Pry replaces spreadsheets to delay ERP
Andy Su, co-founder of Pry, on building the "Figma of finance"
The real wedge is not replacing the ledger, it is replacing the spreadsheet that sits on top of the ledger. Pry is saying most startups leave QuickBooks or Xero for NetSuite only when planning, collaboration, and actuals versus budget become too messy in spreadsheets. If Pry becomes the shared place for forecasts, department budgets, and scenario planning, QuickBooks or Xero can stay the system of record much longer, delaying the jump into a heavier mid-market stack.
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Pry sits above bookkeeping, not inside it. The accounting system still stores closed books and transactions, while Pry handles the live model, like runway, hiring plans, budget requests, and scenario changes. That matters because the pain point pushing teams toward ERP is often not raw accounting first, it is the finance team living in a brittle Excel file that no one else can safely use.
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This is the same pattern seen across modern finance tools. Teampay argues companies often buy spend workflow before buying an ERP, because controlling approvals and reconciliation solves a real operating problem even while QuickBooks remains underneath. Pilot similarly runs a service layer on top of QuickBooks. The stack is getting unbundled into specialized layers instead of one giant suite from day one.
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There is still a ceiling. QuickBooks Online does not handle multi warehouse inventory well, and richer inventory support in QuickBooks comes through Enterprise and Advanced Inventory. Xero has added more inventory capability, but the tradeoff remains that ERPs earn their keep when companies need deeper multi entity control, more complex operations, and broader cross functional workflows. Pry mainly delays that moment by making planning better.
Going forward, the winners in finance software will likely be the products that own the workflow people touch every week, not the database they close once a month. That points to a market where QuickBooks or Xero remain the ledger for longer, while planning, spend, and collaboration get peeled off into best of breed products until a company becomes complex enough that an ERP is finally worth the weight.