Why Sales and Finance Need to Work as Commercial Partners
One of the longest-running relationship dramas in business is the one between Sales and Finance teams. We can hear the EastEnders DUM DUM DUM as we type!
At times, Sales thinks Finance kills momentum, and Finance thinks Sales gives discounts away like they're handing out flyers outside a nightclub.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the middle sits the Leadership Team, wondering why revenue is growing while profit is quietly disappearing out the back door.
The reality is that both functions are absolutely critical to the success of a business, but too many organisations still operate as though they're pulling in opposite directions. Sales is focused on driving revenue, winning business, and keeping customers happy, while Finance is trying to protect margin, manage risk, and stop the business accidentally setting fire to its profitability in pursuit of growth.
Honestly, we think both sides have a point.
One department is not right and the other wrong. The problem is that most organisations fail to create genuine commercial alignment between the two teams, which means that Sales and Finance often interact only when there is tension. When a deal needs approving or a discount needs signing off. If a forecast has changed again. If margins have slipped. When targets have been missed. When forecasts have magically become "best-case scenarios".
At that point, both teams are already frustrated with one another before the conversation has even started. This is hardly the best foundation for a fruitful and productive discussion, often leading to tensions running high.
Fact 1: Revenue Means Absolutely Nothing if the Margin is Disappearing
There is very little value in paying commission to Sales teams for driving more revenue if the margins behind those deals are quietly evaporating in the background. We have seen this over and over throughout our careers. Sales teams' KPIs are revenue-focused, but the deals they are striking make zero profit.
Revenue growth looks fantastic in a board presentation right up until somebody asks:
"Yes, but are we actually making any money?"
That is the question too many businesses fail to ask early enough.
There is still an obsession in some organisations with top-line growth at all costs. Bigger numbers, bigger pipelines, bigger deals, and even bigger targets. However, bigger revenue does not automatically mean a healthier business.
As the old saying goes, "Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, cash is king."
If the margin is poor, if the cost to deliver is spiralling out of control, if the customer becomes operationally painful to service, or if the business is over-discounting simply to win market share, growth can very quickly become commercially dangerous.
Some businesses are unknowingly scaling problems rather than scaling profit.
This is when the Finance team starts getting twitchy.
Fact 2: Finance is Not the Enemy of Growth
Finance often gets positioned as the department that slows everything down. The team that asks awkward questions. The team that wants another approval layer. The team that ruins the excitement of a "massive deal" by asking what the actual margin is.
In Sales, we all know that you shouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story, right?
A good Finance team is not there to block growth. It is there to protect sustainable growth.
There is a huge difference.
Strong Finance leaders provide commercial visibility. They help businesses understand profitability, forecasting, pricing structures, cash flow, operational costs, and long-term sustainability. They see patterns that other departments often miss because they are looking at the entire commercial picture rather than isolated wins.
In many respects, Finance is the pilot of the business. Sales might be accelerating growth, but Finance is making sure the aircraft still has enough fuel left to land safely.
Without that balance, businesses can very easily confuse momentum with success and, in most cases, they are not the same thing.
Fact 3: Sales is Dealing with Commercial Reality Every Day
On the other side of the table, Sales teams are operating in an environment that is increasingly difficult.
Customers are more informed, procurement teams are tougher, competitors are more aggressive, pricing pressure is constant, decision-making cycles are longer, and expectations are higher.
Sales teams are not sitting around inventing commercial challenges for entertainment. They are navigating real-world pressure every single day.
They understand customer objections, buying behaviour, market shifts, and competitive threats in a way that internal departments (yes, including Finance!) sometimes underestimate. They know when pricing is becoming a barrier. They know when the market is changing. They know when competitors are undercutting. They know when clients are asking for more while expecting to pay less.
Sometimes Finance teams, understandably focused on protecting margin, do not always have visibility of those realities, and this is where friction starts. Sales begins to view Finance as restrictive or disconnected from the market.
Finance can begin to view Sales as reactive, overly optimistic, or far too willing to sacrifice profitability in pursuit of a target.
Neither side is entirely wrong.
They are simply viewing the business through different lenses.
The Commercial Blind Spot That Should Terrify Leadership Teams
Have you ever worked in an organisation that did not actually know its true COGS? Or had no genuine understanding of its customer acquisition and conversion costs?
Scarily, it happens far more often than people realise.
Businesses are setting pricing strategies, building commission structures, and aggressively pushing sales growth without fully understanding what it genuinely costs to acquire, deliver, and service the customer in the first place.
Commercially, that is suicide, and yet we have seen it more times than we care to mention.
Some organisations are still making decisions based on outdated assumptions, incomplete operational data, or pricing models that no longer reflect reality. Costs creep over time, supply chains change, operational inefficiencies build quietly in the background, customer expectations increase, teams grow, and delivery becomes more complex.
However, pricing often fails to keep pace. It is often overlooked or dismissed because "putting our prices up now would mean we sell less."
Then Leadership wonders why revenue is rising while profitability quietly declines.
If a business does not understand its true costs, it cannot make intelligent commercial decisions.
It cannot properly understand the drivers of profit margin and adjust accordingly.
It cannot scale sustainably.
It cannot forecast accurately.
And it certainly cannot create effective sales incentives.
Rewarding revenue without understanding profitability is one of the fastest ways to create commercially unhealthy behaviour.
Salespeople will naturally focus on hitting targets because that is what they are incentivised to do. It's how salespeople are wired.
However, the wider business has to focus on profitable growth, and that only happens when Sales and Finance work together properly.
Fact 4: Discounting is Usually a Symptom, Not the Problem
One of the biggest areas of tension between Sales and Finance is discounting.
Finance sees margin erosion.
Sales sees competitive pressure.
But excessive discounting is rarely the root problem.
Sometimes the issue is a weak value proposition.
Sometimes the pricing model no longer reflects market reality.
Sometimes competitors are driving unsustainable pricing behaviour, creating a race to the bottom.
Sometimes Sales teams have not been properly equipped to sell value over price.
And sometimes businesses simply do not have enough commercial clarity.
This is why stronger collaboration matters.
When Finance and Sales work together consistently, they stop reacting emotionally to pricing conversations and start making strategic decisions instead.
The conversation becomes:
"How do we protect profitability while remaining commercially competitive?"
Not:
"Finance said no again."
And that shift changes everything.
Fact 5: The Best Businesses Remove the Internal Divide
The strongest organisations are not the ones where either Sales or Finance dominates the other. In the strongest organisations, both functions genuinely operate as commercial partners.
Finance understands market pressures, customer expectations, and commercial realities.
Sales understands margin, cost-to-serve, profitability, and long-term sustainability.
Both sides understand that healthy businesses require balance and, when that alignment exists, decision-making becomes significantly stronger.
Forecasting improves because Finance has greater visibility into commercial activity.
Pricing becomes more disciplined because Sales understands the wider business impact.
Customer selection improves because businesses stop chasing unprofitable revenue simply to hit targets.
And internally, something even more important happens.
Trust improves because the relationship stops feeling adversarial.
Sales no longer feels blocked at every stage, and Finance no longer feels like it is constantly cleaning up commercial damage after the fact. Instead, both sides are pulling together to deliver the same outcome: sustainable, profitable growth.
Final Thought (Jerry Springer Style)
Ultimately, Sales and Finance should never be pulling in opposite directions.
Both functions want the same thing: a commercially healthy business that grows profitably, sustainably, and intelligently over time.
That only happens when organisations stop treating Finance as a back-office reporting function and Sales as a department that exists purely to chase revenue at all costs.
The businesses that genuinely get this relationship right tend to outperform their competitors because they make smarter decisions across the board. Forecasting improves, margins strengthen, pricing becomes more strategic, and growth becomes healthier.
Perhaps most importantly, Sales and Finance stop behaving like reluctant co-parents arguing over whose fault the numbers are this month.
When those two functions genuinely align, the entire business becomes stronger as a result.
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