Access to Gaapsavvy

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Gaapsavvy requires companies and individuals to meet and maintain membership criteria covering aspects of their service, including professional qualifications and service delivery. 

Members may be reviewed periodically to ensure standards are being maintained to foster an authentic environment conducive to knowledge sharing and learning and building best practices.

Membership to Gaapsavvy is voluntary, and members must align to its publicly published community access criteria, including guidelines related to professional history, current profession, etc.

Gaapsavvy will sometimes limit attendance to certain events to their members who fit published membership criteria.

Gaapsavvy offers Industry Accountant and Vendor levels of access to programs, resources and channels based primarily on your current job role. To do this we vet every member via LinkedIn and require work email addresses in some cases.

The Community access criteria are intended to maintain value in the community by strongly encouraging involvement and input from those who practice the operationalizing of accounting, while still involving the important perspectives of those who provide products and services or promote good practices.

The intention underlying access rules are to promote the following:

• Transparency: We want everyone to know who everyone is when interacting
• Maintaining the community is focused on the Industry Accountant – encourage their involvement and participation
• Focus conversations on best practices and avoiding disruptive sales pitches

Note on sales roles: Individuals in a sales or business development position of any kind or anyone who holds a quota (including bonuses based on sales revenue) may only hold a Supporter role in the Foundation. Examples of this would be Account Managers, Account Executives, Business Development reps, Pre-sales Engineers, Pre-sales Solution Architects, etc.

Industry Accountants, or Operators perform accounting functions or interact with accounting teams in their primary job role. For Industry Accountants to join the community, individuals have to align with the Industry Accountant definition below. We use a combination of LinkedIn title and work email address domain to vet this status. Before participating in the community, Industry Operators must agree to the Code of Conduct.

Below defines the criteria for joining the Gaapsavvy as a “Industry Accountant” member.

Industry Accountants must:

1. be actively working in accounting in industry: (a) in finance, accounting, and/or quote to cash operations; (b) any level working in Accounting and finance operations; (c) in an executive capacity, such as a Chief Accounting Officer, Chief Financial Officer, VP Finance, Controller; or (d) in a similar capacity (regardless of title);
2. not be employed by a software vendor whose buyer persona or users are Industry Operators of the Gaapsavvy community; and
3. not have accounting-related sales, marketing, or business development as their primary business

Note: This definition may evolve over time.

Categorization as a vendor is based on the type of company an individual is employed by. Individuals who work for a company that provides tooling, platform or services are considered ‘vendors’. Vendors include software vendors and consulting firms.

For individuals employed by a vendor to be a ‘member’ of Gaapsavvy, the vendor organization must have signed Vendor Participation Agreement with Gaapsavvy. These individuals must have a subject matter expert status (examples: product leader, product management, relevant engineering or services), and must adhere to the code of conduct.

Under the Vendor Membership, companies are also allowed relevant specific marketing contacts to join to coordinate membership benefits, but these individuals are restricted and must not communicate with the community nor take part in working groups.

A fair usage limit may be applied to attendance at certain events to maintain a balance in the community with the intention of keeping Gaapsavvy Industry Accountant focused.

At Gaapsavvy, our foremost commitment is to provide industry accountants with a genuine platform for exchanging challenges and best practices related to policy selection, implementation, and the operationalization of these processes.

In an environment often cluttered with marketing messages, Gaapsavvy stands out by fostering an atmosphere where members can openly and honestly share their experiences—highlighting both successes and setbacks. It is crucial for us to preserve the authenticity and practical utility of our forum.

There may be instances when discussions veer towards specific products or services. In such cases, we encourage allowing the community to offer their perspectives first. As the subject matter expert on your product, your contributions should aim to be informative and neutral. This approach not only enriches the community with valuable insights but also provides you with firsthand feedback on user experiences, opportunities to elucidate existing features, and ideas that could influence your development roadmap to better meet the needs of our community.

We require all participants to adhere to our code of conduct and uphold the Gaapsavvy member expectations. 

Vendors, in particular, are reminded to pay close attention to our policy on "No Sales Pitches." This balanced and respectful interaction is fundamental to creating a win-win situation for everyone involved, ensuring a productive and supportive environment.

In some cases, Gaapsavvy may allow limited, listen-only access to select product leaders for the purpose of product discovery. This access is observational, non-participatory unless directly invited by practitioners, and may not be used for marketing, sales, competitive analysis, or external content creation.

Roles focused on product marketing, messaging, monetization, demand generation, or GTM strategy do not qualify for Product Listening Access.

Discussions, themes, and practitioner perspectives shared within Gaapsavvy programs are intended to support learning and product discovery. They may not be externally published, summarized, attributed, or represented as originating from Gaapsavvy, its Shareforums, or its community without prior written permission.

While participants may independently develop ideas informed by their experience, Gaapsavvy retains ownership of its original frameworks, synthesis, language, and structured analysis. External use of these materials requires explicit approval and, where applicable, a separate licensing agreement.

We will grant slack access to participants from your company who fit the Industry Accountant, Operator definition. Those outside of that will be considered on a one-off basis by the membership committee, however the stance on no sales people (or those who hold quotas of any kind, such as technical pre-sales) is firm. The ideal participants are SMEs who know both accounting, quote to cash management and your product from hands-on work. SMEs from technical accounting advisors, product managers, and non-quota solution consultants who are gaapsavvy vendor members in good standing may join the slack.

All Slack participants must request access via the membership form at gaapsavvy membership and be approved before gaining access. They should request access as a “Vendor Member” and provide all of their details for review. Once approved, they will receive a link to join Slack. 

Following the code of conduct, participation should be focused on sharing thought leadership (not sales pitches) and further the field of vendor-neutral solutioning. 

In general rooms, a good example of an interaction might look like:

• “Have you considered using a separate line for each year to solve for multi-year deals problem you’re facing? I’ve seen one work with ABC functionality like this: XYZ”
• A bad one would be:
• “We can fix that problem for you with our amazing feature ABC, start a free trial of it here.”
• (Unsolicited) “Have you checked out solution here” 

Gaapsavvy Slack channels or email distribution lists should not be used to reach out to prospects or offer your services in an unsolicited fashion. If someone reaches out to you to ask for more details, of course it's fine to engage but vendors should not send unsolicited messages to any practitioner members regarding their services or platforms. Likewise, member lists visible via Slack or other channels should not be used to identify practitioners for outside prospecting. As per the code of conduct, a vendor may be removed from slack entirely if there is more than one violation of this policy.