Why Marketplace eCommerce Needs Finance As A Service (FaaS)
The rapidly growing eCommerce sector needs an innovative and robust solution for building and scaling the finance function.
Updated: May 29, 2025
Global marketplace eCommerce sales are estimated to exceed $8 trillion by 2028, driven by border-free shopping, social-commerce adoption, and the rise of Gen AI–powered product discovery. Yet most founders still rely on the same manual spreadsheets they used at launch.
As order volume, SKUs, and cross-border tax rules multiply, or investors enter the picture, growing eCommerce companies often find their in-house finance systems overstretched and inefficient to manage scaling complexity.
Consero’s Finance as a Service (FaaS) offers a proven, cloud-based playbook that simplifies financial management, providing robust tools and expert teams tailored specifically for investor-backed eCommerce companies.
The Risks When Scaling Finance Functions in eCommerce
Scaling eCommerce businesses often face common financial management risks:
1
Inadequate Integration of Financial Technology
Fragmented financial systems lead to slow, manual reconciliation.
Errors and inaccuracies arise, creating compliance risks.
Lack of real-time insights on profitability, cash flow, and spend.
2
Poor Visibility of Contract Terms
Limited visibility into payment terms and obligations.
Increased risk of cash flow mismanagement and late payment penalties.
3
Difficulty Correlating Revenue and Spend
Disconnected sales, marketing, inventory, and accounting systems complicate spend analysis.
Inefficient tracking impacts strategic decisions and profitability.
4
Scaling Overhead Ineffectively
Misalignment in staffing and resource allocation during peak periods.
Excessive costs or understaffing leads to missed opportunities and penalties.
As marketplace brands hit these inflection-point risks, leadership has two paths:
One is the familiar route of incrementally building an in-house finance team—hiring controllers, FP&A analysts, systems talent and layering on new software. That approach offers direct control but can absorb months of recruiting bandwidth and significant capital, nudging focus away from growth initiatives.
The newer path is Finance as a Service (FaaS): a turnkey combination of seasoned professionals, standardized processes, and a pre-integrated tech stack that can be stood up quickly and scale with the business.
Turn Your F&A Department into a Strategic Growth Engine
Get the playbook we use to help hundreds of growing businesses streamline their back-office.
FaaS is more than outsourced bookkeeping. Unlike traditional outsourced accounting, FaaS leverages advanced technologies and standardized, scalable processes managed by a dedicated team of finance professionals.
TALENT
Specialized Talent
CFOs, controllers, and analysts on-demand.
PROCESSES
Pre-built Processes
Standard operating procedures mapped to marketplace workflows, including order-to-cash.
TECHNOLOGY
Modern Tech Stack
Cloud GL, automated AP/AR, reconciliation, and data that feeds real-time dashboards.
Consero FaaS Benefits
1. Accelerated Time to Value
Consero’s FaaS is configured and live in 30-90 days, compared to the typical 9-18 months of hiring, system design, and training in-house
Proven talent, processes, and tech bypass the recruiting, architecture, and integration slog
Dashboards live by day 45 and a parallel close to validate accuracy; reach an optimized F&A state in the same quarter other firms are still posting job ads
2. State-of-the-Art Technology + Expert Teams Without the Price Tag
Access cutting-edge financial software and analytics tools
Leverage a team of finance experts and VP of Finance-level guidance on fundraising, forecasting, and exit readiness
Board-ready decks auto-populate from live data—no last-minute scramble
3. Accelerated, Error-Free Close
Automated data ingestion slashes manual entry and significantly reduces errors
Revenue recognition and clean, GAAP-compliant financials closed in days, not weeks
Multi-layer review workflows catch anomalies before they hit the P&L
4. Actionable Insights (Not Just Reports)
Real-time, actionable insights through comprehensive financial dashboards
Informed decisions around profitability, spending, and cash flow
Consero’s team benchmarks current workflows, isolates bottlenecks, and lays out the shift from cash- to accrual-basis accounting.
2
⚙️ System Build & Migration (Weeks 5-8)
Standardized processes are configured in the cloud, historical data is migrated, and key workflows such as accounts payable and expense reporting are automated.
3
✓ Parallel Close & Validation (Weeks 9-12)
A side-by-side close verifies accuracy; investor-ready financials and SaaS metrics (e.g., churn, CAC) are delivered.
4
🚀 Continuous Support & Scale (Post-Go-Live)
Quarterly review sessions refine forecasts, strengthen controls, and ensure the platform flexes smoothly with growing transaction volume.
BigCommerce CFO Robert Alvarez noted how this playbook significantly compressed the finance build-out, cut costs by about 40 % versus hiring in-house, and freed leadership to stay laser-focused on growth en route to IPO.
Optimize Your Growth with Consero
Rapid growth in marketplace eCommerce requires a robust, efficient financial foundation.
FaaS turns finance from a bottleneck into a growth engine, delivering precision, insight, and scale at a fraction of the cost of building it yourself.
Our specialized platform and expert financial teams provide the clear, actionable insights needed to confidently scale operations without the common financial risks and inefficiencies.
This blog post was originally posted on Austin Technology Council’s weekend update on December 10, 2016. While there are many factors that determine a company’s ...
PE-backed software company meets complex reporting requirements and reduces spend with Consero's Finance as a Service.
Finance as a Service
Cutting edge technology, processes, and people in a fully-managed solution to deliver precise financial visibility and improved operational scalability, plus a lower and more predictable cost structure.
Flex Finance
Keep your existing technology and processes. We can manage the back-office F&A function from end-to-end process, including closing the books. When you need skilled talent, we can supplement your F&A team.
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