80+
Countries with local payment rails, native to the ledger
Comparison · Light vs Lucanet
Light vs Lucanet
Lucanet is an established financial consolidation and planning platform. It does group consolidation, planning, disclosure and lease accounting well. What it is not is a general ledger: it reads from the ERPs underneath it. Light is the agentic accounting platform where the ledger and the consolidation are the same system, so the group numbers are the books rather than a layer built on top of them.
Book a demo$2B
Revenue Tillo runs on Light across 8 entities
76%
Cut in Tillo's month-end processing time
4
People on the finance team scaling Lovable to $500M revenue
Compare Light vs Lucanet
| Light | Lucanet | |
|---|---|---|
| Implementation | Weeks, with a dedicated implementation team and account manager included | Typically a structured project with partner or in-house consulting; mapping every source ERP into the model is the bulk of the work |
| Architecture | One AI-native ledger; consolidation posts as transactions happen | A consolidation and planning layer above your ERPs, with its own database populated from source systems |
| Agents | Agents complete work end to end inside your controls; every action logged and attributable | Automation within consolidation and reporting workflows, with AI positioned around analysis and commentary; the accounting work itself stays with your team |
| Configuration | Astra learns from your data and suggests workflow and configuration changes to increase performance; applied in-product, no consultants | Model-driven configuration, commonly maintained with consulting support |
| Subscription management | Contract-based invoicing and deferred revenue automated | Not offered; billing and revenue live in the source systems |
| Spend management | Corporate and virtual cards with Apple Pay and Google Pay, expense capture via Slack, Teams and email, native to the ledger | Not offered; no cards or expense capture |
| Global bill pay | AP and vendor payments executed on local rails in 80+ countries, from the ledger itself | Not offered; Lucanet reports on cash and banking rather than executing payments |
| Advanced reporting | Real-time multi-entity reporting with instant drill-down; no spreadsheet exports | A core strength: group reporting, disclosure management and ESG reporting out of the box |
| SaaS metrics | ARR, MRR, NRR, churn and cohort metrics computed from the ledger and contracts, in real time | Not a SaaS-metrics product, though metrics can be modelled in planning |
| Global coverage | Local payment rails in 80+ countries; multi-entity, multi-currency by default | Broad statutory consolidation coverage across jurisdictions; that is reporting reach, not payment rails |
Lucanet is very good at one specific job
Lucanet is a financial consolidation and planning platform. Its product covers consolidation, financial planning, extended planning and analysis, disclosure management, ESG reporting, lease accounting and tax reporting.
If group consolidation to statutory standards is your problem, Lucanet is a serious answer to it, and its planning and disclosure modules go further than a ledger normally does. This page is not an argument that their consolidation is weak.
The structural difference: a layer, not a ledger
Lucanet sits above your accounting systems. It imports balances from the ERPs your entities run on, applies the consolidation logic, and produces group reporting. That design is why it can consolidate across whatever mix of systems you have inherited, and it is also why the consolidated numbers are a model of your books rather than your books.
Light puts the consolidation inside the ledger. Entities post to one AI-native ledger and consolidation happens as transactions happen, so there is no import step, no mapping layer to maintain, and no reconciliation between the ledger and the group figures.
What that means at month end
A Lucanet close involves closing each source system, extracting data, loading it, checking the load, running the consolidation, and investigating variances between source and model. The platform automates a lot of that, but the sequence exists because the data has to move.
When the ledger and the consolidation are the same system, the sequence disappears rather than being automated. Agents complete the remaining work inside your controls, with every action logged and attributable.
When Lucanet is the right answer
If you run many entities on many different ERPs that you cannot or will not replace, a consolidation layer is the correct architecture, and Lucanet is among the strongest available. Its planning, disclosure and ESG modules go further than a ledger typically does.
Light is the better fit when you are willing to move the entities onto one ledger, and want the consolidation, the AP and AR, the cards and the payments to be the same system rather than five that have to agree.
Signs you’ve outgrown Lucanet
Your group numbers live outside your books
Lucanet consolidates well, but it consolidates a copy. The ledger is still somewhere else, so every close means exporting from the ERP, importing to Lucanet, and explaining any difference between the two.
You bought consolidation and still need everything else
AP, AR, spend, payments and the general ledger all remain in separate systems. Lucanet solves the group-reporting problem specifically, and leaves the rest of the finance stack exactly as it was.
The model needs maintaining
Every new entity, chart-of-accounts change or acquisition means remapping source data into the consolidation model. That work is ongoing and usually needs someone who knows the model.
“We evaluated several vendors. Light won because it covers our full finance stack, revenue, AR, AP, expenses, and consolidation, without stitching together a patchwork of point solutions.”
TanjaDirector of Finance, Omnea
Top 3 reasons leaders pick Light over Lucanet
An all-inclusive platform
Leverage native products for AP, AR, Procurement and budgeting that seamlessly leverage AI and integrate to Slack and Teams.
Superior performance
Whether you are processing 100,000 or 50 million transactions, the Light Ledger is based on a hyper-performant database.
Beautiful reporting
Stop the reporting headache of spreadsheets, and get fast, intuitive reports with instant drill-down capabilities.
More reasons to love Light
Enjoy integrated products that both finance and the employees enjoy using.
Expense Management
Automate expense approvals, track spending in real-time, and gain insights with AI-powered analytics.
Vendor Management
Streamline vendor relationships with simplified onboarding, tracking supplier performance, and enforcing procurement policies.
Cards
Issue vendor and employee cards with Apple Pay and Google Pay globally. Upload receipts via Slack, Teams or email.
Frequently asked questions
Is Lucanet an ERP or a general ledger?
Neither. Lucanet is a consolidation, planning and reporting platform that reads from the ERPs and general ledgers your entities already run on. It replaces spreadsheet-based group consolidation, not your accounting system.
Does Lucanet do consolidation better than Light?
Lucanet's consolidation is mature and well regarded, and its planning, disclosure management and ESG modules go beyond what a ledger normally covers. The difference is architectural: Lucanet consolidates imported data above your ERPs, while Light consolidates inside the ledger as transactions post.
Can Lucanet replace our ERP?
No. Lucanet has no general ledger, no accounts payable or receivable, and no payment execution. Those stay in the connected systems, which is why Lucanet customers run it alongside an ERP rather than instead of one.
What would we stop paying for by moving to Light?
That depends on your stack, but teams typically consolidate a general ledger, a consolidation layer, an expense tool and a payments provider into one platform. Lucanet's planning and disclosure modules are the part most worth checking against your own requirements before deciding.