Technology cost does not behave like other cost.
Control the cost base, capitalise agile development defensibly, and earn the influence to govern engineering spend. It starts where your training stopped.
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Read this first
Who this is written for
It assumes you are already senior in your field — a decade of practice, or a professional qualification, or both. It does not explain what a variance is.
Written for
- Finance managers, leads and business partners in technology or digital functions
- Heads of technology finance and IT financial management
- FinOps practitioners and leads who need the finance side
- IT vendor managers and technology category procurement
- Technology FP&A and financial controllers covering software capitalisation
- Consultants running technology cost transformation
Not written for
- Generic FP&A with no technology cost base
- Anyone seeking an introduction to management accounting
- Engineers wanting to learn accounting from first principles
- Students, or those pre-qualification
- US GAAP reporters — the US edition is in preparation
The problem
Four things conventional finance training does not solve
Cost that will not behave
Technology cost is non-linear. It moves in steps at commitment boundaries and licence tiers, and a model built on last year plus a percentage is smoothly wrong on both sides of every step.
Capitalisation written for a world that no longer exists
IAS 38 assumes projects with phases. Agile delivery has neither. Auditors will not accept a percentage applied to total engineering cost, and engineers will not fill in timesheets.
Renewals entered without a position
The vendor knows your consumption better than you do, knows your freeze dates, and has a relationship with your CTO. Without a walk-away agreed in writing, you are accepting a price, not negotiating one.
Decisions made in rooms you are not in
A choice to run three environments rather than two commits cost for years. It is made in engineering language, at a design review, and finance hears about it at the invoice.
The manual
Eight parts, forty-four chapters, no preamble
Each chapter opens with the position, gives the method, marks where sector changes the answer, and closes with the two-minute version — what you say when the CFO stops you in the corridor.
The Terrain
Why technology cost behaves differently, and how to map yours.
The Cost Base
Cloud, licences, people, capitalisation, impairment, recharge.
The Craft
Driver-based forecasting, bridges, business cases, the twelve levers.
Influence
Speaking engineer, the one-page narrative, negotiation, the matrix.
The Machine
Your month, automation, controls, the decision log, leading a team.
The Horizon
Seven forces to 2032, what automates, AI cost, three archetypes.
Future-Proofing
Capability audit, the stacks, the plan, routes, making the move.
Tear-Outs
Ten standalone reference sheets, each complete on one page.
The evidence
Executives buy frameworks, not pages
Thirty-six diagrams, every one drawn specifically for this manual and rendered as true vector. This is the analysis that converts a technology cost base into a board-ready position.
Free, no purchase required
Two working Excel models
Not summaries of the book. Working models with live formulas, built to be used on Monday morning.
The AI Cost Model
Six sheets. Model rate card, use-case unit economics, allocation to business capability, volume and substitution scenarios, dashboard.
- Cost per conversation, document or customer
- Allocation that reconciles to source
- What happens at 2×, 3× and 5× volume
The Capitalisation Evidence Pack
Six sheets. Draft policy, sprint-level tracker, asset rollup with amortisation, audit trace and judgement log.
- Classify sprint activity without timesheets
- Trace any capitalised amount to a backlog item
- Answer the eight questions auditors actually ask
Pricing
One edition. One price.
No tiers, no upsell, no subscription. The free tools stay free whether you buy or not.
The Tech Finance Operator
UK EDITION · PDF · IMMEDIATE DELIVERY
- 149-page manual, eight parts, forty-four chapters
- Thirty-six original vector diagrams
- Ten tear-out reference sheets, each complete on one page
- Sector deltas for six industry archetypes
- Hyperlinked contents and full PDF bookmark tree
- Free lifetime updates to the UK edition
- Both Excel tools included — and free to everyone anyway
Secure checkout · Card, PayPal, Apple Pay · VAT handled and receipt issued automatically
A professional training resource, routinely expensed under Learning & Development or departmental training budgets. A VAT-compliant receipt is issued automatically and can be addressed to your employer.
Not a web app, not a login, not a seat licence to provision. A PDF and two Excel files, downloaded once and yours. Nothing to clear with security.
Fourteen days. If it is not what you expected, say so and we refund in full — no form, no justification required. See the refund policy.
Being straight with you
What this manual will not do
It is not a qualification, and it will not teach you accounting. It assumes you already hold a professional qualification and have practised for years.
It is written to IFRS as adopted in the UK. If you report under US GAAP, the accounting chapters — capitalisation, cloud configuration costs, impairment — will not apply cleanly. ASC 350-40 differs materially, particularly on hosting arrangements. A US edition is in preparation and you can join the waitlist.
It is not neutral. It takes positions — that identification automates and explanation does not, that you should never refuse a request but always price it, that most close improvement programmes optimise the wrong lane. Where informed people disagree, the manual says so and labels the claim contested rather than settling it.
It will not do the work. The models, the negotiations and the relationships are yours.
Start with the free tools if you would rather see the work first.
They are the same standard as the manual, and they cost nothing.