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In my day-to-day role, I’m constantly thinking about how our support organization can better understand our customers, anticipate their needs, and invest in what matters most to them. Our product roadmap and customer-facing programs are directly shaped by the real, pressing challenges faced by the finance teams and organizations we partner with every day.
Across our customer base, recent trends have significantly changed the way businesses operate. Most notably, the rapid advancement of large language models and agentic AI has begun to redefine what the future of work looks like across all industries. This shift has prompted me to take a closer look at my own priorities for the year ahead and how we continue to evolve our approach to supporting our customers.
Over the next year, I’m focused on three core goals: delivering an exceptional customer experience in the AI era, shifting from reactive problem-solving to proactively anticipating our customers’ needs, and prioritizing sentiment analysis by leveraging technology to better recognize tone, urgency, and historical patterns. At the center of these efforts is a simple objective—equipping our human support teams with richer context so they can take the “next best action” immediately.
Reflecting on these priorities encouraged me to consider what our customers are focused on as they look to the year ahead. What goals are guiding their decisions? What challenges are shaping their strategies? Our customers lead growing organizations with increasingly complex and nuanced requirements, and they have a front-row seat to the industry-wide changes affecting us all.
To better understand their perspectives, I sat down with a group of customers to ask a crucial question: In the face of shifting macroeconomic conditions, changing industry priorities, and rapid technological advancements, what are you focusing on next?
Here’s what they shared.
Lean Operations, Global Ambitions
Our goal is to stay lean, save costs, and provide top-notch customer service—we want to support future products and future international expansion.
Chris Hurst, Director of Accounting, Younique
AI as a Finance Force Multiplier
AI isn’t about replacing finance teams—it’s about elevating them. When we take repetitive work off our plates, our people move from data entry to decision-making. The future of finance belongs to teams that learn to supervise the AI, not compete with it.
David Metz, EVP of Finance, Elite Staffing
Operational Agility in Changing Times
As the workforce continues to shift, the ability to navigate change quickly will be a defining advantage. For us, the key is reducing friction during transitions so new and existing team members can execute confidently—and keep critical payments and operations moving.
Abhi Bhatt, Assistant Controller, Jukin Media
Spend Control Is a Strategic Priority
One of the most impactful shifts for us this year and beyond is implementing stronger spend discipline. In 2026, that means improving expenses—ideally by centralizing recurring spend on Tipalti Card.
Nicole Lopez, Senior Manager, Financial Shared Services, Custom Ink
Modern FinOps: Automation and Cost Control
We expect the biggest impact to come from modernizing finance operations: expanding AI-driven automation, simplifying the balance sheet, and tightening payment governance. A near-term priority is reviewing payees in Tipalti and shifting eligible recipients from wires to ACH/SEPA to cut costs and improve efficiency.
Lisa, Finance Director, European Family Office
Governance as a Growth Enabler
We expect platform consolidation and stronger governance around spend to have the biggest impact on our finance organization. Tipalti Card helped us centralize transactions, strengthen controls, and improve visibility, and our next evolution in 2026 is streamlining AP in Tipalti to drive consistency, compliance, and a cleaner end-to-end process.
Christine Sullivan, Controller, Grouper
Scaling Output over Scaling Headcount
This year and beyond, the most impactful priority for us is maximizing productivity with a smaller team. We’re investing heavily in automation and AI to streamline workflows and maintain output with a smaller team.
Ryan McLean, Senior Manager, Financial Systems, Fullsteam
Digital Payments = Control Catalyst
The trend we expect to have the most impact is the continued shift to electronic payments—especially ACH—as vendors move away from checks. To keep pace, we’re shifting more AP governance into Tipalti as the subledger so we have better visibility, stronger controls, and cleaner integration with Intacct as we grow.
Kirsten Coombs, Accounting Manager, ADU
From Processing to Partnership
The days of scaling every acquisition by adding headcount are over. Our future is using AI and automation to scale AP and accounting while keeping teams lean—so finance becomes a strategic growth engine, not a manual processing center. The priority is stripping out the manual noise and freeing our people to be true partners to the business.
Alex Horton, Controller, Centerfield
One Source of Truth, Many Paths Forward
As the pace of change continues to accelerate, having a single source of truth for how work gets done is essential. We’re prioritizing a full SOP audit; updating and consolidating those processes in our new SOP Repository so we can stay agile while maintaining and prioritizing quality and control.
Terri Haney, Manager, Accounts Payable, CHOMPS
Adopting Systems That Grow with You
It’s important to look at your potential growth and try to plan in advance. If you can get a system in place that you can use in the future, that’s worth investing in.
Bradley Clifford, Former Accounting Manager, Stack Overflow
Curious what else we’re anticipating for 2026? These blog posts share insights from the Tipalti executive and finance teams.
