XU Magazine - Issue 36

The independent news source for users of accounting apps & their ecosystems

Issue 36

Main Contacts -

CEO:

David Hassall (Co-Founder)

Managing Editor:

Wesley Cornell (Co-Founder)

Chief Revenue Officer:

Alex Newson

Design & Communications

Manager:

Bethany Fulks

Creative Assistants:

Hebe Vermeulen, Robyn Consterdine

Editorial Translator: Lyla Lezghad

Editorial/News Submissions:

If you have any editorial content (news, comment, tutorials etc.) that you would like us to consider for inclusion in the next edition of XU Magazine, please email us at editorial@xumagazine.com

Advertising: advertising@xumagazine.com

E: hello@xumagazine.com

W: www.xumagazine.com

‘Xero’ is a trademark of Xero Limited (New Zealand). XU Magazine is collaboratively produced by an independent group of Xero users and is not affiliated in any way with Xero. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

© XU Magazine Ltd 2014-2023. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. XU Magazine is published by XU Magazine Ltd (08811842), registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Office 1, Brunswick House, Brunswick Way, Liverpool, Merseyside, L3 4BN, United Kingdom. All information contained in this magazine is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. XU Magazine cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. If you submit unsolicited material to us, you automatically grant XU Magazine a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in all/ any editions of the magazine, including in any physical or digital format, throughout the world. Any material you submit is sent at your risk and, although every care is taken, neither XU Magazine nor its employees, agents or subcontractors shall be liable for loss or damage. The views expressed in XU Magazine are not necessarily the views of XU Magazine Ltd, its editors or its contributors.

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Della

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Accounting, technology, outsourcing…

Don’t be fooled - it’s all about people

The AdvanceTrack team in India stepped up during Covid, when it really mattered. And MD Vipul Sheth knew that his longstanding team needed a special reward. A reward that was conceived before Covid, but made all the more important because of it. This is the story of their lifechanging trip abroad.

hey say that professional services firms are nothing without their people. It makes sense that, for us at AdvanceTrack, the same saying rings true.

Quite rightly, we spend a lot of time talking about our operational excellence, and focus on processes, security and scalability. But these are underpinned by the technical expertise and work ethic of our people – without whom we wouldn’t be here.

With that in mind, MD Vipul Sheth discussed with managers in India about a plan to reward and recognise some of our longstanding team members. A five-day trip to Dubai was then organised for 2021.

Covid got in the way of that plan, while Dubai’s global expo during 2022 meant that we had to hold off the holiday until 2023.

“The team never bugged me about whether the trip would actually happen, but there was no way it was going be off the cards,”

explains Vipul. “We just had to be patient.”

First-time travel

And so, in April, some 37 of the AdvanceTrack team went on holiday together. And for 32 of these people, it was their first time abroad.

“When it was announced we were all very excited – a great treat,” says AdvanceTrack’s Mohit Soni. “It

Vipul Sheth ACA CTA, Founder and Managing Director, AdvanceTrack Outsourcing

Vipul is a UK based ICAEW Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor. Vipul trained with a regional UK firm before moving to Ernst & Young and KPMG. AdvanceTrack is a UK Headquartered Accountancy Outsourcing Company with offshore operational centres, delivering services around the globe.

AdvanceTrack demonstrates compliance with international security laws including GDPR through certification to ISO27001:2013, ISO27701:2019 and BS10012 audited by BSI. Quality is certified to ISO9001:2015 and Business Continuity certified to ISO22301:2019

wasn’t in our hands so we couldn’t assume anything about it. But it was fun, and no – I didn’t think I would have to work while we were away!”

The itinerary was a full one. There was a desert safari, cruises and city tours, along with free time for them to go shopping.

“They didn’t want me to have them in a conference room,” adds Vipul. “They chose to go to the waterpark instead!”

Team support

Aanal Shah has a young daughter, and was therefore reticent to travel. “But my colleagues said: ‘You must come. Don’t stop yourself.’ Everyone supported me on the holiday with her, and she enjoyed it too.”

“I would say that this is how it is working at AdvanceTrack. All the small things are taken care of for us – we don’t have to ask,” adds Mohit Soni.

Rajni Patel is one of AdvanceTrack’s longest-serving team members. The manager says there were “just a few of us here”. “It’s amazing to see how we’ve grown”. “I’ve been here eight years and it feels like family,” Aanal Shah adds.

Vipul explains that he wanted to do something that “made us stand out as an organisation”.

“Part of that comes down to us giving opportunities that individually they might otherwise not have done,” says Vipul.

“The fact that we were able to offer that life-changing experience is really what it’s all about. It was an important thing to do.”

Ultimately, without good people, AdvanceTrack doesn’t have a good business – and that is the same for all businesses.

“Sometimes that gets forgotten in the world we live in,” explains Vipul. “Profits are one thing and, of course, we operate ‘as a business’, but the long-term wellbeing of our people is a great investment.”

So, what next? “Hopefully something similar for the next group,” replies Vipul. “And then we’ll speak to the long-serving team about what they want!”

AI, outsourcing, automation, the future of accountants… and everything else in between

This article isn’t about technology… no, really. OK, I will talk about technology, but more

FAQ: TELL US ABOUT YOUR INDIAN TEAM

You’ve read a bit about the AdvanceTrack team already – this FAQ gives you more detail about their day-to-day work (and their working environment).

MD Vipul Sheth explains why they’re critical to our outsourcing and offshoring offerings.

In 2005 we had five people operating in one of our locations – now our team number is in the hundreds. One of those original five was Rajni, who has been a constant for us and has helped to set the culture and tone of our muchenlarged group – hopefully in my mirror of being honest; decent people wanting to do a good job.

It’s also a place where people must feel safe to make it their own – certainly when you don’t have the big boss watching over things every day.

The office

If any of our client firms had an office like ours then I think they’d be proud to call it their own. It’s spacious and paperless (the exception being HR’s printer – some formal documents HAVE to be printed). It’s contemporary and modern.

We have meeting rooms, smaller breakout spaces and

as a scene-setter than anything else.

Instead, this blog is about you and me. Humans. Or to be more precise, humans that undertake accounting and tax work (and the subset that provide broader business advice). But the tech first.

canteens across all our four offices. We want our people to step away from their desks during breaks – we don’t want too much of a production line-style way of working.

Protocols

No mobile phones are allowed in the office for security reasons – that even means guests. Recently the IPL cricket was reaching its crescendo, and people on their break would watch it in the canteen and relay the scores when back at their desk.

There are metal detectors to pass when you arrive, along with lockers for valuables (such as the mobile phone) –for visitors and staff.

Holiday

We have very happy and productive teams, and recently we took our longestserving members to Dubai.

Even though our team numbers are growing quickly, we have plenty of people to help them settle into our way of working. It’s incredibly calm, and make sure the work’s done. But it’s important to appreciate and represent the social side of things too.

The world’s largest technology players have invested in proprietary AI – or are looking to implement versions into their offering. Whereas a lot of the chatter around automation has been focused on easing the burden of rudimentary tasks that accountants undertake, discussions around AI have been

around replacing accountants. ‘If the data crunching can be automated, and then next steps of the conversation handled by AI, then why accountants?’

So, is that it for the accountancy profession? Certainly not. Is it the end for it in its current iteration? Perhaps yes.

AI works by aggregating data and making a ‘best fit’ case for a request from us, humans, to provide us with an ‘answer’. This data is quantitative or qualitative. We have seen AI tools produce some very clever ‘scripts’ upon request though, in truth, most of these don’t quite fit the bill – and require us humans to further interpret and edit.

Perhaps the ‘clear-cut’ nature of numbers will be a different story then? Well, we’ve had computational equipment for decades, and the profession is still alive and well.

Technicians and advisers

It could be argued that the profession is evolving – that as tax and accounting becomes more complex, and businesses require more hand-holding and advice, that we will see a greater distinction between ‘technicians’ and advisers’. This is true, but there is a tension – that

relationships have often been borne from initial compliance work. In other words, for the technician/adviser distinction to be made, there will have to be changes in practices’ structure and approach.

The other thing to consider is: micro and small businesses are messy. They’re driven by people with skills and ambition, for whom the numbers, marketing and ‘rules’ get in the way of what they really want to do. They also operate in subtly different ways to each. That’s a lot of lifting and transactional automation for AI to comprehend.

Finally, and back to us as humans doing business. It can be very lonely. And accountants are in a wonderful position to not

only manage compliance, but to provide insight on all the information that automation and AI has formed on OUR behalf. Business owners want advice and support. Ideally, from a wise head (that has the rest of a human attached to it). That wise human could (and probably should) be you.

Unleashing the Potential of Your Practice: Taking the Leap with Clarity Campus

Advance your accounting game with Clarity Streets best practice learning platform

Amy Holdsworth, CEO & Founder, Clarity Street

Amy founded Clarity Street after identifying a gap in the accounting cloud ecosystem. Individual software providers lacked the expertise and time to ensure smooth dataflows between apps. To address this, Clarity Street empowers Accounting Practices to optimise their app stack, streamline operations, and enhance adoption. With a decade of success, Clarity Street reduces friction and helps clients achieve optimal performance through expert guidance and support.

elcome to a world of transformation - where a team of former Practice Managers meets seasoned Accountants who have experienced both sides of the cloud accounting revolution. Fused with their expertise, their unyielding passion for efficiency strives to streamline and enhance operations for practices with enormous potential – your potential!

Clarity Street: A Decade of Accounting Expertise

The experts at Clarity Street have navigated the unforgiving labyrinth of the accounting landscape for over ten years, leaving no stone unturned. Our keen understanding of the industry’s unique features and intricacies has shaped our philosophy that each practice has its distinct identity. Therefore, our solutions are customised to synchronise with your workflow rather than being confined within predefined boxes.

We comprehensively view your firm, carefully crafting the ideal

blueprint solutions based on your unique needs and challenges. Our dynamic approach has saved our clients thousands of dollars and countless hours by remodelling their inner workings, reorienting teams, and smoothly integrating software solutions.

The Obstacle: Building a Comprehensive Learning and Community Platform

The most common obstacle faced by the numerous firms we’ve worked with is the absence of a software and processcentric learning and community platform. It’s not just having a series of apps that will make your practice thrive - processes and procedures across those apps are equally important for productivity and efficiency.

Enter Clarity Campus: our solution covers all your bases, from individual applications to overarching processes, ensuring seamless integration.

Curated as a platform to facilitate easy queries from industry experts and peers, Clarity Campus was conceived from extensive industry conversations and stems from a fundamental understanding of the corresponding needs and frustrations of different firms.

Meet Clarity Campus: Your Allin-One Resource for Accounting Practice Excellence

Consider Clarity Campus a reservoir of resources at your disposal; it is much more than a collection of information - it’s a cohesive platform fostering support, community, and development. Developed to promote growth and inspire forwardthinking within the accounting community, your firm will significantly benefit from diverse resources that assist in finding solutions, addressing roadblocks, and uncovering unknown aspects of your practice. We are committed to supporting your journey

“Empower

towards operational excellence and goal fulfilment.

Clarity Campus grants your team access to a multitude of benefits:

• Stay Ahead: Bid farewell to fretting about other firms’ activities and potential missed opportunities. With Clarity Campus, you’ll always be in the loop about the latest advancements and updates in the accounting world. Knowledge will enable you to focus on improving your practice without distraction.

• Hassle-free Education: Forget the exhausting process of coordinating schedules and enforcing uniform learning patterns within your team. Clarity Campus understands that everyone learns differently, so our platform allows for a flexible and personalised space, enabling each team member to learn at their own pace and style.

• Master Workflow: Sift through our catalogue of best practice

processes and procedures articles and delve deeper into understanding all pivotal applications within your work framework, ensuring that your methods and software work harmoniously for maximum efficiency.

Clarity Campus: A Supportive Learning Hub and Community

Picture Clarity Campus as an evolving ecosystem of resources designed to help you, an engaged accounting community member, grow, develop, and succeed in your mission. Your firm will gain access to a range of resources and tools that can assist you in finding answers, troubleshooting problems, and investigating new areas of professional growth to stay at the cutting edge of industry development.

“Consider Clarity Campus a reservoir of resources at your disposal”

30-plus courses and over 700 articles guiding accounting firm operations across various topics and levels of expertise. Take control of your educational journey by learning at your own pace and creating a unique path while accumulating valuable CPD hours to demonstrate your commitment to continuous improvement. Clarity Campus invites your accounting practice to leap to unsurpassed professional excellence.

Welcome to Clarity Campus, Your One-stop

Solution

Enjoy full access to our bestpractice learning platform - with

Clarity Campus is your internal intranet, learning & development platform, and best practice support tool - all rolled into one. The solution is divided into five main sections, each designed to cater to different needs, ensuring that you and your team can access the most relevant resources and support:

1. Courses

2. Knowledge Base Articles

3. Support

4. Clarity Calls

5. Community Courses: Empower your employees with comprehensive yet flexible, self-paced, on-demand style of learning opportunities. Our curated learning pathways cater to various difficulty levels, ranging from beginner-friendly to advanced topics. Each staff member can repeat available courses as often as desired, ensuring a thorough understanding of relevant applications and processes within your practice.

“We are committed to supporting your journey towards operational excellence & goal fulfilment.”

software designed to help you optimise your processes for maximum efficiency and accuracy. By implementing these best practices, your firm can enhance its endto-end operations and decision-making processes.

Moreover, our courses are designed to help learners earn Continuing Professional Development (CPD) points for each course completed, allowing them to stay up-to-date with industry trends while enhancing their skills and knowledge. Furthermore, we are continuously developing more courses, expanding the learning library, on both software and procedures so that you and your staff’s knowledge remains current in line with industry evolution.

Knowledge Base Articles: Our extensive Knowledge Base offers articles and resources focused on industry best practice processes, procedures, and

Support: Sometimes, specific issues require focused attention and troubleshooting. Our Support service is equipped to address these questions and provide efficient resolutions when the Knowledge base falls short. As a bonus, we use the feedback from these support tickets to write more Knowledge Base articles, continuously expanding our resources.

Clarity Calls: Stay in tune with the latest trends accounting apps and operational excellence with our weekly live webinars during Clarity Calls. Our hosts lead each session topic with practical advice, based around our best practice knowledge and expertise, and allow participants to ask questions in order to find solutions to existing problems. Upcoming session topics can be viewed in advance and all sessions are recorded and uploaded to our Knowledge Bank, so that everyone can access past sessions on demand.

Clarity Community: Immerse yourself in our digital community, which enables networking, brainstorming, and problem-solving. Our platform supports a culture of collaboration, allowing you to gain connections, insights, and fresh perspectives that can elevate your practice and inspire your team. The Community includes access for your entire team so that everyone can benefit from our collective wealth of knowledge and experience.

Join the Clarity Campus Family

We can’t wait to welcome you on Campus and to the Clarity Street community. Our commitment to providing you with the tools and resources necessary to achieve your goals runs deep. We believe our collaboration will be enjoyable and benefit your firm in equal measure. Together, we can look forward to continual professional development and success.

“Developed to promote growth & inspire forwardthinking within the accounting community”

How to fix broken and slow expenditure approval processes

Discover practical solutions to streamline your organisation’s expenditure approval processes.

Trent McLaren, Accounting Industry Leader Accounting Thought Leader Of The Year, Founder of Journey - SaaS Consultancy for Accounting Tech, CEO From The Trenches - Real Life In Accounting. Ex - Weel, Ignition, Intuit, TOA Global, eWAY

We’ve explored some of the most common challenges contributing to broken and slow expenditure approval workflows and have actionable tips to enhance efficiency, eliminate bottlenecks, and empower your team with adequate spending controls.

What’s the old saying? You have to spend money to make money. The innovative business sees the value in that philosophy while putting guides around spending that keep decision-making in check. Like the reins on a racehorse, good expense management protocols keep you on the straight and narrow path to success. The only time you’d pull back is if you’re going to crash.

The evolution of this side of the company has failed to keep up with the progressive spirit the business was founded on. It’s impossible to win a horserace with the jockey pulling back on the reins.

The common bottleneck for expenditure approval processes

There are several common causes for slow and inefficient processes when it comes to approving costs in a company. These causes can vary depending on the organisation’s size, structure, and specific operational challenges.

1. Manual workflows

With automation technology now on our side, there is no longer

the need to rely so heavily on the manual movement of documents. This causes delays in routing and bottlenecks.

2. Lack of standardisation

Miscommunication and prolonged decision-making are the enemy. No matter how big or small, every company needs clear guidelines for requesting, reviewing, and approving spending.

3. Hierarchical approval structures

Multiple levels of management approval and oversight can cause delays.

4. Manual tracking and followup

Lack of visibility into the approval status is a significant concern. It’s essential to eliminate and challenge the process to monitor the progress and identify and fix bottlenecks.

5. Lack of delegation and empowerment

Efficiencies are found by removing centralised decision-making authority. More employees in

charge of their own cost centres and budgets make making the load more manageable.

6. Limited access to information and documentation

If approvers don’t have easy access to relevant information, such as budget details, project specifications, or historical spending, it can cause delays as they gather that additional information.

7. Inefficient communication channels

No one wants to rely on backand-forth emails, phone calls, or physical meetings to confirm their approval. A central place with the correct information is needed to eliminate misunderstandings.

If this reminds you of your business, now is the time to change.

How approval automation software can improve your business.

We see it all around us. Technology is finding efficiencies with automation of tasks, reducing manual effort and

saving time. The area of approval automation is no exception.

Accounts departments everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief. Here’s what innovative businesses are getting with new technology like ApprovalMax.

Standardisation – Everyone knows where they stand with consistent organisational processes.

Real-time visibility – Easily track the status of approvals and identify bottlenecks. Always know where you stand on the budget and how the expense affects the bottom line.

Compliance checks – Technology can incorporate compliance checks and validations into the approval process, ensuring adherence to regulations, budget limits, and policies.

Audit trails – Capture approval history, timestamps, and user

actions, which aids in audits and fraud investigations.

Segregation of duties – Enforce segregation of duties by setting up predefined approval hierarchies and access controls, reducing the risk of fraud.

Document management – No more emailing back and forth. Secure document management allows for easy attachment and retrieval of supporting documents during the approval process, supporting compliance requirements.

Collaboration and communication – It’s easier and quicker to explain things to those involved in the approval process, making for faster decision-making and fewer delays.

Mobile accessibility – Having on-the-go access to the approval process from anywhere makes sense. Anything less is unacceptable these days.

Here’s how ApprovalMax makes financial controls and approvals a breeze

By addressing these causes, organisations can streamline and optimise their approval processes. ApprovalMax is a cloud-based approval workflow automation platform that helps businesses streamline and optimise their approval processes. It is designed to simplify and accelerate spending approvals, providing organisations with greater control, transparency, and efficiency.

To find out more about ApprovalMax, visit: approvalmax.com

Your guide to updating vendor software prices with Ignition

Ignition

Founded in 2013, Ignition is an all-in-one platform for professional services that empowers businesses to get paid faster, and run smarter.

Ignition automates and optimizes proposals, client agreements, billing and payment collection to put an end to late payments, unbilled work and mundane repetitive admin.

Over 6,500 accounting and professional services businesses globally rely on Ignition to get paid faster for all of their work, run more efficiently, and become more profitable.

Changes to cloud subscriptions can mean extra admin to update your pricing, Ignition can help.

A

s an accountant, you manage a lot of apps on behalf of your clients. Changes to cloud accounting subscriptions can mean you need an easy way to update your service prices across your client base.

But before you do so, you’ll need an effective plan to manage this change and consider what

and how you’ll communicate to ensure that your messaging holds integrity.

Let’s dive into a few different aspects of the plan below.

A framework for approaching pricing changes

Consider who and what is affected:

• Which clients are affected?

• Does this impact your costs, or just your clients?

• How are these costs currently being paid?

Consider your options and steps to take:

• Absorb the difference.

• Price in charges (packages).

• Pass on the cost.

Consider how the new fees will be presented:

• Included in the package.

• Priced separately.

• Separate engagements.

Planning for price changes

1. Who or what is affected?

We’ll need to first define who or what is affected. Is it a group of clients? Is it a particular service you provide?

If you have all of your clients on a formal engagement detailing their specific package and scope of deliverables, you can easily identify who or what will be impacted.

If you’re using Ignition, which empowers businesses to get paid faster and run smarter, you can use the service revenue export to identify clients receiving a particular service that requires a price change.

2. What are my options?

When a vendor increases their prices, there are a few paths that you can take:

1. Absorb the difference - If it’s a small or one-off increase, you can either absorb the difference or spread it across multiple clients. Then, increase profitability elsewhere in your business to accommodate.

A. Change is small or spread over multiple clients

B. Profitality increases elsewhere to accommodate

C. ACTION: Review on next pricing review

2. Prices in chargesAlternatively, you can build the increased cost into your service

prices. You can include the vendors’ prices in your package and add a larger profit margin to give you a cushion in case a vendor increase happens again in the future.

A. You have added a margin on vendor cost (e.g. don’t pass on full volume-based discount to clients)

B. You have packaged services with a margin

C. ACTION: Review on next pricing review

3. Pass on the differenceLastly, if the change is too large in terms of price or it forces you to change your terms and legalities, you might have to pass on the difference to your clients with a new shift in scope to their contract.

A. Change is too large or based on client number

B. Opportunity to change your

terms too

C. ACTION: Issue a scope change to client

This might sound a little daunting, but if your contracts and engagements are all digital (as they are in Ignition), it’s easy to make these price changes to your engagements!

How do I change my prices in Ignition?

Step 1: Let your clients know first

Here’s a quick email template above to help form the basis.

Communicating the changes to your client is key.

Some good things to note are:

• The nature of the change and Cont...

sources of information (link to press releases or related blog articles from the company).

• What specific actions (if any) do you need them to take (for example, sign-off, a reply or simply no action)?

• When will this happen (specify a specific date when this new change will take place, or when the new pricing will take effect)?

Step 2: Decide how you will proceed with updating your prices in Ignition

We’ve listed a few methods below:

A. Get a list of active services and update the prices individually

Follow this article to identify active services using a CSV file and then perform a service edit to change the price.

the proposal starts on the date specified in your communications.

Learn more about renewing a proposal here.

Some additional tips for renewing a proposal

• Use subscription or service names and list the inclusions – being more specific on inclusions in vendor services will help you if clients upgrade account tiers, too.

Use Service Terms for vendor services to specify that pricing is based on current vendor prices and how you will inform them of these changes. See below for an example to include for subscription prices. Find out more about service terms here.

by the vendor during the term of the contract.

• If a change occurs in vendor pricing, we will inform you in writing (email) of this before the next billing period affected by the change and will/will not require a formal scope change (new letter) to be signed by you. Changes will take effect in the next billing period unless specified otherwise.

FIND OUT MORE...

If you’re not using Ignition yet and want to see the platform in action, you can see how Ignition works now. Alternatively you can book a 1:1 walk-through of Ignition

What an integrated last-mile delivery solution could do for your business

Roy Moody, CEO, vWork

As CEO Roy is leading the global growth of vWork’s job dispatch and scheduling software. vWork currently has over 5,000 users in ten countries with a strong focus on the Australia, New Zealand and UK markets currently. Roy has a high-level of sector and product knowledge backed by past experience in running successful global technology companies.

hen it comes to dispatch and delivery, ensuring a seamless service is paramount. When goods are required to be delivered to a precise location and at the right time, the delivery is all part of the product you’re selling.

But it’s not just about the lastmile delivery when it comes to the end-to-end experience for customers. Closing the loop by

billing is generally the last point of contact a customer has on a job – and also where the customer experience can easily come undone.

Recognised as a leader in lastmile delivery and an expert in what it takes to create exceptional customer experiences, vWork’s technology uses the power of integration to create gamechanging links between job

scheduling and dispatch processes and accounting systems such as Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB Advanced.

Job completion and mileage data automatically generates accurate invoices and improves cashflow

vWork uses job completion and mileage data to automatically generate accurate invoices while sharing data with other key business systems to streamline administrative processes and reduce errors.

“Our customers are now able to consolidate their invoicing, deliver improved communication to their clients, and offer an easy-to-use app experience for their drivers,” says Roy Moody, CEO, vWork.

By making it easier to invoice as soon as a job is complete –anywhere and anytime – vWork creates a new opportunity for businesses to deliver an improved experience for customers while preventing lost revenue and supporting cash flow.

Integrating your last-mile delivery solution with invoicing is critical to creating the highly specialised and effective point-to-point service customers expect.

“An accurate and up-to-date picture of your financial position means there is one less thing for business owners to worry about. This peace of mind helps support other business priorities like paying yourself and your staff on time and knowing how much money you can put aside to buy new equipment or inventory,” added Roy.

Reducing human errors and taking pressure off front-line staff

vWork’s Xero and MYOB integrations give clients the ability to instantly invoice customers upon delivery. In practice, this means when a driver signs off a completed delivery in vWork, all relevant information is immediately transferred to the accounting system such as the item or product details, delivery costs, and SLA compliance. From there, automatically generated invoices take seconds to create without human intervention

and can be issued immediately or according to existing billing arrangements.

“vWork enables delivery drivers and dispatch officers to submit invoices on the go. Directly connecting your accounting software can save an abundance of time, making reconciling your accounts quick and easy while maintaining data security and compliance,” said Roy.

“vWork streamlines the entire last-mile delivery experience, from order acceptance to invoice submission”

Connecting all of the dots to excel at delivering to your customers

vWork revolutionises the efficiency of your business ecosystem, offering seamless integration with a variety of solutions to maximise its impact. The true power of vWork emerges when it is integrated with your CRM system, like SalesForce, providing a unified and reliable source for reporting on customer records. Additionally, vWork’s telemetry integrations with major players, including

EROAD, Linxio, Navman, and Webfleet, add further value.

“From small fleets of twenty vehicles to larger ones with hundreds, vWork streamlines the entire last-mile delivery experience, from order acceptance to invoice submission, with a light implementation footprint for your tech team and substantial ROI from an operational standpoint,” added Roy.

“What sets vWork apart is its flexibility to seamlessly integrate across your tech stack. The goal is to make vWork as useful as possible, aligning with your existing workflows rather than creating new ones,” he concluded.

To find out more on how an integrated dispatch application can help your business, visit:

vworkapp.com

Making the right choice The Top 5 priorities for selecting your next company tool

re you considering adopting a new automation tool or thinking about switching from your current one?

Recently, we dived into user feedback on bookkeeping automation tools like Datamolino.

By going through hundreds of reviews, we gained lots of valuable insights into what matters most to accountants and bookkeepers seeking products that help them reduce manual data entry time and automate invoice processing.

The following findings can guide and inspire your next decision.

1. Transparent pricing

Users seek automation with straightforward and flexible pricing models so they know how much they will be paying for the service each month. Understanding monthly expenses ahead of time isn’t just about budgeting; it’s about trust.

When evaluating a tool, these are the key things users value in relation to pricing:

• Published and readily accessible pricing (eliminating the need to request quotes)

• Consistent and clear pricing structure that’s easy to understand (no hidden fees)

• The ability to calculate monthly service costs with ease

2. Accessible customer support

An astonishing number of user reviews mentioned the quality of customer service, rapid response times, and personalized 1:1 assistance in addressing issues or challenges.

The initial onboarding experience often shapes a user’s impression, potentially turning technology into either a curse or a blessing. We understand the frustration when technology becomes cumbersome, or when service providers don’t respond effectively.

Lu is at the heart of Datamolino’s client experience, diving deep into onboarding and cultivating lasting relationships. She loves working directly with clients, truly understanding their needs, and figuring out how Datamolino can help. She’s driven by meaningful solutions, not just ticking boxes. For Lu, it’s about the tool and the people using it.

Having access to quality human support for swift issue resolution not only saves time but also offers a safety net. Customer support isn’t just about fixing problems; it’s about building relationships.

This aspect of a product or service is often underestimated, yet it can ultimately determine whether the application holds value for users.

3. Ease of use & simplicity of the product

The pre-accounting phase is where bookkeepers and accountants deal with dozens of small tasks from document collection, data entry, to invoice coding and processing.

This is why an efficient accounting tool is one that’s simple and userfriendly enough to enable users to get used to the software quickly and integrate it smoothly into their workflow.

Complexity often leads to errors and frustration, while simplicity boosts productivity. The feedback speaks volumes. Users appreciate:

• Clear, easy-to-navigate interfaces.

• Tools that save time, both in reducing repetitive tasks and streamlining onboarding and collaboration.

• Intuitive designs that minimise

Lu Jakubac, Customer Success Lead, Datamolino

the likelihood of errors, resulting in more accurate and reliable bookkeeping.

4. Time-saving and efficiency

The time-saving qualities of bookkeeping automation tools are among the most frequently mentioned selling points for these products. By reducing manual data entry, these tools don’t just save minutes; they save hours and days, enabling you to focus on other critical tasks instead.

You may consider the following functionalities:

• Features like auto-export to accounting software, like Xero.

• Customisable automation rules. One size doesn’t fit all, especially for professionals juggling multiple clients or large businesses with varied operations.

• Easy collaboration tools for your users and clients.

5. Seamless integration into accounting software

The beauty of seamless integration isn’t just convenience—it’s a necessity. It acts as a bridge, not a barrier. Bridging the gap between bookkeeping automation products and accounting software like Xero presents multifaceted benefits:

• Elimination of the tedious task of manual data transfer.

• Real-time synchronised data accessible from any point.

• Greater accuracy, fewer errors, and effortless collaboration.

• Streamlined reconciliation processes, simplified reporting, and enhanced transparency for clients.

Final thoughts

Choosing from so many automation tools can be daunting but by prioritizing the right features and support, businesses can find a solution that not only meets their operational needs but also enhances their workflow.

Remember, the goal is not just to adopt technology but to find tools that truly resonate with your team’s needs and your firm’s mission. By focusing on transparent pricing, exceptional customer support, ease of use, efficiency, and seamless

integration, you’re well on your way to selecting a tool that will drive your company forward, streamline processes, and foster a more productive environment.

As you make your next decision, keep these priorities at the forefront and ensure your investment brings value for years to come.

Why accountants struggle to turnaround individual tax returns (ITRs) on time

James Rose, Co-Founder & CEO, Content Snare

James co-founded Content Snare in late 2016 after discovering a bottleneck in getting information from clients in a timely manner, in the right format. Since then, Content Snare has grown rapidly in the accounting and bookkeeping industry as the tool of choice for leading firms who are wanting to reduce turnaround times, and improve their clients’ experience.

The end of the financial year (EOFY) can be a tough time for Aussie accounting firms. You have company accounts to file for business clients with 30 June year-ends. And you also have individual tax returns (ITRs) for your personal clients to file with the Australian Tax Office (ATO). That’s a lot of compliance work and form-filling to have on your plate at once!

There’s no reason for this heavy ITR workload to end up drowning your team, though. In fact, by being smart with your use of tech, you can streamline the whole EOFY process.

So, how do you make your ITRs as easy as ABC? We’ll ask:

• What stops you getting your ITRs done and dusted?

• How can you ditch the main ITR challenges?

• Why are ITRs a breeze when you use Content Snare?

Tax season is busy. There’s no getting around that fact. Those months following 30 June, are when the compliance workload ramps up (and your stress levels probably increase a fair bit too!). Getting your individual returns prepared can become a major part of this heavy workload.

Why are ITRs such a big task to take on? Here are five key challenges that will generally make completing these returns an uphill struggle:

1. Collecting the clients’ documents – not all individuals will have made the leap to digital. We’re not quite at the ‘pile of tax receipts in a shoe box’ stage of yesteryear, but it still takes plenty of time to collect the receipts, documents

and statements you need, in the right format.

2. Meeting all the tax compliance requirements –keeping up with tax regulations and the ATO’s changing guidance adds to the workload. It’s also important to make sure you’re claiming every possible expense that clients can claim against tax.

3. Getting the data-entry done –collecting the actual documents isn’t the end of the story. Without a digital process, you still need to manually enter all this information into the client’s accounting software and move these numbers over to the online return.

4. Reviewing and revising the returns – looking for potential errors and omissions in the return takes time. And when you do find mistakes or missing information, that can mean a lot of ‘email ping pong’ back and forth with the client to find the right info.

@contentsnare

Individual returns can often be frustrating, unprofitable and time-consuming jobs–but no longer.

There’s no reason why individual returns shouldn’t be profitable for your firm. With the right tools, you can reduce turnaround time and eliminate back-andforth with clients.

“There’s no reason for the heavy tax return workload to end up drowning your team.”

This article is

5. Catching up with the client before filing – face-to-face time with clients is important, especially before filing their ITRs. This is a chance for clients to ask questions and for you to understand their financial situation. But pinning down the time for this is hard.

These five main challenges can make ITRs a potential mountain to climb for your practice team. Yourself or your team could spend hours collecting client documents, sifting through info for omissions and checking that all the compliance boxes have been ticked. And that’s on top of managing their other ongoing tasks and engagement workloads.

So, how can I reduce turnaround time for my individual returns?

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Automate the collection of your clients’ information –don’t spend hours chasing the client for documents. Automate this collection process with a tool like Content Snare. Send a list of requests to the client and let them upload the docs in one hit.

• Use tech to make sure you stay compliant – most of the main cloud accounting platforms will include income tax templates for automatically completing your clients’ ITRs. It’s fast, accurate and helps you to speed up the whole return process.

• Use digital analytics tools to filter your data – smart data analytics tools, like XBert or Dext Precision will automatically scan your client files to look for errors, omissions and poor data quality. So you ITR data will be top notch before you run the returns.

Free up more time for client conversations

– with more of the IT process automated, you get more time to sit down with your clients. That means more opportunities for questions, answers and advice on how to maximise their tax efficiency etc.

• Collect all the info you need with our Request Builder tools

• Allow the client to upload all the docs, receipts and statements you need

• Store all this ITR data in one place, securely stored and accessed in the cloud

“I thought Content Snare would resolve one pain point, I didn’t realise it’d resolve so many.”

According to Aly Garrett, Founder & Principal of award-winning firm, All in Advisory:

“I thought it’d resolve one pain point, I didn’t realise it’d resolve so many. If I had realised earlier, I would have gotten on board with Content Snare a whole lot sooner.”

“Load up the right tools to improve the clients’ experience and ease the team’s workload!”

Taking the hassle out of ITRs makes a BIG difference to your efficiency as a firm. Instead of pulling your hair out and working overtime to hit the tax deadlines, let the tech take the strain.

Rather than let profitability suffer on these jobs, load up the right tools and tech to improve both the clients’ experience and ease the workload for your team!

• Digitise and automate the input of client data – intelligent document capture (IDC) tech means you can wave goodbye to days of manual data entry. With IDC, you can scan in paper and PDF documents and turn the information straight into digital data.

At Content Snare, we’ve even created a range of useful ‘request templates’, including one for individual returns! These templates give you an easy, automated way to collect all the documents and information you need for a client’s individual yearend:

Strucket Rich:

How inventory management system

Fishbowl helped a Sunshine Coast based strainer bucket company scale-up to play with the big fish

t seems like managing inventory in your business should be a fairly straight-forward process right? Count the items in your warehouse, track their movements, and reorder them when they get low. Seems straight forward enough, on paper, but the reality is anything but this simple, as Sunshine Coast founder and CEO of Strucket, Kelly Lavery found out when her business started to expand rapidly.

“In the early days of Strucket we would do everything manually. There was often a lot of scrambling and trying to work out exactly where we were at and hoping we had the numbers right” Mrs Lavery said.

“We started with one pallet of stock in a tiny room and it just grew and grew and grew and we discovered that if you don’t have your systems in place to grow, that’s going to be your biggest problem.”

The business, originally named Buderim Bucket company, started quite small back in 2018, but as success with social media

took hold, the company grew rapidly and it became obvious that the business needed a better way to take control of stock and the ordering process.

“We realised quite quickly as we were going through that something had to change...we were moving so fast and we didn’t want to slip up and make mistakes so we needed excellent systems put in place and luckily through local community we found Fishbowl and that was the problem Solved.” Mrs Lavery said.

Director,

“We have a lot of clients with a very similar story to this,” said Fishbowl APAC Managing Director, Simon Jupe, “Managing inventory involves numerous tasks and components that all need to work in harmony on a continuing basis to produce the desired results. Most businesses start small and with very manual processes, but to

@Fishbowl

Craig Scarr, Marketing Director, APAC, Fishbowl

Craig Scarr is a marketing professional and business leader with passion and focus to help organisations and leadership teams to generate outstanding results. Craig has extensive experience as a business professional spanning strategic marketing, brand management, partnership development, content, and digital media marketing across a diverse range of industries including FMCG, financial services, not for profit organisations and software solution providers.

take your business to the next level, you really need to have the right tools and the right automation to help you scale appropriately.” He said.

Fishbowl is an inventory management solution that provides features and functionality for small to enterprise-sized warehousing and manufacturing businesses.

Fishbowl performs inventory management tasks such as: Barcoding, Serial number and batch tracking, Advanced bill of materials and work orders and has Seamless accounting integrations with Intuit QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Reckon Accounts.

“Our software solution provides our clients with granular visibility into their operations, efficiency to streamline and grow, and flexibility to customize today and in the future, all at a fraction of the cost of other ERP systems on the market.” Mr Jupe said.

Kelly Lavery, Founder & CEO, Strucket

Simon Jupe, Managing

APAC, Fishbowl

There’s a lot more than just functionality to consider when deciding to take on an inventory management system to improve the way your business operates. Implementation and onboarding is a huge element too. How the system is set up and how staff perceive the need for the solution all play crucial roles in whether the system will succeed.

When speaking about the setup and service provided by Fishbowl, Mrs Lavery said “It was great to get help from a real person. It was refreshing to be able to resolve issues in a timely and efficient manner and at the same time be heard and respected as a customer. It’s hard to get that kind of service these days.” She said.

“Getting set up right from the outset is crucial. Our clients are everything to us and our entire awesome team does everything they can to deliver the best setup, service and business solutions around!” Mr Jupe said.

“Whilst there were quite a few things to figure out when we first implemented Fishbowl, I just love it now because it allows me to have the operational side of the business taken care of. I can access reports and I know where my stock is at all times. And what that does is it gives me the ability to focus on what I’m good at and that is the product development for Strucket and also the sales and marketing so that

we can continue to sell Strucket worldwide.” Mrs Lavery said.

To find out more about Fishbowl, visit: fishbowlinventory.com.au

Help Your Clients Select the Right Job Management Software

Some Simple Tips to Avoid Common Pitfalls

Tony Harcourt, CEO and CoFounder, WorkGuru

Tony is a software founder, consultant, and speaker on business processes and cloud systems. He has worked with clients ranging from mining giants to family businesses on their systems, platforms and processes.

Tony is passionate about helping small-businesses grow and prosper, and believes that it’s impossible to do that without the best-of-breed cloud solutions to save time, and increase business visibility for a real-time review of your business operations.

WorkGuru’s Co-Founder and CEO, Tony Harcourt, shares his tips on helping your clients select the right Job Management Software

here’s a huge amount of upheaval in the Job Management Software space at the moment. With Xero retiring their WorkflowMax product, thousands of customers around the world are evaluating what the next step is for them.

While many clients will make a decision on their own, many will turn to their accountants and bookkeepers for advice, and it

can sometimes be tough to know how to go about recommending a software to your client.

Stop and Assess

Before your clients jump into a new system, there’s a few questions to ask about what the optimum outcome for the client is. If they were using a bunch of spreadsheets and workarounds, you should help them analyse the

shortfall in what they have, and get a system that meets their realworld requirements.

Focus on the Problem to be Solved

A lot of the time, people focus on the industry, or the features of a program that they want for their clients - and that’s a good starting point, but the real key is to step back and ask, “What is the problem we’re trying to solve here.”

The whole point of the software is to solve problems for you, and not necessarily to solve them the way that you do now - particularly if that way is inefficient, or outdated.

Know What you Love About What You’ve Got

It sounds silly, but you’ve got your current software for a reason. You like something about it enough to keep it around, so if everything it currently did for you was taken away, it’s really important to know what it is that you’d miss about it.

Don’t assume that every piece of software in the same category has the same features or achieves the same outcomes,

Know What Your extra Must Haves, and Nice to Haves are

Once you know what you’d hate to lose about your current software, think about the things that you just WISH it did better. If you’re moving to a new platform, categorise that list into MUST haves, and Nice to Haves.

Do you want Stock Control? Calendar Scheduling? Easy Variation handling? Progress Claims? What is it that’s going to make a real difference to your business?

Remember that a Must Have is “I won’t buy the software at all if it doesn’t solve X.” Nice to have, is “I’ll still consider the software if it has all my Must Haves, but doesn’t solve this thing.”

Get A DEMO - not Just a Trial

Getting a custom demo is the no 1 most important thing that you can do. Free trials are awesome (and you should get one of those too!) but the thing about Job Management Software, is that it can take a heck of setting up to see it work to its true potential.

If You can’t see a Demo of a Feature - Assume it Doesn’t Exist

When I was a consultant, many times clients wouldn’t speak about a feature or a requirement because they simply assumed that it existed! Don’t ever do that!

Some providers (like WorkGuru) are built from the ground up on customer input, and have the team coordinated so that features are deployed regularly and based on customer requests. That being said, no SaaS product will build completely bespoke software.

Figure out the Roll Out Process

“If you can’t see a demo of a feature, assume it doesn’t exist”

A demo, customised to your client by the software company, shows you how THEY (the expert) would solve the business problem using their software. Remember, if you and your client have never played with it before, there’s going to be HEAPs of things about it that you don’t know! Ask the experts, and make them show you.

Also - a great thing about a demo, is that you can get multiple stakeholders involved as each part of the business has different requirements. Get them all together for 40 mins to ask their questions, and get buy in about moving.

When you’re getting a demo of the software, make sure you see the things that you want to see. If that particular demo account isn’t setup to show a certain feature, book another call to see that explicitly! You’re betting a business on choosing the right software, so it’s important to actually see how something works.

At WorkGuru, our motto is very simple. If we can’t show you - assume it doesn’t exist. If we haven’t shown you, please ask!

Understand the Platform Approach to User Input

Let’s face it - a lot of providers don’t have the ability to include user feedback or feature requests into their software, and that’s fair. Building software is incredibly difficult and expensive, and if you’re not set up to be flexible on change requests, or extra features, it’s very hard to accommodate them.

Rolling out your new solution is a huge part of the challenge, often more than selecting it as new job management software is as much about people and process, as it is about the tech. If your people won’t use it, or the process is too cumbersome, the project will fail, and you’ll waste time and money implementing something that’s clearly not fit for purpose.

Whether your client is looking to configure the software themselves, get a consulting partner involved, or have an onboarding specialist from the provider assist them through it, figure out what they need to achieve, and work a plan towards that.

FIND OUT MORE...

To find out more about WorkGuru go to:

workguru.io/jobmanagement-software

The accounts payable process has hit app overload. It’s time to destack.

o one starts a business to spend five hours a week processing payments. Especially not the people who deal with them daily: accountants, bookkeepers and outsourced finance departments. The obvious answer? Automate. Soon you’ve got an AP stack — a pile of apps, each one ‘optimising’ a different part of the accounts payable workflow. In theory.

In practice? It just doesn’t work. Here’s why.

Adding apps isn’t a solution.

The payment workflow is already complicated. It’s complicated for business owners, and it’s even more complicated for bookkeepers and accountants working across lots of clients. As the AP app stack gets taller, that complexity grows.

And the shocking news is: making something more complicated doesn’t make it simpler.

More wallets. More problems.

Another common culprit when it comes to overloading payment workflows: wallets.

Wallets seem like a great idea at first. They save you having to get into, and jump between, client bank accounts. But a wallet is just one more moving part added onto your workflow, and it comes with its own set of issues. Now you’ve got a wallet, you have to:

Bogdan

empty wallets and missed payments)

• Reconcile yet another account

• And repeat

“But a wallet is just one more moving part added onto your workflow, and it comes with its own set of issues.”

All of which means extra time, hassle, and one more security risk.

Invoice approval software adds issues.

• Onboard clients (do Know Your Clients (KYC) checks, and collect documents like IDs)

• Set up a feed between the wallet and your accounting software

• Keep the wallet topped up (which means coaching clients on how to do it, chasing them when they don’t, and dealing with the fall-out of

Once you’ve added a wallet, you usually need to add another piece of software. This one promises to automate approvals. Just think: no more missed payments and chasing clients…

Except, these apps just don’t work. They’re too complicated for a lot of clients, and often add steps.

To most of these approvals apps, ‘approving’ an invoice means checking it’s correct. But just because you’ve said an invoice is legitimate doesn’t mean you want to pay it straight away. Maybe:

• You need to manage

Bogdan Uzbekov, Founder & CEO, Apron

is the founder of Apron, an all in one accounts payable solution for businesses and their accountants. Before starting Apron Bogdan spent years building products for Square and Revolut.

“And the shocking news is: making something more complicated doesn’t make it simpler.”

cashflow

• You’ve already paid it and don’t want to do it twice

• You or your client have agreed some kind of custom payment plan with the payee, like installments

The answer? Destack and integrate.

“We built Apron to be a simple, functional layer that wraps around your existing accounting app, client banks and emails, and pulls them together.”

Because you still need to do the second type of ‘approving’ — giving payment go-ahead — these types of apps rarely save steps.

All of which means clients usually give up trying to use them. Before you know it, you’re dealing with the same old emails and spreadsheets, and paying for software no one uses.

Most of the AP tools on the market focus on automating payment execution. But cleaning up the mess that is business payments means looking at the whole workflow — not just the last step. And the solution can’t be one more app piled on top of a creaking stack — it needs to integrate with the tools you’re already using.

Which is exactly the thinking behind Apron — payment software that weaves into your workflow, without adding unnecessary extras. We built

Apron to be a simple, functional layer that wraps around your existing accounting app, client banks and emails, and pulls them together. It tightens up every step of your workflow, and means payments happen in one place — start to finish. So you spend less time fiddling with apps, and more time thinking about the bigger pictures.

Multi Company Reports

Software App for Xero users

re you an owner of more than one company on the Xero accounting platform? Are you wasting a lot of time while struggling to create consolidated or combined financial statements of those companies? If yes, we have a solution for you. Your struggles are now over. Welcome to MultiCompany Reports (MCR).

Multi-Company Reports (MCR) offers a time-saving solution with a seamless and efficient way to generate consolidated financial statements, combining Profit & Loss, Balance Sheets, and Aged Accounts Receivable reports.

By linking Xero companies and synchronizing data, the app automates report generation. The user-friendly interface allows easy setup, where users identify the companies, they wish to combine. The reports can be saved,

published (PDF or Excel), and automated for regular distribution via e-mail.

Once you sign up, during the setup phase, you identify all the companies you would like to combine. To enhance the readability of the reports you must make sure that the same account numbers are used for the same types of accounts across all your companies.

Multi Company Reports is an application created by QPOSCONNECT LLC. Our organization includes computer programmers who have many years of experience programming customized solutions for the business community.

Jerry Kling, Partner, QPOSConnect LLC

Principal, Jerry Kling & Company, Inc., New York Servicing medium to small companies as well as individuals with accounting and tax services. Part-time Adjunct professor at New York City University. Certified QuickBooks Pro advisor. He was acting as a Principal, Deloitte & Touche LLP, New York, one of the 4 largest accounting firms in the USA. Also, Director of Taxes, Damson Oil Corporation, New York an American Exchange listed company. Staff Auditor, Eisner & Lubin CPA’s, New York, Medium sized CPA firm.

In addition, we also have personnel with many years of CPA (Certified Public Account) accounting expertise who are also Xero Pro advisors. We have experience in providing customized solutions involving Xero.

Pricing plans start at $90 per month.

us

“Our

reduced manual

and increased data accuracy helps save time.”

Tough Reforms Coming to Australia’s Privacy Act

Accountants be Prepared

There’s no ignoring the media’s dedicated coverage of the calculated cyberattacks targeting Optus, Medibank and Latitude Financial over the past year.

here’s no ignoring the media’s dedicated coverage of the calculated cyberattacks targeting Optus, Medibank and Latitude Financial over the past year. The ripple effect has caused millions of consumers’ personal information to be compromised. The subsequent public outcry pushed our Government to move and introduce privacy framework reforms in order to catch up with the current global standards.

The Attorney-General’s Department released the Privacy Act Review Report in February 2023, as part of the Australian Government’s review of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). Stakeholder feedback was tabled and lodged. Therefore, business owners should begin preparing themselves for what will be drastic compliance and regulatory changes on a scale previously not experienced in this country.

Reviewing processes for the protection of personal information

‘Personal information’ is everything that involves the collection, use and disclosure of personal information under ‘fair and reasonable’ circumstances, irrespective of whether consent has been obtained. Business owners will need to:

• appoint a senior employee who is responsible for privacy.

• keep a record of their handling of personal information

(including technical information such as device IDs and IP addresses), the purpose of collection, use and disclosure, secondary uses and disclosures, the sources of information, and to whom information is being disclosed.

Iain Enticott, Managing Director, T4 Group

T4 Group is the result of Managing Director, Iain Enticott’s vision to provide international quality IT strategy, performance and solutions to Australian accounting firms.

Iain has been a renowned industry leader for many years, writing for various publications such as Accounting Technician Magazine, Accountancy Insurance Newsletter, and various other online websites on Cybersecurity, Cloud Computing, and Technology Planning.

He is also an award-winning coauthor of Amazon Best Seller – On Thin Ice.

use, and retention/destruction regulations.

Transparency of handling staff data

Requirements for business owners relating to transparency about informing employees how their information is handled, including its security, destruction and data breach reporting is currently in a consultation process and is still under review. Further detailed information is still to come.

“Business owners should begin preparing themselves for what will be drastic compliance and regulatory changes”

Updating privacy policies, consent forms and collection notices

• include mandatory transparency for specific automated operations, the ability for people to opt out of personal data collection/

Privacy policies and collection notices will be required to contain new information. Consents must be voluntary, informed, current, specific and unambiguous. Collection notices must also be clear, up-to-date, concise and understandable. Go to oaic.gov.au for a list of the current guidelines.

Change to cyber-attacks and data breach reporting structure

Cyber-attacks and data breaches must be reported to the Information Commissioner (IC) within 72 hours. There will now need to be additional information included in breach notices and companies must also be seen to have taken reasonable steps to implement practices that enable them to respond to cyber-attacks.

Statutory tort for serious invasion of privacy

The Report also proposes a statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy, which falls outside the Act. This is not a new recommendation as it was first proposed by the Australian Law Reform Commission in 2014. The Report acknowledges that existing laws or causes of action, such as breach of confidence or defamation, do not currently provide sufficient redress for a serious invasion of privacy. Further detailed information is still to come.

Role of OAIC enforcement and civil penalties

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) will be granted additional powers, including being able to make APP codes where this is in the public interest; undertaking public inquiries and reviews; and an expansion of general investigatory powers.

Several tiers of civil penalties will also be introduced. At the top end, maximum penalties will be:

• AUS $50 million; or,

• 3x the value of any benefit obtained through the misuse of information; or,

• 30% of a company’s adjusted turnover in the relevant period.

“Remember: No company is too small to be targeted.”

WHAT SHOULD YOU BE DOING RIGHT NOW?

Smart business owners should be preparing themselves accordingly and be mindful that the upcoming Privacy Act reforms will require all of us to make substantial changes to the way we interact with clients and staff regarding handling their personal information and data.

Businesses should be being proactive and working closely with their IT departments or providers to ensure they meet all the new standards and requirements. To be on the front foot, you need to start:

• reviewing the Privacy Regulatory Action Policy;

• checking the OAIC’s website for the updated Guide to Privacy Regulatory Action;

• reviewing internal privacy policies and procedures;

• ensuring your organisation has an established cyber-attack and

data breach escalation protocol; and,

• regularly training your staff on privacy and cybersecurity obligations.

CONCLUSION

The Government’s reaction to the recent cyber-attacks and data breaches has been the catalyst to remind us of the reputational and financial risks associated with compromises to the security of personal information.

Remember: No company is too small to be targeted.

While we await the final recommendations of the review, now is a crucial time for Business Owners to think about their existing IT Cybersecurity and Privacy Framework for collecting, storing and processing personal information of clients and employees. By taking the time to

review your current processes, you’ll be properly prepared for when the privacy reforms are finally announced.

Here’s a simple way to get an instant ‘snapshot’ of the vulnerability of your company’s I.T. Systems. We call it our T4 Group CyberSCORE assessment It’s a series of questions you answer online, which instantly provides you with a cyber score. This lets you know how vulnerable you really are.

For a confidential discussion about your company’s IT Cybersecurity and Privacy Framework, please complete our CyberSCORE assessment:

t4group.com.au/cyberscore-xumagazine

Certainly! Your sales revenue increased by 102% due to a boost in online orders. Additionally, you also saved 2 5% on operational costs a ter switching to a more cost-e ective vendor

A few suggestions:

1. Consider a retargeting ad campaign to encourage return customers while maintaining growth in online orders

2. Consider your costs Analyze inventory turnover r

Type something

Strategist, Melbourne, Aus

How to build the right app stack for your construction client

With a plethora of apps available at your fingertips, it is easier than ever to automate repetitive tasks, enhance collaboration, and gain valuable insights in the ‘NextMinute’. But with so many options out there, how do you choose apps that caters to your clients unique needs?

In this article, we’ll dive into the key factors you should consider when reviewing an app for your construction clients… or any client for that matter.

Where to start?

You could do a google search, but I guarantee, it will lead you down a rabbit hole.

A different starting point is the Xero App store, starting here will also help tick off some of the items we mention later in the article.

What to Consider?

Hopefully from your initial search, you have found a handful of apps that look good on the surface, so now it’s time to get granular.

• Industry

Firstly, consider your client’s industry. The Xero App store categorises apps by industries, such as Trade & Construction, allowing you to look at apps that are purpose-built.

Josh Probert, Head of Customer Success EMEA, NextMinute

Josh has been in the Construction Industry for seven years, he’s seen the challenges that Construction Business Owners face daily and how under-utilised technology is within the industry, especially within small businesses. By working with Accountants, Bookkeepers and Trusted Advisors, he aims to help Construction SME business owners implement cost-saving new technology and processes into their businesses.

specific requirements like usability, industry regulations and jargon.

“By proactively identifying issues, you can focus on finding the solutions”

We know from the latest Xero’s Money Matters report that the Trade & Construction industry is the least likely to adopt new technologies. Looking at software that was built for the industry will help reduce the resistance by addressing

Additionally, Trade & Construction is quite a broad industry, you should consider its sub-sectors. For example, plumbers who do maintenance on rental properties have very different requirements than plumbers who do rough-ins on new homes. Feel welcome to question this with the app provider when reviewing, most will have a clear view of their Ideal Client Profile.

• Features & Integrations

Next up, it’s crucial to identify your clients must-have feature requirements.

Selecting the right app stack for you and your client’s can be a game-changer, but where do you start?

Not everyone knows what they want, so instead of asking “what do you want?”, you might find it more effective to ask “what are the problems you need to fix?”

By proactively identifying issues, you can focus on finding the solutions, empowering you to provide the best software that aligns with your clients needs. Data flow between different applications is crucial! Choosing software that integrates seamlessly with your current app stack will streamline your workflows. This will save you valuable time, reduce doublehandling and risk of error and increase productivity between different stakeholders.

and potentially other clients deliverables.

Having an app with a rock-solid support system allows you to redirect the client to the app provider. Not only will this free up your time, your client will receive the best practice advice straight from the horse’s mouth.

“Not everyone knows what they want, so ask “what are the problems to fix?”

Timely and effective support is like having a superhero sidekick swooping in to save the day. They’ll help you troubleshoot problems, resolve issues ASAP, and make sure you’re back on track without missing a beat. That means less stress, fewer headaches, and minimal disruption.

the software by considering the tangible benefits like time saved, improved efficiency, fewer errors, happier clients, better business insights or even increased profit. Put a value on these goodies and compare them to the overall cost of the software to help you gauge whether it’s a worthwhile investment.

Every software has a slightly different pricing structure, most common is a per month price. At NextMinute, we charge for the number of active users per month, and we have no hidden or additional fee’s.

Integration of NextMinute and Xero, gives you all the benefits listed above, plus it will reduce the time your client spends in the Xero file.

If you started your app search in the Xero App store, then you have already ticked this box.

• Support & Training

Imagine this: you’re knee-deep in your accounting tasks, and a client calls you with an app question, disrupting your day

Look for providers who offer multiple reliable and accessible support channels, like good old phone calls, email support, or even live chat.

• Pricing

Pricing should not be another monthly expense, you should be investing to make the future brighter. Take a moment to calculate the potential return on investment from

For other providers, the monthly subscription may be the minimum you pay, be cautious of any hidden or additional costs. Ask questions about the price for set-up support, training, or add-ons & upgrades.

It’s all about finding the one that aligns with your business’s plans, look for a pricing structure that gives you room to grow without the surprises.

• Review & Recommendations

Reviews are treasure troves of knowledge! They give you the real scoop from actual users who’ve rolled up their

“Trade & Construction industry is the least likely to adopt new technologies”

sleeves and dived into the software. You are tapping into a community who can spill the beans on the software’s strengths & weaknesses, then give an unbiased review of their overall satisfaction. These insights are gold when it comes to making a smart decision about whether the software is a match for your unique needs and requirements. Again, if you started your search in the Xero App store, you will

have already seen the star ratings given by other users and the comments to go along with each rating. Other places to check for reviews are Google and Facebook, or look on their website for Case Studies.

Comparison

Matrix for

Supplier & Payroll Payments on Autopilot

Thanks to Nook, we're now able to offer our clients a fully outsourced accounts payable service with no bottlenecks or risk when it comes to pay runs and making payments!

Edward Kirkby Head of Country - UK @ Sleek

Why building a bank for the selfemployed is now more important than ever

mall businesses make up a huge part of the UK economy, but the banking products available to them traditionally haven’t been fit for purpose. With this segment showing no signs of slowing down, it’s more important than ever to give them the banking products that are better suited to their needs. They need a bank account that is built specifically for them.

As of September last year, Finder quoted that 99.2% of all businesses in the UK were SMEs. It’s a large part of the market. Business banking is of course nothing new – every high street bank will offer a business bank account. Most challenger banks such as Monzo, Revolut and Startling all have business account options too.

But what about those one-man bands? The person just starting out. Or the freelancer, the contractor or the self-employed

only on the weekend-ers? They need a bank account too. One with little to no fees, one that has their needs in mind, offers features to help them run their businesses on the go, and is unique to them as micro businesses.

The difference between business banking large and small

To understand why having a bank account that serves the small end of the SME market is important, we first need to understand the difference in large and small business bank accounts today.

Interaction with the product is key here. With large enterprise banking, the customer experience is similar to buying enterprise software which might involve banks pitching for business and putting together bespoke solutions to fit clients’ needs. Because of this, the products can be complex and structured in line with individual clients’ circumstances and objectives. For small business banking, the customer experience is very similar to retail banking. It’s largely self-serve, especially as the mobile-first experience becomes the norm. Finder’s Business Banking Statistics report

Chris Roxburgh, Accountancy Partnerships Lead, Mettle

Embarking on a captivating journey within the realms of business banking and Accountancy software, my narrative is one of expertise and innovation. Over the span of my career, which spans a decade, I’ve navigated the landscapes of fintech and SAAS. I have a passion for creating seamless customer journeys and providing solutions for small micro businesses.

from 2022, found that 64% of business banking account holders say online banking is the most valuable feature of their accounts.

These customers value speed and simplicity of use, and that’s what drives their choice of banking provider. There is also more product integration into a wider small business software ecosystem, like accounting software, to help make running their business easier.

And that’s the niche that Mettle fits into. It serves the growing selfstarter community – those limited companies or sole traders with up to two owners, who don’t want to pay fees on their banking product, and want to easily be able to handle their business finances wherever they are.

The different needs of SMEs

This is because SMEs have different needs from other business banking clients. And it wasn’t until challenger banks started stepping into the space that these needs moved their way up on the agenda.

Small businesses are often time-poor and overwhelmed by administrative tasks, so they need banks to make their lives easier by reducing day-to-day

This article is

hassles. Branch appointments and long (paper) application forms are no longer acceptable to most small businesses. That’s why they want fast, simple and mobile-first banking.They also want their banking products to help them understand cash flow and manage bookkeeping and tax. This is where fintechs come in – and more specifically, where Mettle enters.

Helping customers complete their business admin jobs

Mettle’s offering centres around this, with a ‘jobs to be done’ approach. What jobs do our customers need to complete or solve in order to run their business finances smoothly? Breaking it up into two bite-size chunks – payments and tax –means we can create products and solutions around these.

Payments is everything from sending and receiving invoices, uploading receipts, setting up direct debits, categorising payments, or sending payment reminders. Being able to make a customisable invoice on-the-go, or, after a long day, being able to quickly send out payment reminders with a touch of (a few) buttons on your phone, gives people the ease to do business when and how they want.

The second is tax. This, for businesses, starts with

bookkeeping and getting their records in order. The jobs that need to be done for tax aren’t simply sending off their tax return. It ranges from categorising payments and uploading and matching receipts to invoices, to getting the books in order for that annual Self Assessment tax return. Whether businesses are connecting to accounting software, or doing it themselves, they still need a way to capture and keep this information. Getting tax ready is a major milestone each year for a small business owner.

And Mettle helps with exactly that. The functionality is built around the customers’ ability to complete these jobs with ease. Mettle wants to give people the tools they need to complete their business admin, so they can have more time to

focus on actually running their businesses.

Mettle started out as an idea in NatWest and has since grown into its own bank account. Now built on the NatWest banking licence, the once-small business bank account has seen rapid growth and can offer its customers even more tools to help them run their businesses.

With SMEs making up such a huge part of the economy, it’s time we gave them the tools they need in order to succeed.

Find out more about Mettle here: mettle.co.uk

Q&A

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy

CEO, Xero

n the field of financial technology, Xero has long been recognised as a trailblazer, revolutionising the way businesses manage their finances through its innovative cloud-based accounting software. With the recent appointment of a new CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Xero is set to embark on an exciting chapter of growth. In this exclusive magazine interview, we have the privilege of delving into the mind of Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, a visionary leader who brings a fresh perspective and a wealth of expertise to this influential role.

XU:As the new CEO of Xero, what attracted you to this role and what do you hope to achieve during your tenure?

SSC: What attracted me to Xero was the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those running small businesses and their advisors around the world. Growing up I helped my mother and father run their own business - a medical practice in St Catharines, Ontario, Canada. When I wasn’t at school, I was helping them complete their general ledger and file taxes, all by hand and from the dining room table. During the summers, I was working the reception and looking after our customers, so I really began to understand how important small businesses are to the communities they serve.

So as you can see, helping small businesses succeed is a deeply personal motivation and passion for me, and why I’m so excited to help drive the next stage of Xero together with our customers and partners.

XU: What are your plans for the company’s future growth and innovation? What are the key areas you believe will drive Xero’s success in the coming years?

Xero has been operating for more than 17 years and we now have more than 3.7 million subscribers globally. Our long term opportunity is still really significant. The total addressable market for small businesses in the regions we operate in is estimated at 45 million - and that’s just the English speaking markets. We’ve still got so much space to help drive cloud accounting adoption, which we know has huge benefits for small businesses of all kinds especially in navigating challenging or changing economic environments.

SSC:

our ecosystem app partners and payments attach. Xero data shows that Xero customers who use online invoice payments, like Stripe or GoCardless, get paid up to twice as fast than those who don’t use online invoice payments.

XU: Can you share your vision for the expansion of Xero’s events globally and the reason for only hosting events in Xero’s big countries every 2 years?

We’re really positive about the multiple levers Xero has to deliver growth - including driving further adoption of cloud accounting with new customers and deepening customer engagement with our existing customers.

One of my top priorities is to be more customer-centric - to be responsive to and guided by our small business customers’ evolving needs. That’s a really exciting challenge for us as a global company and a huge opportunity to get closer to small business communities around the world.

Longer term, there are three important areas that are front of mind for me. First, we’re focused on unlocking the full potential of our platform, which will set us up for the future as we scale and help us to be more responsive to our customers’ evolving needs.

Second, it’s about supporting our accounting and bookkeeping community to respond to this changing environment so they can continue to be the trusted advisor to small business. This includes being more customer centric, and focusing on how we can continually add value for them - like getting new features and product enhancements to areas that are most importantserve them better and faster, and increase their engagement with Xero. And finally, we’re enabling and driving innovation across

SSC: Our global communities are growing quickly, so we’re evolving our approach to Xerocon to ensure we stay connected not just with communities in our existing regions, but also with those in our emerging regions across the globe. The new format means that Xerocon will be held in different cities across Xero’s key regions each year. There will be a focus on destination locations for partners to build their plans around to connect, collaborate and network with each other. We’re excited to be back in London and the US next year, so stay tuned for more.

Xero Roadshows also continue to be a crucial part of how we can stay connected with our partners and small businesses at a country level.

XU: To help our audience get to know you better, could you please share some insights about your background and experience? We’d love to hear about the key milestones in your career that have led you to this role and what motivates you to drive success?

SSC: As mentioned before, I come from a background of small business through my parents’ medical practice. It really had a long lasting effect on me, and helped inspire me to take a step into entrepreneurship. I started three companies, took one public, served as CEO of two others, served as president of StubHub,

and advised some of the largest tech companies (Google, Amazon, and others).

I’ve now come full circle to run a global small business platform that helps improve the lives of small businesses and their advisors. Another thing I was attracted to at Xero was the opportunity to lead a global organisation whose passion for supporting small business aligns with mine. There’s so much potential when you look at our total addressable market for small business and early adoption rates of cloud accounting around the world, and I’m so excited to lead Xero into its next chapter.

I have long believed that in navigating their careers, people tend to look at risk and reward in the wrong way. People should stop over-weighting the first choice they make. As long as you are willing to keep choosing, there are a thousand choices between you and success. Keep aiming for impact in every single choice. As long as you keep working for what you want and without being afraid to fail, success will eventually come. Learning how to be agile and continually trying to succeed will lead you there vs trying to avoid risks overall. XU:

What are your observations about the values exhibited by the Xerocon community? How do you envision contributing to and fostering these values in your role as CEO?

SSC: Not too many people know, but I actually attended Xerocon Sydney last year when I was still in the process of interviewing for the CEO role. Attending Xerocon allowed me to see firsthand how our partners and the Xero team interacted at the event. I was just blown away by the mutual trust, respect and genuine love for Xero - it was actually one of the convincing factors for me to take on this role. And that’s exactly what I’m going to continue to make sure we show every time we get to immerse ourselves in this amazing

community together - whether it be at Xerocon or any other events. As mentioned earlier, we want to continue to strengthen our already strong connection to our customers and I see trust, respect and love for our product as key to that.

XU: The success of Xero is undeniably driven by the hard work and dedication of the talented individuals who make up the Xero team. How do you perceive the importance of the Xero team in achieving the company’s goals and maintaining its competitive edge?

SSC: A lot of this comes down to the hard work and passion of our people at Xero. Xero is unique in that our culture is truly something special and Xeros - as we like to refer to ourselves - live and breathe our values everyday. Our desire as Xeros to listen to understand what challenges small businesses are facing, the dedication to creating and refining the best products to meet those challenges, and the overall passion for helping small businesses succeed is at the core of what makes Xero, Xero. Without the incredibly hard work, commitment to our purpose, human approach and willingness to challenge and innovate from our teams, we simply couldn’t do it.

XU: As Xero has expanded its reach globally, the company now operates with a widely dispersed team across various locations worldwide. What do you see as the primary challenges in managing a geographically diverse team, and how do you plan to address these challenges?

SSC: Just like any other global company, we’re always assessing how to ensure our teams can collaborate effectively across time zones. We trust our people to make the best decisions about how their team can best work together, whether

that be through asynchronous communication or setting a regular meeting cadence - whether virtually or in person - that takes into consideration different time zones.

One small example is our monthly all company team meeting. Each month we host from a different country or office - for example, the July meeting was live from Toronto, and June was from Milton Keynes in the UK. We highly encourage our people to attend or watch it together in the office common spaces from wherever they are, as long as it’s within working hours. We also provide the recording afterwards for those who weren’t able to participate.

Our aim is to share important information, celebrate milestones and achievements and answer questions from our people all together as one global teamhelping people feel connected across different time zones. What unites us all thoughregardless of role or location - is our commitment to our customers and our purpose to make life better for people in small business, their advisors and communities around the world.

XU: Could you share what particularly excites you about the next year, 2 years, and 5 years for Xero? What key milestones, initiatives, or market opportunities do you anticipate pursuing for continued growth?

SSC: I mentioned earlier the total addressable market being really significant - the opportunity to help drive cloud adoption across our key markets and to support even more small business customers is really what motivates me every day.

We continue to be focused on taking the advantage of our long term opportunity and driving disciplined, customer-focused growth.

One thing I’m particularly excited about is our new Xero Beautiful Business Fund - this is a brand

new initiative to help support the future growth ambitions of small businesses globally. We have more than NZ$750,000 total funding up for grabs and we’ve just opened the call for applications at Xerocon Sydney, so I would encourage all partners to get behind this and encourage your clients to apply, and you can even go in the draw for some great incentives by referring your clients.

dashboard. This brings both our customers and our app partners closer together than ever before.

Xero’s business strategy to stay ahead of emerging trends and maintain long-term success?

XU:

Could you share your perspective on the importance of the Xero community and the ecosystem of apps? How do you plan to foster and leverage this community to drive further innovation, enhance user experiences, and create value for Xero’s customers?

XU:

We’d love to hear about a quote or piece of advice that has been particularly influential in shaping your leadership style or guiding your decision-making. Could you share any with us and how it has impacted your approach to leading teams and driving business success?

SSC:

SSC:

SSC:

Our vision is to be the most trusted and insightful small business platform, and so it’s difficult to overstate just how important our wider community of more than 1,000 connected apps is to Xero and to Xero’s customers. Small businesses have a diverse range of needs and we believe that no single product or service can solve them all. Through our open platform, we enable others to create solutions to satisfy those needs, so we can deliver more value to Xero users and solve the wider needs of small businesses across the world.

We’re working hard to match-make our customers with the right apps, so they can see the benefits. As part of this, we launched the Xero App Store in 2021 to make it easier to find, try and connect to apps that integrate with Xero, and then last year we released the Xero App Launcher to help bring that experience directly into the Xero

It’s crucial to build a professional tribe. These “professional priests” are people who know you professionally and personally and can help you to navigate your way, gut-check your decisions, provide different perspectives, ask the tough questions and help you define and ultimately achieve success.

• Prioritise smaller actions rather than agonising over the big decisions

• Always passively network: you never know when you’ll cross paths with a coworker or person in your network that can help you out

• Don’t underestimate the value of a professional confidante, be that a coach or a peer at another company that may be in a similar point in their career – we all need a “professional priest,” to talk things through with in a safe space, who’s not our board or our spouse!

XU: In a rapidly evolving technology landscape, disruptions and shifts are common. How do you plan to adapt and future-proof

At our recent annual results call, I spoke a bit about how we reorientated the company for the next stage of Xero’s growth. We recognise that the technology sector and the needs of our customers are constantly changing, so it’s important that we be more flexible and responsive, and smarter about where we put our resources and focus.

We announced that while we continue to be focused on delivering ongoing value for customers through our product and technology developments each year, while also continuing to invest in a multi-year platform modernisation strategy to unlock long term efficiency, scalability, productivity and speed to market improvements.

If we’re talking about leveraging emerging technologies like AI, Xero has always been excited about, and committed to, adopting new technologies to help our customers. As part of this, we’ve considered two key perspectives: 1) how AI will shape our products for the benefit of our customers, and 2) how AI will shape our company and the way our teams work. This enables us to be focused on where it can up-level our capabilities in a way that benefits our customers.

But we always have to balance the fact that accounting work often has a non-negotiable requirement to be financially accurate, and in some cases the consequences of inaccuracies can be severe. For example, a brilliantly worded but inaccurate tax return would not

go over well with any country’s tax department. So, when we think about our AI strategy, we need to take a strategic approach and look at how we can draw benefit from this technology, alongside managing the risks like factual inaccuracies that can occur with content generated with these models, while always considering our responsible data use commitments.

XU: Sustainability and responsible business practices have become increasingly important. What is your vision for Xero’s role in promoting environmental sustainability and corporate social responsibility?

SSC: Xero seeks to operate responsibly and contribute positively to the communities we serve. The really significant opportunity for us is in how we can help those

communities - our customers and their advisors - to become more environmentally sustainable themselves. We’re excited about the ways the data in the Xero platform can be leveraged through third party apps to help them measure and reduce their carbon footprint.

XU: Innovation is crucial in the tech industry. What is your approach to fostering a culture of innovation within Xero, and how do you plan to encourage new ideas and technologies that can benefit Xero’s users?

understand their needs. These conversations are critical in driving innovation and informing our data and product roadmaps.

SSC:

The secret to true innovation is deeply knowing your customer. We set up our product teams around core “jobs to be done” and host a number of customer forums, events and advisory groups that helps us as a business connect with our customers in order to fully

Small businesses are very diverse, and to create new ideas that really serve them, we must prioritise diversity in our business. We have been recognised for our commitments in fostering a more inclusive and equitable workplace and consistently strive to improve this as we know that diversity of thought is core to innovation. During events we host, such as formal hackathons, we make sure that we include other parts of the business outside of just product and tech. This helps to ensure we have a broad mix of perspectives in the room. Ultimately, we know diversity always lends itself to better outcomes for customers.

Unlock the Potential of Better Business Advisory with WorkflowMax by BlueRock

Come meet us at Xerocon and discover a scalable approach to growing your advisoryled practice and operations.

Unlock

n case you missed the latest news in the job management app space, let me recap: back in March, BlueRock, a tech-led Australian advisory business, acquired the WorkflowMax brand from Xero and announced plans to build a new product called WorkflowMax by BlueRock with familiar and enhanced functionality to meet evolving market and customer demands.

As the Head of Growth and Partnerships and employee number one at WorkflowMax by BlueRock, I want to emphasise our passion for WorkflowMax and its benefits for SMB owners, accountants, and bookkeepers. We’re thrilled to take over the reins and create an improved solution from the strong foundations Xero has set.

On the eve of the accounting industry’s major event of the year, I’m incredibly proud to update you on our progress and invite you to witness WorkflowMax by BlueRock’s innovative job management software in action at Xerocon.

Attending this knockout event for the third time, I’m excited to meet leaders of great practices and gain valuable insights from the amazing lineup of speakers. The role of the accounting and bookkeeping community is crucial to our success, as you have a unique lens into the world of small business and drive their daily operations’ performance and potential through your advisory work.

Our new solution and the rich data/insights within it can help your clients optimise operations, increase efficiency, and boost profitability. We’re eager to share our plans for growing and scaling WorkflowMax by BlueRock. So, if you’re in Sydney too, visit us at Xerocon.

Challenges in the accounting landscape present much opportunity

Ryan Kagan, Head of Growth and Partnerships, WorkflowMax by BlueRock

With 20+ years’ experience scaling businesses through digital solutions, Ryan Kagan, Head of Growth and Partnerships at WorkflowMax by BlueRock, is a seasoned leader in account management, product, partnerships, and business growth. Formerly a Director at BlueRock Digital, he propelled the startup to success. Prior roles at Deloitte Digital involved driving digital enablement and transformation through strategic advisory. Now, Ryan strives to build a thriving platform community where all prosper.

faced with new challenges, demanding a shift towards more proactive and strategic advisory services. This could be daunting for some, but we think it is also a very exciting time. With automation and artificial intelligence (AI) becoming more widely used, accountants and bookkeepers can streamline workflows, analyse data more efficiently, and offer moreinformed strategic insights to their clients.

“Help your clients optimise operations, increase efficiency and boost profitability with WorkflowMax by BlueRock”

The accounting and bookkeeping landscape today certainly is not the same as it was 5-10 years ago, and practices are continually

With this transition to a new future, accountants and bookkeepers must adapt swiftly to stay competitive and ahead of the curve. Recognising an opportunity to meet these changing needs, the new WorkflowMax by BlueRock product will provide accounting professionals with a front-foot approach to advisory accounting functions.

How? The solution equips you with real-time data, sophisticated

real-time data, analytics, and insights with WorkflowMax by BlueRock, empowering accountants and bookkeepers as strategic advisors.

analytics, improved client management, more advanced app integration capabilities for extending your clients’ tech ecosystem, all with an improved user-friendly interface and experience — just some of the exciting features we will be showcasing at Xerocon.

Better technology means better advisory and healthier cash flows

In this digital age, technology has become a critical asset for accountants and bookkeepers, and any small to medium sized business. Despite so many technological advances, delivering high quality insights to clients based on accurate and realtime data is key to developing growth opportunities.

Recently, I caught up with Michael Howe, the 2023 Young Accountant of the Year winner at the Australian Accounting Awards and an Associate Director in Accounting & Advisory at

BlueRock. Michael specialises in financial projection and analysis, strategy and business planning, and compliance management, and he had some profound insights about BlueRock’s acquisition of Xero’s WorkflowMax brand and the software rebuilding process.

“Utilising tools like WorkflowMax at both individual and macro levels presents a substantial yet underexplored opportunity in our industry. By deepening our knowledge of such products, we can stay ahead in advising clients, optimising their success while maintaining our competitive edge.”

better with real-time information and act more like a strategic partner, helping businesses make informed decisions and promoting slicker operations for growth and success.”

“Accountants and bookkeepers play such a pivotal role in the success of small businesses”

“Accountants and bookkeepers play such a pivotal role in the success of small businesses as the trusted advisors who provide crucial financial insights and guidance day in and out. Software like WorkflowMax enables us to advise our clients

Recently, one of Michael’s key clients faced cash flow issues due to limited cost visibility on projects. After implementing WorkflowMax and using a standardised process for time tracking across the business, they found some holes in their own quoting and estimating workflow and discovered they had been massively under-pricing their jobs. With the help of their advisor and using the robust reporting features available in WorkflowMax, they were able to re-scope their projects, increase revenue, and boost overall project profitability across the board, completely transforming their cash flow.

“WorkflowMax has been a gamechanger for our clients’ financial success,” says Michael.

Michael Howe, Australian Accounting Awards 2023 Young Accountant of the Year

Building better businesses together

At WorkflowMax by BlueRock, we believe that through strategic partnerships, businesses can work together to better service the needs of the market. We live in a world of connected ecosystems, where advisors, businesses and software applications need to speak to benefit from improved operations and better business outcomes.

By working together with Implementation Partners, Certified Advisors, and Ecosystem Partners, we can collaboratively re-imagine growth opportunities for small to medium sized businesses and enhance outcomes through shared data and insights.

As an example, we will continue to leverage the deep integration with Xero and will continuously

maintain our integration endpoints so we’re always offering customers a best in breed, integrated system between their accounting software and their job management needs.

We are building WorkflowMax by BlueRock from the ground up and leveraging technology via Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-based infrastructure. AWS allows us to provide advanced security and gives us the ability to easily scale operations and make releases faster. Rest assured, customers will be able to enjoy the same trusted features from one of the most sought-after Xero integrated apps worldwide, but with a more intuitive user experience and the addition of exciting new features.

Our new partnership program (launching later in October) for advisors provides a fantastic opportunity for accounting and bookkeeping businesses to grow together with WorkflowMax by BlueRock. You’ll get the benefit of potential new revenue streams in proactive advisory, retained support and education in new features and ways of work.

“Having WorkflowMax seamlessly integrated as an extension of our advisory packages allows us to leverage its full potential. It also enables us to analyse data at

a macro level across all clients, identifying trends and opportunities to enhance their businesses as well as our own. It’s a powerful tool that empowers us to deliver exceptional value to our clients.”

- Michael Howe - Young Accountant of the Year and Associate Director in Accounting & Advisory at BlueRock

Watch the video to meet the team

Become a WorkflowMax by BlueRock certified advisor

If you’re interested in getting certified on the new WorkflowMax by BlueRock product, hit the link below and register your interest. You will be the first to know when the new partner program launches in 2023.

You’ll get early access to the software and can earn commission, plus other incentives.

We’ll also provide a range of resources, training and education to get you up to speed on how this solution will add value and empower your clients through a unified and structured toolkit that elevates your strategic advisory capabilities to deliver better insights.

Register now

Here’s a snapshot of the most frequent questions accountants and bookkeepers are asking us

Will you be making improvements to the Xero integration?

We are looking at numerous ways to build upon the current Xero integration. Elements like the ability to edit fields on the invoice after approval, supporting multi-currency, synchronising payments both ways, and pushing documents into Xero are some of the improvements we plan to make.

“WorkflowMax has been a game-changer for our clients’ financial success”

How can I migrate my data to WorkflowMax by BlueRock?

There will be a free migration tool available for customers wanting to migrate their data over to the new platform. We will be releasing more details about how this migration tool will work over the next few months.

Will you be introducing an inventory and stock control solution or integration ability?

We don’t have plans to build inventory management into WorkflowMax by BlueRock currently. We will, however, be building additional endpoints in our API to allow for deeper integrations into third party inventory management solutions.

What support will you offer?

Where will your support be based?

We will (at minimum) replicate the support capabilities and channels that Xero currently offers to WorkflowMax customers. The new WorkflowMax by BlueRock business will have support team capabilities distributed around the world to provide 24-hour support. Customers will have access to a comprehensive online help centre, be able to raise tickets and use in-product chat to get the help they need. There’ll be a Facebook users’ group for questions too.

Is there an online learning course to be able to use WorkflowMax by BlueRock to its full potential?

We will be launching a new and improved knowledge base training guides, and courses to help you get up to speed quickly with the new WorkflowMax by BlueRock product. We also have live and on-demand webinars you can register for on our website for up-to-date information for both customers and partners.

If you or your clients have unique business requirements or more complex customisations and would like to speak with an expert, we also recommend connecting with an Implementation Partner in your region who can provide even more guidance.

How can I learn more and get involved?

Visit us at Xerocon: As we gear up for Xerocon, we invite you to

visit our booth to see a demo and witness firsthand how you can leverage the WorkflowMax by BlueRock solution and grow your own accounting and advisory services and revenue.

Book in a chat: Set up a 1:1 meeting with me to explore collaboration opportunities and discuss how we can grow together.

Register your interest: Visit the Workflowmax by BlueRock website to register your interest to join our partner program, keep updated on our progress and to make or vote on feature requests.

To find out more about Workflowmax by BlueRock, visit: workflowmax2.com

Accounts and Legal double income to £2.5m in one year

Overview

Industry: Accounting and Legal

Location: Offices in Brighton, Liverpool, London, and Manchester

Team size: 52

Results:

» Doubled turnover in one year to £2.5 million.

» Doubled staff members from 26 to 52 in one year.

» 30 staff members offering advisory services.

» Significant wins saving construction businesses from insolvency

Features:

» Extensive advisory integration and upselling.

» Cash flow forecasting.

» KPI integration.

» Board building

Challenge

Accounts and Legal have clients across all sectors but have two growing niches working with construction companies and digital marketing agencies. Many of their construction clients face significant cash flow problems trying to keep up with spiralling costs of raw materials and energy. Accounts and Legal need to communicate their clients’ financials through an easy-to-understand medium to affect the greatest change.

Solution

Through accessible visualisation in Futrli’s boards and reporting, clients feel that their numbers are humanised. Accounts and Legal build scenarios for their clients using Futrli, conduct trend analysis and offer cash flow planning. KPI implementation for clients ensures that they understand both their financial and non-financial goals to install better working cultures and achieve operational excellence.

Results

Over the past year, Accounts and Legal have gone through profound changes: they have doubled both their turnover to £2.5 million and staff to 52. They now have thirty people within the business able to offer advisory services, and they are seeing a greater uptake from clients in advisory-led services through the successful implementation of free trials.

Tell us about a client who has benefitted from your advisory services.

Accounts and Legal have a client in the construction industry who make and install solar panels. They had been turning over around £500,000, making around £200,000 in profit. A year later they had doubled their turnover and their profit had dropped to £150,000. Not good.

The owners’ 35-hour weeks had become 70-hour stress fests… only to see their profits drop by 25%. Something wasn’t right. They were chasing turnover, overtrading, and their margins had dropped from 50% to 30%. To top it off, their pricing was out of sync. Accounts and Legal could see their client needed to work smarter, not harder.

During their in-depth forecasting and advisory work with this client, Accounts and Legal used Futrli.

First, they processed their client’s financials to get reports for trend analysis. The company’s monthly gross profit had fluctuated wildly based on when debtors paid. Now, they could visualise trends and smooth out variations to see what their trajectory actually was.

Through cash-flow forecasting in Futrli, they could see that debtor days were growing. Their cash flow was no longer keeping up with operations. If continued the business would go under.

Accounts and Legal were able to guide their client into making some difficult but necessary operational changes. With raw material and subcontractor costs going up, their pricing needed to change.

They used Futrli to integrate non-financial data within their client’s strategies. The client was able to reassess how they followed their leads. Instead of approaching leads in chronological order, they could be more selective, going after the leads that afforded the greatest opportunities.

“There aren’t any other tools that can be so widely used from beginner to expert.”

“Our client can’t believe that more firms don’t use Futrli for their nonfinancials.”

Stuart Hurst Director, Accounts and Legal

Stuart Hurst Director, Accounts and Legal

Navigating the changes to R&D

How technology is helping firms adapt to the Additional Information Form

Mike Dean, Managing Director, WhisperClaims

Mike Dean is the Managing Director and Co-founder of WhisperClaims, an awardwinning Fintech company that empowers accountants to deliver an efficient R&D tax claims service with confidence, through intuitive software and expert support services.

Passionate about the digitisation of business processes, especially advisory services, Mike is your go-to for questions on the R&D tax relief scheme and how to get the most out of using WhisperClaims technology.

This year has seen significant changes to the UK’s R&D tax relief system, which has forced many firms to rethink their tax services and the support they can deliver in this area.

een to crack down on perceived abuse of this generous tax credit system amongst SMEs, the Government has introduced a tranche of changes that are making the claims process more challenging.

This included a reduction to the deduction rate scheme for SMEs and a cut to the SME credit rate for all but the most R&D-intensive companies (i.e., those with 40 per cent of their expenditure on R&D) in April.

This came alongside the new requirement for new claimants and those who have not made a claim in the last three financial periods to submit pre-notification of their claim to HMRC digitally.

As a result, for those affected, HM Revenue & Customs has to be informed within six months of the end of the period of account to which their claim relates from 1 August.

If that wasn’t enough, HMRC has now brought in the delayed Additional Information Form (AIF), which has further increased the complexity and work involved in preparing successful claims for clients from 8 August.

However, it isn’t all doom and gloom as technology is stepping in to make these processes easier.

What is the Additional Information Form (AIF)?

The AIF emulates the eligibility requirements that exist within the R&D regime and requires claimants to address directly how they meet the required outcomes set out within legislation.

It is broken down into four main sections:

1. Business details

2. Contact and agent details

3. Accounting period

4. Qualifying expenditure and projects

The first three sections are fairly straightforward, but frustratingly require duplication of information already typically included in a claim.

However, it is the final section where much of the additional work is generated. It requires a claimant, or their agent, to outline:

• Which schemes the claim is being made through —SME, RDEC, or both

• Which categories of costs are being claimed for in each scheme

• How much of the qualifying expenditure is a result of qualifying eligible activities

• How many eligible R&D projects the claimant incurred costs for during the accounting period

• Details of any subsets within the claim—Up to a maximum of 10 with the described projects representing at least half of the eligible expenditure

• The total qualifying expenditure, divided into SME

This information submitted via the AIF, must be sent to HMRC ahead of the Corporation Tax return (CT600/CT600L).

Within the return itself, claimants or their agents must also ensure that box 657 is checked to confirm that the AIF has been submitted.

As the entire claim is contingent on this process, client and their agents alike cannot afford to make a mistake or miss a step.

What does it require firms to do?

From 8 August, a claim submitted—regardless of claim dates or when the claim was prepared—must have an AIF attached.

For claimant companies, it will mean providing more information than ever before to HMRC, as we have outlined.

The tax authority has made it clear that claims not accompanied by an AIF will not be valid and will be rejected on the spot.

Of course, many businesses rely on the help of accountants and tax advisers to submit claims for them.

As a result of this change, accounting practices need to update their both claim preparation and submission processes to ensure the correct information is submitted.

In both cases, the AIF creates additional complexity and administration at a time when both businesses and their agents are having to deal with other considerable changes to this tax relief.

These recent changes, combined with the existing administrative requirements of R&D tax credit

claims, have made it more challenging for smaller firms to provide a competitive tax service. Inevitably, some of the smaller businesses that rely on these firms’ services have had to look elsewhere at a greater cost or forgo the tax benefits of R&D tax relief altogether.

How can technology help practices?

WhisperClaims is determined to make this transition as easy as possible for accountants by providing them with a robust and compliant framework for preparing genuine R&D tax relief claims.

In a short period, it has evolved its software with the needs of both HMRC and accountants in mind to create processes that are compatible with the Additional Information Form and provide the necessary prompts to agents.

Its new offering includes:

• Questions to work out how many project descriptions will be needed for the AIF

• Gathering project costs that can be outputted in an AIFcompatible format

• Tailored questions to cover other points HMRC ask for in the AIF, including costs for qualifying indirect activities

• Updating WhisperClaims’ technical report output to

reflect these changes

• Creating a new output containing just the information that HMRC asks for in the order and format required for the AIF, to enable quick and easy transfer into the form

These features deliver a structured process that not only significantly reduces report and AIF preparation times, but gives users confidence that they will be compliant with HMRC’s rapidly changing requirements.

Alongside this technology, WhisperClaims provides a dedicated Advice Line so that advisers have access to their experts via Live Chat in the app or by email and phone.

WhisperClaims is able to answer any questions about R&D tax relief, including general guidance on the legislation, or support with a specific question about eligibility of a given project or client.

WhisperClaims is working hard to eliminate barriers introduced by the AIF. To book a demo and find out more about how WhisperClaims can help you, go to: whisperclaims.co.uk

“WhisperClaims is determined to make this transition as easy as possible for accountants”

Collect-it: Solving The Late Payment Crisis Through Technology

ccording to Xero, on average payments were made 7.9 days late to businesses in June 2023 and 7.6 days in the three months to June. This is 1.2 days longer than the compared 6.4 day average of 2022.

SMEs need a consistent cash flow to operate successfully. However, delayed payment can disturb businesses cash flow and harm a small business’s income and ability to trade efficiently. This further leads to business failure as delayed payments prevent reinvestment in the company. With 50,000 businesses going bust each year due to cash flow issues it is so important for businesses to have a strong handle on their ledger and minimise late payments.

This is where Collect-it works its magic!

Many people may not be aware that I have worked in the credit management industry for 30 years having run Darcey Quigley & Co, a successful pre litigation commercial debt recovery company collecting unpaid invoices globally for 17 years.

My mission has always been to make sure businesses get paid on time, every time.

As part of the Know-it, the all-inone credit management solution, Collect-it gives SMEs the ability to collect their unpaid invoices

Lynne Darcey Quigley (FCICM), CEO & Founder, Know-it

Lynne Darcey Quigley is a Scottish entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of

She is a passionate, driven and forward-thinking entrepreneur determined to help resolve the late payment crisis gripping SMEs.

Having worked within the credit management industry for 30 years and ran UK leading commercial debt recovery company Darcey Quigley & Co for 17 years.

seamlessly in the click of a button, straight to our team of trained experts across all industries. Working with sole traders to large PLCs this makes us a fantastic barometer for the global credit cycle. Something which is truly unique in any SaaS platform.

Using Collect-it has been the difference between some companies’ survival having recovered over £385 million worth of unpaid invoices this year alone. We immediately action all cases within 1 hour of instruction with an average case turnaround time of 48 hours in the UK. The power of outsourcing is where our success lies.

Find out how Know-it is recovering commercial late payments across the globe using Xero in just a click of a button.

fintech platform Know-it.

“With 50,000 businesses going bust each year due to cash flow issues”

Maintaining a healthy cash flow is crucial for businesses, and it’s important to understand the impact of late payers and bad debtors on a company. Knowit can minimise the risk of late payments and increase business efficiency. Avoid the pitfalls of liquidations and administration which are rapidly increasing globally.

Here are my top 4 tips for getting paid on time:

Clear and Transparent Communication

Clear and transparent communication is the foundation of a healthy business-client relationship.

Establishing open lines of communication from the start ensures that both parties are on the same page regarding payment terms and expectations.

Clearly define your payment policies and ensure that your clients are aware of them.

These policies should include details such as due dates, late payment penalties, and accepted payment methods. Regularly remind your clients of these terms to maintain a proactive approach to payments.

Streamline Invoicing and Payment Processes

Simplify your invoicing and payment processes to minimise delays and confusion.

Invest in a reliable accounting software like Xero or system that enables you to generate professional invoices quickly and accurately.

Ensure that your invoices contain all relevant details, including a breakdown of services or products provided, payment due dates, and clear instructions for payment.

Implement an efficient system for tracking and monitoring outstanding invoices, allowing you to identify and follow up on late payments promptly. Automated payment chasing via email, letter and SMS can be found in the Know-it platform –Chase-it!

Encourage prompt payment with late payment interest and compensation

The late payment of commercial debts act means you can legally claim late payment interest and compensation on your unpaid invoices.

When writing your credit policies be sure to include that late payment interest and compensation will be added to the outstanding balance if payment becomes overdue.

Implement a Strong Collections Strategy

Despite your best efforts, there may be instances when clients consistently fail to meet payment deadlines.

In such cases, it is crucial to have a well-defined collections strategy in place.

Clearly outline your steps for escalating late payments, including reminder emails, phone calls, and formal collection letters. Be firm, but professional, in your approach, and consider using Darcey Quigley & Co via Collect-it.

FIND OUT MORE...

Put an end to late payments. Book a demo of Know-it and start your free 30-day trial:

know-it.co.uk

“My mission has always been to make sure businesses get paid on time, every time”

The Business Show: The World’s Biggest Business Event lands in the US

Start

Or Grow

Your

Dream

At The Business Show US

Built from the ground up to equip, educate and encourage the small business owners and entrepreneurs of the world, The Business Show US gathers and showcases the knowledge and services of hundreds of business experts and leaders. It’s jam-packed with everything you could possibly need to succeed in the world of business in 2023, with 300 incredible exhibitors, 150 inspiring seminars and unmissable masterclasses.

The Business Show US is dedicated to helping you learn,

Business

grow, and succeed, so no matter the industry there will be something for you to uncover; this is the perfect place for business professionals. There are also a number of co-located shows to suit all your business needs and help you keep up-todate with industry trends and advancements.

When and where can you visit one of our shows?

• The Business Show Singapore, 30th & 31st August 2023, Singapore Expo.

• The Business Show Los Angeles,

Karina Kundzina, Social Media & Content Creator, Business Show Media

I graduated from Falmouth University in 2020 and swiftly moved to pursue a career in the marketing industry. I joined Business Show Media in January and have quickly adapted to the world of business events and marketing. Creativity is the heart and soul of what I do and thus I aim to bring this through our social media platforms and creative content across our shows.

20th & 21st September 2023, Los Angeles Convention Center.

• The Business Show London, 22nd & 23rd November 2023, ExCeL London.

• The Business Show Miami, 6th & 7th March 2024, Miami Beach Convention Center.

More about The Business Show

The Business Show Singapore

- The Business Show Singapore is the leading event for helping aspiring entrepreneurs and SME and startup owners to start, develop, and grow their dream business. The show gives you access to the products, services, & guidance you need to carve your path to success and propel your business to new and exciting heights. With 5,000 visitors in attendance, 300 incredible exhibitors, and over 350 unmissable seminars, this is the place to be in August.

The Business Show LA & Miami - The Business Show is expanding into the US this year as it lands at the LA Convention Center in September. It’s set to inspire 15,000 US entrepreneurs, business owners and professionals. There are 300 industry-leading suppliers and

This article is

The Business Show aims to support aspiring entrepreneurs, SMEs and small business owners by helping them grow a successful business.

Simple Stripe x Xero integration

Stripe is a simple and powerful platform for managing subscriptions and payments. But the reconciliation of Stripe initiated invoices in Xero can be time consuming, manual and prone to error.

SubSync combines the power of Stripe and Xero through automated integration of Stripe initiated invoices directly to Xero.

If you didn’t make the XeroCon launch, use the QR code below to book a 1:1 session with the team to learn more.

150 fascinating seminars and masterclasses. If you want the business of your dreams, come to the show and discover everything you need to make your company thrive.

The Business Show London - the show has been running in London for over 22 years and has been met with great success. The event focuses on connecting 30,000 entrepreneurs, SMEs and industry professionals under one roof. With 750 exhibitors showcasing their products and services, and 200 incredible seminars and masterclasses, you are sure to come away with more knowledge and an awareness of your next steps.

The B2B Marketing Expo California & Miami in conjunction with The Sales Innovation Expo - Business Show Media has recently acquired The B2B Marketing Expo. This is the leading event for marketing solutions and innovation. The show offers advice and guidance on how marketers can advance their business and their personal careers. There will be over 5,000 in attendance exploring how they can market in new and innovative

ways. The show will run alongside The Business Show Los Angeles and The Business Show Miami.

A bit more about our co-located shows & what we do:

You will be able to find a number of different sub-shows at The Business Show US. We have dedicated zones at the event to make navigating a little easier. Here are our co-located shows and a little on what you can expect to gain from attending:

Going Global Live - This is the leading event for taking your business overseas. It supports you with help and advice about global expansion and exporting/ importing products. Going Global Live provides businesses with everything they need to know about trading in some of the world’s most lucrative cities, countries and regions.

Sales Innovation Expo - The Sales Innovation Expo is at the forefront of educating and showcasing organisations and businesses in the sales industry. Separate yourself from your competitors by learning the tricks of the trade.

B2B Marketing Expo California

- The show is on a mission to deliver innovation and inspiration to business professionals and marketers so that they can transform the way they work and drive their organisation’s growth. The event is packed with expert speakers, industry-leading exhibitors and live demos that will leave you buzzing with ideas and knowledge.

Marketing and Advertising Expo - The Advertising Expo is the perfect place for advertising professionals looking for the top products, resources, and knowledge to grow their business.

Marketing Technology Expo

- The Technology Expo is on a mission to deliver to you the latest technology and gadgets to transform your marketing plans for the better.

Why should you visit our shows?

Not only can you learn how to grow and develop your business but you can also benefit from numerous learning opportunities, masterclasses, networking opportunities and inspiring

keynote and seminar talks. It’s the perfect opportunity to gain knowledge, develop connections for your business, and unleash your true potential. Here are some of the exciting opportunities waiting for you at the show:

Masterclasses - An opportunity to receive interactive mentoring from industry experts in close quarters. This year we have a masterclass hosted by Barr Business School on ‘The Ultimate Entrepreneurial Success Blueprint’. You can find the masterclass on our website and sign up to attend.

Keynotes & SeminarsHear success stories from industry experts and inspiring entrepreneurs who have started from scratch and are now running multi-million dollar businesses.

This year we have a range of exciting keynotes lined up including GoDaddy, Adobe, Visa,

Netflix, Google, Uber, and Twitch to name a few.

Exhibitors - Meet over 300 industry leading exhibitors showcasing all the latest products and services needed to take your business to the next level. Whether you need help with your website or advertising your business, want to learn the latest in HR and recruitment or find the latest products to help keep your business safe, there’s something for everyone at The Business Show.

Networking Opportunities -

The opportunities you can find at The Business Show US are endless but perhaps one of the most valuable are the networking opportunities that you can find at the show. Meet with industry professionals and network with like minded individuals to build your connections.

Business Show Media strives to provide some of the best business events and networking opportunities in the field. Take advantage of the opportunities provided at the show and get involved!

If you’re interested in the show, whether as an exhibitor, partner or simply a visitor, visit our website here. Alternatively, reach out at enquiries@ thebusinessshow.co.uk to discuss how you can get involved at the show.

Register for your FREE ticket today:

thebusinessshowus.com

Joiin’s growth story wins out

Paul Shipway, Chief Commercial Officer, Joiin

Paul Shipway is the CCO at Joiin – the Xero consolidated reporting app. Having grown businesses from start-up to exit and supported others in doing the same, Paul deeply understands the many challenges business owners and finance teams face. He recognises the true value that accurate and timely financial data plays in the success of any business, small or large. He works with the team at Joiin to help deliver this to an evergrowing number of multi-entity companies worldwide.

t Joiin, we’re delighted that our growth as a company was recently rewarded with two awards at the FinTech Awards South West for Best Growth Story of the Year (sponsored by Deloitte) and Fintech Exporter of the Year (sponsored by W Legal).

The awards recognise the achievements of the thriving FinTech sector across the UK’s

South West, celebrating the fantastic companies making a difference and bringing innovators and digital experts together for an exciting awards evening.

As a fast-growing softwareas-a-service company, we pride ourselves on delivering a globally available cloud-based consolidated financial reporting platform. In particular, the Best

Growth Story of the Year award

– sponsored and presented by industry-giant Deloitte – feels like a prestigious chapter in the unfolding narrative of our success. A recognition of and a testament to how far we’ve come in such a short time with a product-led growth approach at our company’s strategic core.

The Joiin story

We launched our first minimum viable product in 2019 and achieved our first revenue in Q1 2020. Since then, our company has snowballed, with recurring subscription payments increasing dramatically due to the rapid scaling of our business and expansion into crucial new markets.

Along the way, we’ve firmly established our platform in the finance and accounting space as a trusted brand, now boasting over 30,000 plugged-in companies across 103 countries globally. Just 31% of our customers are in the UK, with exports accounting for 69%, including 24% in Australia, 20% US and 4% each in Canada, Singapore and New Zealand.

Our growth strategy is driven by a product-led approach – meaning

XU readers may have followed Joiin’s story and the company’s rapid rise.

Joiin’s progress is a testament to an innovative approach, and here the company’s Chief Commercial Officer, Paul Shipway, tells more.

Image: The Fintech Awards South West took place at the UK’s impressive Aerospace Bristol, where guests mingled in the Concorde Gallery under the wings of the supersonic passenger jet. Pictured (left to right) are Paul Shipway, Joiin’s Chief Commercial Officer; Harry Symons, Joiin’s Customer Success Manager; and Lucien Wynn, Joiin’s Co-founder.

our entire company comes together to create a product that people want to buy in the first place and then stick with. Our recent awards back up our faith in that approach, which runs through everything we do –from our free trial and focus on continuous customer feedback to how we let our product do the talking. Being product led is our ethos.

What does ‘product-led’ mean for customers?

Firstly, high satisfaction yet lower pricing.

Central to our ethos is delivering a simplified and intuitive platform that removes the need for a costly sales function in our business, enabling us to scale quickly, with minimal sales-related contact, yet maintaining high customer retention and satisfaction rates.

Our current Net Promoter Score (NPS) – a metric to gauge customer loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm with a company – is +56 (the SaaS industry average is +32). Much of this satisfaction comes from our platform being a powerful consolidation tool, first and foremost. However, custom reporting, brandable report packs and real-time dashboard insights provide tremendous added value to our customers at no extra cost.

And because our product essentially sells itself, we’ve realised that we can strip away traditionally accepted and complex pre-sales, sales, and onboarding layers. In a more traditional sales-led business, these multiple layers must be paid for, which would be covered by a higher product price.

Thinking more innovatively, we can operate without these complex layers and therefore offer much lower pricing, making a purchasing decision far more accessible (with fewer overheads to cover in the price).

Secondly, greater involvement in the product.

Our product – the consolidated financial reporting platform we deliver – focuses on making the complex task of consolidated reporting much easier for accountancy advisors and business finance teams. They get a better realtime understanding of group finances, meaning that with our automated platform, they can spend less time on manual consolidations and get more time back to add value to their businesses.

Yet, as an innovative software vendor, we understand that you can never stand still. Our customers’ expectations are constantly changing. It’s no longer about simply providing technology and delivering set benefits but looking constructively at how we can disrupt the market and continuously innovate, all with our customers in mind.

So, last year, we bucked the trend and moved into an office to bring our product team together more effectively in one place, tripling the size of that team and enabling greater collaboration with our loyal customers. The office and subsequent product development roadmap, developed with customer input, have been significant steps in our productled growth approach. We can now collaborate

better with our customers and implement their product requests more effectively, meaning our platform has only grown in popularity.

Ultimately, if you decide to utilise our Joiin platform, you can expect to play your part in its development by suggesting improvements and enhancements.

And we listen. In total, we have implemented 350+ platform updates based on customer suggestions, appreciating that this collaborative relationship with customers benefits our customers, us and our product. Our mutual gain is a better product, inevitably leading to an improved user experience overall.

And it’s working. The continuous improvements to our platform deliver a 96% subscription renewal rate amongst our existing customers, according to our 2022 customer survey, which points to happy customers and means sustainable growth for us as a business.

Who oversees product updates at Joiin?

Across Joiin, we all work in the firm belief that we’ve created a highly effective solution to multientity and multi-currency financial consolidations – a complex challenge faced by accountants and in-house finance teams across the globe who have been yearning for a solution for some time.

“Our Best Growth Story of the Year award feels like a prestigious chapter in our unfolding narrative”

Historically, the approach to the complex challenge presented by consolidated reporting has been to create an almost equally complex solution.

However, our product team – led by Joiin directors and co-founders

Rob Lucas and Tomek Szpinda (pictured) – has simplified the process to the point where customer onboarding is almost entirely self-service, meaning users can be up and running and creating reports on our platform within minutes.

In our survey, our customers told us they get immediate value from our platform within an average of 7 minutes when onboarding, in the form of running a first off-the-shelf report from within Joiin. While globally, the universal demand for such ease of use means our platform appeals to people everywhere. Only recently, we surpassed the two millionth report run on our platform, demonstrating the value our worldwide customers place on the reporting we provide.

Rob, Tomek, and their team drive the product updates and improvements we make in collaboration with our customers.

One example is enhancements to AP/AR reporting. The improvements we implemented mean our customers can see all outstanding invoices in one view with the ability to drill down in

detail, saving accounts receivable teams hours of debt collection work by streamlining the process.

We have a multi-client feature for accountants and advisors so they can easily automate and share reports with clients, including functionality that had been regularly requested by customers and now means their reports are automatically emailed to trusted contacts once created, saving considerable time and hassle with a much-simplified process.

We also launched a dashboard that provides a highly visual onepage financial overview, meaning users can easily stay updated with the metrics that matter most to them.

Customer feedback specifically asked for a dashboard view, and we acted. It was the first result of our outstanding product team coming together in our new office environment to build something exceptional.

That’s a neat summary of ‘the Joiin way’ of doing things.

Time for Business Unlock Effortless Accounting with Dext

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Data collection, extraction and automation

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“I’ve used other tools and they were not half as efficient or accurate. There’s so much that can be done on Dext Prepare; it’s easy to use, it’s always in development with new features and it ticks all the boxes for me and my clients.”

Make the change to Dext Prepare for reliable, accurate and automated financial data extraction.

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Calculate your carbon footprint for free with Ecologi Zero® and Xero

Start your net-zero journey with zero barriers

@Ecologi_hq

Sam Jackson, Head of Impact, Ecologi

Sam Jackson is the Head of Impact at UK-based climate action platform Ecologi, which serves to inspire and empower businesses to accelerate global climate action.

Your business can be a force for good with Ecologi Zero®, the easy-to-use carbon footprinting tool for service-based small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK.

I

t’s free, quick and simple to calculate your carbon footprint with Ecologi Zero®. By integrating seamlessly with your Xero accounting software, this easy-to-use carbon footprinting tool takes the legwork out of calculating your emissions, so you can focus on reducing them.

Ecologi Zero ® has been developed specifically for UK-based small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the services industries. It’s designed to remove the barriers of time, cost and

“Ecologi Zero® allows us to see our current emissions with some surprising insights! It was super easy to set up & the dashboard is clear & informative.”

expertise for SMEs, making it viable to calculate greenhouse gas emissions, take measures to reduce them, and chart the eventual path to net-zero.

So many great benefits

- Debra Levitt, Business Owner, Bridge Road Consultants

Free to get started

Ecologi Zero® calculates your carbon footprint at no cost to your business (with some premium features coming soon).

Integration with Xero

The easy-to-use app connects seamlessly with your Xero accounting software to calculate your carbon footprint based on your business transactions and operational data.

No expertise or experience needed

The user-friendly dashboard allows you to track your emissions

without any expertise or experience.

Includes your supply chain

Find valuable insights on your scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions, including those hiding in your supply chain (which can account for up to 90% of your total business emissions).

Fund climate projects

You’ll get access to the wider Ecologi platform to fund global climate action projects and share your impact along the way.

Setting up is as easy as 1,2,3…

To get started, set up your free Ecologi account, then connect your accounting software to calculate your supply chain emissions.

Add details about your energy usage, business travel and employee activity to get a full view of your operational emissions. See your total emissions in near real-time on an easy-to-read dashboard, then identify your emissions hotspots and take action to reduce them.

Now there’s zero excuses, zero limits and zero reasons to wait.

We use the industry-leading dataset

“We’re excited to welcome Bristol-based climate tech start-up, Ecologi, to the Xero App Store to support servicebased small businesses in the UK”

footprinting dataset of its kind to calculate your emissions. We’re one of the first businesses to use the new and industryleading dataset from Small World Consulting and carbon accounting expert Prof. Mike Berners-Lee. This dataset includes seven greenhouse gases under the GHG Protocol, so you can be sure you’re getting your journey to net-zero off to a great start.

About Ecologi

over 19,000 businesses and 40,000 members has so far avoided over 2.7 million tCO2e and funded the planting of over 68 million trees in just four years of operation.

We’re B Corp certified and have been recognised in the top 5% of B Corps globally for governance and environment. We were also named in LinkedIn’s Top 15 Startups of the Year in 2022.

Ecologi Zero® uses the most comprehensive carbon

We offer simple and impactful climate solutions for your business, and for our planet. We’re on a mission to inspire and empower businesses to accelerate global climate action. Our passionate community of

- Alex von Schirmeister, Managing Director, Xero UK & EMEA

“I’m excited to see how it evolves as we continue our journey to reduce emissions.”

- Debra Levitt, Business Owner, Bridge Road Consultants

Accountspayable-as-aservice is finally a reality – and firms are missing out

loud accounting has transformed the scope of outsourced accounting – we can work with clients in a shared environment, automate data gathering and show our value in real-time. But the reality of a fully outsourced financial management has always run into one particular roadblock: payments.

Businesses run on payments – to suppliers, employees and authorities. And actually making those payments has remained a thorny issue for firms. Sure, we’ll gather your invoices, check approvals and put together a neat payment schedule for you, but when push comes to shove, it’s usually the owner-manager who sits up late on the weekend going through a spreadsheet line by line to get the money out of the door.

The alternative so far – a desk drawer full of online banking fobs – is risky, inefficient and unscalable. That’s why Sleek has been working with Nook, a smart, flexible payments platform, to offer an outsourced payment service that delivers on the promise of automation while maintaining full control, visibility and security.

Completing the outsourced financials package

Our business is built on providing a consistent, high-level of service to all clients, using the latest tools to combine value and scale. And that starts with delivering the essentials of financial management to a high-degree.

Much accounting conversation in recent years has framed advisory as the future of the profession, but the reality is that every business still requires core accounting services and most of them would rather a professional handle it. When it comes to growing a firm, these essentials can quickly add up to hours of processing and review, adding unnecessary expense for clients.

This was a particular pain point when it came to accounts payable (AP) – we could handle it up to a point, but we still relied on clients to process the payments in their bank account. We knew that AP was a huge opportunity, solving the twin headaches of supplier payments and payroll – we just needed the right tools.

Closing the loop on payments

We knew that the right solution would need to be able to not

Edward Kirby, Head of Country - UK, Sleek

Edward, who founded Accounts Lab before its acquisition by Sleek, brings almost two decades of accounting and fintech expertise. With a rare Masters in Taxation, Edward’s depth of knowledge is impressive. His business interests in property and technology sectors add to his comprehensive commercial experience, enabling him to offer unique, balanced advice to ambitious entrepreneurs and startups.

only handle the invoice capture, approvals and accounting software integration, but also enable the Sleek team to make payments in bulk, without needing to log into the client’s bank account

That’s how Nook came to sit at the heart of our AP process. By streamlining AP with a single data journey, we could not only reduce the administrative burden and the risk of errors, improving the efficiency and scalability of the business as a whole, but also offer a brand new product – accounts payable as a service.

The next service opportunity

With the addition of accounts payable processing through Nook, we were finally able to become a true one-stop-shop for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs. I’ve seen clients’ faces light up in meetings when we mention it. Instead of the halfway solutions owners are used to, we can offer a complete service with full peace of mind.

In a crowded accounting space, that full coverage makes us more competitive, more valuable for customers and more efficient in managing the clients we already work with. Clients don’t want to

be making payments line by line from a spreadsheet every month – we’re now able to take that off their plate without the risk of making errors in their account. It makes us more valuable, gets us closer to our clients and makes businesses more likely to stay with us for the long term.

• Payments are managed with strict roles and permissions through the Nook platform.

• Clients maintain full control over who can make payments on their behalf, with approvals (as simple or as complex as required) and set roles for various levels of responsibility, all centralised and trackable within Nook.

• Our team can ensure that there is always a relevant team member to work with clients on their payments, while controlling access in a structured, secure way.

Introducing any new app to clients is always a risk, but we’ve seen widespread positive responses to the Nook platform, with clients engaging quickly with its userfriendly interface and the range of features it offers.

Scaling Accounts Payable

With the success of the partnership with Nook, Sleek is now looking to scale its accounts payable services as a standard offering for new clients. By taking on a larger part of clients’ business, we can develop new income streams and harness the opportunity to upsell other services, leading to higher monthly fees based on the increased value they can now provide.

By using a holistic solution, we’ve brought AP to the same level of convenience and visibility as the rest of our services, helping us remove a major headache for

business owners. It means that we can do the work clients don’t want to do, but they still feel in control, with full visibility over processes, payment days and permissions. We deliver trust and convenience, all in one – which was always the promise of cloud accounting.

With Nook closing the gap between accounting software and payment execution, it’s now a reality – time for firms to catch up.

First Impressions Matter: Perfect Your Onboarding with Seamlss Client Verification

Transforming client onboarding and going beyond verification with TaxFlow

Clayton Wood, Founder, Seamlss

Clayton Wood, Managing Director of Business Edge Advisors, intimately understands the onboarding challenges faced by accounting firms. Frustrated by these hurdles in his own firm, he co-founded Seamlss to directly address and alleviate these pain points. Seamlss is the culmination of Clayton’s dual expertise in Accounting and IT, designed to streamline client onboarding, fortify relationships, and reduce errors. Connect with Clayton and discover how Seamlss can transform your firm’s onboarding experience.

Seamlss evolves client onboarding, identity verification, and enhances brandclient relationships with the new TaxFlow tool.

n today’s digital era, where consumers are more switched-on and discerning than ever, the onboarding process is crucial in shaping their view of a brand. A streamlined and effective onboarding experience not only sets the stage for future interactions but also strengthens the customerbrand relationship.

The Onboarding Challenge:

With 1 in 3 consumers ready to ditch a favourite brand after just one poor experience, businesses simply can’t risk a flawed onboarding process. The stakes skyrocket in the online world, where 80% have jumped ship due to subpar digital experiences. The challenge is clear: How can businesses guarantee a smooth onboarding that leaves a lasting positive impression?

The Seamlss Onboarding & Verification Solution:

Seamlss is here to transform the onboarding landscape. By

weaving client verification into the onboarding journey, Seamlss ensures businesses not only verify their clients swiftly but also offer a premium experience from the outset.

Why Verification is Crucial:

In a world where a whopping 87% of consumers expect that companies should guard their data, verification isn’t just about ticking regulatory boxes; it’s about building trust. Seamlss’s security first approach to verification process ensures businesses maintain this trust, laying the groundwork for a robust and enduring relationship.

Now with TaxFlow:

Amidst these challenges, Seamlss has launched TaxFlow, a groundbreaking tool designed to simplify the Individual Tax Return (ITR) collection process. This addition ensures that firms not only onboard their clients effectively but also gather essential tax-related data seamlessly.

The Complete Circle: Onboard, Verify, Engage:

Seamlss’s all-encompassing approach to onboarding guarantees businesses do more than just bring clients onboard; they engage them from the word go. By tackling common hiccups like prolonged hold times, multiple agent handovers, and unresolved queries, Seamlss ensures clients feel genuinely valued.

The Digital Landscape is Shifting!

Client onboarding isn’t just a step in the process; it’s the opening chapter of your client relationship tale. A smooth, effective, and trust based onboarding journey sets the expectation for all that follows and can mean the difference between a one-off transaction and a long term engagement. Given the high value of maintaining client satisfaction, businesses must focus on crafting an onboarding experience that not only ticks regulatory and verification boxes but also

@SeamlssTools

surpasses client expectations in terms of simplicity, efficiency, and engagement.

In this backdrop, Seamlss isn’t just another tool; it’s a revolution. By melding key elements of onboarding, verification, and engagement, Seamlss ensures every client feels valued, understood, and secure from their very first interaction. It’s not just about meeting requirements; it’s about creating fit for purpose experiences that nurture trust, loyalty, and long-term commitment.

Don’t let your onboarding be a mere formality. Embrace the future of client onboarding and verification with Seamlss. Dive in today and see how you can turn the initial steps of your client’s journey into a bedrock for enduring success. Your clients deserve the best

possible beginning; offer them an onboarding experience they’ll cherish.

Be part of the Seamlss evolution today!

How a DocuSign integration helps Autonomate get back time

Save 15-minutes on each Xero contract and get agreements signed faster

Creating

utonomate, based in the UK, provides customised Robotic Process Automation (RPA) services to make organisations more cost and time efficient. Demand quickly skyrocketed as clients recognised the value of cloud automation programs, software robots and intelligent data processing.

In line with their mission, the organisation saw an opportunity to streamline their own internal processes, in particular, with the way they manage client contracts

and consultancy quotes. With a fully-integrated electronic signature system, Autonomate could make customer-facing workflows as seamless as possible.

Previously, the organisation had to manually export agreements from Xero in a PDF format. They would then need to manually follow prompts for each contract, input important information and send the contract to customers

@IoAmaka

Martin Chee, CFO, Amaka

Martin has over 15 years of experience as a CPA. Working in a boutique accounting firm has given him experience in a range of areas including business and start-up advisory, management accounting, systems implementation and more.

He has been involved in a number of technology startups within the accounting and finance industries and is passionate about implementing software to achieve efficiencies and to strengthen the quality of business decision making.

for signing via a standalone electronic signature tool.

“The integrated solution saves Autonomate’s teams approximately 15 minutes per contract…”

This was proving to be unnecessarily time-consuming for Autonomate, with a clunky workflow that required using both Xero and the electronic signature tool individually. Autonomate wanted to improve their contracting process and free up the time spent on administrative work.

“As an automation company, we naturally want to automate as many of our manual processes as possible,” says Autonomate’s COO, David Share. “We saw this project as a necessity given its potential to improve productivity and save time, money and energy for our fourperson team.”

After investigating some options, they discovered the free DocuSign + Xero integration made by Amaka in partnership with DocuSign. Amaka worked closely with Autonomate to understand its business requirements and

contracting workflow. The implementation process was straightforward, with no impact or disruption on Autonomate’s dayto-day activities.

“The integration was extremely easy and the support from Amaka was amazing. I had it running and was testing functionality within about 5 minutes of the tool going live,” Share adds. “I also spent time customising the branding side of the DocuSign portal, which only took about 30 minutes.”

“The entire contracting process now happens either the same day or within 48 hours. Prior to using DocuSign the whole process would take 3-5 days to get the client to sign and then my team would manually need to upload the document back to Xero.”

The integrated solution saves Autonomate’s teams approximately 15 minutes per contract, with the entire process generally completed within hours.

Everything is fully tracked within the platform, with automatic prompts and followups sent when required.

“The entire contracting process now happens either the same day or within 48 hours”

“The DocuSign integration works very well and our whole team is really impressed,” Share says. “We’ve had no major challenges introducing it to our team and everyone is very happy with it as a whole.”

“They’ve helped transform a somewhat difficult process into a quick and painless interaction that’s done in minutes.”

Discover how to get started for free with DocuSign + Xero:

amaka.com/integrations/ docusign/xero

When Accounting Software is Not Enough

Mike founded Tall Emu over 20 years ago and has been helping businesses across Australia and New Zealand to work smarter ever since. Mike’s exceptional technical expertise in software development and deployment, coupled with his extensive experience collaborating with SMEs across various industries, sets him apart in the Australian CRM/ERP market. His remarkable ability to analyse business challenges and devise optimal solutions further reinforces his position as one of the best in the field.

When growing businesses face operational and process challenges, many accounting professionals tend to recommend replacing the existing accounting software with a more advanced version. However, this approach is likely to be the wrong solution, especially for small to medium businesses. The truth is accounting software is primarily designed to manage accounting processes and handle compliance and reporting functions. While it serves its purpose well in these areas, it lacks the necessary

features to manage day-to-day business processes efficiently.

These challenges call for a more comprehensive solution that can streamline sales, stock, operations and help businesses scale effectively. This is where business management software comes into play.

A Better Way: Introducing Tall Emu

Imagine having a system that complements accounting

software by focusing on day-today business operations. Tall Emu is a robust system that seamlessly integrates with existing accounting software. Rather than replacing the accounting software, Tall Emu works alongside it, automating the transfer of essential accounting data and ensuring smooth collaboration between the two systems.

Tall Emu is ideal for businesses that sell, make, or distribute physical products and need a complete business software. Although Tall Emu is labelled as a CRM system, it has most of the functions of an ERP system without the price tag. Tall Emu is often referred to as a “mini-ERP”.

What sets Tall Emu apart is its ability to address the critical aspects of business that are often overlooked by traditional accounting software.

Top benefits of Tall Emu CRM:

• All-in-one solution: Tall Emu functions as an end-to-end CRM that integrates with accounting

A powerful, complementary solution to manage sales and operations.

“Accounting software often lacks day-to-day efficiency.”

Accounting software is essential for compliance and financial reporting; however, it is not enough to manage the entire day-to-day business operation.

Mike Nash, Founder, Tall Emu

software including Xero, and various everyday tools like payment gateways, webforms, phones and shopping carts. It becomes the primary hub for daily business operations.

• Effective customer relationship management (CRM): Efficiently manage customer interactions, sales pipelines, and communications. Integration with phone systems automates customer data updates.

• Easy sales pipeline management: Monitor and optimize sales leads on a single screen, enhancing conversion rates.

• Effortless quote management: Simplify quote creation and follow-ups, expediting deal closures.

• Efficient order processing: Automate order processing and outbound shipments with barcode scanning and smart pick, pack, ship features.

• Powerful inventory control: One place to track, purchase, produce and manage orders and stock. See sales to fulfilment in real-time and sync all data with Xero, and platforms like WooCommerce.

• Optimised manufacturing management: Businesses engaged in “Manufacture to Order” type operations can efficiently manage their manufacturing processes including bill of materials (BOMs), work orders and stock replenishment.

• Seamless integration with ecommerce: Easily sell products and services via websites including WooCommerce. Download orders to CRM for super-fast order turnaround,

plus quote and take payments online. Sync stock to WooCommerce and sales data back you’re your accounting software. Use Instant buy forms and links to sell via social media, SMS, and embed in emails and websites.

Tall Emu vs Other CRM Systems

As an Australian-developed, supported, and hosted CRM, it is tailored for Aussie and New Zealand businesses, providing local support. This, coupled with its seamless integrations with accounting software including Xero, make it stand out from the crowd. It offers free support and training videos and covers inventory management within the subscription. Subscriptions are affordably priced at AUD$65 per user per month (annual) or $85 per user per month (flexible).

Getting Started

To explore Tall Emu’s compatibility with business needs, visit their website for a customisable demo. A 14-day free trial with real or demo data is available without the need for a credit card.

Partner Program – Build a Business from Referring other Businesses!

“Tall Emu offers Partner Program: additional revenue through referrals.”

Tall Emu offers a Partner Program for business advisory, accounting, and agency professionals. This program facilitates offering Tall Emu as a comprehensive business operations solution to clients, creating an additional revenue stream through reselling or referrals.

Visit

Tall Emu’s setup process is quick and efficient and mandatory assisted setup ensures users not only adopt but also truly benefit from using the CRM.

Find out more about Tall Emu - for your business or for your clients:

tallemucrm.com/xero

“Automate shipments, pick, pack, and barcode scan.”

“A primary hub for daily business operations.”

Streamlining Identity Verification

for Accountants and Tax Agents: Introducing IdentityCheck

Matthew Collis, CEO, StackGo

With a passion for disruptive B2B SaaS, Matt crafts and steers life cycles of innovative products, honing in on Product Market Fit. Expertise in seamless customer experiences and app ecosystems, specializing in regulated sectors globally. From launching integrated platforms to advising startups, Matt has driven growth strategies and led multi-million-dollar ventures. Adept at problemsolving and empowering teams. Committed to continuous learning, agility, and creating impactful solutions.

Amid increasing regulations, Accountants face software and process overload. Discover an effortless identity-checking solution for seamless compliance.

n today’s dynamic global regulatory landscape, coupled with the surge in data breaches, ensuring the integrity and safety of financial transactions has taken center stage. Notably, the Australian Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) has responded proactively, introducing fresh mandates for identity verification among tax agents and accountants, mirroring a trend of similar initiatives worldwide. This collective response seeks to thwart cyber fraud and bolster financial security. Nevertheless, the task of securely and seamlessly verifying identities

introduces complexities that can burden both enterprises and their clients.

Traditional methods of collecting personal identity documents via email or online forms not only prove clunky and inconvenient for clients but also pose significant security risks. The documents often linger in email inboxes or shared folders, leaving them vulnerable to potential breaches. Moreover, the increasing stringency of global privacy laws has put the onus on companies to safeguard sensitive information, with severe penalties for data breaches looming large

Enter IdentityCheck: A Revolutionary Solution

Stepping into this dynamic landscape, IdentityCheck emerges as a beacon of hope, navigating through the regulatory labyrinth. This innovative software has been meticulously crafted to cater to the needs of tax agents and accountants striving to maintain compliance. IdentityCheck presents an array of features that not only seamlessly meet the stringent identity verification requirements but also enhance security and convenience for both clients and firms.

Seamless Integration and Effortless Usage

IdentityCheck seamlessly integrates with popular platforms such as Xero Practice Manager (XPM) and HubSpot. It all begins with a single click on the ‘KYC Command’ box in XPM, effortlessly initiating the identity verification journey. This unified integration eliminates the need for additional browser tabs or extensive training, ensuring a fluid and efficient workflow.

Simple identity verification that’s easy for clients and helps meet regulations

Personalized Client Outreach: The Branded Email Experience

Once the ‘KYC Command’ is initiated, the power of IdentityCheck takes over. The next step is a carefully crafted branded email sent directly to your client. This email is more than just a notification; it’s an extension of your company’s identity. It assures your client that this verification process is a natural part of your commitment to security and compliance.

Explaining the Why: Clear Communication with Your Client

This branded email is your canvas to communicate directly with your client, explaining in your own words why this verification is crucial. Your message can highlight the increasing importance of security and the regulatory landscape, emphasizing that this step is for their benefit as much as yours. By fostering clear communication, the process becomes less a requirement and more a shared endeavor.

A Unified Identity Verification Journey

Embrace the Future with IdentityCheck

“This unified integration eliminates the need for additional browser tabs or extensive training, ensuring a fluid and efficient workflow.”

Empowering the Client: A Guided Experience

The guided WebApp requires no download and is insanely easy to use, walking your client through the process step by step. It captures their government-issued identity document and snapping a selfie – all in just 20 seconds. This guided experience empowers your client, making the process effortless and straightforward.

As your client completes the verification steps, IdentityCheck comes into play, deploying its AI-powered verification and security measures. Once the verification is successfully completed, the outcome and a link to the images used in the process are seamlessly updated in your system of record, be it XPM or HubSpot. This centralized approach ensures an accurate and reliable compliance record.

Testimonial from a Satisfied Firm

“Super easy to use, integrates well with CRM systems (i.e. XPM or HubSpot) and provides Proof of Identity verification without the painful process of notarizing documents” - Kent Pearce, Offshore Trading Company

As the global landscape tightens its hold on identity verification regulations, IdentityCheck emerges as a pivotal ally for accountants and tax agents. With its seamless integration, swift verification process, stringent security measures, and affordable pricing, IdentityCheck transforms compliance into a seamless, secure workflow benefiting both firms and clients. Embrace the future of identity verification and experience the transformative power of IdentityCheck firsthand.

To embark on this transformative identity verification journey with IdentityCheck, you can learn more here:

stackgo.io/identitycheck/ financial_services/ tax_practioners_and_ accountants/

Is it time to update your app stack?

If you’re reading this magazine then you’ll be aware of apps, of course. Part of Xero’s appeal is the way it seamlessly forms the heart of an app stack.

But when is the last time you took a top-to-bottom look at the app stack you rely upon daily? How are you supposed to go about finding new apps, and evaluating them?

An effective app stack is a living entity. You need to constantly

evaluate the technology landscape alongside your own processes. The rewards can be massive cost savings, and efficiency boosts.

Client touchpoints

Wherever you have a client touchpoint and any associated processes, there may be an app offering assistance.

Client touchpoint for an average practice might include any of the following:

• New client acquisition, such as marketing (website, social, and more).

• Onboarding, in the form of creating quotations, then client proposals, service agreements, and engagement letters.

• Anti-money-laundering (AML) and Know Your Client (KYC) compliance.

• Getting data and docs from clients—and sending documents to clients, ensuring they’re always available should

the client require them in, say, two years’ time. This might include digital signature technology, so clients can e-sign returns, for example.

• Ongoing client servicing such as basic compliance and tax work, auditing, and managing the overall timeline of client actioning (that is, practice management).

• Reporting and forecasting, either on demand (capital purchases, funding applications etc) or as part of regular requirements (e.g. year end, board packs).

• Receiving client payments, both recurring and ad hoc. This can include chasing up late/defaulting payments, and credit control.

• Client growth requirements, which could be everything from putting in place RTI payroll processes, to assisting with initial public offerings.

• Offboarding clients, and potentially tasks such as succession planning for clients who intend to retire.

@AutoEntry

Brian Carolan, Product Owner, AutoEntry by Sage

Brian Carolan is Product Owner at AutoEntry. He has been working at the organisation since before its launch, helping guide the development and success of the world-class accounting automation product.

An expert on all matters relating to accounting, Brian has a deep understanding of not only AutoEntry but how customers use it.

Brian is dedicated to helping both the product grow and helping customers and users get the most from AutoEntry.

Speak to any successful accountant or bookkeeper and they will have a personalised app stack that they’ve researched and implemented—and that drives their growth. Sometimes these are known tech stacks, or integrations, or practice platforms.

“One path to a good app stack is to consider the linear process of dealing with a client”

The criteria are simple. What processes sap your time and energy? What tasks do you or your staff dread? What always seems to take more time than you anticipate?

Finding the best apps

So, you might’ve identified a need, or problematic area. How do you find an app to match?

Start by asking around. See what others are using. Your governing body, if you have one, may offer local meet-ups, so go along to them and speak to people.

If you’ve any particularly techsavvy clients then you might speak to them to get pointers, too.

Ask not just what others use, but how they use it. This is vital and provides a shortcut into the most efficient way to get the best out of the software. Ask what need they had beforehand—and how the need was solved. Ask about this from both the perspective of their work, and how it benefitted clients.

If you’re looking for apps for clients to use, a useful trick is to trial them on your own accounting first. This way you not only evaluate their worth but also spend time building knowledge that you can then share.

Proposal onwards

Another path to a good accountant’s app stack is to consider the linear process of dealing with a client. It starts with the proposal and onboarding, then moves on to data processing and reporting, which leads to advisory.

Believe it or not, Sage has been putting a lot of work into this and offers a platform-agnostic app stack covering these bases. That’s right. These apps from

Sage are available for, and integrate perfectly within, the Xero ecosystem (as well as Sage’s own Accounting platform, and QuickBooks, too!).

The first step for most accountants is to successfully sign-up clients. You already know that clients are complex and continually need more from you, and legislation around client engagement is onerous.

Sage’s GoProposal app solves all of this by giving you a sophisticated client engagement platform. You can create professional proposals and renewals, and automatically generate sophisticated engagement letters that evolve with regulatory changes. There’s also an anti-money laundering, or AML, system that provides Know-Your-Client and Risk Assessments that are tailored to your needs, guided by compliance experts and fully integrated with the client onboarding process.

Fast data

Once the client is in the system, you’ll need a way to get their accounting data quickly and easily.

That’s where Sage’s app AutoEntry comes in. It’s the fastest way to capture, categorise and publish financial documents through to accounts software.

You can scan receipts, bills, invoices and things like bank or credit card statements, and AutoEntry will extract the data for you, saving up to 90% of the processing time normally associated with data entry. You can then publish this straight through to accounting software, or output it as an Excel file. You can also create basic expense reports.

With the move towards advisory service offerings, Sage’s app Futrli can be added to the app stack to automate the creation of forecasting and reporting. Picking up on the fast and high quality data provided by AutoEntry to accounting software, it can quickly and easily provide clients with impactful insights for their business’s current, past and future performance, such as sales, expenses, profit, cash flow, tax and growth insights. Operations, staff, profit, trends, bills, sales, tax... It’s all predicted across the P&L, balance sheet and cash flow, with up to 3-year forecasts.

Conclusion

Technology has been answering the needs of accountants for decades. But it doesn’t stand still, and accountants can’t, either. Keeping an eye on rapidly moving tech is the key to growth, competitiveness, and higher incomes.

“Technology doesn’t stand still, and accountants can’t, either”

n the dynamic world of accounting, providing an exceptional client experience is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. Accountants, tend to love our accounting tools, however outside of the accounting world, Xero and other cloud accounting apps, on their own can be quite limiting. They’re great for a start, but when it comes to meeting unique client needs, we end up having to look for that something that gives a little bit extra.

The Power of the Stack

The Xero marketplace is a treasure trove of apps that can enhance your accounting services. It’s often the first port of call when working with a client, offering a wealth of solutions to common business challenges.

In fact, most award-winning accountants nowadays have their preferred technology stack that augments their accounting software of choice, whomever that may be. Constantly looking for that next app that can give customers even more value.

But what happens when the marketplace apps don’t quite hit the mark for your client?

Beyond Your Stack: Tailored Integrations

The first foray for many is existing systems already used by the business; or maybe other off-theshelf solutions.

However, if it’s not on the marketplace it likely doesn’t play nice with Xero or other cloud accounting packages.

Valeria Lvova Mifsud, Head of Growth, Maze Digital

Valeria is the Head of Growth at Maze Digital. Over the last nine years, she has successfully helped numerous practices employ custom Xero integrations. Outside of work, Valeria is an avid traveler, a fan of women’s football. At home, she enjoys the company of her pet cockatiel, Funky, where she also tends to her beloved backyard garden, which she jokingly admits to loving more than her husband

That’s where tailored integrations come in. When these solutions provide a comprehensive API one can create tailored integrations.

Maybe you’ve already used something like Zapier or Make, but imagine if you just had to tell someone what you wanted it to do; including all bells and whistles; and you could have it delivered to spec; fully automated and managed.

It’s like having a translator who can speak the language of every app in your client’s ecosystem.

The Power of Customization

Customization is like a secret weapon in the Xero universe.

When it looks like all the marketplace solutions are in-effective, and your client is about to give up on accounting automation because nothing seems to fit… it’s time to bring out your secret weapon. A customised Xero Integration.

When all existing tech options may be exhausted; custom software solutions that are

Unlock the secret behind top-tier accounting firms; Custom Xero Integrations can revolutionize your accounting services and transform your client experiences.

Transforming Client Experiences: How Custom Xero Solutions Elevate Your Accounting Services

integrated into Xero come into play. This is where a new cloud solution is created to specifically address the challenges that your clients are facing.

Custom Software can bridge the gaps where traditional business apps do not quite make it. Most marketplace apps, at some point, may have started as a custom software solution to solve a specific niche problem.

Having a secret weapon up your sleeve not only makes your life easier but gives you additional clout when talking to existing and potential customers, that be what may, you can find a solution to their accounting automation challenges.

Case Study: A Transformation Story

Let’s take a real-life example. Picture an accounting firm working with a car leasing micro-business, with the majority of leases paid by businesses or insurance. The business was stuck in the pen-and-paper era, struggling to issue invoices and taking even longer to collect. Based on their accountant’s recommendation, they were open to using Xero, but Xero alone couldn’t solve their separate vehicle and allocation issue, where a single diary was the only source of truth.

The business and the accounting firm; tried looking into existing marketplace apps. No match, they tried looking in the wider market yet plausible solutions did not have a roadmap for a Xero integration or a suitable API.

In order to not charge the client exorbitant bookkeeping fees; the accounting firm was keen to introduce a digital solution that would help automate the full process.

Having come across Maze Digital they held an introductory call to ensure that the team understood accounting jargon, after all, most developers have no clue of accounting jargon. Once they were confident, they introduced the client who explained the busines challenges and together developed a custom app that integrated seamlessly with Xero.

The result? The accounting firm gained full live visibility into all sales happening within Xero, while the business managed bookings and payments through a custom app. It was a win-win situation.

Going Beyond a Custom App

It’s not uncommon for accounting firms to specialise in a niche. In the process, unique challenges such as those solved above by custom apps are encountered.

Yet, now you realise that the solutions you are helping to pioneer may not solve only a single customer’s challenge, but potentially, tens, hundreds maybe even thousands of businesses.

A dream of having your own marketplace app.

Going from an idea to a custom software solution, into a viable self-sustaining SaaS business is no easy feat. But with the right technology partner, all of this becomes possible.

Maze Digital: Your Xero Developer Partner

Having become a Xero Developer Partner in 2017; we have helped multiple firms and businesses with their Xero Integrations. Having exhibited in three XeroCons, and being the only Developer Partner to ever win Xero App Partner of the month we can guarantee that your clients will be in good hands.

If you’re attending Xerocon Australia or Accountex North, you’ll be able to meet our team in person. We’re not just experts— we’re enthusiasts.

Ready to Level Up?

Custom Xero solutions have the potential to transform client experiences in the accounting industry. They offer a way to overcome the limitations of marketplace apps, meet unique client needs, and give your firm a competitive edge. So why wait? Let’s start tailoring your Xero solutions today.

Remember, in the world of accounting, customization isn’t just a luxury—it’s a necessity. And at Maze Digital, we’re ready to help you meet that necessity head-on.

Learn what Custom Xero Apps can do for your firm: maze.digital/xu

“Customization is like a secret weapon in the Xero universe”

Keeping your connection with clients in the tech age

Abbey Patterson, Consultant, Notud

Abbey’s background is in marketing and business development and is excited by supporting small business owners set up their framework to grow and run smoothly. When she’s not hanging out with her daughter, you’ll find her helping professionals integrate Notud in to their business and getting the word out to the world about Notud.

trengthening customer loyalty, repeat business and ongoing referrals is something we all want for our business. But how do we get there? By creating genuine empathy and rapport with our clients from the first meeting. If you’re a business owner or in business, the importance of looking after your clients won’t be a lightbulb moment, you already know. However, increasingly, with the shift of technology taking over our offices, it pays to be mindful of how this is affecting our clients.

Let’s talk about how note taking in client meetings can positively or negatively affect your relationship.

How do you currently take your notes when you are with your clients? Or in any meeting? If it’s on paper, what is the likelihood of a client note or an important task going missing in the process of being filed or actioned? From chatting with Notud’s users and others in the industry, this is a recurring topic of conversation and a huge problem with paper based notes.

There’s also a problem with typing behind a computer or laptop, the human connection is divided, therefore the client relationship and the trust and empathy you have with them is too. Personally, I have spoken to a number of client facing professionals who refuse to type when they are with a client, even with the benefits of having the notes automatically online, because of the impact it can have on their relationship and how the client feels. There are endless benefits of taking your notes online. It saves us

TIME. There are many tasks that are cut from the process with going online and loads of further automation options to make life simpler.

Access your notes from anywhere. Whether you’re working in the office, from home, or catching up on the go, you will have your notes with you. It is much more unlikely you will lose or misplace important information than it would be with paper notes.

The notes are searchable. Even with handwriting online, like with Notud, you can search any typed or handwritten note, client data or other information at the click of a button (hello impromptu client drop in or phone call!).

Your notes can be saved automatically to a client file or other system you use, and notes can be quickly sent to team members or clients.

Then behind the scenes, if you’re using the right notes system, your information is secured with data encryption, backup and active system monitoring. Your business’

Notud has taken our trusted method of note taking to the cloud for businesses

Nurture and grow your connection with clients through thoughtful engagement at every interaction, and working with the right technology

“Notud is made for those who handwrite their notes.”

information, and your clients data, is much more secure than stored in brick and mortar or your carry bag.

Bruce, founder of Notud, knows how important it is to keep up with new technology, yet can also clearly recognise the downfall of having a client meeting with a computer screen in the middle of you both. Although you might feel more organised having your notes already typed on your computer instead of on your paper notepad, this can negatively impact your client, and therefore, your business.

So, can we have both?

Handwriting our notes, while having them automatically saved in the cloud?

Thanks to the team at Notud, you can.

Notud is made for those who handwrite their notes on paper, and are ready to go online without changing the way you take your notes. There are endless benefits to handwriting your notes, including improved recall of the information, improved memory, concentration, it encourages creativity, enhances critical thinking, and allows more of your brain to be accessed when compared to typing.

Notud has been built and customised for businesses, so you can use your tablet on your desk (or at a coffee shop!) to handwrite

your notes with a client, instead of sitting behind a computer screen. You can establish eye contact, clearly notice body language, and have an engaging conversation with no distractions between you. This is key for building empathy, rapport and connection with your clients.

With our growing stack of integration partners, you can sync client lists and information, save notes to your existing document management systems, and send notes and tasks to your team. It is also equipped with the ability to type or dictate your notes when you need to. Notud allows you to customise your notes and note templates, add your team, view notes as thumbnails for a quick view and recall of your notes, and importantly in this day and age, access all of your notes on any device, anywhere. Best of all, it is so easy to use.

Aside from handwriting your notes, how else can you build rapport and empathy with clients (or anyone in your life!)? The answer is ultimately quite simple, you might already be doing them without knowing! Making eye contact, showing open and engaged body language, expressing interest in what they are saying by asking follow up questions and finding common interests, ask open ended

questions, use the person’s name throughout the conversation, reflect back what they are saying, and match the person’s energy.

Showing these qualities are GOLD and will ensure you have a great relationship with all of your clients. We love when clients are happy because they will boast about our business, and if they do have a complaint, it is much more likely to be communicated and solved in a friendly, collaborative manner. Paying mindful attention to your clients is paying attention to your business.

Learn more about handwriting

“It saves us TIME.”

Clarity Campus is your internal intranet, learning & development platform, and best practice support tool - all rolled into one.

The solution is divided into five main sections, each designed to cater to different needs, ensuring that you and your team can access the most relevant resources and support:

Advisory & AI: Reimagining Accounting Advisory

Crafting the Next Era of Personalised

Financial Guidance

AI’s emergence in accounting: Beyond automation, it’s setting a new gold standard for advisory.

The winds of change are sweeping across the accounting realm. As the dynamics of advisory services intertwine with the expansive capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI), we’re not merely witnessing a subtle shift. We stand at the dawn of an era where AI’s role transcends traditional boundaries, promising to redefine the heart and soul of advisory.

Personalised AI Chatbots: The Ultimate Financial Companions

Imagine an assistant tailored to the unique intricacies of your business; an entity that not only recalls every past decision but also anticipates future needs. This isn’t science fiction; it’s the potential future of advisory with personalised AI chatbots.

Cameron Lynch, CEO/ Founder, Etani AI

Cameron is a Chartered Accountant and the founder of Etani AI. With a comprehensive skill set encompassing Business Intelligence, Analytics, cloud solutions, and AI—including EVA, a GPT-driven AI that manages private small business data—Cameron stands at the intersection of technology and business. Power BI, data analytics, ETL, and AI are integral components of his expertise. Driven by a belief in live data’s transformative potential, Cameron’s mission is to empower businesses to navigate and excel in a dynamic landscape.

Users can now actively interact with their data, seeking clarifications, delving into trends, and making informed decisions with the support of intelligent systems, crafting a richer, more interactive experience.

“From raw data to rich dialogue: AI reshapes the future of advisory.”

These chatbots, powered by APIs, can seamlessly integrate data from platforms like Xero and other data sources, providing an enriched, on-demand advisory experience. It’s an evolution that turns raw data into a responsive dialogue, delivering insights with unprecedented depth.

Data Analytics: A Two-way Conversation

Data, in its raw form, holds potential, but it’s the extraction and interpretation that birth actionable insights. With AI in the mix, data transforms from being a monologue to an engaging conversation.

A Knowledge Base That Evolves

As AI systems continually learn and adapt, they promise a constantly evolving advisory landscape. With every client interaction, these systems can absorb, analyze, and refine their processes, ensuring that the advisory provided is not just data-driven but deeply personalised.

Seamless Automation: Efficiency Reimagined

Amidst AI’s growth, the manner in which we approach routine tasks evolves. Automation of processes like tax return lodgments, document signings, and deadline reminders embodies the precision and reliability AI brings to the table. While this technology offers consistent and accurate compliance management, it

@EtaniLynch

also provides professionals with tools to enhance and refine their existing services, ensuring a holistic approach to both compliance and advisory tasks.

Real-time Reporting: The Financial Pulse

The promise of real-time financial updates stands as one of AI’s most significant offerings. Transactions updated in the blink of an eye mean that professionals

and business owners alike can have instant access to the latest financial insights, enabling swift and informed decisions.

Navigating the Uncharted Waters of Advisory & AI

While certain AI tools have already permeated the industry, many of the envisioned concepts are still taking shape. As we look ahead, we’re not making definitive predictions but drawing

an informed trajectory. The integration of AI in accounting and advisory is an evolving journey, one rife with potential and innovation.

Registration opens for the fifth Accountex Summit Manchester

Caroline Hobden, Portfolio Director, Accountex

Caroline is a dedicated event professional with over 20 years of experience managing international business-tobusiness events. With a wealth of knowledge and expertise in running technical events across a variety of industry sectors, Caroline is the Director for the hugely popular Accountex portfolio, which includes Accountex in London (15-16 May 2024), Accountex Summit Manchester (19 September 2023), Accountex Espana (7-8 November 2023), a wide variety of virtual events and the monthly newsletter Accounting Insight News.

Accountex Summit Manchester is gearing up to make its comeback at Manchester Central on 19 September 2023.

he event will showcase more than 100 renowned software and service suppliers, including Bright, Dext, FreeAgent, Intuit Quickbooks, IRIS, RDI Solutions, Sage, Wolters Kluwer, and Xero. As well as brands exhibiting for the first time; Red Flag Alert, SMA Digital, MyGuava, BSMART, Concero and Kletta.

Visitors will have the opportunity to meet the teams behind these brands, receive personalised demonstrations and have their questions answered.

The CPD accredited seminar programme will showcase more than 60 industry-leading speakers from across the country in 30+ sessions, including panels and

presentations. Covering a range of topics, the sessions will delve into AI, recruitment, personal branding, working parents, mental health, recruitment, exit planning, cyber security and more. With presentations taking place across four theatres, attendees will gain insight on the latest trends and legislation.

Visitors can also learn how to create effective content for social media and how to build an engaged audience with the Content Creation Clinic. Rachel Harris, Founder of accountant_ she and Director, striveX Accountants, will be on hand to answer questions and even film content with attendees.

Katie, a Business Advisor from CHFB, expressed her enthusiasm for the event, highlighting its value in networking and education: “It’s great to not only meet people but to get your brain flowing because there may have been things that you haven’t thought of and things that your company needs which you didn’t even know existed. So

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Answer the questions that matter

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Model complex scenarios in minutes

Be ready for anything

apart from the networking, for us, it’s about education and learning.”

Below is a taster of the sessions you can look forward to.

• Trust in Tax

Glenn Collins, Head of Policy, Technical and Strategic Engagement at ACCA; Jason Piper, Senior Subject Manager, Taxation & Business Law at ACCA and HMRC

Join ACCA and HMRC as they unpick how taxpayers perceive the existing systems, and who is best trusted to help improve those perceptions, and who will be fundamental in building enhanced trust and engagement?

• Managing Stress & Preventing Burnout in the Workplace

organisations can play to provide psychological stability to employees during turbulent times. It’s useful for individuals looking to ensure they stay well at work, support their colleagues, and avoid burnout.

• Audit your mindset: overcoming challenges with the power of ‘iCan’

Richard McCann, Managing Director, The iCan Academy

With a challenging childhood in poverty, Richard defied the odds, transformed his life, and now stands as a leading voice in mental health and empowerment.

• Tax Untangled - Top Tax Issues for 2023/24

Sharon Cook, Technical Director, 20:20 Innovation

In this session, Sharon will will review two of the most topical and challenging changes in taxation that practitioners are grappling with right now:

1. For unincorporated businesses - the change in basis periods, the 2023/24 transition and prior planning opportunities.

2. For companies - the new corporation tax rates and the need to identify associated companies via family and other relationships. She will also consider tax ethics, in a world where AI is everywhere.

Liam

Reynolds, Workplace Mental Health Officer, Mental

Health UK

This presentation explores the impact stress and burnout can have on individuals within the workplace, and the role

Drawing from his personal journey of healing and growth, Richard empowers audiences, with invaluable insights and practical strategies to conquer challenges and achieve greater success.

• Personal branding 101 Rachel Harris, Director, Accountant_she

Personal Branding 101 is an essential guide to developing a strong personal brand in the digital age. Rachel

“Great to get up to date, in an ideal venue, with excellent seminars & helpful suppliers”

“It’s good to get face time with the industry”

Harris shares cutting-edge strategies for standing out in a competitive marketplace. The talk emphasises authenticity as the foundation of personal branding, helping participants uncover their unique voice, values, and strengths. You’ll leave this talk able to create a captivating brand narrative aligned with your goals. The session also covers social media tactics, leveraging digital trends to enhance online presence and engagement.

• I’m an accountant, get me out of here!

Bev Flanagan, Accounting Consultant, Bev Flanagan Financial Ltd

Every practice owner WILL exit their business at some point in the future. Learn how to run your practice as if it is ready for sale even if you have no immediate plans to sell yet. And discover the steps you can implement to increase the value of your practice.

• Beyond ChatGPT: the future of AI in tax

Rebecca Benneyworth MBE, Tax Lecturer & Consultant, Rebecca Benneyworth Chartered Accountants

Tax authorities around the world are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data analytics to spot tax risks in ways that practitioners need to be aware of. AI and data analytics also hold the power to help practitioners reduce the risk of missing potential tax breaks and increase the chance of spotting them. This session will look at what is happening, what is on the horizon and how to plan for it.

Alongside the educational program and exhibitors and even the new live Podcast Studio, there will be an After-show Party, providing an opportunity for visitors to network and unwind after a productive day. Returning after the success of last year is the photobooth,

allowing attendees to capture fun memories with colleagues and friends.

Accountex Summit Manchester is taking place at Manchester Central on 19 September 2023

FIND

For further information and to book your free ticket, please visit our website.

Use priority code ASM222 when booking your ticket.

accountexmanchester.com

Technology adoption helping to drive new revenue opportunities for accounting firms

In the Wolters Kluwer 2023-24 Accounting Evolution survey, over 600 accounting firm professionals across ANZ and SEA were surveyed to gain insights on their technology adoption, current challenges and strategic priorities for the year ahead.

In last year’s survey results, amidst reports of a sector-based ‘boom’ for accounting firms, the number 1 goal reported for accounting firms focussed on improving job profitability and efficiency by improving operational workflows and standardising processes. Revenue growth was number 2.

This year revenue growth is back on top as the number 1 strategic goal for accounting firms. Firms which are expecting to meet or exceed their revenue targets in the year ahead provide some interesting insights for other firms to follow.

Technology adoption

Successful firms are using full cloud solutions and technology to gain efficiencies, and create the capacity required to generate new business and grow revenue.

While the outlook overall is positive, with the vast majority of firms surveyed expecting at least modest growth over the

next two years, a subset of 14% of surveyed firms are expecting high financial performance.

Twelve per cent of all firms surveyed self-identified as technology pioneers – proactively seeking technology to help their business.

Firms who are expecting high financial growth in the upcoming year are more likely to be technology pioneers or early adopters. While 80% of firms expecting low or no financial growth in the 2024 financial year consider themselves to be mainstream or lagging in technology uptake.

Firms with a positive financial outlook are fully embracing the cloud, with 73% already on the cloud for all solutions (compared to 54% of all firms surveyed).

Technology is proving critical, with over 70% reporting that technology implemented in their firm provides significant help to meeting business demands.

Technology implemented by your firm provides significant help to meet business demands

• All firms: 63%

@cchaustralia

Viraj Joshi, Product Manager – Professional Software Solutions, Wolters Kluwer APAC

Viraj is a former accountant and is now Product Manager of CCH iFirm tax and compliance software.

High performing firms are embracing technology to gain efficiencies required to grow advisory services and build new revenue opportunities.

• Firms expecting high financial growth: 70%

The key areas where technology is helping these firms include: reducing the hours spent on their jobs (59%), improving the quality and accuracy of their work (46%) and focussing on core business and billable work vs administrative duties (46%).

Unsurprisingly, these firms are also more confident in their ability to meet customer needs over the next 3 years.

Confidence in firm’s ability to meet customer needs over the next 3 years

• All firms: 42%

• Firms expecting high financial growth: 67%

Client Engagement

With efficiencies gained from technology adoption, successful firms are able to prioritise proactive client engagement, new business generation and growing their advisory services.

This is reflected in their strategic goals over the next two years, which differ from the survey average across all firms.

Top 3 goals for 2023-24

All firms

1. Revenue growth

2. Improve operational efficiencies

3. Improve employee effectiveness

Firms expecting high financial growth

1. Revenue growth

2. Improve operational efficiencies / Grow advisory services

3. Improve profitability / Improve customer engagement

Firms reporting high financial growth credit technology to impacting their ability to add new clients, retain more existing clients and add new services.

Technology helping to add new clients, retain more clients and add new services:

• All firms: 36%

• Firms expecting high financial growth: 65%

Successful firms are also proactively reaching out to a significant number of clients to inform them of relevant tax events (51%, compared to 43% of all firms surveyed), thus generating new potential revenue driving opportunities.

Efficiencies yet to be gained

While many firms are experiencing positive benefits from their adoption of cloud solutions and technologies, there are still further efficiencies to be gained.

The key issues firms are facing this year haven’t changed significantly year on year with data collection, talent engagement and work life balance

remaining common challenges across the board.

However, for firms expecting high financial growth, the number 1 challenge is work life balance, suggesting that revenue growth is coming at a cost of human resource, with many efficiency benefits of technology that are not being fully maximised.

Top 3 issues currently facing your firm

All firms

1. Obtaining correct data from clients on a timely basis (46.5%)

2. Work life balance for you and your staff (43.0%)

3. Attracting and retaining talent (42.8%)

Firms expecting high financial growth

1. Work life balance for you and your staff (47.2%)

2. Obtaining correct data from clients on a timely basis (41.8%)

3. Finding the time to value add for clients / Attracting and retaining talent (40.0%)

To what extent are you maximising the benefits of your firm’s current technologies?

• All firms: 9.4%

• Firms expecting high financial growth: 15.1%

Further, while all firms report that integrated technologies for compliance, accounting and practice management solutions

is a top requirement, 27% of all firms and 25% of firms expecting high financial growth are still using five or more different providers of software solutions.

At Wolters Kluwer, we provide integrated compliance, accounting and practice management software with our award-winning CCH iFirm platform. We also provide tax and accounting research through our CCH iKnow, CCH iQ and related expert content

solutions; thus being able to unlock efficiencies in the typical end-to-end accounting workflow.

As firms look to save time, improve quality of work, job profitability and free up time to add advisory services without compromising work life balance, we believe adopting unified technologies across both software and research will be critical to achieving a competitive edge in the years ahead.

Be the first to receive the report when it’s available here.

FIND OUT MORE...

For more information on how the CCH iFirm platform can help you save time, request a demo:

wolterskluwer.com

Specialized in accounting SDK / API programming and custom application development company

Helping product development companies as an extended arm, 3rd party software integration and business automation

n the rapidly evolving landscape of technology, businesses and individuals alike seek innovative solutions to enhance their operations, streamline processes, and optimize performance. Amid this quest for technological advancement, Expert Solution Technologies (Expsoltech.com) emerges as a beacon of creating integrated solutions with backoffice accounting systems.

With a commitment to innovation, excellence, and customercentricity, Expsoltech.com has carved a distinct niche in providing holistic and expertdriven accounting API integration for Intuit QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, Dynamics, FreshBooks, Zoho Books etc. along with payment gateways, shipment carriers, HR systems and Payroll API integrations.

At the heart of Expert Solution Technologies’ success lies its unwavering dedication to staying at the forefront of technological trends. The company is driven by a team of seasoned professionals who possess a deep understanding of various domains within the technology spectrum. Their collective expertise enables them to craft tailor-made

solutions that cater to the unique needs and challenges faced by clients. Whether it is developing bespoke software applications, implementing intricate data analytics solutions, or providing comprehensive cybersecurity measures, Expsoltech.com excels in delivering results that exceed expectations.

One of the standout features of Expsoltech.com is its emphasis on a collaborative approach. The team recognizes that the most effective solutions emerge through a synergy of ideas and expertise. As such, they engage clients as partners in the journey towards technological transformation.

By fostering open communication and a transparent working relationship, Expsoltech.com ensures that each solution is not only aligned with the client’s goals but also encompasses a broader perspective that anticipates future needs.

In an era where data is hailed as the new currency, Expsoltech.com takes data privacy and security with utmost seriousness. All the product development clients own their product IP and all assets developed by ExpSolTech

An astute leader, Krish has been prolific and instrumental in making EST what it is today, by working closely with clients across the globe and helping them in their business automation solutions.

He has an in-depth understanding of IT Services outsourcing and Global Delivery, as well as significant global experience in Consulting and IT Services. His success mantra is “Happy clients, happy employees”.

team. With a clear signed NDA, ExpSolTech protects sensitive information.

Furthermore, Expsoltech.com is a proponent of continuous learning and evolution. The technology landscape is dynamic, marked by rapid changes and paradigm shifts with cloud. ExpSolTech not only build applications, in many cases it also manages the application and do maintenance. ExpSolTech with its expertise on Azure and AWS, gives the cloud choice to customers.

In conclusion, Expert Solution Technologies (Expsoltech.com) is not merely a technology solutions provider; it is a beacon of innovation, collaboration, and expertise with creating accounting integration and automation. Working with many vertical solutions, it built the strong experience in applying the industry best practices and recommendations when it comes to accounting integration.

Rathakrishnan Aka Krish, Co-Founder, Expert Solution Technologies

How small accountancy practices can save time with integrated software

tarting and running a small business of any kind is a full-time job: that practically goes without saying. In many ways, building a growth strategy for that business is another full-time job in itself. It’s tough for many accountants to dedicate adequate time to acquiring new clients and recruiting more employees.

If that describes you, that’s understandable. Accountants are qualified and skilled individuals, committed to providing a highquality service. If you’re running a small accountancy practice, and you want to devote more time to growing the business, you’ll need to do one of two things. One, you’ll need to process fewer accounts day-to-day. Two, you’ll need to find a way of doing the same amount of work in less time. That latter option obviously sounds preferable, but how can you do it?

At Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK, we want to make a difference in the communities in which we operate. Our

customers face similar challenges to their time management and productivity. They want to embrace technology to move forward in their profession.

Making the basics quicker

There are three principal areas for accountants running a small practice to consider:

• Compliance

• Practice management

• Document management

These are non-negotiables for any practice. In order to grow a small practice, accountants need to find ways of covering each of these areas efficiently. Many accountants are currently using basic spreadsheets and word processors to ensure they keep their clients compliant.

This isn’t a sustainable foundation on which to grow your practice. It leaves relevant client data open to human error. It means that all data must be updated and transferred manually. It ensures that basic tasks, such as document exchange between accountant and client, take

Wolters Kluwer provides software and services to tax and accounting professionals working in complex, compliance-driven environments. We help our customers make critical decisions every day, by providing expert solutions that combine deep domain knowledge with specialised technology and services.

longer than they should. Making the transition to purpose-built software ensures that some of the most menial tasks in an accountant’s working day can be slicker – and in some cases automated.

Integrations: taking a holistic approach to your software

Many small practices are yet to take their first foray into purposebuilt accountancy software. Others are experimenting with solutions from various providers to cover areas such as personal tax or VAT submissions. As with any business expense, they’ll have considered each solution on its own merits – in terms of cost and efficiency.

If that sounds like your practice, then you’ll have an idea of the accounting solutions on the market. You’ll also have experienced some of the efficiencies that purpose-built software can provide. Yet when you consider each accounting function individually, and acquire software on a case-by-case basis, you can end up with a variety of

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK

Growing a small practice is a full-time job in itself. It’s necessary to complete the same accounts in less time.

solutions from several different providers. That doesn’t equip you to yield the full efficiencies of accounting software.

The key to saving you time during the working day is software integration.

Using software applications that integrate with each other allows data to synchronise seamlessly and securely. This eliminates a lot of the manual work that you’d do transferring client financial data from one piece of software to another. This means that human error is significantly reduced, and time previously spent on menial repetitive tasks can be saved. In turn, this means you can focus on building the growth plan that equips your practice to thrive.

Making accounting software affordable

When you’re running a small business of any kind, costs aren’t just an important consideration. They are potentially make-orbreak decisions, particularly in an economy characterised by high inflation.

For that reason, some small accountancy practices may choose to get by with stock software. There’s no doubt that

this helps to reduce operational costs. However, it’s important to consider the cost/benefit analysis too: does getting by provide the same growth opportunities? Does it equip your practice to optimise profit and productivity, and expand your client base?

To adopt purpose-built accountancy software is a statement of confidence in your practice. Yet there’s no question that it is a significant expense. So how do you find value? Small practices might be bestadvised to adopt an incremental approach, but also to identify the software integrations that provide greatest efficiency. If you are a practice of two or three employees, you might be content to focus on compliance. As you grow the practice, you may find that purpose-built practice management software becomes highly useful. The next step could be document management: adopting the software combinations that ensure an efficient flow of information between your employees and your expanding client base.

Identifying the right software combinations, and integrations, to facilitate these functions isn’t always easy. Devoting some time to research will help you

understand where appropriate software bundles exist on the market. This allows you, and your chosen provider, to cater for your practice’s needs at its particular stage of development.

Work

At Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting UK, we’re committed to fostering excellence and ensuring our clients’ potential is maximised. We work with accountancy practices of all sizes to help them optimise their working efficiency and drive growth.

We offer CCH Starter Packs: software bundles designed and priced to help small practices take those first steps towards practice growth. We’re keen to work with aspiring accountants, giving them confidence to expand their workforce and client base.

To find out more email cchsoftware@wolterskluwer. co.uk or visit the Wolters Kluwer website: wolterskluwer.com

with Wolters Kluwer

From laggards to leaders: How advisory services are redefining the accounting industry

The Global Advisory Trends report sheds light on themes impacting all accountants

Miranda Kendall, Director of EMEA, Spotlight Reporting

With over 20 years as a leader working in SaaS, Miranda has enthusiasm for building and scaling businesses that are entering new markets, achieving results that impact. Miranda is passionate about guiding teams to improve their operations using efficient, scalable and automated processes, advocating for assisting in fulfilling the spotlight mission of empowering accountants, advisors and CFOs to make better decisions and make a tangible impact on stakeholders in our community.

In the recently released global report, Spotlight Reporting investigates the biggest changes and developments reshaping the accounting industry.

oday, every industry is being radically reshaped by technology, the need to attract and retain top talent, and the growing importance of investing in human expertise. The accounting industry is no exception, with both traditional and progressive firms encouraged to integrate new tools and capitalise on burgeoning revenue streams.

Spotlight Reporting’s recently released 2023/2024 Global Advisory Trends Report, created in collaboration with Karbon, explores the biggest

changes facing the accounting industry. The report offers the opportunity to zoom out and gain a greater perspective of the industry’s critical challenges and opportunities.

From compliance to advisory: Firms turn towards value-add services

While compliance continues to be the backbone of many firms, advisory services are quickly becoming the predominant way accounting businesses stand out from the crowd and offer new, diverse revenue streams.

The COVID-19 pandemic was undeniably a catalyst for this growth in advisory services. The uncertainty of the pandemic led clients to reach out to their accounting partners for more direct, tailored and expert advice.

Spotlight’s report found that 65% of firms identified themselves as ‘progressive’ firms offering mainly advisory services, or as hybrid firms offering both advisory and compliance services. On top of this, a notable 57% of firms are currently interested in expanding the range of services they offer. With only 2% of respondents uninterested in advisory services, it’s clear that the time is now to be investing in value-added services.

One key benefit of investing in value-added services is the revenue that they can bring in. The report found a significant 42% of firms are looking to grow future revenues from advisory services, to make this category account for a majority of their fees.

As highlighted in Spotlight’s recent webinar about the report, Ian Vacin, Co-Founder and Chief

Customer Officer of Karbon, commented that these figures represent a monumental shift, and that leading firms are already experiencing growing profit margins as a result of offering advisory services.

He writes in the report, “Continual innovation and flexibility are key to sustaining growth and improvement over time. You must constantly refine, improve and reinvest your business strategies. Otherwise, your firm’s growth may eventually taper off.”

Advisory services powered by accounting software solutions

The report also highlights that firms implementing advisory services are more likely to succeed when they also adopt purpose-built technology

solutions and employee training. On the technology side, the report finds that in 2023, firms are mainly looking to integrate or revisit reporting and forecasting software (42%), practice management and operation software (38%), and automation (46%).

Such technologies can support conversations with clients, laying a strong foundation for a trusted advisor relationship. However, firms will realise the best ROI with software vendors that provide adequate training and onboarding, as well as regular updates to services and solutions.

The Importance of People

The report also highlights the necessity to bring a firm’s people along for the ride. It indicates that satisfied and skilled staff members are more likely to deliver genuine value to clients and promote new value-added services.

Regarding employee experience, remote and flexible working has become more normalised, with 61% of firms stating they offer flexible working options. While this is a new normal for many firms and businesses, in-person trainings and meetings go a long way towards building experience and trust with clients

Striking the right balance to ensure employees are engaged and satisfied will be increasingly important over the next 12 months, with respondents citing hiring staff as the biggest foreseeable challenge (36%), followed by economic impacts (34%), and work-life balance (33%).

Future of accounting: What sets the leaders apart from the laggards?

Spotlight Reporting’s 2021 Global Advisory Trends Report cited the Cont...

“Continual innovation and flexibility are key to sustaining growth and improvement over time”

war on talent and the variety of service lines as two key themes. This year and next marks a pivotal time for accounting firms as these two themes expand and evolve, encouraging industry leaders to invest in advisory services such as virtual CFO offerings, and effectively attract and retain top talent.

2023-2024 also marks a time when the vast majority of firms are looking into or actively engaging in the development of advisory services. Paired with purpose-built accounting technology and software solutions, firms can deliver recognisable value to their clients, and begin to develop in-house expertise and a meaningful lineup of services.

Richard Francis, CEO and Founder of Spotlight Reporting, comments, “Virtual CFO work is very human. Allow your staff to be part of that journey so they can understand the human dynamics of the accountantclient relationship. If they are sitting in the back office focusing only on financial statements they aren’t going to learn what are the right questions to ask, what we need to focus on. It’s about being the best general practitioner you can be for your clients.”

Ian Vacin says, “The change management journey is solved by training, including technology training. When you have the downtime it’s good to look at your strategy, which includes technology, and then to make that move forward. There’s no single right

answer for each firm, it depends on where you are on your progressive journey.”

For the full Global Advisory Trends Report 2023/2024, click here:

spotlightreporting. com/whitepaper/ global-advisory-trendsreport-2023-2024

Advisor Insights: The successes and failures of advisory innovators

Futrli Director catches up with advisory leaders to learn lessons about the industry.

n an ever-evolving industry landscape, leading accounting and advisory firms are revolutionising their strategies to stay ahead of the game. No longer bound to traditional compliance services, these trailblazers are embracing advisory services. With a distinct approach and a refreshing outlook, they are redefining the rules of the game and setting the pace for a new era of accounting excellence.

At Futrli, we have been catching up with these leaders in the field to find out how they are breaking new ground, the lessons they learned, and the mistakes they made along the way.

Nurture client relationships to build advisory opportunities

We caught up with Will Farnell, Chairman of Farnell Clarke to find out how he has increased advisory opportunities at his firm. His answer was simple, by increasing touchpoints…

But… How do you ensure that you have more touchpoints? Offer daily bookkeeping. (Well, maybe not daily, but regular bookkeeping… Let’s say once a week.) With cloud accounting, the process doesn’t need to be laborious. Check over those ledgers, make sure everything makes sense, touch base with the client, and ask the client when things don’t add up.

As the Director of Futrli by Sage, Helen Cockle has been played a pivotal role in the transition of Futrli from start up to now acquired business. She has led the GTM approach leaning on her 20 years of experience in the accounting sector to ensure market fit and client value is achieved. Having held a global role for over 5 years, she comprehends the shared and opposing needs of all markets, particularly the UK, AU and NZ.

of the simplest ways to create more touchpoints. By “daily” bookkeeping, I really mean “weekly” because we don’t call the client every day to say, “can I have that missing receipt?” But we can do that once a week.

“Futrli humanises the numbers. It’s a jargon-free way of communicating to your clients”

This is great for you and your clients for two reasons.

• You’re immediately creating more touchpoints with your client.

• You gain the data that enables you to have meaningful conversations about your clients’ business.

So… In short, you increase touchpoints, and you control the quality of the data available. The rest will fall into place.

“I’m passionate about bookkeeping on a regular basis. Without quality data, we can’t deliver all the things we want to. It is one

“We’re creating at least 52 touchpoints with every client. And it will be more than that, of course, because there will be the extra one around the VAT return, an extra one around the end-of-year accounts. But as a starting point, we’re creating that opportunity to build those relationships.”

Create meaningful colleague environments

Skills shortages are a serious concern for all businesses currently. Many businesses are competing with one another for the finest talent out there and other businesses find themselves losing staff as they look for different opportunities. The accountancy profession is no different, and firms must think creatively about how to establish and maintain an environment that

Will Farnell, Chairman, Farnell Clarke

@futrli

Helen Cockle, Director, Futrli by Sage

Will Farnell, Chairman, Farnell Clarke

attracts and retains exceptional colleagues. Nurturing junior talent and creating a dynamic work environment is a clear way to mitigate these challenges.

“Giving trainees tasks and little projects helps junior colleagues feel valued. Taking someone early in their career and developing these habits is important. Behaviour breeds behaviour.”

Tom Jamison, Managing Director, Abbeygate Accountancy

Skills shortage and colleague retention are critical issues for any accounting firm. When you have skilled and talented employees, it’s essential to come up with innovative ways to keep them engaged. One effective method is to provide opportunities for your junior staff to interact with clients. Encourage them to take on tasks such as calling clients and performing project-based assignments.

Don’t fall into pricing traps

One of the biggest mistakes Will Farnell says he learned while developing his firm was around fixed pricing.

In 2008, when Will set his firm up, he thought he had made a smart call by introducing fixed fees. With that, he closed the door to being able to upsell anything. He thought this model would cover 95% of his clients’ needs. Unfortunately, this resulted in keeping prices the same for several years.

“I use the example of a client that I took on in 2008 and they were just setting up a partnership and they were about to go into a limited company structure. I sold them management accounts and VAT returns and a bit of software and payroll.

I think I charged him £150.00 a month… and eight years later, we got to reviewing our fees. This client were doing £1.6 million in revenue. They had 34 people on the payroll, and we were still charging £150.00 a month.”

And during that time… Do you think Will was providing pricing advice for his clients? Of course, he was!

Will and the team at Farnell Clarke realised they needed to move away from a fixed pricing model and to review the ways that they priced their offerings in the same ways that they would their clients.

Use tech-driven solutions

Firms shouldn’t look to have one “Advisor”. Everyone in the team should be able to perform some sort of level of advisory work with clients. This unlocks bottlenecks in your practice and gets your colleagues in front of some exciting client-based situations.

“When I speak to other firms, there is sometimes a bottleneck as you’ve got one person that is the advisor. This slows things down. Futrli has enabled us to have 30 of our 50 staff who can deliver some form of advice. Not top-level with all the bells and whistles, but at least can look at the figures in a bit more detail. It’s really important to ensure that this work isn’t just stuck with us but opened to the team.”

Stuart Hurst, Managing Director, Accounts and Legal

At Futrli by Sage, we are proud to be the ultimate advisory solution for accountants. There’s no need to spend hours plugging

financials into static forecasting spreadsheets… we generate precise 3-year rolling cash flow forecasts, intuitive budgets, and scenario plans. You and your colleagues get to spend less time in a spreadsheet and more time discussing what data means for your clients.

With in-platform drag and drop reporting you can easily visualise the forecasts, budgets, and predictions you generate for your clients. Walk clients through data that is meaningful for them.

Anyone can grow their firm. Take intuitive steps to scale your practice. Use more interactions to create advisory opportunities that make the most of affordable tech solutions.

“Futrli has redefined our internal expectations of what management accounts and real time forecasting should be. We are able to provide a better level consistently. It comes out in the right way, every time.”

Mark Simic, Parnter, Simpkins Edwards

Stuart Hurst, Managing Director, Accounts and Legal

Mark Simic, Partner, Simpkins Edwards

Tax Update

Things You May Not Have Heard About But Need to Know

Recent developments in tax including challenges with MTD, OECD’s Tax Administration 3.0 vision, HMRC information powers, crypto taxation, Generative AI, and digital transformation opportunities.

We’re living through times of change. From the rise of AI to social media rebrands, and now, apparently, the arrival of extraterrestrial life. While those stories grab the headlines, it’s easy to lose track of change happening elsewhere. In this instance, I’m referring to tax.

There have been a number of noteworthy developments of late, all of which could have a profound impact on taxpayers, businesses, and tax professionals. In this article, I’ll be rounding up those key updates along with everything else that’s been going on in the world of tax.

new Enterprise Tax Management Platform (ETMP). However, once completed, this transition will enable HMRC to provide a more integrated service to taxpayers and agents. The potential to prepopulate tax returns with data from third parties could be far more transformative than that of MTD ITSA.

Paul Lodder, VP of Accounting Product Strategy, Dext

Paul joined Dext with 20+ years in practice. ACCA qualified in 2003, Paul has worked on MTD and digital strategy, and provided support on digitalisation to accountants & bookkeepers across the country as well as providing solutions to clients’ challenges and supporting them to achieve their goals across accountancy, taxation and business advisory services. Paul is recognised as a leading expert on the implementation and benefits of digitalisation.

views differ) could be highly controversial. Some elements of Tax Administration 3.0 will be easier and quicker to deliver than others, but the potential implications for practitioners and businesses are huge.

HMRC information powers paper from Tax Admin day

The implementation of Making Tax Digital (MTD) by 2024 has been deemed unrealistic by the National Audit Office (NAO) due to insufficient assessment of the scale of work required. The NAO supports further digitalisation but has emphasised that there are a number of significant delivery risks.

One major challenge is migrating data from legacy systems to the

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a report on “Tax Administration 3.0” in December 2020. This vision goes beyond digitalising forms and returns, focusing on real-time data and moving away from periodic reporting. It also explores the concept of “compliance by design” where compliance rules are built into taxpayer software and systems.

“Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence have the potential to revolutionise accountancy & tax professionals’ work.”

On April 27, 2023, the government unveiled a series of technical tax policy proposals aimed at modernising the tax system, addressing noncompliance, promoting fairness and enhancing the efficiency of the customs system for traders. The implications could be very far-reaching, especially when read in the context of Tax Administration 3.0.

These proposals cover a number of areas, including:

While some rules might be uncontroversial (for example building in a prompt where a non-VAT registered business is approaching the threshold), others (for example where

• A call for evidence on information and data powers to support digital transformation and improve compliance capabilities

• Exploration of standardised data provision, flexible

1. MTD (Making Tax Digital) Update: The NAO’s Report

2. The Future of Tax Authorities and Technology

3.

@dextofficial

legislation, pre-population of returns, and consistent powers across tax regimes

• New information gathering powers, with plans to collect new data on self-employed start/end dates, employee hours worked, and dividends paid in owner-managed businesses

4. Crypto and Blockchain: Taxation challenges

The rise of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology could well cause a storm in terms of new taxation challenges. But many believe they also have the capability to transform accountancy and tax administration.

Whether they are here to stay, or a passing trend, remains to be seen. The fact is, while taxpayers continue to engage in this kind of activity, tax professionals have their work cut out in trying to stay across and ahead of any new requirements. It’s clear those that manage to do so have a crucial part to play in modernising traditional tax practices.

5. Generative AI and its impact on accountancy

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence, particularly Generative AI, have the potential to revolutionise accountancy and tax professionals’ work. AI is already widely used to process data, analyse patterns, and generate reports. Generative AI, like ChatGPT, can further expand opportunities, particularly in advisory work. However, with these opportunities come new risks and concerns that need to be addressed proactively.

6. Embracing technology for digital transformation

HMRC remains committed to its digitalisation efforts despite concerns raised about MTD for ITSA. The focus continues to be on harnessing real-time data for improved decision-making and future tax planning. Digital transformation is an ongoing process, constantly refining automation to provide deeper and faster insights.

Dext is dedicated to supporting businesses, accountants and

bookkeepers on their digital journey and works closely with HMRC on future initiatives. Dext ensures seamless collection, extraction, and categorisation of financial documents in real time, providing actionable insights to help users make informed decisions at the right time.

Rather than being a threat, technology and advanced automation present significant opportunities. Embracing these developments opens the door to an exciting future where businesses can leverage the benefits of digitalisation.

To learn more, watch our ondemand webinar.

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Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of Xerocon

@CAForecasting

Jo Buchanan, Chief Operations Officer, Castaway Forecasting

Jo Buchanan is many things. An Australian military veteran, trained in logistics, intelligence, rules of engagement, firefighting, nuclear, biological & chemical defence and helicopter control; a Certified Professional Logistician; a qualified Project Manager; and an Olympic Games VIP protocol authority. She’s also a cavoodle-owning, fashion-loving grandmother. What she is not, is an accountant.

Jo is the Chief Operations Officer at Castaway Forecasting and she kind of likes it there.

f you are in what they call the accounting and bookkeeping ecosystem, you cannot escape the noise around Xerocon. Xerocon is a 2-day premier cloud accounting conference, delivered by the accounting software behemoth Xero. Held in fabulous locations around the world since 2010, an outside observer might mistake Xerocon as something of a Werner Erhard est. for fans of cloud accounting software.

Insanely popular, Xerocon inspires a raving fan culture. Offspring in the form of semi-exclusive precon and post-con parties and an at least month-long lead-up of anticipation, guessing and leaking of speakers, installations, and embargoed floor plans. IYKYK.

The first Xerocon was held in Napier in 2010, where it is reported around 30 attendees almost filled one small hotel. The ‘new’ multi-currency feature was

revealed by CTO Craig Walker (AKA Storminwalker) and realtime accounting was discussed, drawing awe. Delegates were encouraged to use social media, but they were sceptical about how this perceived fad could be used for business marketing and growth. Could it be more than a magic portal for cat photos and boasting about holidays and kids graduations?

In 2011, Xerocon was held in Taupo, NZ. The first Xero Awards were also held in 2011. In Taupo, Craig Walker revealed the popular Xero Touch and there was much conversation about the inclusion of add-on partners because the small Taupo “add-on alley” had proved successful for all involved.

2012 saw Xerocon Auckland attract 410 attendees who made their way to the Viaduct Events Centre. Andrew “Tokes” Tokeley shared the Xero roadmap, which gave delegates a sense of being let into the inner sanctum. He then introduced report packs and integration with MS Word and Excel. Craig Walker, demonstrated how tracking from a bank reconciliation screen would work. When he announced 30,000 Xero

A brief – and certainly not accurate – history of Xerocon

Touch downloads and a new remittance advice feature, he was applauded like a rockstar.

Xero held their Annual Conference in Melbourne, Australia in July 2012 along with the first Xerocon Australia and the Xero Partner Awards. Xerocon Australia 2012 attracted more than 400 attendees and 30-odd exhibitors. By this point, Xero had 25,000 customers in Australia, 10,000 who had signed on in the previous 4 months. The single ledger was becoming more of a reality which would enable accountants and clients to work on the same system with the same data at the same time. Xero Community was also about to be launched.

In 2013, Xerocon was held in Auckland, Sydney, San Francisco and London, to record numbers all around. 800 delegates attended the Auckland event at the Viaduct Events Centre. 900 attendees showed up at Australian Technology Park, Sydney. 400 delegates attended the first US Xerocon in San Francisco. Xerocon London was attended by 450 delegates and 22 exhibitors, and Xero opened

a new London office, poised for growth in the UK.

Xero now had 200,000 paying business customers worldwide, 75,000 of them in Sydney. With now 270 add-on partners in the Xero ecosystem, users were able to achieve almost anything. They were rockstars and Xero heroes and they would not be slaves again to the beating drum of desktop software. Having already listed on the NZX in June 2007, Xero accomplished a dual-listing on the ASX in November 2012. At the time, Xero was worth around half a billion AUD.

Xerocon 2014 was also held in 4 locations: Auckland, Sydney, San Francisco and London. Auckland attracted 900 delegates and 50 add-on partners. Founder Rod Drury, by now anticipated on stage as much as Bruce Springsteen ever was, announced Xero now had 250,000 customers and expected to pass the million mark in the next 12 months. He further stated that the $200m recently raised have Xero the opportunity to do ‘almost anything’. Unstoppable, they added 300 new staff, and a North American CEO.

Xerocon Sydney 2014, held at Olympic Park, Homebush attracted a whopping 1,300 delegates and 82 exhibitors. Rod Drury cruised around the event on a skateboard! By now, bookkeepers and accountants had firm rockstar status, welcomed with laser beams and their own private band, the Xerocon All Stars Band, made up entirely of talented staff and partners. In 2014, Xero reported they had so far spent $250 million to develop their solution, attracting 334,000 customers globally and were moving fast toward their first million customers.

Xerocons in 2015 popped up in Melbourne, Denver, US, Auckland and London.

In Melbourne, Xerocon 2015 was held at the Royal Showgrounds. 1,500 delegates attended. It was announced that customer numbers were now creeping past 550,000 and add-on partners were now 440. It made sense for Xerocon’s growing Denver team to host the 2015 conference, attracting around 50 add-on partners. More than 1,000 delegates attended Auckland. Cont...

800 delegates and 40 exhibitors attended Xerocon London. The announcements continued in 2015: Business Performance Dashboard, iOS & Gmail integrations, Practice Reports and Xero Me.

In 2016, Xero had reached 717,000 customers and more than 500 add-on partners.

Xerocon South, representing the ‘whole of the Southern Hemisphere’, was held during September 2016 in Brisbane, Australia. 2,300 delegates attended Xerocon South and 90 exhibitors kept the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre alive! Xerocon London 2016 attracted 1,300 delegates and 58 exhibitors. Xerocon US 2016 was held on Pier 27 in San Franscisco. 500 delegates. Xero announced a massive $1 trillion in transactions (not sure which currency) during the previous 12 months and that their ambitious migration to Amazon Web Services (AWS) was on track. Other US announcements included that Xero were keen to look at how Machine Learning and AI will impact cloud accounting. Allegedly, this almost required ventilators for the crowds. As if there could not be more, the Xerobot was launched.

Sometime between Xerocon Brisbane 2016 and Xerocon London 2017, Xero achieved a milestone of a million subscribers and processed NZ$1.5 trillion worth of transactions the prior financial year.

In 2017, Xerocon stretched to 3 global locations. Xerocon Melbourne was held at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre in September

2017. There were 3,100 attendees and 67 exhibitors. Xerocon London 2017 was held again at ExCeL in October, with 2,112 attendees and 63 exhibitors. Among other local announcements, Xero Expenses and Xero Projects were launched. Xerocon Austin 2017 was held in December at the Austin Convention Centre. Every blogger reported how freezing cold it was, due to snow and ice storms.

Xerocon South 2018 again appeared in Brisbane with 4,500 attendees! Xerocon London 2018 welcomed 3,084 delegates and 76 add-on exhibitors. Xerocon Atlanta 2018 was held at the Southern Exchange. 2018 announcements included Xero Bank Feeds API, Automated Bank Rules, Xero Projects, STP for Payroll and BAS Lodging, all of which changed everyone’s lives.

In 2019, Xerocon South in Brisbane drew 3,000 attendees and 75 exhibitors. Xerocon 2019 London welcomed 3,000 delegates. In the US, 1,000 delegates attended Xerocon San Diego. 2019 announcements included Single Sign-On, expanding bank feed connections, a new partnership with Stripe and more than 800 app partners.

We were collectively disappointed, but understood, when Xerocons in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled, due to the pandemic.

Xerocon 2022 was held in Sydney, London and New Orleans. By now, Xerocon is sold out months before any event. 2,000 delegates attended Xerocon London 2022. London announcements included Xero Go. Xerocon New Orleans 2022 drew a crowd of around 1,500 and were told about plans

for Xero expansion in the US and Canada. Xerocon Sydney 2022 welcomed 3,000 to the event. Payroll and Tax announcements were made and the new Xero App Store was launched.

Xerocon Sydney 2023 was massive, and we loved being part. In 2024, Xerocon London will be held in June. A 2024 date and location for Xerocon US has yet to be announced. In 2025, Xerocon will make it’s debut in Canada and will likely also be back in Sydney.

I don’t quite know the origin of Xerocon being referred to as the ‘Coachella for accountants and bookkeepers’, but it’s a legitimate monicker. The recent, some say unpopular, announcement of Xerocon being staged in rotating global locations, has some wondering how they’ll fill their party calendars.

Cheers to Xero heroes and rockstars!

Here’s a little jingle for you –with sincere apologies to lyricist Herbert Kretzmer:

Do you hear the accountants sing? Xero’s magic, solution is King, It’s the music of the ledgers That will not be unbalanced again!

Here’s to the accountants, skilled and wise,

To Xero, the tool they highly prize, In the world of cashflow, expertise runs deep, With Xero they triumph, and errors they sweep.

Accounting Cybersecurity Trends to watch out for in 2023

Jon Melloy, Head of Growth, Practice Protect

Jon Melloy is the head of growth for Practice Protect, the leading cybersecurity platform for accountants worldwide. With an extensive background in data security and the accounting industry, Jon works with accountants daily to ensure that their people, process, and software are positioned for security. With a deep expertise in strategic-first cybersecurity, Jon brings the war stories and mountain-top wins from helping thousands of accounting firms upgrade their digital security.

s we waved goodbye to the turbulence of Covid in 2022, one thing became crystal clear – the cybercrime world was evolving right alongside us. Just like we adapted to the new normal, cybercriminals shifted gears, leaving behind their old tricks for a slicker, sneakier approach.

Picture this: hackers no longer play the spray and pray game; they’re after a highly targeted approach. Those emails from

your clients? Yep, hackers are pretending to be part of those conversations now, making it harder to tell friend from foe.

Remember the days when the big accounting firms soaked up all the cyber-attacks? Well, times have changed, and cybercriminals are moving down the food chain to target smaller accounting firms with less resources, protection, and training around data security.

At Practice Protect, we witness

this unsettling reality everyday. No other provider has as much real-world experience as we have in fighting accounting cyber-crime since 2015.

Today we proudly stand as the Accounting Industry’s largest and most trusted cybersecurity provider, supporting 23,000+ accountants and bookkeepers across 2000+ firms worldwide.

Here are some of the trends we are observing among our

A

Stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly evolving cyber landscape.

As your business grows, so does the risk with managing sensitive client data. Is your firm ready for this?

Trend #1: AI Impersonations

Cybercriminals are taking impersonations to the next level. With the help of AI tools, impersonating the communication style of the leadership team or clients has become so much easier.

The kicker? A whopping 67% of Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks are now riding the AI wave, making detection a real challenge for all team members. And as versatile AI tools like ChatGPT become more common, language barriers crumble, setting the stage for an avalanche of highquality BEC attacks.

Trend #2: Targeted Phishing

Trend #3: Evolving Cyber Insurance

“A data breach can unravel 20 years of hard earned reputation within 20 minutes.”

As if AI wasn’t enough, here comes another curveball: targeted phishing. Cybercriminals are no longer casting a wide net; they’re aiming straight for the prize catch.

With emails that look like they’re from your trusted payment partners, they’re fishing for your sensitive info where it hurts the most. In fact, 2022 witnessed the highest rate of mobile phishing attacks in history.

Insurers are an excellent barometer to measure the probability and potential severity of a threat to your business. As an attack vector becomes popular, insurers start to add exclusions, raise premiums, add excess payments and lower limits of payouts.

Rob Collyer from Nova Underwriting says: “Cybersecurity has been the most rapid development out of any product that we’ve witnessed in the market.” Insurance policies are shifting just as fast to match the pace of cyber threats.

How Practice Protect helps?

Our platform offers enterprisegrade security standards to smaller accounting firms at a fraction of the cost. This ensures you regain control and visibility over your sensitive client data and effectively manage risk and compliance.

Bring online payments reconciling under control

ank feeds are a gamechanger for businesses selling online. Together, Xero and Pin Payments are giving more businesses easier payment reconciling.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of doing business, accepting payments online has become not only a convenience but a necessity for success. As online transactions surge, businesses must adapt to use more efficient tools to free up their time to focus, and stay competitive.

When using an online payment provider, you’ll typically receive a single daily lump sum transfer into their bank account, for the total of all transactions on a day. Xero launching its Bank Feed API in recent years has enabled online payment providers to build their own bank feed to help their customers with reconciling, and win back time to focus on their business.

What is a bank feed?

Bank feeds are great because they automatically import transactions from your bank or financial institution into your Xero organisation. This eliminates the need to import transactions

manually. You can match these imported bank transactions against your Xero transactions to complete your reconciliation.

Using the bank feed is especially helpful if your business spends a lot of time on manual reconciliation. When you run your own business, having that extra time to focus on other areas is always beneficial. Using a bank feed helps automate large sections of manual bookkeeping and will help your business’ efficiency and productivity.

What are the benefits?

1. Streamline reconciling

With all the information you need in the one place, you won’t have to switch between applications to reconcile payments from your payments provider.

2. Saves you time, helps you scale

Just because your business is growing, doesn’t mean your reconciling work has to. Leverage Xero’s Find and Match tool to automate the reconciling process and save yourself time on bookkeeping.

3. Keep your financial position current

@PinPayments

When your accounts are up-todate, you’ll make better business decisions. Bank feeds help you get ahead in your bookkeeping by enabling more regular reconciling.

Select a payment provider that offers a bank feed

Your first step to easy reconciling is finding a payment platform integrated with Xero, such as Pin Payments. Most payment providers who offer a bank feed can be found on Xero’s App Store.

So what does it look like in action? After enabling a bank feed, individual transactions, transaction fees and transaction fee reimbursements (where surcharging is used) will appear in your bank feed in Xero as separate bank statement lines. You can then reconcile each bank statement line against the corresponding Xero transactions with one click.

Chris Dahl, co-CEO, Pin Payments

Chris Dahl is co-CEO at Pin Payments and has a wealth of experience across both web, business and software development.

“Using the bank feed is especially helpful if your business spends a lot of time on manual reconciliation”

Profit squeeze puts payables in the limelight: How to help clients rein in costs

Australian accounting firm, Next Dimension Accounting, explains how they’re guiding clients out of payables pain with new processes and ApprovalMax.

ccountants and bookkeepers are feeling it as much as their clients. The impact of inflation is putting a squeeze on expenses and revenue.

ApprovalMax Ambassador and Australian accounting firm, Next Dimension Accounting, serves small businesses and Not-ForProfits (NFP) across Australia, and has seen an increasing number of clients scrutinising costs.

Next Dimension Accounting and its clients seek better ways to rein in spending in this challenging economic climate. Brendan Lucas, CA, Founder and Managing Director, explains how he’s guiding change and shares his observations.

1. Industries such as NFP and Construction are being hit harder and insist on reducing costs

“We’ve seen NFPs hit hard because government funding is not keeping up with inflation, and donations are harder to come by,” says Brendan.

“Construction confidence has eased off, with multiple collapses.

Significant increases in the cost of materials throughout the entire sector erode profit margins”

“I think there is a general issue of cash flow and payments. There are challenges when it comes to collecting money, and then there’s a game of who to pay first, and who to negotiate payment extensions with.

“We’re working hard to highlight and raise awareness of the problem and communicate how important it is to fix the process of approving, spending, and using tech to make this easier.”

@ApprovalMax

Brendan Lucas, Head of Accounting, ApprovalMax & Managing Director/Founder, Next Dimension Accounting

Brendan is a Chartered Accountant who brings a depth of accounting experience, having worked with hundreds of clients in the SME and NFP sectors to grow their businesses.

Brendan has a talent for teaching people how to use technology to make their accounting function more efficient and cost-effective. By doing so, he also helps business owners and decisionmakers free up their time, while drastically improving the pace at which they do business.

“For myself, I don’t get a lot of bills coming to me for approval. That helps me keep an eye on the detail, but gives someone else the responsibility.

“We use ApprovalMax to help enforce that sense of responsibility and protection”

“We use ApprovalMax to help enforce that sense of responsibility and protection. It’s important to make it easier for business managers to look back at their spending, interrogate the benefits of that spending, and forecast future spending.”

2. Working together to create accountability over cost codes and budgets is critical

“It starts with good processes around accounts payable. It’s not just the top of the food chain that should be approving expenditure,” says Brendan. “If each business manager takes responsibility for their spending, it creates a sense of ownership over the profit and loss, and checks and balances applied.

“At the end of the day, money should not be leaving business accounts without approval from an authorised decision maker.”

3. Digging deeper into spending can be easy with the right tech

“By starting with a forecast, at the end of the month, it’s helpful to report against the forecast, to understand why things might have changed,” continued Brendan.

“Sometimes the forecast is missing information, such as forgetting to include or anticipate something,

but having that forecast helps investigate that.

“Technology like ApprovalMax can help save time thanks to its budgetchecking functionality to see how all budgets are impacted by the documents being approved,” says Brendan.

Need a solution to tighten the business belt? Consider using ApprovalMax to automate the process and add a layer of financial controls

1. Create clear rules around ordering with purchase order management.

Different division managers each need a good guide around budgets and choosing suppliers. Within those rules, you can make it easier for different managers to get their jobs done, with minimal administration.

The ability to manage purchase orders holistically in ApprovalMax makes short work of approving spending when the invoice comes in. Once it’s all in the set-up, it runs like clockwork.

right suppliers are recognised to deliver the goods or services, the automation in ApprovalMax will notify the manager in charge of that cost centre with an approval request, whenever a purchase order is raised. Key benefits:

• Proactive approval processes by using purchase order approvals

• All authorisation-relevant information for approvers in one place.

• Timely notifications to approvers and commentbased communication with requesters.

help ensure accuracy, such as insisting on mandatory fields and descriptions to explain what items are being purchased.

3. Rules to help you scrutinise the value of suppliers

Every time an invoice is paid, it is an opportunity to investigate whether the quality of the service was up to what was agreed upon and whether to proceed with future work with the supplier. This offers a helpful way to determine whether you get what you’d hoped for.

at their spending...”

2. Ensure your suppliers are legitimate before you pay them ApprovalMax allows users to vet suppliers, ensure they are approved first, and then create approval workflows. This makes it easy for senior administrators to control what suppliers business managers can buy from and how much can be spent.

The rules implemented in ApprovalMax encourage timely reviews of supplier services. By assigning accountability to department managers for their respective cost centres and suppliers, these rules actively encourage the management team to monitor these contracts and conduct regular reviews.

To find out more about ApprovalMax, visit:

Once a budget is created and the

ApprovalMax integrates with the Xero and QuickBooks vendor lists too. Some extra features also

“It’s important to make it easier for business managers to look back

“...interrogate the benefits of that spending, and forecast future spending.”

5 ideas for making more money with your available time

Alex Troy takes a look at some ideas you can use to spend your available time wisely, and increase your income.

ccountancy is a notoriously demanding profession, and no matter the time of the year, most accountants will probably say that they’re flat-out busy. But, with the right technology, accountants can now automate processes that once ate into their day, and you may find yourself with some valuable time.

So, what can accountants do with this newfound time, and how can

they make the most of it? From the simple to the creative, here are some ideas to boost your profits:

1. Court reviews and referrals

You’ve worked hard for your clients throughout the years, so now’s the time to ask them for reviews and referrals. Ask your team to identify clients who’ve given them great feedback and send a link to your Trustpilot, Google Business Profile (or

wherever else you’d like them to leave a review!).

Ask them to consider specific and open-ended questions when leaving a review, such as:

• What was the biggest challenge you asked us to help you with, and how did we help?

• What’s been the biggest benefit of working with us?

• If your friend was looking for an accountant, why would you recommend us?

@brightsg_

Alex Troy, Brand Manager, Bright

Alex is the Brand Manager at Bright, a leading provider of accounting, payroll, practice management, corporate governance and tax solutions to accounting firms across the UK and Ireland.

2. Networking events

Don’t miss out on the benefits of networking! If you’d usually give conferences or other accounting events a miss, why not give them a chance? They can be a great opportunity to build relationships with others in the profession, make quality connections, and ultimately raise your profile to grow your business.

3. Offer low-cost management reporting for smaller clients

This could be an option for your smaller business clients, who may want an overview of their business’ health at the end of each quarter. Create a template report, then use data from their bookkeeping software to add in the relevant charts and information for your client. Whether you illustrate their yearon-year progress, or provide an update on their debts, the key is to make this an affordable

add-on to your services. By using a template that suits as many clients as possible that’s easy to update and send, you’ll be able to offer this service at an attractive price for a reasonable amount of extra work.

4. Get social!

People buy from people they trust, so show off your company culture and knowledge by using social media. You can use it to post deadline updates, case studies, share what your teams are working on and more. By being visible online, you make it much easier for prospective clients to understand why they should trust you (and pay for your services!).

5. Share your knowledge

This may not be an instant money-spinner, but if you’ve always fancied sharing your wisdom with the wider world then

use your time to get started! For the very ambitious, you might want to start that book you’ve been planning for years. Or, take a simpler route and start writing articles, white papers, or anything else that could boost your profile to a wider prospect pool.

Choosing New Software? Expert Tips on How to Win

@tidyint

Doria Kao, Education Lead & Marketing Strategist, Tidy

After completing her internship with Tidy, Doria joined full-time last year with a degree in Strategic Management from the University of Waikato. An avid wordsmith, she brings her passion for storytelling to both product education and marketing at Tidy.

Recently, with the announcement of WorkflowMax retiring, he’s been fielding a surge of requests to help evaluate and choose a suitable project management tool replacement.

In this article, we share Edward’s expert insights on how he goes about helping his clients evaluate and select the right software for their needs. In four simple steps, he recasts decision making from daunting to easy and actionable, empowering businesses to confidently make informed choices.

Before delving into these handy tips, let’s explore what makes decision-making so tricky. Marketing psychology and behavioural economics would put it down to decision fatigue or ego depletion.

These theories suggest that cognitive overload caused by an abundance of options and information can lead to decision avoidance (not choosing anything) or irrational impulse purchasing (making costly suboptimal choices).

Nestled deep in a labyrinth of offers and advertisements spanning across all channels, it’s inevitable that decision fatigue will become an inescapable companion. So, how do you break free from the risk of making the wrong call and methodically choose the right business system?

Step 1: Self-Discovery

Choosing the right business system is just like dating – being clear on what you want from a potential partner first is the key to finding the ideal business system match.

So, start with some planning and a little introspective selfreflection. Write down what type of business you are, what you want to achieve, and what your criteria are for selecting a partner. For example, are you providing a service? Are you distributing? Are you in industrial fabrication and installation, or are you a healthcare business? What you do and who your customers are will determine which system is suitable.

For example, if you’re in the service industry and bill

professional services without having to worry about any stock items, Xero may just be your perfect match. On the other hand, if you’re in the distribution industry – importing or locally sourcing items, and holding inventory for resale – you might need an inventory control add-on.

One such add-on that Edward recommends to his clients is TidyStock; a stock management software with seamless Xero integration.

He has helped apply TidyStock in different industries and says, “Combined with a common sense look at business processes, the system improves transaction rates, lowers the waste of time and material, and improves traceability and accounting accuracy.”

Step 2: Data Needs

Once you’ve locked down your business plan, the next step is to dig deep and identify your information needs. Ask yourself, “What do I need the system to communicate with me?” Because let’s face it, communication is key in any relationship, especially with software. Good software gives

Edward Fyvie of 5e Management Services is a business systems consultant with a long history of helping Australasian businesses choose the right systems to grow their revenue.

With a cacophony of options in the market, choosing a new software system for your business can be an intimidating prospect.

you great reporting and data to help you make improvements.

Focus solely on the most necessary, useful, and sufficient information needed to run your business. For example, crucial financial data like real-time sales figures, inventory levels, and expenses. Keep it short and sweet by avoiding unnecessary complexity and only listing the essential elements.

Now, it’s time for some capability checks. Ensure the add-on communicates smoothly with Xero and has a user-friendly front-end.

TidyWork, the project management counterpart to TidyStock, is another application Edward recommends to clients for its effortless integration with Xero.

“It’s got a bi-directional information flow with Xero. I found this to be a significant advantage in limiting duplication and errors of invoicing by different people.”

Furthermore, look for operational information that simplifies your day-to-day work. See if it has the ability to enable effective 2D management reporting to the Profit & Loss (P&L) level in Xero.

Step 3: Technical and Application Support

As you venture into the third step, Edward recommends considering the technical and application support available for a smooth and effective onboarding experience.

Ask yourself practical questions: Will the application be a dependable partner, helping you configure the system to suit your business model? Is there user training available, including onboarding, implementation, support, and a comprehensive product academy?

Look for online help, including text and video resources, to make the most of the system’s features and enhance your business’s efficiency.

Examples of this include the Xero Central support centre and Tidy’s help documentation hub, TidyAcademy. These platforms provide multimedia training content to help users learn how to use each product in a self-service fashion.

Further factors to think about are: Does the system provide effective, timely support from knowledgeable human representatives? No offense to offshore chatbots and thirdparty scripts, but nothing beats a human touch. If you are transitioning from other systems, consider the ease of the conversion process.

Step 4: Reference Check

Edward’s final step, a bit like checking out a restaurant’s reviews before booking a table, is to dig into references. It’s always a smart move to cover your bases and make sure the system has a solid track record of enhancing businesses like yours.

You’ll want to know the size of the user base and whether you

can connect with other users in similar businesses for some “business gossip” and share experiences. These references will give you valuable insights into the system’s performance and reliability, straight from the users’ mouths. A little insider information never hurts!

Terry from Ausreman, a user of TidyStock, says of the system, “The out of the box integration with Xero is seamless and drives excellent compliance for any warehouse manager and accountant.” Seeing this instills confidence while reducing perceived purchase risk for prospective customers.

Choose with Confidence

Edward’s four tips provide a stepladder to escape the abyss of decision fatigue and choose the right business system. On the first rung, get to understand your business model. Then ascend to identify information needs and ensure the availability of support, then finally, reach the final step of checking references for valuable insights.

In the blaring marketplace, cut through the noise by systematically honing in on your unique requirements to carve out a clear path to the perfect system for your business.

FIND OUT MORE...

To find out more about how you can make your business Tidy, visit: tidyinternational.com/ solutions

“It’s got a bidirectional information flow with Xero. I found this to be a significant advantage”

Employee Expense Trends Help You Understand Staff Productivity and Flag Quiet Quitters

t ExpenseOnDemand

we are always keen to ensure our solution is current and flexible. We recently commissioned an extensive survey of business leaders* to understand how firms around the globe are utilising their technology subscriptions to manage their business, staff, and monitor trends across their industry.

As a global expenses app, ExpenseOnDemand monitors trends in business expense management to ensure that our cutting-edge technology always complements business requirements and helps control and manage employee expenses throughout the year. These trends can also give business leaders insights into how their staff are performing as there are changes in expenses.

Employee expenses can give a true overview of how active an employee is, especially when staff are working remotely, making it harder to manipulate than other software monitoring. A good example here would be a reduction in entertainment,

mileage, or business travel claims, highlighting less activity from a client-facing employee - even early signs of ‘quiet quitting’.

‘Quiet quitting’ is a new trend across social media where employees take a softer approach to outrightly resigning. Rather than employees quitting jobs, they quit the idea of going above and beyond. Unhappy with some aspect of their current company or specific role, they decide to only do the bare minimum which can be hard to spot especially, if the employee is working from home or hybrid working.

Employee’s ‘quiet quitting’ even if they’re unhappy in roles and doing the bare minimum to show a perception of productivity, is costing businesses billions with firms struggling to effectively monitor remote workers. Many are using software monitoring such as HiBob or Insightful - or even Microsoft Teams which easily shows if an employee is active or not.

Employee expenses, however, are harder to manipulate and what is more, many employees

Sunil Nigam, CEO & CoFounder, ExpenseOnDemand

ExpenseOnDemand was launched in 2003 by founder Sunil Nigam after seeing how cumbersome employee expense claiming was, whilst serving as CFO for a technology company. “It took so long to submit, then to repay employees. A fast, sophisticated solution didn’t exist, so I created one”.

We offer an end-to-end solution using AI and smart technology. It captures receipts and seamlessly integrates into accounting systems. The tool is intuitive, affordable, and customisable. We constantly improve based on customer feedback.

won’t consider firms monitoring these for productivity trends. At ExpenseOnDemand, we know that employee claims have always been difficult to monitor and manage especially, when Expense Management at large workforces are underpinned by long and often manual processes.

Whether you employ 5 or 500 people, it has become imperative that you source the right technology to automate as many business processes as possible to protect your business and staff from problems that are caused through remote working.

This is why at ExpenseOnDemand, our innovative technology has the objective of helping firms automate processes, spot duplicate receipts, and easily authenticate claims - often saving them thousands or even millions in costs every year. Our platform also saves accounting staff and employees hours of time as it automates the whole expense process allowing staff to get paid quicker and claim more accurately.

“ExpenseOnDemand has made it easier for our employees to make claims quickly especially because it is on a phone. When they have a receipt, they just need to take a picture and upload and it is done. They get paid quicker and we can monitor the expenses much more efficiently than our previous expenses process.”

Mike – Specific Interiors Ltd

At ExpenseOnDemand we also offer a 30-day free trial, with the option to sign up for our “pay as you use” model, allowing our clients to have flexibility and reassurance that they are not tied into a long-term commitment.

How ExpenseOnDemand benefits businesses and their staff?

ExpenseOnDemand works seamlessly with staff working remotely or hybrid. Employees no longer need to send paper claims to claim their expenses and they can benefit from all the following:

1. Claimants and Approvers can use the app within minutes.

2. Photograph receipts and submit

& approve expenses in seconds.

3. Approvers can view and manage all historical claims.

4. ExpenseOnDemand ensures no duplicates with any employee claims.

5. Expenses can be made in any currency.

6. Finance can choose from 100+ functions.

To find out more about how ExpenseOnDemand can help your business please visit – www. expenseondemand.com

An expense app that’s simple, effortless and totally affordable.

Book a demo

*Research commissioned by Research without Barriers – June 2022

3 Essential Forms Every HR Professional Needs

Streamline your HR Toolbox to make

aving the right forms readily available is essential for managing various aspects of human resources in order to reduce the administration burden. Here are the 15 most important, core forms every company should have ready to use.

Recruitment and Onboarding Forms

Make sure to have these forms ready to get the dream team on board smoothly and efficiently!

1. Job Application Form: The gateway to finding the perfect candidate during the recruitment process. Use this form to collect all the essential information about job applicants, such as their contact details, employment history, education, and skills. You might even ask a question here that will help you with the first pass at screening.

2. Offer Letter: Extend a warm, official welcome with a formal job offer letter. Leave no room for confusion, clearly stating all the exciting details. This form should outline the terms and conditions of employment,

including salary, start date, job title, and other relevant details.

3. Employee Personal Information Form: Capture the essential personal details of your new employees, including their contact information, emergency contacts, social security number, date of birth, and other relevant data required for HR records.

Amanda

Rivera, Communications Champion, HR Partner

Amanda is a communication specialist who is passionate about helping businesses run more efficiently with HR solutions. Her goal is to make it easier to create workplaces environments where employees can thrive, while also meeting business goals.

4. Direct Deposit Authorisation Form: Collect information necessary for setting up direct deposit for employee paychecks. This should include details such as the employee’s bank details, account number, routing number, and account name.

5. Confidentiality Agreement: Protect sensitive company information and keep trade

your work easier!

If you’re the one tasked with ensuring smooth operations and keeping the workplace in order, form templates hold the power to streamline your HR processes and make your life easier.

secrets under lock and key. Employees sign this form to acknowledge their responsibility to maintain confidentiality during and after their employment.

6. Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA): Similar to a confidentiality agreement, an NDA is a legal contract that prohibits employees from disclosing proprietary information or trade secrets to third parties. This helps seal the deal on confidential company information.

We recommend having an onboarding checklist that helps ensure you don’t forget any of these forms or additional training materials necessary for the onboarding process. Onboarding checklists are built into our HR system so that you can assign several forms to an employee and ensure they have a simple checklist to provide you with all the information needed.

General and Everyday HR Forms

Everyday HR is made much simpler with these forms on hand and ready to use. They cover most of the everyday requests and common employee issues will ensure the right processes are being followed.

7. Expense Reimbursement Form: If employees need to request reimbursement for business-related expenses incurred on behalf of the company, this should be their go-to form to fill out all the necessary details. This form helps document the expenses, ensures proper reimbursement, and collects the receipts/ invoices needed for accounting records.

8. Employee Handbook: While not a form per se, having a comprehensive employee handbook is crucial. It outlines the company’s policies, procedures, expectations, and benefits, serving as a reference guide for employees.

9. Time Off Request Form: Employees use this form to request time off for vacation, personal reasons, or other approved leave. It helps track employee absences, manage staffing, and maintain accurate records. This can help ensure smooth scheduling and happy faces all around.

If you have an HR system such as HR Partner, you may have a leave management portal. With our leave management system, you can manage requests, approvals, and accruals seamlessly. This means you can ditch the manual form and switch to a more automated process that saves you time to focus on other tasks!

10. Employee Complaint Form: This will allow employees to formally report grievances or complaints regarding workplace issues, discrimination, harassment, or other concerns. It ensures that employees have a proper channel to express their concerns and initiates the investigation process.

11. Workplace Incident Report Form: Document and report

workplace accidents, injuries, or near-miss incidents. This will help in conducting investigations, implementing corrective measures, and complying with legal reporting requirements.

Training and Performance Management Forms

These forms are important for employee growth and development. Supercharge your workforce with these tools!

12. Performance Evaluation Form: Unleash the power of employee feedback! Assess and document employee performance with this form. It should typically include criteria for evaluating different aspects of job performance, along with space for open comments and ratings.

You may want to create two (or multiple) separate versions of this for employee self-assessments and manager-employee evaluations. Beyond manager and employee evaluations, you can also add peer-review forms for a 360 review.

A good HRIS system should offer a performance review and goalsetting feature that helps make performance evaluations easy and effective!

13. Training Acknowledgment Form: Confirm that employees have attended and understood specific training sessions or programs. This serves as evidence of compliance and ensures that employees have received the necessary information or instructions.

14. Disciplinary Action Form: This is an unfortunate, yet highly important form to have ready. Document instances of employee misconduct or performance issues by capturing all the details of the incident, any investigations conducted, and the corrective action taken.

Separation Forms

Bid farewell like a pro! We all hate to see employees go, but this will help when transitioning an employee out of their role swiftly and professionally.

15. Employee Separation Form: Use this form when an employee is leaving the company voluntarily or involuntarily. This captures information related to the employee’s departure, such as the reason for separation, final paycheck details, return of company property, and exit interview information.

With these 15 essential HR forms and the power of a form builder built into your HRIS like HR Partner, you’re equipped to conquer your HR workload like never before. Creating effective and functional forms is a critical aspect of data collection. By using tools like forms effectively, you’ll

be able to stay organised and up to date on all the information you need from employees.

Need some FREE HR Templates?

HR Partner has over 20 pre-made and customisable templates available. Access the free templates here: https://blog. hrpartner.io/hr-templates/

FIND OUT MORE...

Does your company use an HR system you love? Are you running a team of 20-500 people?

HR Partner helps you streamline your HR Processes and get all your employee information in one place. It is everything small and medium businesses need to manage HR records and processes.

Book a free demo today to see for yourself:

www.hrpartner.io/demo

“With these 15 essential HR forms, you’re equipped to conquer your HR workload like never before!”

The Vital Role of Reports in Business: Empowering DecisionMaking and Efficiency

eports can play a crucial role in the success and growth of businesses across various industries, as they help facilitate data-driven decisionmaking. For example, financial reports enable business owners and managers to identify cost-saving opportunities and allocate resources efficiently. HR reports provide insights into workforce productivity, employee turnover, and training needs, leading to better talent management strategies.

Comprehensive reports provide valuable insights enabling companies to make informed decisions, streamline operations, and achieve their objectives effectively.

From financial reports and HR analytics to tax records and audit trails, a well-organised reporting system can contribute

significantly to the overall success of an organisation.

Business reports are an excellent resource for analysing emerging trends and opportunities. When examining historical data and patterns companies can adapt their strategies and capitalise on emerging opportunities, staying ahead of competitors in a dynamic business landscape.

In many industries, adherence to legal and regulatory requirements is essential. Reports, especially history reports and audit trials, play a critical role in ensuring compliance.

Efficient resource allocation is crucial for optimising productivity and profitability. For example, detailed costing reports allow businesses to identify areas of unnecessary expenditure and reallocate resources more strategically, driving efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

HR reports provide valuable insights into employee performance which can empower organisations to address potential issues related to employee turnover, job satisfaction, and training needs. They can also help companies create a positive work environment, improve employee engagement, and boost overall productivity.

Reports are essential for communicating with stakeholders. Financial reports, for instance, provide a comprehensive overview of the company’s payroll

Joanna Cruickshank, National Sales Manager, CloudPayroll

Joanna has been a small business owner, is a qualified accountant and is passionate in helping people get the best payroll solution for their organisation.

expenses for each business unit. By presenting transparent and accurate data, businesses can build trust with stakeholders.

In conclusion, reports are indispensable tools for modern businesses. They provide valuable data and insights that empower decision-making, boost efficiency, and foster growth.

From financial reports that ensure financial stability to HR reports that enhance employee engagement, a well-organised reporting system equips businesses with the information they need to thrive in today’s competitive landscape.

Embracing the power of reports not only improves internal operations but also strengthens a company’s position in the market, ensuring long-term success and sustainability.

CloudPayroll and iPayroll have over 50+ reports available in their reporting suite, and downloadable in varying formats to best suit your business needs. To find out more information please contact one of our knowledgeable Sales Team.

To find out more, visit our website:

Utilising Emotional Intelligence as a Professional

ere in Australia, we have just come through potentially one of the most stressful times of a bookkeeper’s calendar, the end of a financial year. This time generally lends to higher workloads, longer hours, demanding clients, and compliance deadlines.

It’s also a time of year where, because of these factors, our stress levels increase. It often means we can be reactive instead

of proactive, and at times our patience gets stretched a little thin.

What this also means, is we need to ensure that we have the skills so that we can continue to engage professionally with our clients, stakeholders, teams, families and friends.

If we are to stay professional, we need to ensure that we are operating with a high degree of emotional intelligence (EI).

Emotional intelligence (EI) is about understanding and managing your emotions and the emotions of others. It helps you make better decisions, handle tough situations, and build positive relationships. It’s like having a toolbox of skills that help you handle emotions, communicate well, and get along with people, even during stressful times.

People with a high level of EI generally can perform well under stress, stay in control, and calmly assess situations, including timelines and managing heavy workloads.

Amanda Linton, CEO, Institute for Certified Bookkeepers Australia

Amanda was appointed CEO of ICB in November 2017, having previously served as an ICB Director. With extensive experience as a bookkeeper, sole trader and running a multiperson bookkeeping practice, Amanda is also a registered BAS Agent, was a finalist in the Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards in 2008 and awarded MYOB Partner of the Year in 2012. Amanda continues to represent the Bookkeeping community at various consultative forums, and leads ICB’s leadership team for both the day to day operations of ICB and the continuing operational growth and development of ICB.

“So, is there a link between how we handle stress and our own level of EI?”

Yes - as we all know, stress levels can be higher at sometimes than it is at others - it sits on a continuum that constantly shifts. Like our levels of stress, EI is a spectrum that moves as our lives move and adapt.

How do we build our own Emotional Intelligence

It’s critical we can recognise stressors that occur in our workplace, and the emotions that are raised for both us and our clients, teams etc.

Some have referred to developing a high degree of EI as building resilience. But it really is more than that.

I’m suggesting that EI is about building a self-awareness of how we react to and how we manage others, showing empathy and learning to regulate how we respond. We should aim to find out why we react in a certain way, what we find stressful and what

@ICBaustralia

triggers an emotional response in us and others.

The trick here is how do we build our skill set to deal with our reactions to others when our stress levels are high.

There are four components to consider:

• Self Awareness – being conscious of your emotions and how you respond. Think about why you feel the way you do. By understanding your emotional responses, you can maintain composure even during highpressure situations. This aids in problem-solving and decisionmaking, ensuring that your clients feel heard and valued.

• Self management – balancing your moods so that negative emotions don’t get in the way of what needs to be done. Develop coping strategies find ways to deal with stress and pause before you react (put that email into drafts so you can calm down before you send it)

• Social Awarenessunderstanding how you react to different scenarios and modifying your behaviour to achieve the outcomes you’re seeking. Practice your communication skills and learn to deal with disagreements calmly and respectfully

• Show Empathy – actively listen and put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Show genuine interest in others

Relationship management & communication – connecting with others to build positive relationships. Effective communication is amplified through EI. By tailoring your communication style to suit your clients’ emotional cues, you can convey information more clearly and mitigate misunderstandings. This level of engagement cultivates a positive client experience and promotes longterm relationships.

Tip: Keeping a journal is a great tool to keep track of the things that cause you stress. Jot down what the stressful situation was and how you responded. Refer to it later if you find yourself in the same or similar situation again.

Utilising Emotional Intelligence as a Professional

In the realm of bookkeepers and accountants, harnessing EI isn’t just an asset – it’s a strategic tool that can enhance client interactions, build rapport, and elevate the overall service experience. As a professional bookkeeper or accountant, utilising EI can make a substantial difference in your effectiveness and client satisfaction.

In essence, EI is a cornerstone of exceptional service provision. By honing self-awareness, empathy, communication, and adaptability, you can create a service experience that transcends the transactional and becomes a genuine connection between you and your clients. In a world where client experience is paramount, your mastery of EI sets you apart as a professional who not only understands the technical aspects of your role but also the nuanced realm of human emotions.

Leading Teams with Emotional Intelligence

When dealing with your own teams, there are many factors to consider. When you understand their thoughts and feelings you can understand their behaviours better. It can also help to address a situation in a less judgemental way.

It also helps to develop empathy for your team, but it’s important to show some vulnerability yourself. It can connect you with team members on a level where they better appreciate your understanding of what they are feeling.

Build a culture where it’s OK to have open conversations. Encourage your team to talk

about life outside of work. In reality, life doesn’t get checked at the door.

Ensure that you share your experiences as a leader also. Showing some vulnerability is a considerable sign of strength and will help build rapport with team members. Keep it real!

In leadership, embracing EI as a guiding compass empowers you to foster a harmonious and motivated team. By skilfully navigating emotions, communicating empathetically, and valuing diverse perspectives, you create an environment where collaboration flourishes, trust is built, and individuals are inspired to reach their fullest potential. A leader who leads with EI not only drives organisational success but also nurtures a culture of authenticity, empathy, and enduring achievement.

To find out more, visit our website:

icb.org.au

6 ways awards make sense for your business

How winning awards can give your bottom line a boost

@ICBUK

Elizabeth Carter, Head of Marketing, Institute for Certified Bookkeepers

Elizabeth has been working in marketing for longer than is believable. Focussing mainly on B2B tech, she first started working with accountants and bookkeepers a long time ago at PracticeWEB (part of the AccountingWEB/ SIFT portfolio). More recently, Elizabeth worked at Senta and IRIS Software Group, building on strong relationships across the profession, before joining ICB in July 2023.

Awards take time and effort. Is it all worth it? Ahead of the closing date for the ICB LUCA Awards, Elizabeth Carter discusses the pros and pros of awards.

This article is

or many small businesses – including our beloved bookkeepers – the time and effort required to enter industry awards can be off-putting. Then there’s hours away from the office and cost to attend a finalist ceremony – and don’t get me started on the need for a whole new outfit! However, it’s also the opportunity to gain recognition for your achievements, and the

impact can be phenomenal on your company morale, mindset, and your bottom line.

Let’s look at some of the key benefits of entering industry awards.

Marketing and PR opportunities Awards provide excellent content for marketing and PR. Just making the shortlist improves brand awareness and gives you

A CASE STUDY: Lara Manton MICB, LJM Bookkeeping

plenty to shout about. Make sure you leverage each stage with press releases, social media posts, videos, blog articles, and other marketing materials that showcase your achievements to a wider audience.

Competitive differentiation

Who are your audience more likely to use if you’re THE awardwinning business in your area?

It demonstrates to existing and

Winner ICB

LUCA

Small Practice of the Year 2021 & Xero Innovative Partner of the Year Award 2023

“The 2020 ICB LUCAs were the first awards I ever entered. Although I’d been practising for ten years by then, I never thought my business could be good enough to be award winning. When I was shortlisted,

it felt like a massive achievement.

“With the 2021 LUCAs I spent quite a bit of time on my entry, sitting down to work out everything that had happened in the year, asking clients and accountants for recommendations. It made

me realise that my practice was bigger and better than I thought!

“I never expected to win! It was the most amazing experience and validated the hard work and effort I had put into running a practice for over a decade. It gave me the confidence to shout about my business and what I was doing for clients. To be recognised by ICB in that

way, meant a lot.

“The recognition from ICB gave me the confidence to enter other things, such as the Xero Awards and the Accounting Excellence Awards. Winning the 2021 Small Practice of the Year was not just the most amazing achievement, it was also the catalyst for me to take things to the next level.”

prosepective clients that you’re at the top of your profession.

Increased credibility

An award win or short-listing nomination acts as a third party endorsement for your business. A win can give a real stamp of authority within your industry sector and is a sign of quality for potential clients. Penelope Allard FICB ACM PM.Dip of Wild Bookkeeping won Social Media Influencer of the Year and New Practice of the Year at the ICB LUCA Awards in 2022. “The ICB LUCA Awards are judged by an independent panel of judges, so knowing that your application has been reviewed, judged and made it onto the shortlist is an amazing feeling.”

Level the playing field

For many small businesses, awards provide the opportunity to compete against the big boys. Because of the range of categories, many of which aren’t budget based, you get to go head-to-head against major blue chip companies and, in many cases, succeed in areas such as customer service, innovation and impact.

Team morale

Before you even get to the ceremony, the practice of writing out award entries can really

bring light to your achievements. Shortlisting and winning provides a boost to the entire team (or indivdual). Helen Bower FICB PM.Dip, of Adder Bookkeeping won Employer of the Year in the 2022 ICB LUCA Awards: “I was filled with absolute joy when I won, especially as my team put me forward. When you work really hard and try your best, it is a wonderful, wonderful thing to be recognised and appreciated.”

Networking

Industry awards often involve ceremonies and events where you can connect with other professionals, potential partners, investors, and clients. This networking can lead to new business opportunities and collaborations. The ICB LUCA Awards ceremony is always a fantastic evening of celebration where members come together as a community.

But...

A word of warning

Not all awards are created equal. Evaluate which awards and categories are most relevant to your profession – and the ones that will be recognised by your clients. Independence is also really important, so review the judges and understand the

process ahead of the application. And watch out for spiraling costs (see previous note on award ceremony outfits).

About the ICB LUCA Awards 2023

The Oscars of the bookkeeping world, the annual ICB LUCA Awards recognise outstanding achievement in the bookkeeping profession and are judged by a scruptulously independent panel of industry experts. There are also awards for the software and apps that support the nation’s bookkeepers, which are voted for by ICB students and members.

The closing date for applications is Friday 15 September, and the awards ceremony is held as part of the ICB Bookkeepers Summit on Monday 6 November at the Park Plaza Hotel Westminster, London. Enter here

FIND OUT MORE...

The closing date for the 2023 ICB LUCA Awards is Friday 15 September

Enter here.

bookkeepers.org.uk/AboutUs/Annual-Awards

Accounting & Finance Show

Asia 2023 is a CPD accredited event

Earn

Laura Binns, General Manager, Accounting & Finance Show Asia, Terrapinn Asia

Laura joined Terrapinn in 2018 and launched the first edition of the Accounting & Finance Show Asia. The show, now in its sixth year, works to drive up the adoption of digital technologies amongst SMEs, enterprises and accounting firms in Asia. Laura and the Terrapinn team are now planning for the 2023 edition, scheduled for 10-11 October 2023.

FREE

he 6th edition of Accounting & Finance Show Asia takes place this 10-11 October at Suntec Convention Centre Singapore! More than 3,000 accountants and finance professionals from SMEs, large enterprises and accounting firms from Asia and beyond are expected to gather under one roof to explore the newest digital tools and exchange ideas to propel growth and digital adoption in accounting and finance.

The power-packed agenda covers diverse, practical and cutting-edge content relevant to businesses and practices of all shapes and sizes. More than 150 prominent speakers will lead thought-provoking panel discussions and presentations on Digital Innovation, SME Finance Transformation, Grow your Business, Digital Practice and The Enterprise CFO. There will be ample opportunity for discussion and debate, attendees can ensure that their questions are answered by a whole range of thought

leaders who bring a wide variety of perspectives.

The best bit? The FREE to attend conference agenda is CPD accredited, meaning that attendees can stay up-to-date with the latest innovations and technologies in the finance and accounting space, take away reliable and informed insights to action within their organisations, all while completing verifiable CPD hours!

Here’s a quick preview of the first 20 confirmed speakers:

1. Somnath Adak, Chief Financial Officer, Asian Pay Television Trust

2. Alison Bertholon, APAC Finance Director, Volvo Group Singapore (Pte.) Ltd.

3. Jeremy Chia, Partner and CoFounder, Chia, Ka & Partners PLT

4. Jeslyn Chua, Director of Finance, Tessa Therapeutics

5. Jose Petronio Espanol, Chief Financial Officer, Figaro Coffee Group, Inc.

6. Joanne Flinn, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, JOANNE FLINN

up to 15 hours of CPD points when you attend the event for

The in-person platform to elevate your skill sets as a finance and accounting professional.

15.

An amazing showcase of innovations

Meet face-to-face with product experts and get the opportunity to compare, test and consider hundreds of digital solutions that integrate with the world’s leading enterprise platforms, all under one roof.

A dedicated Start-up Zone

Accounting & Finance Show Asia is all about innovation. With the explosion of new and innovative companies, our dedicated Startup Zone provides the opportunity to connect with up and coming brands with transformative ideas. Attendees might even get to partner with the next unicorn!

Mark your calendars for Accounting & Finance Show Asia 2023. This is the technology event empowering accounting and finance professionals with the necessary expertise and tools to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving landscape. Register for a FREE pass now and see you this 1011 October in Singapore: www. terrapinn.com/AFAsia2023

17.

18.

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A networking extravaganza

In addition to the CPD hours, a free pass to the event will provide attendees with:

Connect with more than 3,000 like-minded peers, build valuable relationships and explore potential collaborations. This is the perfect platform to expand networks and tap into a wealth of opportunities. To enhance the networking experience, attendees will get access to an exclusive event app to initiate meaningful conversations before, during and after the event.

PS: To celebrate the individuals who have had the greatest impact in accounting and finance over the recent years, the team is pleased to introduce Asia’s Top 100 Accounting & Finance Leaders Guide! The featured leaders have demonstrated themselves to be at the forefront of digital innovation in their company and industry and led in their field by sharing their wealth of knowledge beyond their own company. Download the FREE guide now: www. terrapinn.com/AFShowAsiaGuide Visit

7. Chris Ho, Finance Director, Klook

8. Pankaj Kabra, Senior Vice President Finance, Traveloka

9. Sarah Lawrance, Founder, Hot Toast

10. Haider Manasawala, Regional Head Finance, Europe, Middle East Africa & South Asia, Board Member, Chevron

11. Emma Martin, Chief Financial Officer, APAC, Edelman

12. Dustin Ozoa, Partner, Roxas, Cruz, Tagle and Co.

13. Arup Raha, Chief Economist Asia, Oxford Economics

14. Batya Shulman, Partner, Select Investors

Teginder Singh, Chief Financial Officer (Asia-Pacific), WIZ

16. Heather Smith, Founder, ANISE Consulting

Indrie Tjahjadi, Senior Manager - Sustainability and Climate Change, PwC Singapore

Gin Toh, Director of Partner Relations (Asia Pacific), Institute of Management Accountants

Jared Valarao, Chief Finanical Officer, Philippines AirAsia, Inc.

20. Lynn Wong, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director, Siemens Logistics

Smart Scanning Receipts Makes Sense!

and Releases: May - July 2023 Xero’s Exciting New Features

These updates origitanted from Xero. You can read all of their updates here

Partner Updates

As a leading provider of cloud-based accounting software, Xero continues to impress its users with a steady stream of innovative features and releases. Over the past few months Xero has introduced several exciting updates to enhance the user experience and provide even more functionality. In this article, we’ll delve into the latest advancements from Xero since the 1st May 2023 that have made managing finances and running businesses more efficient and enjoyable.

Xero HQ

Xero have reduced the risk of duplicate client records. When you create a new organisation outside of Xero HQ, it no longer creates a client record in Xero HQ. When you create the record in Xero HQ, you can choose to add a new client or link an existing Xero organisation to an existing client.

You can now see the bank name and bank feed deprecation date for each client when you export your client list.

Like Practice Manager, you can now see and manage all groups on your client record.

Xero HQ (AU, NZ & UK)

It’s now easier to get documents signed by your clients. You can now send document pack reminders to your clients in bulk.

When you set up an organisation with payroll enabled for your client, payroll access and permissions are now automatically assigned.

Practice Manager

Xero have improved search in the All Jobs tab of the Job Manager to use the client name or parts of the job description as search terms. Accountants and bookkeepers can find the jobs relevant to the task at hand more easily and manage their work faster.

The new-look Staff page in Practice Manager makes it easier to assign staff permissions and to understand what access this gives your team.

Small Business Updates

Search Xero have made some changes to the search function in Xero (Xero blog). The functionality will stay the same, but you’ll notice it looks a little different.

Reports

Access new common formats and related reports on the Aged Receivables Summary, Aged Payables Summary, Receivable Invoice Summary and Payable Invoice Summary. For example, view approved, sent and paid transactions on the Receivable

The All Jobs tab in the Job manager now includes staff, partner and manager columns and lets you select more than one person from any column to filter by. You can also select only the columns you want to see.

Xero Workpapers

Workpapers now connects to the new reports in Xero. If a workpaper links to the Account Transactions, Bank Reconciliation, Aged Receivable Detail, Aged Payable Detail or Fixed Assets Reconciliation report, you’ll be able to use exciting features that will help you get quick access to answers and streamline your financial analysis.

Practice Products

Staff members who belong to more than one practice now stay within the practice’s account when they move to another practice product, provided they have access to the product. They don’t need to check that they’re in the right practice when moving between products, eg from Xero HQ to Practice Manager or from My Xero to Xero HQ.

Invoice Summary with just one click.

Use the settings at the top of the Budget Variance report to switch budgets, rather than having to use the layout editor.

Use the settings at the top of the Profit and Loss report to compare

tracking categories or options side-by-side in columns. You can also combine an option from one category in the same column as an option from another category.

You can now set report preferences for all reports. These include the accounting basis and whether to show or hide decimals.

Add Debit - Month and Credit

- Month columns to the Trial Balance report. You can show these columns alongside, or instead of, the Debit - Year to date or Credit - Year to date columns.

Access a new version of the Reconciliation Reports pack. Use the reports in the pack to help reconcile your accounts at the end of a reporting period.

Analytics

You can now view six new financial ratios on the business snapshot dashboard, including current ratio, debt ratio and current liabilities to net worth.

Analytics Plus (AU)

You can now edit your short-term cash flow projection to include or exclude BAS and PAYG W amounts.

Analytics Plus (UK)

Edit your short-term cash flow projection to include or exclude VAT amounts.

Payroll (UK)

Xero have made managing employee tax information even easier, with additional built in guidance and increased flexibility to edit and update fields.

Settings (AU)

You can verify your mobile phone number in the new Business contact section of the Organisation details screen. This helps to ensure your contact details are up to date.

Projects

We’ve made it easier to identify bills that are yet to be assigned to a project. This helps you avoid having unaccounted costs in the financials of your project.

Xero Accounting for iOS and Android

The Xero Accounting app has a new design and layout, so you can easily and confidently reconcile your bank transactions from anywhere

Xero Accounting for Android

You can now archive and restore contacts on your Android mobile device.

User Settings

We’ve updated the design of the user settings page. You can still add and update users, but you’ll notice the page looks a little different.

10 - 11 October 2023

Suntec Convention Centre, Singapore

THE BENEFITS OF

ATTENDING

1

EARN UP TO 15 HOURS OF CPD POINTS

Stay up-to-date with the latest innovations and technologies in the finance and accounting space, take away reliable and informed insights to action within your organisation, all while completing verifiable CPD hours!

2

DISCOVER NEW INNOVATIONS

Compare, test and consider hundreds of digital solutions that integrate with the world’s leading enterprise platforms, all under one roof.

3 MEET UP AND COMING BRANDS

Our dedicated Start-up Zone will feature new and innovative companies. You might even get to partner with the next unicorn!

4

PEER-TO-PEER NETWORKING

Connect with more than 3,000 like-minded peers, build valuable relationships and explore potential collaborations.

New to the Xero App Marketplace

Allio Invoicing & Jobs, Time Tracking alliohq.com

Your one-stop-shop for trade and professional service businesses to manage their quotes, jobs, time and cost tracking and invoicing. Built to help run your daily operations with ease and efficiency, and improve your bottom line.

Cimplico Workpapers Accountant Tools, Reporting cimplico.com

A compliance workpaper solution for professional accounting firms. Cimplico Workpapers guides users throughout the preparation, review, and approval process, ensuring compliance to quality standards efficiently.

Plus91 (Connect Outsourcing) Accountant Tools connectoutsourcing.com

Plus91 is a job management tool for accountants to effectively manage their workflow with their outsourcing team. Benefits include scheduling work and extensive reporting on jobs. This will help Directors & Partners get a better understanding of where time is spent on each job to identify areas of improvement.

Content Snare Accountant Tools contentsnare.com

Automatically analyses professional services firms accounting data to track & offset carbon emissions for every project they do. You can then share their efforts with your network.

Droppah Time Tracking droppah.com

Modern rostering and timetracking software built especially

for hospitality teams. Get your scheduling sussed with simple, budget-friendly roster creation, staff comms and shift swapping, cost forecasting, and timesheets you can send straight to payroll.

exConnect Point of Sale exconnect.com

eXconnect is an integration which specialises in providing seamless data exchange between ERPLY and Xero, the app works in the background syncing transactional documents like (Sales, Purchase Invoices, Transfers, Inventory Value, Payments, Pre-Payments and Cost of Goods) from ERPLY to Xero and moving reconciled transactions from Xero to Erply. All this while performing your day-to-day business

Hiro CRM, Invoicing & Jobs ourhiro.io

Manage your professional services firm in one easy to use place. Finance, timesheets, project management and human resources, with a user focussed, intuitive interface. Hiro is what you’ve been holding out for, giving a clear picture of the present and insight into the road ahead.

Karmly Invoicing & Jobs, Time Tracking karmly.io

Organise your work life, build trust and get paid right with timetracking, ready-to-send invoicing and workload management for independent contractors. Promote yourself, collaborate with friends and stay in control.

Merp

Ecommerce, Inventory merp.com.au

A Business Integration system

that streamlines users’ business processes and improves efficiency. Track each process from purchase to booking in stock, sales transactions and logistics. Once connected with Xero, Merp will become the core of your business.

MyHR PayrollHR myhr.works/nz

MyHR combines smart HR software with expert HR advisory to simplify people and payroll management for everyone. Live data is sent from MyHR, directly to Xero, allowing you to pay staff, automate tax, report payment details to the ATO and more.

Nettverk CRM, Custom Integration nettverk.io

Nettverk connects Salesforce and Xero, syncing sales and financial data for streamlined business processes. Features include real-time data sync, two-way integration, automated order-toinvoice workflow, and customer insights. Benefits include increased productivity, collaboration, streamlined processes, accurate reporting, scalability, and data security. Customisable mapping ensures tailored integration.

Plus91 Accountant Tools plus91.co.nz

A cloud-based Job Management tool for Connect Outsourcing clients to effectively manage their workflow. Schedule work and extensive reporting on jobs to help Directors & Partners get a better understanding of where time is spent on each job in order to identify areas of improvement.

Podium CRM, Payments podium.com

Enabling local businesses through the power of text. Win more customers, improve operational efficiency, drive positive reviews on Google and deliver better experiences with easy-to-use growth, communication & payments tools.

RecHound Accountant Tools, Reporting rechound.com

Balance sheet reconciliations are dead simple with RecHound. A heavily requested feature in Xero is the ability to clear transactions within balance sheet accounts, we’ve finally made this possible. With the ability to clear transactions and create support during the month, reduce your time reconciling accounts to just minutes using RecHound.

Recordme Bills & Expenses, Invoicing & Jobs recordme.ai

The AI-powered solution to automating your bookkeeping tasks for accounts and businesses. Streamline your financial recordkeeping, reduce errors and provide

real-time insights for better decision-making.

RuiAutomation Inventory ruiautomation.com

An advance cloud-based inventory management software designed to revolutionize the way businesses handle their inventory processes. RuiAutomation ensures businesses streamline their operations and achieve optimal inventory control.

Shiftcare CRM, Time Tracking shiftcare.com

An all-in-one NDIS soft- ware that gives teams and care providers everything they need to manage rostering, billing & invoicing, documents, and progress notes all in one place, including a mobile app for caregivers on the go.

Tradiecore Invoicing & Jobs tradiecore.com.au

A job management app built exclusively for tradies. Quote, invoice and schedule your jobs

on the go with their powerful yet simple tools. Tradiecore makes it easy to manage all your admin from the palm of your hand.

Translucent Reporting translucent.io

Translucent is the multi-entity solution for Xero. Translucent turns multiple Xero files into a single financial system of record. Benefit from consolidated reporting, intercompany transfers, monthend close, advanced permissions, improved search and more.

XPNA Accountant Tools, Reporting xpna.co

Leverage the power, ubiquity, and flexibility of Excel, whilst adding connectivity, governance and control with xpna. A dynamic, customisable, consolidated view of all your Xero data inside the familiar Excel environment.

Pushing Boundaries, Embracing Change

Steve Dempsey, General Manager, Accountex Canada

Steve has been managing events across Canada for 30+ years, from trade shows and conferences to awards shows and galas. With a wealth of knowledge in several B2B industries, Steve leads a dedicated team that produces Accountex Canada (Nov 15 & 16, 2023), the fastest-growing accountancy & bookkeeping conference & trade show in Canada, and the recently launched Accountex Canada webinars.

Accountex Canada Returns November 15-16, 2023

he atmosphere was electric with excitement as industry professionals and enthusiasts gathered for the much-awaited debut of Accountex Canada’s inaugural event in November 2022. With a mix of curiosity and anticipation, the 60+ exhibitors and 650+ attendees descended upon the conference and trade show, eager to explore the untapped potential of this novel accounting and finance event entering the Canadian market.

Drawing on the triumphs of the Accountex brand globally, our team was ready to facilitate connections within the Canadian accounting and bookkeeping community, fostering face-toface learning and networking experiences in a post-COVID world. The inaugural year exceeded expectations, with boundless energy fueling the twoday event and receiving praise from all corners.

As we step into 2023, Accountex

Canada is pushing boundaries and embracing change. With the program nearing completion, our diverse topics will hit the notes the community wants to hear. As per Intuit QuickBooks survey released this year*, an overwhelming 91% of accountants and bookkeepers in Canada concur that technology holds the key to business growth and expansion. This highlights the importance of staying updated with the latest advancements in the field.

To aid delegates in discovering the ideal technology and tools to foster business growth, the trade show floor will be a hub of ideas, information, and connections. With over 75 exhibitors expected to participate, esteemed companies like Sage, Quickbooks, Xero, and Canadian Associations, start-ups, and other innovative companies will be present, offering their expertise and showcasing products that address the challenges of today’s dynamic landscape.

“90% of attendees rated the event positive and worthwhile”

Laine Taylor, our newly appointed Account Manager, has been helping organizations secure their presence at Accountex 2023. According to Taylor, “Most of our exhibitors are enthusiastic about returning, as they believe their participation in last year’s launch played a crucial role in capturing quality leads and generating new sales.” She adds, “We’ve also received significant interest from existing Accountex London exhibitors looking to establish or expand their business in Canada.” With over 30 exhibitors confirmed and several others under negotiation, the trade show presents an exceptional opportunity for delegates to personally connect with leading experts in the accounting and finance community.

We are fortunate to have prominent speakers returning, including Jennifer Bauldic, delving into remote worker considerations, and Teresa Slack, shedding light on E-commerce payment gateways. We are delighted to welcome Jamie Golombek, who will address crucial tax issues relevant to accountants, and Randy Johnson, presenting sessions on technology trends and Practice Management platforms. Additionally, other timely topics include AI implementation and strategies to prevent burnout.

Based on the feedback we received last year, the Flash Meetings were incredibly successful, providing exhibitors with a platform to host product demonstrations. To further improve accessibility this year, we have streamlined the format, scheduling them between sessions.

The Networking Reception returns this year on November 15th where attendees and exhibitors can once again look forward to an opportunity to share experiences, discuss the day’s topics, engage with peers, and make new connections. Based on last year’s well-attended gathering, it promises to be an enjoyable experience for all.

A new addition this year will be the Cyber Zone. With cyber criminals targeting accountants and bookkeepers at an increasing rate, Accountex Canada will

location,

provide this new feature area on the show floor where delegates can interact and learn about the latest cyber threats and, most importantly, the solutions to protect themselves and their clients.

For further information on registering to attend or exhibit on November 15-16 at Accountex Canada visit: accountex.ca

“Great energy! Lots of new people visiting the booths and networking”

“Amazing

a successful first year, and looking forward to participating in the 2023 conference”

Anxiety and DepressionMyths Versus Reality

nxiety and depression effect millions of people around the world. They are mental health illnesses that are treatable. Seeking help early is the best way of managing any mental health issues you may be experiencing. Often when we talk about anxiety and depression we find stigma, fear, and misconceptions about these mental health problems persist.

Anxiety - Myths versus Reality

Everyone feels anxious from time to time. When anxious feelings don’t go away, happen without any particular reason or make it hard to cope with daily life it may be the sign of an anxiety condition.

There are lots of myths about anxiety, which have led to stereotypes about those with the condition. Debunking these myths is a key step in fighting stigma towards anxiety.

Myth #1

Anxiety is not a real illness.

Reality:

Anxiety is more than just feeling stressed or worried. Stress and anxious feelings are a common response when we feel under pressure.

Anxiety is when these anxious feelings don’t go away. If you’re living with anxiety, the anxious feelings may not be easily managed. Anxiety is a serious

Tim Hoopmann, Speaker and Trainer

Experienced founder with a demonstrated history growing small business. Strong entrepreneurship and professionally skilled in Business Planning, Cloud Technology, Sales, Marketing, and Operations Management. A passion for helping small businesses use technology as a key enabler to increase productivity and decrease costs.

A volunteer speaker for beyondblue, an Australian organisation that works to raise awareness of anxiety and depression, reduce the associated stigma and encourage people to get help.

condition that makes it hard for a person to cope with daily life.

Myth #2

Anxiety can only be treated with medication.

Reality:

Although medications are commonly recommended for the treatment of anxiety, they may only provide a temporary solution and do not address the cause of the issue.

Other effective methods of treatment include:

Regular physical exerciseexercising regularly can reduce stress, help you sleep better, and aid recovery from mental illness.

Psychological Therapy - such as cognitive behaviour therapy which is based around changing thinking, attitudes, behaviours and beliefs, and problem solving. Anxiety management/relaxation techniques including visualisation, meditation, Mindfulness, counselling and breathing exercises.

Myth #3

Saying “this will pass” helps sufferers.

Reality:

There are certain phrases you should avoid when speaking to an anxiety sufferer - “this will pass” is one of them.

Other unhelpful phrases include: “Just get on with it” “Stop worrying” “Why don’t you just think differently about it” and “Remain calm,”

A helpful phrase can be - “I don’t know what to say, but I am here for you”.

Depression - Myths Versus Reality

We all feel sad, moody, or low sometimes, it’s a normal part of life. If these feelings come and stay for more than 2 weeks, it might be a sign that you have depression.

Depression affects 1 in 7 people in Australia. It’s a serious condition that affects your physical and mental health. It’s important to know that it is treatable and it’s worth reaching out and talking to someone about it.

There are lots of myths about depression, which have led to stereotypes about those with the condition. Debunking these myths is a key step in fighting stigma towards depression.

Myth #1

Being sad and being depressed is the same thing.

Reality:

Depression is more than feeling sad or downcast. When those feelings persist for more than two weeks and you’ve lost pleasure in usual activities, you may be depressed.

You will also be experiencing symptoms from three of these four categories: behaviour, thoughts, feelings and physical.

Myth #2

It’s attention seeking.

Reality:

What some people view as attention seeking may well be a cry for help from someone who wants support but isn’t sure how

to ask for it. On the other hand, there are many people who are depressed that will keep this information to themselves.

Myth #3

You can simply ‘snap out of it’.

Reality:

It’s not a decision. People aren’t choosing to be depressed, so they can’t just flick a switch and stop experiencing depression. Like any physical injury or illness, depression requires treatment and support.

Support is available if you think you may be experiencing anxiety or depression, or if you know someone that is. Seek help early.

Will it be possible to predict your Balance Sheet with AI?

The AI journey: Moving from past group reporting to future predictions

Claus Finderup Grove is the CEO and Co-founder of Konsolidator, a financial consolidation software company. The software utilizes automation and AI to simplify the complex consolidation process from data uploading to finalizing group reporting while maintaining a strong emphasis on proper accounting.

Does AI sound overwhelming? Based on his many years as Group CFO testing the best tools to automate the redundant tasks in reporting and now co-founder of a reporting tool, Claus Grove Finderup shares his 8 practical examples for using AI in group reporting.

veryone talks about AI, but it can be difficult to navigate in the AI jungle. However, it is essential to remember that even the most minor steps can lead to significant transformations.

The better your finance department becomes at utilizing AI and automation – the more testing you can do, and literacy will follow. AI literacy means both knowing the benefits but also knowing the limitations.

Mapping local accounts is a good place to start

At Konsolidator, we have huge ambitions about AI and believe

it will be a vital tool in, e.g., budget and forecast. Still, we also believe in testing and learning its potential.

A couple of months ago, we started testing the possibilities of using AI to make group reporting even simpler and less time-consuming. As our entire software is built to automate the full group reporting process, one component, which still was manual, was the Mapping of Local accounts. In under a week, we had our first version of a mapping feature – a feature we, even with automation, still had to keep very manual. And the result was fantastic.

The answer lies in not just discussing the benefits of automation but actually exploring the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation by using it to create more intelligent and better work processes – and testing the possibilities.

“Don’t think of AI as a trend, but a powerful tool that will improve our work significantly. The only requirement is to learn to use it properly.”

Mapping, for example, is not the most exciting part of group reporting and is seen as a one-time task but an extremely time-consuming task. With the release of ChatGPT and other OpenAI tools, the barrier has now been broken – allowing everyone to become AI literate.

In the fast-paced world of finance, staying ahead of the competition, retaining top talent, and ensuring data accuracy are paramount. But there is always the question of how finance professionals can achieve these goals amidst ever-evolving regulations and standards.

In group reporting, we’ve found 8 specific areas where AI allows us to upgrade outdated processes into more innovative and more efficient ways of working, including:

• Reporting

• Strategy

• Integrations

• Data availability and grouping

• Productivity

• Forecast including cash flow

Claus Finderup Grover, CEO, Konsolidator

With a background as group CFO, Claus has the inside knowledge of the day-to-day operation in large groups.

#1 benefit: From Past Reporting to Future Predictions

Historically, finance teams have excelled at reporting on past financial data, such as revenue recognition, cost audits, and compliance monitoring. While CFOs are now adept at forecasting income statements, predicting the balance sheet still presents challenges, particularly regarding net working capital.

We can see how AI propels CFOs into the future by providing datadriven predictive capabilities. As AI can see patterns in the past that the human eye can’t and include external factors, which is impossible for us, finance teams can forecast financial metrics and predict competitor reactions, customer responses, and emerging risks. Imagine the ability to foresee the most significant risks for the upcoming year.

#2 benefit: Optimizing Group Reporting with Automation

Today, most finance departments use an ERP system, and more and

more are migrating to the cloud. But imagine if you had to write every transaction into a ledger and manually do everything an accounting system does – I’m guessing it is not a scenario you want to experience.

In finance, your reports are only as good as the data they’re built on.

#3 benefit: Strategic Alignment: Management Reporting and Company Strategy

why are

With the proliferation of digital solutions and automation, accessing and utilizing data has never been easier. To create more influential reports, consider two critical factors:

• Automated Data Flow: Is your data flow working seamlessly and automatically?

• Complete Data Access: Do you have access to all the data you need?

Automating processes, such as data integration from your ERP system, provides more data and facilitates comparisons— essential for informed decisionmaking.

Management reporting must align closely with the company’s strategy. While it might sound like common sense, only 24% of finance departments currently link their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with corporate strategy, according to PwC. With AI and automation, you can automatically align reporting with KPIs faster.

But you still need to change this by first considering these questions:

• Does your report support the company’s strategy, including goals like entering new markets?

• Are you monitoring success criteria, such as market share and acquiring new customers?

• Are you analyzing the results on existing KPIs or just reporting on them?

Shifting KPIs to support strategy enhances decision-making and ensures forecast planning focuses on specific targets.

“AI equips CFOs with data-driven tools, positioning them at the forefront of strategic decision-making in ways previously unattainable.”

“So

we so determined to keep other tasks in Excel, tasks that might not even deliver value in terms of profit but must be done due to regulations?”

#4 benefit: AI and Data Relationships: A Catalyst for Efficiency

Automation and digital solutions are pivotal in enhancing data handling. Take our own software, Konsolidator, that simplifies financial consolidation from data upload to the final group reporting. With the software, group CFOs can ensure data consistency across subsidiaries and regions and deliver fast and error-free management reports. Using Excel for complex consolidation when you have a tool powered by AI and automation makes less sense than it used to do. And this goes for many other manual tasks as well.

#5 benefit: Navigating the Challenges of Multiple ERP Systems

For many organizations, using multiple ERP systems is a reality due to mergers, acquisitions, regulatory demands, or simply because “it has always been like that…”. However, challenges such as data accuracy, timely results, and resource optimization pose a significant risk to the output quality. The lack of system integration compounds these issues.

We see an increasing trend that when groups convert to cloud ERP, the same ERP system is chosen for most, if not all, of the subsidiaries. The full benefits of cloud-based add-ons (apps) are

materialized by having the same ERP system in all subsidiaries. Cloud-based software offers quick integration possibilities, standardizes processes across borders, and ensures everyone follows the same methodology. So here is yet another opportunity to tap into automation and AI as the same AI methodology can be embraced by all subsidiaries and deliver even better results.

#6 benefit: AI-Powered Finance: The Future is Here

AI is reshaping finance, automating repetitive tasks, and freeing up professionals to focus on analysis.

Cloud, AI, and other digitalization possibilities still have a reputation as becoming massive implementation projects. But with the OpenAI tools at our disposal, like ChatGPT, the opportunities are available to all of us.

The key is to foster an AI-literate culture within your finance team and organization. By upskilling your team, you empower them to harness the full potential of AI. Let them play around with AI, maybe with some from the IT department, or create a task force. Start with something harmless and get some experience.

Find the automation tools that streamline processes, reduce errors, and speed up operations. It not only saves time but also ensures data accuracy within your finance department.

#7 benefit: Budgeting and Cash Flow Mastery: Key to Financial Success

Budgeting, Forecasting, and managing cash flow are pivotal aspects of finance. Cutting corners is not an option. So, here, you have to invest in understanding your business, market dynamics,

and the importance of accurate predictions.

Consider incorporating AI in the forecast of the cash flow. Imagine a complete set of group Balance sheets, including Net Working Capital prepared based on AI. An AI model that includes patterns of the past together with exogenous factors that we can’t imagine will bring incredible value to decisionmaking.

#8 benefit: The AI Revolution: Testing the Waters and Learning from Data

As AI evolves, it’s essential to thoroughly test and learn from old calculations to harness its value. We’ve made significant strides in forecasting income statements and cash flows, but Net Working Capital remains a challenge.

In conclusion, AI and automation are revolutionizing the finance departments. By embracing these technologies, CFOs and finance professionals can redefine reporting, drive better decisionmaking, and position their organizations for success in an increasingly data-driven world.

Don’t wait; the future of finance is here, and it’s time to seize the opportunities it offers.

Rome was not built in one day. But remember that even small changes can have a significant impact. Start by finding tasks in your own work that are repetitive, time-consuming, and resemble some of the things mentioned above, like our Mapping of local accounts.

Looking for a group reporting software? Get a free trial:

konsolidator.com/free-trial

“Letting it be up to the single employee not only enhances productivity but mitigates risks.”

Updates and new releases from Xero connected apps

Bright brightsg.com

import their clients and contacts from XPM, to send them Requests seamlessly.

2. Expense Policy - Year End Rule

Are

Bright are excited to share that we’ve recently launched two new products. Our proposal software, BrightPropose, takes the guesswork out of fee setting and allows you to create branded proposal documents in minutes. And with company secretarial software, Bright CosSec, you can now manage corporate governance with ease from one centralised platform.

Content Snare contentsnare.com

Content Snare has recently released an integration with Xero Practice Manager (XPM) which enables firms to automatically

Expense On Demand

expenseondemand.com

1. Automatic Billing Rule

Current Discount and Cost control functionality has been enhanced. This includes the Finance Manager to turn on a rule where the system will set Claimants as Power User automatically if they have claimed above a set number of expenses in a month.

This ensures the Finance Manager is always in control by providing a Fall-Back shield to stop the subscription costs from OVERSHOOTING.

Year End Rule is now included with our portfolio of expense policies available for use. A Finance Manager can set spending limits on what Claimants can spend on one of more expense categories during a year.

If the year limit is breached for any of those categories, the policy ensures they are flagged.

3. Google Mapping ServicesGoogle Call API Controls

Using this newly added feature to the Mileage functionality, a Finance Manager can now configure the Google Mapping Services to limit the character input by Claimants searching for an Address / Postcode using the Google Calls.

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Are you a Xero-connected App? Got a new feature or update you’d like to share with the Xero User community?

Email alex@ xumagazine.com

This makes the process quicker for Claimants searching for Addresses / Postcodes whilst claiming mileage expenses.

Notud notud.com

What’s new at Notud? Integrations with FYI and SuiteFiles (and more on the way!). Thumbnails of note pages. Autosave. We have updates regularly, check out the website to see all of the features.

Pin Payments

pinpayments.com

Pin Payments have recently launched their integrated Xero Bank Feed. Available with every Pin Payments account, it helps businesses reduce the time they spend on reconciling payments in Xero, and more time growing their

outsmart the cybercriminals and safeguard the smaller accounting firms.

Access management to cloud apps has been our flagship product. We recently launched our “Comprehensive security package” to include “Device” and “Email” security. This ensures a holistic security across the workflow of a modern day accounting firm.

TallEMU tallemucrm.com

Tall Emu CRM / New Barcode Scanning - Improve accuracy of outbound shipment information and automatically update stock levels. Scan products as they’re picked and Tall Emu CRM will then update the relevant quantities. Scan barcodes and capture essential information about

vWork

vworkapp.com

In a game-changer for businesses, vWork’s MYOB Advanced integration gives clients the ability to instantly invoice customers upon delivery. In practice, this means when a driver signs off a completed delivery in vWork, all relevant information is immediately transferred to MYOB Advanced such as delivery costs and SLA compliance. From there, automatically generated invoices take seconds to create and can be issued immediately or according to existing billing arrangements.

WorkGuru

workguru.io

WorkGuru is committed to actioning user feedback quickly! This month’s new releases include

Della Hudson, with her third book, Changing the Numbers

An accountant and mentor has been Highly Commended for her third business book at a national award ceremony celebrating quality and variety.

Della Hudson, of Minerva Accountants in Bristol and Somerset, has written Changing the Numbers: How to deliver advisory services for maximum success for fellow accountants.

And it was highly commended in the specialist category by a panel of the UK’s top business experts, academics, and entrepreneurs at The Business Book Awards.

Della, who has been a chartered accountant for more than 30 years and founded two accountancy firms, said: “It’s lovely

to receive such recognition and get such positive feedback.”

Entries from across the globe

The Business Book Awards 2023, in partnership with Pathway Group, offers industry-wide recognition to authors.

It is open to a range of subjects relevant to business, entrepreneurship, selfdevelopment and thoughtleadership. And organisers received hundreds of entries authored by business leaders across the globe.

The judges said of Della’s book: “Changing The Numbers delivers on its objective by clearly outlining how accountants can successfully set up and introduce advisory services to their clients, based on what works in Della’s own accountancy practices.”

The book is broken down into two parts - starting with a step-bystep guide on how to get started, followed by a deeper diver into what advisory services to offer.

The judges said in a statement: “Changing The Numbers provides simple and practical guidance on becoming a trusted advisor that will make a real difference to its target reader and their business.”

From kitchen table to awardwinning author

Della set up her first business from her kitchen table in 2009 after having children and being unable to find a company which would offer flexitime.

In 2017, having grown her accountancy practice to a profitable level, Della sold that business – focusing on helping other qualified accountants achieve the same levels of success.

Today the mum-of-two teenagers is a best-selling and awardwinning author, renowned speaker and in-demand business coach.

Della, who is listed as a top online influencer by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), said: “It pays to surround yourself with people who support you, help you to identify opportunities and guide you to be your best.”

Della has also been named among 20 businesswomen to watch in 2020 by business banking app Tide - and as one of the top 50 women in finance by Accountancy Age news.

She helps business owners set up and grow their businesses to profitability and achieve their personal work and life goals at the same time.

For more information, visit:

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