The finance strain no one talks about when scaling in Europe
Fresh insights from 2,650 finance decision-makers across Europe
For most European businesses in 2026, growth is underway, with four out of five finance leaders saying their company is scaling or planning to scale as expansion plans accelerate and new markets open up.
But behind that momentum, many finance teams are facing a different reality. While the business pushes forward, finance systems are struggling to keep pace – 78% of finance leaders say they have concerns about being able to scale effectively1.
Scaling adds complexity
The assumption is that scaling means more revenue, more customers, more transactions. But it also means more complexities – more entities, more markets, more stakeholders and more processes to coordinate across systems that were never designed to work together.
79% of scaling businesses say growth brings greater financial complexity1.
That tension is familiar to most finance leaders. Move faster and visibility starts to slip. Tighten oversight and the business slows down. But this trade-off is not an inevitable feature of growth. It’s a signal that the finance systems weren’t built to scale with it.
Why European growth creates pressure
Scaling across a single market is one thing. Scaling across Europe is another entirely.
Every new market introduces different tax requirements, reporting expectations, regulatory environments and operational processes. What works in one country often has to be adapted or entirely rebuilt for the next. As a result, 71% of scaling businesses say expanding into a new European market feels like launching a new business all over again
And the pressure tends to show up inside finance teams before it becomes visible elsewhere in the business.
Reconciliation takes longer. Data from different systems becomes harder to align. Manual work increases as teams bridge gaps between disconnected platforms, with half of finance teams saying their current stack requires too much manual oversight1. Over time, operational maintenance starts to replace strategic work.
Finance leaders are being asked to make faster decisions in increasingly complex operating environments, while relying on systems that still require significant manual intervention to maintain visibility and control.
By the time the full picture is assembled, it’s often already changed.
A different approach to finance infrastructure
The finance teams caught in this cycle aren't under-skilled or under-resourced. They're operating on systems that weren't designed for European scale and compensating manually for the gaps those systems leave behind.
Scaling successfully across Europe requires a different approach to how finance infrastructure is built – one where control is embedded from the start, systems connect properly across markets and finance teams spend their time on the work that actually moves the business forward.
The question many businesses are now facing is whether the finance infrastructure behind them is built to handle what comes next. For many scaling across Europe, the honest answer is no.
At Pleo, we understand the operational challenges that come with scaling across Europe. Built for CFOs, by a CFO, Pleo helps finance teams manage company spending with greater visibility, control and real-time insight.
Get in touch with our team to learn how your business can scale without complexity.
Is your finance setup ready for European scale or will complexity outpace it? Use Pleo’s 5-point checklist to find out.
1Source: Pleo’s 2026 report, ‘Scaling Companies, Not Complexity’
