Intuit AI Write-Back, ApprovalMax Pricing and Telleroo Interest || Be In The Loop

[00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Digi-Tools In Accrual World, the podcast brought to you by The Loop and we cover all things wise and wonderful in the accounting tech world to have you cut through the noise of everything that's happening, busy app marketplace. And in this week's episode, we're going to focus heavily on payments. So myself, Lara Manton and Robbie White have just spent the last hour speaking about all things good and great and we've seen a systematic pattern.

[00:00:28] So I'm going to throw it over to Robbie for a moment. Robbie, tell us what was your favorite bits on this week's episode and what should everyone should keep an ear out for? Well, in shock and horror, you know, there is so much happening in the space, but I think the really exciting part for me was a little bit around how that might affect some of the payments that we're starting to see from businesses.

[00:00:47] So the fact that we might start to see agents actually raising invoices, doing POs, maybe soon making payments, who knows? But, you know, really, really excited about that and definitely something that stood out for me today. And Lara, tell me, what did you think? Because I know that we covered back and forth on a few different things, but which was your favorite kind of aspect or story and things that people should listen out for in this episode?

[00:01:12] I think it's really interesting about where software stays in their lane and adds value rather than trying to take up marketplace. So we've got things like Debt's adding the payments. We've got Sage integrating more with GoCardless on that pay by bank feature. And then we've got kind of some of the changes that happens behind the scenes. So Approval Max's pricing, which I think is a big talking point at the moment.

[00:01:39] How do you do that right? How do you add more functionality and add what your clients need without having that friction there for clients to kind of understand what's going on and why they're paying for things? Yeah, it was for sure. There was quite a lot in there about how we could streamline payments across the board and also what it means for some of you who maybe are users of these products already, like Approval Max, like Telleroo.

[00:02:07] Some great news and some not so great news, but if you stay tuned on this episode, then we'll cover all of those different aspects of all things good and great payment this week. Thanks for joining us. Listen, if your clients are still drowning in manual HR and payroll admin, you need to tell them about Employment Hero. It's an AI powered platform that actually takes action. Automated candidate screening, smart payroll, real time compliance updates, the works.

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[00:03:02] So Intuit is not hinting that they're into the capital weeds anymore, which we've known that for a long time in the US. But they are fully in it. So they have launched a native business credit card issued through WebBank on MasterCard Rails. I think this is long overdue. And actually, we've seen many incumbents try and solve this. I've seen companies like Pileo and all sorts of other companies that have said, OK, we want to issue it with credit cards and have spend controls, receipt matching.

[00:03:32] We already have things like the cash flow insights. Now we can go a step further with credit access inside the accounting platform. And I think this is a big step beyond what is the better expenses play for them. It's kind of going back to what we were saying Xero is trying to do and their bank thesis. But the thing is, Intuit has already been doing this in the US for quite a few years with QuickBooks Capital.

[00:03:59] So putting it onto a card, I don't think is that different from what they were trying to achieve. The main thing is that they're cutting out some of the other people in the ecosystem. Again, it goes back to this thin layer of software that if you're just creating something that sits on top of the GL, I would say that QuickBooks, they see this as an actual credit product. The software is seeing the spend. It's categorizing it. It's reconciling it.

[00:04:29] It's learning from that spend. And then it can extend capital against the business profile, the business data, which is very, very neat. I think it's a great revenue model for them in terms of what they are able to generate from, I'm probably sure, interchange on this. But the card is also something that is a cleaner book and a better cash flow visibility.

[00:04:53] I think that's super fair for them because why add layers of more softwares and more cards being issued when you can do all of that within inside the software and keep all of that line between the accounting software, expense management, and the lender even slicker, I guess, to have the connection between all of them. And also, it just makes a bigger data play for them. So the real asset is not the card.

[00:05:22] We always know this with when you're gathering and harvesting big data. It's the feedback loop. QuickBooks already has the accounting data. If you add the card spend and repayment behavior in particular, receipt quality and the employee usage and cash flow patterns, insured is getting the sharpest read of that business. In real time, it's really useful for underwriting.

[00:05:44] It's something that banks have struggled with for years to get this right, which is why we've seen such a dearth in that space of getting small businesses access to capital. And I think this is really interesting because we're seeing big moves in this space, some of which I think we will come on to in this episode with Alica. But we've also seen, you know, Starling have moved into the accounting space in a slightly different way. We've seen some things in the market coming out around Sage and what they're doing with GoCardless.

[00:06:13] So I think this is a much more explicit version of how to broach the problem of lending to small businesses in a capital efficient way and making sure that you see in real time what's happening with their cash drive. What do we think about this? So this is an interesting one, I think. As you say, I think it's more about the data side and the collection side and having that feedback loop of what is actually going on with the business and how it works.

[00:06:40] I know, for example, Dexter a few years ago did a Dex credit card. You could get a Dex credit card, but for them it was around the capture side. It was powered by Capital on Tap. They partnered with, you could get it, and it was about getting that kind of data capture. You're already spending, let's give you an expense card kind of thing. Whereas QuickBooks feels like it's this Intuit thing feels like it's a bit different. It feels like it's more, as you say, getting a better picture of the business and then saying, right, okay, we already know what your business is doing.

[00:07:09] Therefore, you can have this amount of credit, this amount of, this is what you need, as opposed to being a reactive thing of we've got capture, you're spending, let's give you an extra card. If we go back to the most important thing here, what is the user experience that we're trying to get? What is Intuit ultimately trying to do? They're trying to make it as easy as possible for people to run their businesses through Intuit.

[00:07:33] And I find that this is going to be just the constant demand that we see, new software, new integration points, but also these new services that weren't offered by these spaces before. So definitely, you know, I mean, I think it's a big play. I think there is a lot there. And to Laura's point, you know, more data, more insights.

[00:07:52] But I also think the other side is it just shows where the market's heading, which is like, how do we get closer to our clients to try and get as much information and also to try and help them have the best experience through our platform? I think that's the key here. I 100% agree. And I think in general, Intuit is looking at, well, Intuit, QuickBooks, looking at the problem in a holistic way when they compare themselves to their contemporaries.

[00:08:19] I do think because they're an American, big American outfit. And I've always said this, Americans do so many things differently from us and they really understand debt a lot better these days than we do. So when you see businesses that are growing, they tend to understand that, okay, you've got to leverage your debt a bit better. You work in capital, what's trapped in the receivables, how you can sell that. Very good at moving money.

[00:08:48] So this is just a really great example of Americans just doing what they're good at. It used to be us. It used to be the British. Intuit particularly, I think, are doing amazing things, India. And I've been able to have a little look around some of the work that they're doing on integrating AI into their platform. And I just find that this is really starting to push the envelope a little bit now.

[00:09:12] So they've recently released further integrations into both OpenAI, ChatGPT, as well as kind of other areas inside of the business that they can start to leverage this technology. And what I've really been amazed by, what's been incredible, is it's now starting to actually write back into the system. So they're starting to place a degree of trust in AI in starting to make decisions for a business. And obviously that comes with massive amounts of risk.

[00:09:41] You know, we're starting to say, okay, I'm logging into Inteclord, Threatthropic and the integration there. And I would like you to be able to send a PO to the client for the work that I've engaged on. Or I'd like to send out invoices to these people inside of QuickBooks or, you know, the Intuit systems that they're diversity integrated into. And the scary thing is, it can all be done directly through the AI interface. So this is the big change.

[00:10:08] You know, you're not logging into a ledger-based system or, you know, QuickBooks or whatever it may be to try and send these out and say, okay, I need to log in there. And now I can log into one interface, being your AI agent or your AI assistant every single day. And that's going to make, again, from a user experience perspective, it just makes that user experience amazing. Because it's supporting everything that I need to do. It's helping me do this.

[00:10:34] However, and this is the big kind of but moment, but we're now expecting the AI to do that correctly every single time. And that is something I'm a little bit uncomfortable with at the moment. And I always say at the moment because I'm pretty sure these things advance and they get better.

[00:10:53] But right now what we started to see some of the hallucinations and also just, you know, some of the challenges around governance of where we should be using these types of tools and how is still really kind of new to people. And on the smaller businesses, I don't think they have the resources of some of the larger businesses to put in place governance, controls, decision-making bodies. And so what's happening is people say, oh, it's really easy. I can now send out, you know, POs and I can send out invoices.

[00:11:21] And at some point, maybe I can, you know, support my immediate tax returns and I support my everything else that I need to do. And the challenge with that is that, you know, where is the degree of oversight, of judgment, of decision-making that's still necessary from a professional in the role? And what does this mean for kind of where we're going to go? It's really exciting. I don't want to sort of, you know, deviate from that too much.

[00:11:48] I think it's really cool that this is the direction of travel, but it's definitely got some big risks. I don't know if you guys kind of have any views on this. I know, Laura, you've, before we've had chats on this side, but are your thoughts? My concern, there is big concerns from here, from me, because yes, it's brilliant, but small businesses are going to be the people that use it.

[00:12:11] And they're the ones that don't have the time and maybe don't have the knowledge around audit trails, what needs to be done. And if it gets something wrong, they're going to be massively impacted. So that's my concern. If you've got a big finance team with three or four people looking at the same thing, you're going to pick things up. You're going to understand. You're going to learn. You're going to build something in. You're going to build those controls in.

[00:12:33] If you're a small one-man band business and you just want to use this to get things out the door quicker, yes, but actually there is going to be a learning curve and there is going to be issues at the start. And you need to be aware of that. And if you send the wrong invoice amount, can you really go back to your customers and go, oh, yeah, by the way, chat GPT sent that invoice for me. And I actually, you actually owe me X, Y and Z. So I think it's got to be used with a bit of a very sort of cautious start to it. As you say, these things are learning. They're going to get better.

[00:13:03] But there is this concern that you're kind of people are going to see that. I had a client last week put their VAT return through Claude and came up with all sorts of wonderful things that were not applicable whatsoever. So that's where it just concerns me that these small businesses will see this and jump on it without actually understanding the risks behind it. You know, we're so trained to hear something that tells us that we're right just and then believe it and say, yeah, we're right. I mean, that's what it says. I'm right.

[00:13:32] And I think one of the things that I have been really fortunate this last couple of weeks, I've kind of observed some new technologies coming out there and they're not. They're still a thin layer. But what they have done is they've taken many more sources of intelligence and plugged them into their, I guess, their thin layer. They are multimodal. They are open weights models as well that they have access to.

[00:14:00] So when you look at all of the what they've created, their pledge is, OK, where they see in using one, let's say, like one platform, one model, Claude or OpenAI, ChatGPT, the hallucination rate is somewhere near 30%. And they were able to demonstrate that they could get that hallucination rate down to sub 3%.

[00:14:22] And that was something that, you know, this is someone that's taken a lot of data, really understood and a complex nuance of like M&A, due diligence on deals, balance sheets, looking at all the holistic picture of finance, superb piece of software. But it costs £8,000 per license per year. And, you know, that's to have something that's sub 3%.

[00:14:47] So when you think of, you know, that right now that software exists and people are paying this company £8,000 a year per user just to have access to something that hallucinates less than 3% of the time. Then we should all listen to that and think, well, hang on a minute. Yeah, putting ChatGPT and Claude into the software is great.

[00:15:09] But let's be more aware that if we're saying that the risk is one in three times it's going to get it wrong, then it really means that businesses need to be better educated on knowing that the accountant is the thing that protects you from getting it wrong one in three times. I think that's a statement that we're not saying enough is you can go and get it accurate all through technology, but you should be paying about £8,000 a year for that technology. Or you can pay an accountant to verify it.

[00:15:39] And depending on obviously the size and scale of your business, you know, you might not be paying that £8,000 a year. I do also want to say, though, that I think the interesting part will be when we start to build explainable solutions into that AI platform. So using the skills, which is like a standard automation with Python in an AI tool which integrates easily.

[00:16:06] I think that's kind of where this has to go, because what's really interesting is AI is just becoming that nice little interface that is able to integrate into all of these different areas. But we still haven't, I don't think we've still, to your point, the levels of hallucinations, you know, the certainty we can place on just a probabilistic model is still nowhere near where we need to be.

[00:16:30] Yeah, AI is replacing that kind of the zappiers, the makes, the if-then, with better, because you don't need to know. You can kind of say to the AI, I want you to do X, Y and Z without having that coding knowledge being that connector between information in that way. I think that's a really good use of AI.

[00:16:53] I think it's just that concern of go invoice this for this, how much control do you give it in your accounting system? And actually at year end and your accountant goes to you, if you're a bigger company, your auditor goes to you, how did you have about this? And you go, well, the AI did it. That's going to be an interesting discussion. So next story, again, we're keeping on software increasing and increasing what it can do.

[00:17:20] And Dext have released their payments app or their payments functionality for QuickBooks. So this has been in Xero for a while. Again, we've kind of seen Dext grow since its acquisition. It's gone from the capture, it's built in approvals, the expense module and payment side. So it's trying to capture a bit more, I guess, play against those kind of aprons and other things in the market that are out there that have kind of got that app stack embedded in it.

[00:17:48] So you're going to be able to do your supplier invoices and your expense payments and payroll payments directly from within Dext if you're using QuickBooks. So, again, it makes sense for these apps, I think, to have that because you've kind of gone from the capture piece right the way through to payments. That's your end-to-end AP side. And then, obviously, the way that it connects with the accounting software pushes all that information back in.

[00:18:14] So it helps with reconciliations, all those kind of things. And, again, keeps it out of email chains. I think this is a good way as well to avoid or to cut down a little bit, maybe on fraud, phishing scams, those kind of urgent can-you-pay emails. Yeah, 100%. Giving full visibility, again, because you've got that approval middle as well. So you've got various people that can look at it. And I know that this is something I love doing for my clients is kind of taking a little bit of that headache away and suggesting who they can pay.

[00:18:44] So kind of obviously setting that up, giving the bookkeeper or accountant a little bit more integration within the client's systems to say, right, okay, this is the suggestion. We can kind of set this up. You're still in control. Client's always in control to make that end payment. But, again, with a lot of payment apps out there, with open banking becoming really key, with banks kind of flipping back into accounting software that I know we'll talk about later as well, it's kind of Dexter's trying to corner that area of the market.

[00:19:13] They've been obviously a big market leader for a while. So it is quite interesting to see that they're now kind of branching out into what they offer as a core product across multiple pieces of software. Yeah, I think they've had such a journey this last 18 months, haven't they, Dex, where they've grown exponentially. Exponentially, they've had, it's a huge ship. They've made lots of releases. They have merged with Iris.

[00:19:41] They have had, you know, the big announcements come out from zero. And I just think what we're seeing Dex do here is really just deepen their own relationship to the payment in general. The payments as a putting, you know, pinning your, was it a flag to a mast that says, okay, this is where we are going to win.

[00:20:04] And let's just do really well at that and go as deep as we can into this space so that it's defensible against some of the other propositions that are out there. What do you think will be? I was just going to say, I think the hardest thing with any software that starts to grow its portfolio, when you're starting to look at all the different parts that you can add to this, is they all need to show the relative value to your overall proposition. And to your point, Indy, the overall proposition here is really clear.

[00:20:34] That's the joy. You know, we know what we use Dex for. We know where they're really good. The interesting thing is it's probably starting to go quite wide. They're starting to get quite into further parts of that whole payments process and how much they want to be inside of those. And obviously, that's because, you know, pressure from the market. I mean, I loved your example of apron as an example. Or, you know, there are people that are starting to kind of maybe cover more of that process or maybe challenge them in different parts.

[00:21:03] And they want to make sure this is something we clearly own. So I still think it fits well with their proposition. I think it fits well with what they want to deliver. There's, you know, clear value there. Again, I go back to my earlier point, which is that it's focusing on the clients and what makes it easy for a client. But I do think it's starting to question that for them, it's going to slowly start. How far do they grow? At what point do they say, okay, you know, we are in our sweet spot and stop to grow there? I mean, interesting. Yeah. You know, I can't get it out of my head.

[00:21:33] Laura, you said it earlier. It was like Dex, they launched a card before. And, you know, I think, and QuickBooks launching its own card and we're talking about payments. It does feel like, for me, that I would have liked to have seen Dex go deeper into that world of, again, really, they understand the nuance and they have so much receipt data. More than most other people.

[00:21:59] And so they were, in theory, they would spot patterns a lot quicker than some of the other entities would have because they've seen the kind of patterns that a business has had when it comes to expenses and what they claim for and what looks standard. That was one of the biggest problems that when we spoke to other card or even funding aggregators who wanted to get into the card market.

[00:22:23] It's the data and really understanding how to extend credit to a business. It was so tricky to get that right that the only way to do it was having a very stringent either timeline on, you know, how often the balances need to be settled or having a restricted limit. So you only went to like a few hundred pounds, let's say.

[00:22:48] But again, it's just, it feels like you look at Dex and you're like, oh, you could solve for this. How exciting would that be? Well, your challenge is you can solve for lots of things. It's like, where are you going to have your biggest impact?

[00:23:05] I tend to agree on, like, I don't, sometimes I worry that people are trying to respond to a market or trying to respond to things that are around them and not necessarily taking the time to think about, you know, where they've got data or where they've got a unique leverage that other people might not have. And I do think that the amount of data they've got, you know, the leverage that they could have on something interesting, but it is difficult. It's a difficult problem to solve. Like, let's not, you know, let's not miss that point either.

[00:23:32] And we are not going to solve it on this call, but we are going to, we're going to move on to approval max because otherwise we could spend ages theorizing about what Dex should do. We love you so much that we want you to do well in this market Dex. So approval max, however, are making some new releases and they are also talking about expense management. So you can now capture, submit, approve and pay out expense claims directly in approval max as well.

[00:23:59] It works with Xero and they've also released a couple of other things around faster approval with PO matched bills. So obviously we're leaning heavily into AP here. You can automatically match bills to POs with approval max capture. Some great claims in terms of number of hours saved and the number of each of the bills and auto matches that it completes. It works with Xero, QuickBooks Online and NetSuite.

[00:24:26] And then you can also get auto approval rules for PO matched bills. So you can auto approve trusted or fully matched bills and route unmatched bills for review. So in general for the team, it means a lot less chasing and more control. Now, I am not the only one to talk about approval max this week because I would be, it would be remiss of me not to also acknowledge the fact that I did see a post from Ryan this week,

[00:24:55] which Lara, maybe you can speak a bit more to, but that to say he did give us a heads up by just sending us a little, a little image, that little image that he sent. It was just all he sent was a, by the way, like I'm, I'm posting something tomorrow. Here's the picture. And it was like a little tile of approval max shooting itself in the foot. And it was like, oh.

[00:25:19] So yeah, this is, this is the big news, I guess, from approval max is a complete and utter overhaul of their pricing. So instead it was obviously you got everything in one or you had bundles. So if you want to capture, if you want to pay, you added those on, but the core platform you paid based on what you were connected to. So now we're going to be tier based usage. You're going to have it bundled, completely bundled. So pay and capture come all in one.

[00:25:48] This is quite interesting because this is how they do it for NetSuite billing or have done it for NetSuite billing for a while. It's now going to be rolled out across all the, all the things. Part of me wonders whether this is to do with the AI. Obviously capture has a lot of AI in the background. They've just brought out an AI search functionality as well. So there's more and more AI getting embedded in the system. But it does again feel like they're moving away slightly from the core of the core was approvals.

[00:26:16] And rather than Dex going, we've got the receipt capture. We're going to add in the payments. Approval max has got, we've got the approvals. We've added in capture, which makes complete sense. Although obviously they've still got the Dex connection. They've still got, you can bring it in from zero. You've got, you can pull in from different bits. Capture does make sense in this case. But not everyone might want the pay section. I think from my experience of using approval max and I use it daily for a client, they are big clients with a lot of documents.

[00:26:45] Those are the sorts of businesses that like approval max are the people that have a lot of documents that have complex workflows that need more than the basic approval chains in other pieces of software. And that has been the market they've been really, really strong in. So it will be interesting to see how this works against that because it was really a really low cost. You could add it on. You could have two or three different things. Yes. Now they're bringing out expense claims.

[00:27:12] I think they need to with this functionality and with this change in pricing. But it will be interesting to see whether it's like, oh, actually, we could probably get by with the approvals in another piece of software or whether it is going to drag the people that are using, for example, Dex into approval max. Will they just completely move to the approval max? So I think it's going to be really interesting. But like Ryan, I was a bit concerned when I saw that announcement.

[00:27:40] It's quite a hike as well. It's not quite. I mean, it wasn't. Yeah. And they're getting rid of things like multi sort of user discount, multi client discounts, those kind of things. I know Xero have done that as well. We're getting rid of those multi discounts. But it is it's probably part of it is they've again, they've kept their pricing quite stagnant over the last five, six years. They haven't really had a price increase. Small ones here and there.

[00:28:05] And I think now they've realized, right, OK, we've built so much into the app, but we're going to need to start recouping some of those costs back. I think that's that's, you know, the way that they've obviously gone wrong is just not doing it as an annual thing. And just perhaps also, like you said, is there some double subsidy happening here that we knew was coming?

[00:28:28] Alastair Barlow, who's been on the pod many times, has spoken about this, you know, this double subsidy of software costs where you're using and underpinning with AI. And then you've got your own technology on top of that and your build costs. So I was just paying twice for something. I mean, that that sort of would be from the judging by the type of price change that Ryan described is like is exactly that territory of double subsidizing the cost. And so much of it is also just the communication around these things.

[00:28:58] I think sometimes it's like, how are you when you're educating the market when everybody's ready for it and they're expecting it? And, you know, but it feels very much like it's landed. I mean, I love I did love Ryan's meme that he posted. I won't lie. But I think the reason I loved it was because, I mean, he was just saying, like, this has happened. I wasn't 100 percent ready for it. And now I'm responding. And obviously, it's great that the new functionality is there. But to have to pay for this amount for it and this way, it doesn't feel so.

[00:29:28] I do think some of it is also just how these things are communicated, how they engage. I do think your point in the around kind of like, is it an annual cycle? Prepare for those and share that message more clearly makes more sense. And I do think that that's the case for many changes. You know, many of the changes in the market, it's really how do you message kind of some of those changes and what they look like? One of those I'm sorry, going to share because I love this one. I love the name as well, by the way, Cashew.

[00:29:56] But one of those was around, you know, we've spoken about banks and how they're starting to kind of get more into the accounting space. We're seeing how they are. You know, many, as we've discussed before, many of the GL-based tools that we love so well are integrating into banks. But the same is true the other way around. And Alica is a perfect example of, I think, this messaging that we're talking about, messaging into the market. What are they clearly going after? What are they trying to say?

[00:30:25] So they've released Cashew, which is obviously their own tool as it's backed by the bank. It's also backed by Alica. And the really good thing is that it aligns to what Alica has been trying to kind of drive as a message. Their engagement with accountants. They're working with kind of the industry as a whole. And I think what's interesting is this solution is pulling together multiple different accounts into a single lens.

[00:30:51] So we can start to see, you know, all of the different transactions across all of the different entities that we would be engaging with. And it's something that I think every accountant is desperate to see from like all of the banks. Can we just see everything, please, in one place? Make it really easy for us. That would be great. But this is not necessarily always the business owner's problem or the actual people that accountants work for. It really is kind of targeted towards a lot of what we are seeing for accountants.

[00:31:18] So if I go back to my point earlier, the market that they're trying to serve is accountants. And they're doing that really well because they understand where our pain is. And they are trying to target to solve that specific solution. And I think one of the things that I do think this is going to allow them to do, which maybe is a bit different from what we've seen from other banks in the space, is it allows them to kind of test the markets, get feedback, and iterate on the product.

[00:31:47] It's not going to be just like we're integrating an existing tool into what we do. And we want it to kind of seamlessly work together. And we have no knowledge of how it's kind of being built or developed. This is really part of Alica's holistic proposition. And going back to the communications, it's a clear communication that we want to work with accountants. And we want to really try and get a clear lens on this. It gives a much better lens back on some of the key things that accountants want to see.

[00:32:12] So where they are on the cash position as a whole, where we want debtors across multiple different entities, maybe any particular risks that we may be seeing. So that I just think it's a really different way of how we can communicate and also that progressive change inside of a sector which maybe needs it over time. I mean, I'm sure, I don't know if you've seen any clients actually using this. This is one of the things I'm trying to find kind of feedback. But it feels like a really interesting thing at the moment.

[00:32:39] I mean, they've come out quite strongly before in favor of accountants. And their approach is quite different. I mean, it does feel like they've picked up areas of the business market. They've been quite unloved and dusted them off. And this kind of feels like another good example of how they're trying to build up very good data diligence. They've made some very good acquisitions of lending books.

[00:33:08] They have then converted those customers into current account customers. They've launched new lending products that are specialized to that market in, you know, whether it's in commercial property mortgages. They've taken the decisioning down to like, I think, less than a week in some cases. And the way they've done that is just from having a really good approach to how to work with the, I guess, the high street as well.

[00:33:36] You know, they put more relationship managers out there. They've then wanted to work with the accountants. They've gone in through the back door fully and said, right, we're going to take this data. And I don't think I've heard them come out and say, yeah, we're going to take this data. And then, you know, what we're going to let them do is file their own accounts. I actually feel like this is the only one true example of how a bank who is a neobank has said, we're not touching any of that.

[00:34:03] What we are going to do is help you make sure that this data is computated in the right way so we can get you better access to capital, which is what a bank should really be about. I think there is that clear differential, isn't it? It's not this latest MTD product or we're going to take over the bookkeeper or accountant role. It is how to work with the clients. And again, Robbie, we've been talking a lot about client experience and that side of things today, haven't we?

[00:34:31] So bringing that all together in a way that kind of we're using this information to better help you as a business. We're not going to take away from your advisors and your people around you. What we're going to do is lean on the information to help us help you. And I think that's a real key point on this as opposed to we're going to do your accounts and taxes. We're going to take over the bookkeeper and accountant because, as you say, indeed, they built good relationships with bookkeepers and accountants.

[00:34:58] And a few of the other banks out there and neobanks out there kind of feel like it's a bit of a slap in the face of, oh, yeah, we built a great relationship. But then we're going to actually take your job or we're going to say to clients that they don't need you. Whereas cashier feels like it sits more in the space that bank really should. I love it when a Jerry Maguire reference happens. We're calling Alica the Jerry Maguire of our space. Thank you. That's brilliant.

[00:35:24] So we've had a lot of payments again today, but we're leaning on with another one, which is Sage have deepened their GoCardless integration. So Sage Business Cloud will now have pay by bank. So they've already had the direct debit side of it. But this will now give you the instant, the one-off payments, the bank side. So for clients that don't necessarily need direct debit, but you still want that functionality to do it all within the bank. Again, big sort of thing for GoCardless.

[00:35:54] They've had this out there for Xero for a number of years. They've had it in other pieces of software. But again, another nod that Sage is still trying to gain that space on the smaller businesses, I guess, because, again, this is a smaller business tool for it. It cuts costs, again, for businesses, the card versus card payments. We all know that Stripe and those kind of things are great, but they can be very costly. So GoCardless have had this proposition for a while, and they're now trying to balance that out on there.

[00:36:23] So it's about, again, GoCardless trying to regain some of the market as well, maybe. They've been around for a very long time. But again, as we said earlier with Dex, there's some challenges in that space. There's different things in that space. And I think it's quite interesting that we've had a lot around payments this week. There's a lot going on in that space. It seems to be quite a clear mover and shaker at the moment. Capture was the thing for a while.

[00:36:51] It feels like payments are now the big thing that everyone's maybe not trying to solve because it's been solved various ways in various times. But it feels like the apps that are out there are deepening or encouraging more features within it and building it out, which, again, just, I guess, shows how easy it is with the open banking side and with the integrations now to do everything. And this is one that, I guess, makes sense.

[00:37:17] If you've got that GoCardless integration with Sage already and you're using direct debit, why not use the whole suite of features? Yeah, it just feels like it. I mean, for me, part of this is, you know, an expectation. Like I would have expected this to happen. It feels quite logical. I mean, it's great that it's happening. Is it a massive advance which is going to materially change the way? I don't think so. I mean, maybe I haven't seen enough of this pain. But for me, this feels like a kind of logical extension of what they're doing.

[00:37:46] I mean, I do question how long it's taken maybe to go into this because for me, it just feels logical, you know. But I do accept that there's value there. There's clearly value. You know, obviously, I think it's more going to, you know, simplification, easier we can make it for people to kind of do what they necessarily want. And I get going back to your point, Laura, around lots around payments. I guess that's why. Because that's the pain point everybody has, right?

[00:38:13] This is something we're all going to face and that's why people are focusing on because it's a pain point that every single business has every single day of the month we need to solve for. But yeah, I don't know any thoughts. Props to Sage. Props to Sage. That's my thought on it. Props to them. They have done something that they, you know, for a while there, they were looking at how they could solve for different ways of working.

[00:38:37] And they're getting closer and closer to making that cycle completely frictionless for whether it's like working with Satago, whether it's working with now go cardless. And I think it just shows a consistent pattern for them. You're right. Everyone's just going and leaning in. Laura, like you said, leaning in towards payments. And, you know, it does feel just super logical.

[00:39:02] Why wouldn't they, you know, we have seen payments has been like the fastest race to the bottom for all of those that have been independent payment providers for a very long time. So we had a load of payment providers come in. They consolidated into bigger softwares in many cases. And those bigger softwares have continued to get bigger. But the friction was still there because we still had to go from one system to another.

[00:39:28] So this is just now like it feels like the technology lifecycle, but it's just now making that seamless and more integrated. And I've got something else on payments, which I'm going to really enjoy for a moment because I really like these guys. Tellaroo is stretching from the Pay Run tool into money movement layer. Let's call them that. So outbound payments have remained the core.

[00:39:52] But the roadmap, and I went on their webinar call just to understand the roadmap now includes inbound receipts, pay by bank, on zero invoices, interest-bearing saving pots, which I love, direct debits, and mobile payment creation, as well as they've kind of done some rebuild on like partner dashboards. This is meaningful. This is juicy.

[00:40:13] This is something that means that, you know, money that comes into Tellaroo sits inside Tellaroo and earns interest via Griffin. So Griffin Bank is a UK bank, and they have declared that there will be, I think it's somewhere near to 2.8% interest. I wasn't quite sure of that final marker, but the payments can then go out through Pay Runs or through direct debit.

[00:40:39] It looks like they're saying, okay, we'll help you make the payments, but we're going to operate like a, you know, an account beside the client's bank, which I don't know if they will like that framing or not of that. But I really like that as something that says, you know, we are a streamlined speedboat. This is really great for accountants. I mean, for outsourced finance teams, it's super practical.

[00:41:08] If a customer receipt lands in to Tellaroo, the Pay Run can essentially fund itself. There's no more clients moving money from their bank to Tellaroo after the invoice has already been paid elsewhere. It's like this is super streamlined. I like it from the security perspective as well. I like in general how Tellaroo approach this with accountants because they make sure they give a lot of advice to accountants on how to work with clients on streamlining.

[00:41:37] And this is a form of treasury management that's finally coming into the accountant space that they can do something with. I know that other applications have come out of recent. So we've seen things like Round Treasury and they've spoken about moving money around between accounts so that you can have interest bearing accounts. But what is really great for those customers that are already within Tellaroo, this is, you know, and you're already managing payments across the clients.

[00:42:01] You'll have things that are genuine improvements like the partner dashboard, who's mid in by, who needs funds, who needs approvals, what's stuck. You've got less tab hopping. You've got fewer client by client treasure hunts basically. So I love all of the updates they gave this week. The zero pay now link is also a nice little feature. If zero invoices can take payboy bank, then that lands funds into Tellaroo and you can do all sorts of clever stuff.

[00:42:31] So great, great, great. And we will definitely, you know, we want some feedback from anyone that is a Tellaroo user who is excited by this as well. Because obviously I am not someone that's using it, but as having been someone that's worked in lending tech and in banking tech, I just thought this was such a clever move by them. And yeah, really excited to see how it goes down with the market. I think that's the key thing, Indy. I feel like it's, it's again, offering more in the right space.

[00:42:57] So it's reducing, as you say, that key thing of having to reduce the payment into Tellaroo. Actually having that funded, it takes it off the business owner to, oh yeah, crap, I've got to actually put that money in there. Because as much as we can send, and I use Tellaroo with a couple of clients, as much as you can send them the invite that you need to transfer, how many times do they actually remember to transfer? And you have to do that. So that reduces again the friction and the benefit of that. Oh, well, hang on.

[00:43:23] If you stick money in Tellaroo and we have some money there up front, you're going to also earn interest. Who's going to say no to that? And you know, Lara, just go a step further on that because having come from this world a little bit, what I really think is I don't mind sharing bread with people who learn how to share bread with me.

[00:43:42] And so if Tellaroo has done the hard graft of making sure that I can earn some interest on my money, which I would not have earned before, I don't mind that they don't do the thing that we've just seen Approval Max do and everyone, you know, like increase the prices. Instead, why don't you just earn a little bit of interest on the money too? Because I wouldn't have had access to that before. And I think that is super smart.

[00:44:05] I'm not saying that's what I think, or, you know, they haven't said that, but I would, my positioning on that is, yes, like this is something I would be very happy to do with a partner like that, given that if it wasn't but for them, I wouldn't have access to this. So I think super, yeah, super for this. And especially like you said, it's been a payments heavy episode by the sound of it.

[00:44:29] Like with everything that we've seen with Sage and Go Cardless, and we saw obviously accounts like Q&Go Cardless a couple of weeks back, Dex payments, Intuit's card, all sorts, right? We're seeing a lot, but the Tellaroo angle feels slightly more accountant-led in terms of the payments and operational controls, and not just like some sort of, you know, bank gloss. So, yeah, very excited about that. I think, do you know what it is, Indy?

[00:44:58] It's that they understand that problem really, really well. They understand the problem that people are facing, and they understand the people that they're working with in the space. They understand that Indy is okay with sharing her bread. I'm going to definitely hold that one up. But Indy's okay with sharing her bread with Tellaroo. Let's note that. Not Deliveroo, but Tellaroo. But I think, you know, what it does also say is that you need to play in a space that you know really, really well.

[00:45:23] And you can't just jump in to things that you don't know, which, unfortunately, we've also seen a little bit of. So, one of the last things I wanted to share was just a quick kind of, I guess, idea that's come out. And it's both the idea as well as a practical example of it, I suppose. So, to speak about a specific tool, we've seen AuditSnap, which has come out of the market. It was built off of a backlog of requirements, actually, which came from Xero.

[00:45:51] Basically, there was a specific requirement which had gone through Xero. But what was really important for me was we had a developer who got into this, and they said, there is a clear demand for a market. The market I need to solve has got 589 people who are, you know, able to give me feedback on it. And I can build this application. But the principle here is they saw that there was a problem. They actually went and did some research and found out who the 589 people that were kind of doing these votes were

[00:46:20] and tried to get the feedback. But it's not their problem. It wasn't something they were feeling every single day. And they were not as invested in understanding why it was a real problem. They were not as invested in understanding, you know, the people that were providing that feedback. What was it really about? At the end of the day, it kind of obviously has landed a bit flat or no demand. And I don't believe it's going to be rolled out any wider. But I think the big thing here is that it shows something that we're starting to see more and more in the market, which is loads of things are coming up.

[00:46:51] They're all trying to solve independent problems really, really quickly. People might not be as invested in the market or have invested as long inside of that, willing to kind of go through some of the pain. And also, you know, through the article and through the informational share, you'll see that they refer to it as a vitamin problem, which was really an interesting way to kind of, you know, look at these things. And it's like it's not a change which is going to happen overnight. It's not something that people are just going to immediately adopt.

[00:47:20] It's not something that you can take a vitamin once and everything is fine. I'm OK. It's really something that is continuous change over time, continuous investment into a market and really understanding the problem that you're trying to solve. No, no. I think you're 100% right. 100% right, Robbie. I share with you and everyone that, you know, I thought the same thing when I was in younger version of me. So well over, I don't know how long now.

[00:47:48] Well, it's well over a decade or so ago. It's like almost like, I don't know, longer than that. But anyway, I was getting married and I thought, my God, it was so painful trying to find everything. So I thought, right, I'm going to build an app and it's going to work across different forms. It's going to work across iOS, Android. Back then it was the Microsoft OS phones and I had built native to each and it was quite clever.

[00:48:16] It did allow you and your family to basically be part of a planning experience. But the problem was I didn't love weddings. I didn't love any of that actually. And I thought, oh, great, I solved the problem. And then I'm there thinking, I don't, you know, like you have to go into the mindset of like really wanting to talk to people about that problem. My God, I just thought I didn't really want to talk about weddings every single day.

[00:48:45] Actually, the worst deal was when my own marriage went through its issue and I thought, oh God, I can't stand the idea of anyone getting married. So I knew I wasn't the right person to build that. And from then I've always believed that if you're trying to solve a problem, unless you really love what you do and you love the problem, you want to be involved in it. Maybe, you know, like at some point you just, you know, it's part of you.

[00:49:13] Then people can smell that out quite quickly. You know, this is the point at which I feel like I should say they should have gone to early adopters hub because I think they would have realized that actually before they had this idea about how important was it? And they would have got the passion from the people that really love what they do to actually help them understand whether it was right for them.

[00:49:39] And I do think the challenge is if you are trying to go into this as a pure techie, like a technical person looking to build something, that's really important because you've got certain skills. But don't underestimate the need and the trust that's been built up in an industry or in a sector, particularly something like accounting, where, you know, that knowledge is super important. And to really understand what it's like to have gone through that pain is a process. I think it's not just an overnight solution.

[00:50:08] A nice note for us to wrap on. So thank you everyone who has tuned into this week's podcast. We hope to catch you on the next one. Don't forget, we've got our awards coming up as well. And we are looking forward to a new little surprise that we're launching in September. So keep your eyes peeled on that. But if you haven't already nominated someone for the awards, if you haven't already booked your ticket, please do. We are pre-AccountX North on September 14th in Manchester.

[00:50:36] And it's a great way to come and connect with us in person. So we will catch you on the next one.