Why FinTech Systems Need Someone Who Understands Money, Not Just Code

Most teams that build financial software are confident with the technology. Fewer are equally confident with the finance. The difference between a system that merely works and one the finance team can actually trust often comes down to something that has nothing to do with code: does anyone on the team understand how the business's money moves, its workflow and associated processes?

In regulated industries, that gap is not a minor detail. A system that gets double-entry bookkeeping wrong, misunderstands how revenue should be recognised, or handles pension contributions incorrectly can create problems, technical, financial and sometimes regulatory, that a purely technical code review will never catch.

Closing that gap is exactly what we have been investing in. Our dedicated FinTech Skill Centre has grown with the addition of Glyn Jarvis, who joins NewOrbit as a Finance Systems Business Analyst.

Ten years of understanding how money actually works

Glyn spent more than ten years in management accounting, financial control and finance leadership, including several Head of Finance roles. What stands out is the range of sectors he has finance experience in: TV broadcast infrastructure, cellular communications infrastructure, artificial pitch installation and bespoke water feature manufacturing, alongside manufacturing technology, bespoke software and hardware implementation, solar PV, warehousing and logistics, even flour milling and quarrying.

He has also spent three years business partnering within the NHS, and led a deep-dive process re-engineering project on the international accounting standard, IFRS 15, organising revenue recognition for a multinational software developer, precisely the kind of accounting standard that quietly breaks systems that were not designed with it in mind. Glyn is AAT and ACCA qualified.

A career built at the intersection of finance and systems

That depth of finance knowledge carries straight through into the systems side of Glyn's career. For more than seven years, he has consulted on finance management systems built on Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Dynamics 365 Business Central, implementing and supporting general ledger and accounting, budgeting and forecasting, financial reporting, bank reconciliation, payments processing, asset management and financial controls, across sectors as varied as retail, manufacturing, project-based businesses, charities, warehousing and logistics, IT software and device implementation, and pharmaceuticals.

A further two and a half years on the "end user" side, supporting a technology manufacturing business from within, gave him a feel for how these systems get used day to day, not just how they get built.

Why this combination matters

Building FinTech systems takes more than technical skill and process optimisation. It also takes a genuine understanding of how money works, from the basics of double-entry bookkeeping through to the complexities of pensions, investments and share management. Glyn brings both halves of that equation to every project: someone who has sat inside a finance function and closed a set of books, and someone who has configured the systems finance teams rely on every day.

Finance and systems have had a symbiotic relationship for years, and that relationship is growing closer each year. I find it genuinely rewarding to draw on my experience to help meet strategic goals, resolve issues, and improve efficiency.

– Glyn Jarvis, Finance Systems Business Analyst

What this means if you are building financial systems

For our clients, this means our FinTech Skill Centre now has, alongside our engineers, someone who can sit in a requirements conversation and immediately spot where a "simple" workflow actually depends on a finance rule that needs to be right, not approximately right. It is the kind of expertise that becomes obvious in its absence, usually a few sprints in, in a change request nobody planned for.

If you are exploring how your finance function's systems could work harder for you, or want to talk through a project where getting the numbers right the first time matters, our FinTech team, Glyn included, would be glad to have that conversation.