challenges, including macroeconomic uncertainty causing some year-end deals to face intense customer scrutiny and be deferred into the new year.

'Now is a good time to invest in products like ours, but it's also a significant investment, so uncertainty affects it as well,' Koefoed told CFO Dive.

The company, which went public last year, offers an AI-driven platform designed to modernize the CFO's office. Koefoed said that among other use cases, OneStream's software helps customers improve demand forecasting accuracy—a capability that is crucial when the environment is constantly changing.

According to survey results released Monday by Grant Thornton, financial leaders' economic optimism fell sharply in the first quarter of 2025 due to uncertainty over tariffs and concerns about labor demand.

The report shows that less than half (47%) of respondents are optimistic about the U.S. economy, a record 21-percentage-point drop from the previous quarter, with pessimism reaching its highest level in 10 quarters.

Amid the anxiety, information technology and digital transformation were listed as CFOs' top spending priorities for the next six months.

'Digital transformation makes you more proactive in scenario planning and in dealing with the constant changes in the environment,' Paul Melville, Grant Thornton's national managing principal for CFO advisory services, said in the report. 'Digital transformation helps you manage some of those challenges.'

Although many front-office and corporate functions have made progress in digital transformation, finance has historically lagged behind, according to OneStream's recent 10-K filing.

'As a result, many finance organizations still rely on legacy systems, some built on decades-old technology, that cannot handle the complexity and volume of data generated by the various technology applications deployed across the enterprise,' the filing said.