Faced with a persistent talent shortage and technological advancements that promise to alleviate the pain points of traditional manual processes, today's finance leaders are beginning to think differently about how to find accounting professionals.

John Glasgow, CEO, CFO, and founder of Campfire, an enterprise resource planning platform startup, said today's CFOs are "very focused on systems-first accountants" in the hiring process.

In an interview with CFO Dive, Glasgow noted that finance leaders now want to build leaner teams to take on more forward-looking work—they "don't want the accounting team to scale linearly with the business." He relayed CFOs' views: "We don't need 30 accountants; we want three, and we want them to do more strategic work, but everything must be accurate."

Rebuilding from the core

Glasgow founded Campfire to address the long-standing pain points of traditional ERP platforms at a time when many finance leaders are preparing to further integrate AI and automation into back-office processes. Campfire launched in June 2023, at the early stage of the AI boom, "and we had a unique opportunity to reimagine accounting workflows with an AI-first mindset," Glasgow said.

"Some people are building on top of existing solutions. We found that we needed to rebuild from the core," Glasgow said of Campfire's product.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Glasgow has served as both CEO and CFO of Campfire since August of last year. Before joining Campfire, he was vice president of business development and partnerships at payment software provider Bill.com, and his past experience also includes roles at Invoice2Go and Adobe.

Campfire is designed as a "full replacement" for traditional ERP systems, taking an "AI-native" approach that treats technology as "another member of the team"—and holds it to the same standards of transparency and accountability as human employees, Glasgow said.

"As a former finance leader, I would never submit anything to the board without asking for supporting financial models and reviewing the formulas and assumptions," Glasgow said. For Campfire, this means reimagining workflows with AI while maintaining "auditability and trust," avoiding the AI "black box" that today's accountants or finance professionals fear most.

"What if AI makes a mistake and I submit the results to the board or the auditor?" he said, describing finance professionals' concerns about AI tools. "My job, career, and reputation are at risk. So, we redesigned the process with that in mind."

Fostering interoperability

As demand for strategic accounting solutions grows, Campfire continues to focus on building its AI-native product. According to an October 15 press release, the company recently raised $65 million in a Series B funding round led by Accel and Ribbit. The round came just months after its $35 million Series A, bringing total funding to $100 million.

A stronger balance sheet helps open up other investment opportunities and expand the customer base—Campfire is "moving upmarket quickly, and now we really do have pre-IPO and public companies using Campfire, who previously wanted us to have a strong balance sheet," Glasgow said.

With the latest funding round, "we've been able to invest in the AI team in ways we couldn't before," Glasgow said. This includes moving into a headquarters in San Francisco that can accommodate 170 people, enabling the company to create stronger interoperability across different teams.

For example, the company's AI engineers sit next to the customer experience team, "so we can have them build and think in a tighter feedback loop, and we've found that model works well," Glasgow said.