Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to Accounts 2.0, our next podcast. This is our second one and today we're going to focus on some of the blogs we've been posting and it's our steps for becoming a new age accountant. And today is step one. We're going to be talking about best and breed technology and integrations. With me today is our president, as you may know, ted Williamson, and I'm going to get right into the philosophy and then, ted, you're going to have some real life solutions, interactions and people that can help provide some of these best and breed solutions. So I'll get right into it.

Speaker 1: 0:45

So the idea of becoming a new age accountant in our Accounts 2.0 philosophy is it is about technology being the baseline or the platform to take you forward. You could be the best service provider in the world probably not the best customer service on a one-on-one basis but if you don't have the time or there's other demands through your operational inefficiencies, even then you're going to create gaps in your service. We can go right to the beginning. If you're running a accounting firm now and you have any PC based software, some of the older workarounds like the philosophy is that's the way we've always done it and you have some key personnel acting as the glue, trying to keep it all together. That is not a sustainable way of doing things. It's certainly not scalable. To add more capacity is a challenge, and that's the problem that a lot of accounting firms have is taking on new clients, onboarding and all that complexity added onto the already existing workload. It almost makes you want to turn customers away, and that's not a way to run your business.

Speaker 1: 1:54

So, right off the bat, you have to do some. I call it technological soul searching really make a commitment to say, look, I'm going to use the latest and greatest, I'm going to make that investment, I'm going to take the time to figure out what works for my business and do some research Right off the bat. Baseline you've got to go cloud. If you're not seeing that now, that is something you really got to get your head around.

Speaker 1: 2:22

Two reasons Cloud based technology releases you from any hardware dependencies on your site. You can have just baseline hardware at your office locations as well, as it allows for remote management of staff as well as remote management of clients. Having people come in for appointments when it's not absolutely necessary is not where you want to be, because, again, it takes time Every hour on the day spent managing inconsistencies in your technology base is time lost that could be spent in sales or providing the excellent customer service that you want to provide. For example, even the base accounting packages, they're all cloud based now, all the major players. So from your experience, that transition is the most important one right off the bat, correct, yeah?

Speaker 2: 3:19

absolutely so if we look at, I guess, the way or why jump into cloud accounting or newer technologies? Looking at history, you could scale with desktop technology, but you had a ton of people coming out of universities in who were accountants. They went into accountants to become CPAs CGAs at the time and you were able to find labor very, very easily and the clients didn't really care what you were on, they just took your recommendation. Now, technology and the platforms that we use are client-driven. A lot of that was driven by accountants who were working with Xero and QuickBooks to move people onto the cloud. But now that so many people have, the clients are the ones who are actually wanting us to go onto the cloud and wanting us to use software that integrates and is more efficient. So if you're not jumping into that type of software, you're falling behind, so that in your falling you're not being progressive. I guess you need to be progressive in order to grow.

Speaker 2: 4:34

Some accountants still, they still don't wanna grow, so they're fine, but they're the ones that were losing clients. But they're ready to retire or whatever. But wouldn't you rather exit your firm rather than just let it fizzle away as you retire? You can get an income from your retirement. You know things like that. So I guess I'm kind of going off a tangent, but there's basically moving into. Newer technology is vital for any accounting firm to grow or to scale. You're, we don't have the access to staff like we used to. We have to in a lot of cases. A lot of firms have to outsource in order to make up the capacity to bring on new clients so that they can make the living that they want to make.

Speaker 2: 5:26

In order to do that you need software, and people worry about the security and the privacy and things like that, but remember that cloud software is built by larger companies than we are and their security is paramount to their success, where, if you have on-premise software and on-premise servers, you are much more susceptible to a security breach than you are if you had a cloud software from a billion dollar company.

Speaker 1: 6:00

Also auditable transactions, but cloud-based platforms intrinsically have transaction audits, access audits, you know, and who's logged in, or what user is logged in as well as I always recommend minimum of two-factor authentication so that just handing out the password and someone accessing in roles that they're not part of their operations, that's just not the way to conduct a tight business. One thing that I'd like to point out is, with the movement towards cloud-based accounting, like large corporations, you end up creating silos within your organization, potentially because you have to look at the use of the cloud-based accounting solution, but also its integrative capabilities. How does it integrate with your communication systems? How does it integrate with your document transfer and sending? How does it integrate with your communication with your customers as well as internally? So those are other factors that you have to consider.

Speaker 1: 7:05

You can't just say, oh, I have QuickBooks online now and I'm using that, all good, You're still sending emails, you're still having to store documents. What are you doing? Where are you putting those PDFs? How is that being managed? Also, how do you show like if you have difficult clients or clients that demand almost a transactional communication, how do we deal with that? And so that nothing falls to the cracks because you don't wanna have that request language for two weeks and then that could lose you to the client. A lot of clients, a lot of things I hear is, oh, I don't use this account anymore because they never got back to me even on the simplest question, you know so you want to be almost automate your, your, your responses.

Speaker 1: 7:50

I just say, hey, we got it, now we're on it, so they managing expectation, so yeah.

Speaker 2: 7:57

Right, like it protects you, right, your communication, you know, working, working with your client, having that, an audit of your actual, of your actual communications with that client and and an audit, or you know, I guess not an audit, but but the ability to review their you know the history of communications, a history of due dates and what you and the actual tasks that were performed on them. So when a client is saying something, it protects us, right? It's. When a client is saying something like yeah, I haven't heard anything or nothing's been done, we can look up their file and say we've, you know, we've put in 10 hours on this file already and you've contacted us three times. We've replied every time. So I don't know what you're talking about. And then we've actually so I've actually had clients Try to try to pull that, because you know, clients not not everybody is that ethical, and we would bring that up and we'd actually send them the, we'd actually send them a PDF or or document Showing all of the communications, a big oh okay, I'm sorry, and then we would actually turn that relationship right around.

Speaker 2: 9:01

So, which is which is huge too, so having the communications integrated and having an actual online type of environment to be able to manage your clients, your firms and your clients. Books and and and actual work itself, I Think is super important, especially if you're scaling. You need all of that information in order to to make sure you know, to make decisions, to make sure things are running properly. It's very, it's very difficult to do so without being able to see it.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Well, also brings trust. They trust that you are on the ball, accurate. It's almost like our intrinsic distrust actually creates trust. But but, and actually not. And again it could be turned around saying look, will remind you of what you wanted, will remind you of what you stated, because we want to fulfill what you, you desire as far as your customer requests. So here's what you asked, and now it's done.

Speaker 1: 10:00

That kind of good stuff. So you know, yes, it is, it is a background protection of the hurricane if your reputation affirmed, but at the same time it's a helper. You're helping them because, especially a lot of business people do not, honestly don't, remember making requests at certain times, because they make the request while running into the car and on the phone and Then they forgot that they requested it. So that good stuff. So so, ted, so beyond the accounting solutions, what, what type of support is out there technologically For that purpose, like there's is there, is there, you know, and again, best, in breed platforms or services that you've used, that you like, that you know, could help help our, our friends here listening and watching, help them do some research or set them in the right direction.

Speaker 2: 11:00

Absolutely yeah. So well, first of all, zero is one of our, our favorite partners that we work with. Zero is awesome to you know, for the, for the ledger, obviously. And then QuickBooks online, very, very popular in North America. And replacing QuickBooks desktop. A lot of people don't like to replace it with QuickBooks desktop, but eventually desktop's going to be gone, guys. So get on the ball, get on it and start moving forward. But so that that's just for a regular ledger and bookkeeping.

Speaker 2: 11:35

Now, looking at some other things, like getting into a little bit larger companies. We're looking at ERP. What are some good online? You know decent ERPs. You can look at things like acumatica or even Sage intact to to make sure that you have. You have that online experience. And then you're creating efficiencies. And then we like for manufacturing companies, we actually used to, we like to use an MRP called Katana. We actually use that one with a couple clients and they've enjoyed it. So they went right from Netsuite into that, which is not sweet, isn't bad, but it has its place. But Katana ended up saving them so much money and time. They, they, they were so thrilled when we put them on Katana. It was amazing.

Speaker 2: 12:14

Another thing so some industry specific software there's there's a ton of them out there but so like ones that that we like to use. Like we used to work with service companies a lot, so we would use something like Jobber, homebay or sorry, housecall Pro and and and service service Titan. So these are some some pretty good ones, but that's more for service based. When you get into legal like, there's a million apps. So I've I've reviewed and looked at over 300 apps in the accounting space and and I think that's a good one. So you can definitely come and check, check out our site as, as we grow our community, we're going to try to try to make it easy for you to find best in class application and we're going to try to make it easy for you to find the best in class application software services that you can help grow your firm and grow your clients. Great, I said.

Speaker 1: 13:18

I'm going to call you the task, maybe a later publication associated with this, and as well as the blog, step one, best in breed, we'll have a hit list of maybe your top 20 that you've looked at and that's going to be a great one. Maybe your top 20 that you've looked at and that people can research and look at themselves. We don't want to force anyone down any channels, but at the same time, there are. There are those that you've been exposed to with your experience and you have an opinion on.

Speaker 2: 13:41

Yeah, absolutely so we're, we're totally agnostic, except when it comes to our direct competition, right, because because we do sell something, right? So, but doesn't mean that we're that, we're that we're against plugging them if they, if they, do something better than we do. So we're agnostic, we're. We're about community and creating the best solution for, for the community and for partners within it. So we're, we're totally not going to push you in one direction or another.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Even though our solutions and service we provide is all encompassing for your marketing right to the, from first contact to maintaining that contact.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Yeah, we, yeah, we don't just fill your pipeline, we fill your capacity, but anyway we won't get into that. We're not trying to sell ourselves, no, but, but, but. So I do want to talk about a couple other ones. So, and the reason why is because there are some that I've in Canada. There's one partner that we work with called WagePoint, and I want to talk about them because they're a great example of how to quickly automate work with small to medium size enterprises and create a solution that almost removes you from the equation but you're able to still monetize from it and have a professional service. When WagePoint came into Canada much like gusto in the US WagePoint almost dominated, so ADP kind of, for when it came to small companies, adp was kind of like the bigger player and WagePoint just came in and just took up all the small clients. They had a really good working relationship with accountants and so they were wonderful.

Speaker 2: 15:27

Another one that I see emerging, which services North America now is countable. Countable is great for year ends, and so not necessarily working specifically on client accounts, but what you are working on there accounts, but helping with your actual work itself. So those two are very, very important. So countable almost automates the year end process for reviews, for compilations and, hopefully, audits in the near future. So these are some really great tools that you can look at. They're not just trying to plug these people. I really want people to see that there's some stuff out there that they can really benefit from.

Speaker 1: 16:14

Well, that's great.

Speaker 1: 16:16

Now my exposure is not as direct with relationships, with accounts 2.0, but I do get exposed to the WagePoint's marketing and their interaction and their presence.

Speaker 1: 16:26

They do have the depth on a lot of levels to form great relationships with their partners and I was looking forward to experiencing more of that as the quarters march on.

Speaker 1: 16:41

So basically, and my focus with our clients and the partners that we work with is on integration, and I guess my philosophy is you have to open the playing field to allow for opportunity by doing this, making sure you have not only cloud-based accounting platforms that allow for versatility and flexibility for your staff and your clients, again the integration to communication tools. And not only is it an example for your client, showing that your best in breed user of marketing stuff, like you said, you set an example. If your client is a cutting edge, forward thinking client trying to sell something new or innovative, if you're not, that you're not aligned with them and so you really could not, can't really service them philosophically, and then you're not going to help their bottom line. You'll just be an order taker doing their taxes, doing their books. You want to be more than that. You really want to be a partner. So that's why I believe the best in breed philosophy for a new age account is critical.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Well, you don't just integrate the software, you integrate yourself into their firm right, into their company, because, well, first of all, that's going to build a great relationship. If you have, you know, all of your technology is integrated in and you're managing and helping them with it. Now you have trust built, you have all of these things, you're ingrained into their business and you have staying power. But you're more likely to work with each other if something does go wrong, to help each other out, to resolve those issues. And if you're just, you know, arms distance with them working on their stuff from some whole, you know some office with some desktop thing, they just drop off their information every so often. You're, you know, you are, you're just a number to them.

Speaker 1: 18:52

Your replacement.

Speaker 2: 18:54

Yeah, and then they're just a number to you, they're just, you know, at that point they're just money. There's not relationship, there's just I need to do their year end. I make, you know, $2,500 from their year end and so, and then, and then I go from there and that's that's. You know that's not a sustainable solution. These days they expect more, especially with you know, software, cfo services, growing advisory. You have to stay ahead and you have to use technology to do that, or at least to help you do that. It's not necessarily to do it.

Speaker 1: 19:26

And that touches on step two, which will be coming up about making the client the center of everything and offering that flexibility. And you can only do it by figuring out step one, which is creating that technological base to provide that flexibility.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Absolutely Great.

Speaker 1: 19:43

Well, folks, this was a great talk. Thanks, ted. Always, always a pleasure when we have these discussions looking forward to the next one, which would be it is a step two, which is making the class of the client at the center of all. Until that time, have a great day and see you next time.

Speaker 2: 20:03

See you.