Netgain's New AI Engine Aims to End Accounting's Spreadsheet Nightmare

DENVER, CO – June 24, 2026 – The accounting profession is at a turning point, and the question is no longer if AI will change the work, but how to harness it effectively. This was the central message at Netgain's Second Annual Accounting Summit, where the tech firm gathered over 200 professionals in Denver last week. Amid discussions on optimizing workflows and tightening the monthly close, Netgain unveiled its most ambitious project yet: an AI-native engine designed to conquer one of the industry's most notoriously difficult tasks—financial consolidations.

The preview of "Consolidations by Netgain" is more than just a product announcement; it's a strategic move by the eight-year-old company to accelerate the shift from manual data wrangling to high-value strategic analysis. By targeting a process still heavily reliant on error-prone spreadsheets, Netgain is making a bold statement about the future role of the accountant—one focused on judgment, not just calculation.

Escaping the Spreadsheet Labyrinth

For decades, financial consolidation has been the bane of many accounting departments. The process of combining financial data from multiple subsidiaries, often with different currencies, ownership structures, and charts of accounts, is a breeding ground for complexity. For many, the default tool remains the spreadsheet, a digital relic that introduces significant risk and inefficiency. Industry analyses consistently show that manual data entry, broken formulas, and version control issues in spreadsheets lead to costly inaccuracies and prolong the critical month-end close cycle.

"Consolidation is one of the last places accounting teams still fall back on spreadsheets, and it shows up at every single close," said Chris Miller, CPA and SVP of Product Strategy at Netgain, during the summit. This reliance creates what many in the field call "spreadsheet hell"—a labyrinth of linked files that lack robust audit trails, are difficult to scale, and consume countless hours of highly skilled professionals' time.

Netgain's proposed solution is an "AI-native" engine. This isn't simply an existing tool with AI features bolted on. Instead, it's built from the ground up to leverage artificial intelligence for automating data ingestion, performing complex intercompany eliminations, handling currency translations, and maintaining a clear, auditable trail. The goal is to transform consolidation from a high-risk, manual chore into a streamlined, automated, and transparent process. By doing so, the company aims to free accountants from the grind and empower them to analyze the consolidated data for strategic insights rather than simply fighting to produce it.

The Architect of the Modern Accountant

This focus on alleviating pain points is core to Netgain's identity. Founded in 2018 by former Big 4 auditors Adam Riches and Nathan Smart, the company was born from firsthand experience with the limitations of existing tools. Now with fifteen products under its belt, Netgain's mission has sharpened with the advent of AI.

"This is the most exciting time to be an accountant in decades," said Adam Riches, Netgain's CEO. "The teams that learn to use AI well are going to spend less time hunting through data and more time on the judgment only they can provide. Helping them get there is the whole point of what we are doing."

This vision has attracted significant investor confidence. In April 2024, the Colorado-based firm secured a $35 million Series B funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $38.5 million. This financial backing is fueling an accelerated pace of development, allowing Netgain to tackle increasingly complex accounting challenges. The company's philosophy mirrors historical shifts in the profession—from double-entry bookkeeping to the cloud ERP—where the fundamental purpose of accounting remains, but the tools used to achieve it become exponentially more powerful.

A Crowded Field and a Niche Focus

Netgain is entering a competitive arena. The market for financial close and consolidation solutions is populated by established giants and nimble innovators. Industry reports from firms like Gartner regularly highlight leaders such as OneStream and Wolters Kluwer, whose comprehensive platforms also boast significant AI capabilities. Other players like HighRadius and Joiin are also carving out space with AI-powered offerings.

However, Netgain's strategy hinges on a key differentiator: its deep, native integration within the NetSuite ERP ecosystem. Rather than offering a platform-agnostic solution, Netgain builds its tools to live inside NetSuite, a popular choice for mid-market and growing companies. This approach eliminates the need for clunky integrations or disconnected tools, offering a seamless experience for a specific, well-defined user base.

This "by accountants, for accountants" ethos, combined with a laser focus on the NetSuite environment, allows the company to address highly technical and specific problems that larger, more generalized platforms might overlook. It's a calculated niche play that positions Netgain not as a direct competitor to the all-in-one giants, but as a specialized expert for a substantial segment of the market facing unique operational hurdles.

More Than Code: Building a Community

The announcement of the new consolidation engine was strategically timed for the company's annual summit, underscoring another pillar of Netgain's strategy: community building. The event was explicitly designed as a "working session" rather than a passive sales pitch. It featured practical, expert-led sessions on fixing AP bottlenecks and optimizing financial workflows, alongside candid, peer-to-peer roundtable discussions.

"Some of the best moments had nothing to do with a slide deck," noted Nathan Smart, Netgain's President and Founder. "This is a chance for accountants to step away from the grind and learn from peers who do exactly what they do. That kind of conversation is hard to find back at your desk."

This emphasis on collaboration reflects a broader understanding that technological adoption is as much about people as it is about products. By creating a forum for professionals to share challenges and solutions, Netgain is fostering an ecosystem of innovation. The day even closed with a keynote from Olympic gold medalist Connor Fields, whose story of overcoming adversity was meant to resonate with a profession navigating its own profound transformation.

As Netgain moves forward with planning its 2027 summit, it is also actively recruiting beta customers to help shape the new consolidation engine. This collaborative development approach ensures the final product is not just technologically advanced, but also grounded in the real-world needs of the professionals it is designed to serve, inviting the industry to build its own future.