Riding the Digital Transformation Wave with Eriona Bajrakurtaj PLUS App News and more!

[00:00:00] Silence on the set, please. I can hear a giggling tune. There's a little tune playing in the background.

[00:00:07] We need the equivalent of Viagra for banter.

[00:00:09] Instant banter.

[00:00:11] Yeah.

[00:00:11] Or do you have to wait four to six minutes?

[00:00:14] I don't know.

[00:00:15] I made up that time frame. I literally have no idea how long it takes to kick in.

[00:00:19] You've just revealed so much to talk about in that moment.

[00:00:24] That was made up, people. I'm going to Google it now, though.

[00:00:29] I'm going to Google it now.

[00:00:29] Caseware have launched a co-pilot, but they're not calling it a co-pilot. They're calling it Ada, their digital assistant.

[00:00:36] Summertech enhanced their onboarding platform.

[00:00:39] It looks like Sabby Gill is getting a little bit of help in the UK and Ireland.

[00:00:44] Dext have now released approvals for cost items. Dext and ApprovalMax seem to be competing now.

[00:00:51] They've already had a client that uses both tools reach out and go, do we need to use both tools now?

[00:00:55] Xtend have integrated MasterCard and Visa Business Card transactions into the platform.

[00:01:00] Iris have launched a new practice-in-a-box solution.

[00:01:04] Sage have been doing some research in the accounting bookkeeping market.

[00:01:08] Fewer than half feel impactful or valued in their practice, which I think is a really telling sign of poor operating practices, maybe poor morale as well as a consequence.

[00:01:16] They've seen a massive shift over the last five years. It's probably going to pale into an insignificance over the next five years as AI properly takes hold.

[00:01:24] If they're struggling with change, they're not going to like the next five years. So good luck to everybody.

[00:01:30] I wish I had somebody to help me on the journey to go digital. If I had someone that said to me, this is what you need to do. These are the softwares that you need and we will integrate it for you.

[00:01:37] I would have been like, thank you so much. It wouldn't have taken four years and nearly 1.5 million pounds to try and guess how to do it myself.

[00:01:45] Don't you think it's interesting that there's been so many acquisitions of accounting practices based on primarily the book of customers?

[00:01:53] What Ariona's doing with digital transformation and what the digital disruptors are obviously trying to put in place.

[00:02:00] Do you think it will help those businesses become acquired at a higher price?

[00:02:04] What I'm seeing the feedback I'm getting in the space is that it's also a culture fit and how your team utilise and adapt to tech changes.

[00:02:12] Of course, the challenge for PEs if they're investing in those kind of things is that maybe the return on investment is going to be lower because you can't go through that transformational shift in terms of efficiency gains and technology.

[00:02:23] John, that was a lot, a lot of words where I just want to know, would you buy this? Like seriously, that's what we're looking at. Would you go in with this product and package as it is?

[00:02:36] No.

[00:02:40] Welcome to today's Digitals in a Cruel World podcast brought to you by the Digital Disruptors.

[00:02:47] Thanks for joining us on today's episode.

[00:02:49] We are going to present you with a few bits of that news that has come out over the course of the last week.

[00:02:55] And we'll also be featuring an interview with Eriona Bakrub-Kurtaj and her latest launch or her digital transformation services, Vault, which she held a launch for last week.

[00:03:12] And our lovely John Toon was able to make an appearance.

[00:03:17] Unfortunately, myself and Ryan were preoccupied on that day, but we were gutted having seen Eriona at the recent Accounting Excellence Awards.

[00:03:25] She was in Superb Spirits Quick Book Queen that she is to get this off the ground and show the accountants in the space that there is a way that she can assist and help them on moving to that digital transformation landscape.

[00:03:42] Before we go any further, I'm going to zero in on my best buddy, Ryan Pearcy, who seems to be holding quite literally a torch for me because he seems to do a replica Indy for his little Lego lady there.

[00:03:59] So, Ryan, can you tell me why you're carrying a small version of Indy on your desk every single day?

[00:04:06] I think everyone should have a small version of Indy around just for motivation.

[00:04:11] I mean, I only have the head, so you're perched on top of a pencil, which is probably quite offensive, really.

[00:04:16] But yeah, it's still there.

[00:04:19] There you go.

[00:04:20] A little Indy.

[00:04:20] I prefer it that way.

[00:04:22] Like I said to you, you know, for me, I just think that it's better if you just focus on the shoulders and above.

[00:04:28] That's better.

[00:04:29] No walrus.

[00:04:29] No walrus in this body.

[00:04:32] The walrus is reserved for the National Geographic and also is really something that nobody else should have to think about, especially, you know, first thing in the morning.

[00:04:41] So no, my head is fine.

[00:04:44] Is it a particular grade of pencil, Ryan?

[00:04:47] Oh, I don't know.

[00:04:49] It doesn't say.

[00:04:50] It's a golf pencil, if that's helpful.

[00:04:52] I got it from golf.

[00:04:53] I don't know if that is a grade of some type.

[00:04:56] I can't tell by feel.

[00:05:00] You've also got a little replica, John Toon, who's obviously made an appearance, hasn't he?

[00:05:05] John, how are you as well?

[00:05:07] I'm very well, thanks.

[00:05:08] And yeah, as you said, I was at the vault launch for which Ariana threw a big party last week and it was great.

[00:05:16] And we did get an interview with us.

[00:05:17] So that'll be on the pod hopefully soon as well.

[00:05:20] And yeah, it was a lovely event.

[00:05:22] It was really nice.

[00:05:22] It was really nice to hear, well, I've heard her backstory before, but it was really nice to hear her tell it again to other people in the room and her inspiration behind, you know, launching Vault and helping other small practice owners, you know, digitize their practices and gain some of the efficiencies and everything else that she's been through.

[00:05:39] So I think it's a great opportunity for her and they're going to be really interesting to see how successful she can be with it over the coming years.

[00:05:47] Yeah, I was massively gutted not to attend.

[00:05:50] I'm massively passionate about this and yeah, really buzzed to see what Ariana's doing.

[00:05:56] Hopefully catching up with her, I think next week to learn more about it and see how that aligns to, I guess, what we've been doing from a digital transformation space as well.

[00:06:05] So yeah, really, really buzzed to see her grow this.

[00:06:09] Don't you think it's interesting that at the moment there's been so many acquisitions of accounting practices and it's just been based on the book, primarily the book of customers.

[00:06:21] What Ariana's doing with digital transformation and what the digital disruptors are obviously trying to put in place in a lot of ways with the types of services that some firms just don't have access to.

[00:06:36] Do you think it will help to enrich those businesses if they want to truly become acquired at a higher price than just the client book?

[00:06:46] I disagree that it's just in the client book.

[00:06:51] What I'm seeing the feedback I'm getting in the space is that it's shifted into also a culture fit and the culture is going to be partly down to not the tech you've got, but how your team utilize and adapt to tech changes.

[00:07:04] Because one of the things always happens for acquisitions is there needs to be a change to the technology that is being used, whether that's straight away or over time.

[00:07:12] If your team is more used to using tools or adapting to the use of tools, then there's more of an overlap and therefore there's going to be more interest.

[00:07:22] I don't know if it will affect price, but you will get more interest.

[00:07:27] Yeah, I think I'd echo those thoughts.

[00:07:29] And I mean, I think we have seen a few premium prices paid for practices that, as Ryan said, probably have that culture fit, but also have adopted technology and probably just operating in a slightly more effective way or an efficient way.

[00:07:43] Because you should be, because that's got to command a higher premium.

[00:07:49] Of course, the challenge for PEs, if they're investing in those kind of firms, is that maybe the return on investment is going to be lower because you can't go through that transformational shift and bring a practice further forward into the future in terms of efficiency gains and technology stack.

[00:08:08] But I think that culture part, though, is a really important part of it.

[00:08:13] You can't instigate any kind of change, whether it's technology or anything else, without really great processes in place, but also without really great culture in place.

[00:08:22] And for those people in the organization to be willing to adapt to those changes.

[00:08:26] So maybe that premium comes from going through a program like Erion is going to do Evolt, and that demonstrates that the people in the organization can adapt to those changes.

[00:08:36] And so going forward with future changes, they'll be able to then accommodate those.

[00:08:41] Well, thanks for that soundbite, John.

[00:08:44] Interesting perspective.

[00:08:45] Good to see that there's a space for it, and hopefully we can keep in touch with Erion's progress over the coming months to see how she develops that service line.

[00:08:56] Shall we kick on with that news?

[00:09:04] Caseware have launched a co-pilot, but they're not calling it a co-pilot.

[00:09:09] They're calling it Ada, their digital assistant.

[00:09:11] And this is going to sit predominantly in their audit system, although it's going to eventually sit across basically all of their cloud products, so accounts production as well.

[00:09:21] And, yeah, it does what you kind of expect from most of the assistance or AI, LLM generative systems that we've come to expect.

[00:09:34] So you can plug it into the platform.

[00:09:38] You can add documentation.

[00:09:39] It'll allow you to summarize the documentation.

[00:09:41] It'll also allow you to preemptively start to complete maybe some of the documentation that you require in an audit file or even preemptively start to complete some of the checklists and things.

[00:09:54] And, yeah, I mean, this is not necessarily new in the market anymore.

[00:09:59] I mean, we're seeing more and more people build these kind of things.

[00:10:02] You've already got products like Materia, like what else have we got in there?

[00:10:07] MindBridge and things like that that have brought some of these products out to play.

[00:10:11] And more recently, we've seen a lot of audit firms experiment with things like ChatGPT to try and shortcut some of these processes.

[00:10:17] What I would say is, like, you know, from the accounting web, you know, sort of summary on this that Tom Herbert wrote up is that,

[00:10:24] which also comes from the press release from Caseware, is that there is tons of opportunity there for accountants in order to just go look at this and go,

[00:10:32] here's some inspirational ideas about where you can use live language models.

[00:10:36] And you don't necessarily need to buy the one from Caseware to do this.

[00:10:38] You could go off and use ChatGPT or any of the other products that are out there in the market or even, you know, use another one from another vendor.

[00:10:45] So I think from an idea generation point of view, it's really cool.

[00:10:50] And I think, I guess, if you're on the Caseware platform and this doesn't come with a prohibitive cost, which I think is one of the challenges.

[00:10:56] You know, I know that one of the competitors in the market is asking for approximately £20 per user per month,

[00:11:04] a premium over their core existing product, which is reasonably pricey, particularly as you get to scale.

[00:11:10] So, you know, extracting that kind of value, you've got a way up.

[00:11:13] It should be doable, but that's always a challenge is to get that balance right.

[00:11:16] Yeah. Don't call it a co-pilot though.

[00:11:18] But I also don't know what to call it because it's spelled A-I-D-A.

[00:11:23] So is that Ada or Aida?

[00:11:27] Well, I mean, I think it's Ada, isn't it?

[00:11:29] And obviously I think they, I think it's quite clever because it's a reference back to Ada Lovelace, isn't it?

[00:11:33] So, you know, the woman behind modern day computing.

[00:11:36] So great.

[00:11:38] I love the homage that they're paying.

[00:11:40] Homage.

[00:11:41] Well, I've got something that is not a homage, but is new from Summertech.

[00:11:49] They've enhanced their onboarding platform.

[00:11:52] And what they've brought in is first ongoing due diligence.

[00:11:56] So they've had their initial KYC, AML checks in their platform for a while.

[00:12:01] But like a lot of the onboarding or AML tools that are starting to hit the market, the ongoing due diligence is critical for anyone in the accounting space.

[00:12:12] Because not only do we have to look at it once you're first acquiring client, but you have to look at it on an ongoing basis.

[00:12:17] And most of these onboarding tools have not had this from day one.

[00:12:21] They're only starting to release it.

[00:12:23] And Summertech have done that.

[00:12:24] And they've automated a lot of the process.

[00:12:26] So it looks at renewal dates, et cetera, triggers and integrations to already look and bring back whether there's been any changes, whether you need to do anything more with that client regarding AML.

[00:12:41] And then secondly, on the back of that, they've also released, and I think this was in a sort of week of each other, they've released engagement letters directly into the system as well.

[00:12:51] So as part of the onboarding, you can create customized engagement letters where you're selecting, depending on the services, what you're going to be engaging with that client, and then bring that fully into that onboarding process.

[00:13:03] So a streamlined step from starting that engagement process to sending out the engagement letters to onboarding, doing your due diligence straight into your practice management solution connected into the likes of CCH, and I believe also practice engine as well.

[00:13:21] How is that different, Ryan, in some ways?

[00:13:24] Is that innovative enough in the space for like, and there's enough space for another engagement letters, AML, sort of what we've already seen?

[00:13:37] And I just, I'm just trying to figure out where it places relative to its contemporaries.

[00:13:43] No, not for engagement letters.

[00:13:45] Ongoing due diligence is relatively different because some of the AML tools don't really handle that and definitely don't handle it effectively.

[00:13:53] The space that it's playing at or playing in, sorry, is different though.

[00:13:58] Most of the onboarding tools are aimed at smaller accountancy firms but struggle to work with the mid-tier practices,

[00:14:05] whereas some of the techs aimed at mid-tier integrating into those existing or traditional systems,

[00:14:12] which firms have struggled to move away from because some of the other practice management solutions just don't quite,

[00:14:19] you know, they're not evolved enough to fill that space.

[00:14:22] So they, I guess, are trying to, through building out, fill in gaps that traditional systems just are missing.

[00:14:30] Now, I believe CCH are, through their new iFirm, focusing on onboarding.

[00:14:37] But the challenge with that is that the whole thing doesn't really play very well together at the moment.

[00:14:42] And the bit that's really needed is the practice management part.

[00:14:46] And that's the last bit I believe CCH are moving into the cloud.

[00:14:50] So it'll be a while before they fully get there.

[00:14:52] So I guess the moment Summit fills that gap for those firms that want to digitize,

[00:14:56] want to streamline onboarding, which is a massive pain point for mid-tier firms,

[00:14:59] where those smaller tools struggle to do everything and put it into the practice management solution.

[00:15:06] I think the other challenge there, Ryan, is that, you know, particularly in that mid-tier space,

[00:15:11] is you're really only dominated by a handful of, like, PM solutions, aren't you?

[00:15:15] You know, CCH you mentioned, but Digita, Iris, you know, not much else in the mix.

[00:15:20] And, you know, none of those systems historically have had that kind of process built into their products.

[00:15:28] So there's not an easy solution to that, is there, without building your own solution effectively.

[00:15:35] What happened to Centaur?

[00:15:37] Centaur got acquired by Iris and then Iris killed it, didn't they?

[00:15:41] What happened to Carbon in this space?

[00:15:46] Carbon still are doing PM, but they link in with Summer, if I remember rightly, don't they?

[00:15:54] Which doesn't fully do onboarding as yet.

[00:15:57] But Summer Tech also integrates into Carbon, I believe, looking to integrate into FYI as well.

[00:16:03] So the difference is some of these players, say it's such as them, are focused on AML,

[00:16:08] but not the full onboarding process.

[00:16:11] And a lot of people are looking at that.

[00:16:12] Firm Checkup, I believe, does onboarding, but doesn't integrate into these other solutions.

[00:16:18] There's no perfect solution, right?

[00:16:19] Depends what you're on, depends what you're looking to resolve.

[00:16:22] But yeah, Summer Tech have released both the ongoing due doings and lesbian engagement inside a week.

[00:16:29] Brilliant.

[00:16:29] Thanks for humoring me, trying to find some placement of where it fits in the space.

[00:16:35] Some news on Dex.

[00:16:36] It looks like Sabby Gill is getting a little bit of help in the UK and Ireland and has recruited Grant Picknell as his UK and IGM.

[00:16:49] Grant is ex Iris, ex QuickBooks, ex Sage.

[00:16:56] She's worked in multiple roles in terms of being VP for account management, also for sales from Iris.

[00:17:06] So it's a big, broad role for him and very comfortable in the space in terms of the growth of different types of services into accountants.

[00:17:18] Dexter's currently got 12,500 practices, I believe, and 43,500 customers.

[00:17:26] So it's a fairly big mandate for him.

[00:17:29] And yeah, it'll be interesting to see whether that comes and stabilizes some of the ship because there's been some changes at Dexter.

[00:17:39] And I guess Sabby has managed to stabilize so much of that over his tenure that he's done so far.

[00:17:45] There's at least been some exciting new releases.

[00:17:48] But obviously we have seen that there's also been changes of the guard, people in and out.

[00:17:54] So it'll be interesting for Grant to take this on and see where he goes with it.

[00:18:00] Was this the role that our friend Glenn Foster used to do?

[00:18:05] Was that a different role?

[00:18:06] Glenn Foster was chief revenue officer.

[00:18:10] I think slightly different, although maybe the objectives might be similar.

[00:18:14] I guess it's slightly broader in pulling together what I would imagine a GM does is also work on the organization of the operational elements

[00:18:27] and how that also links to the servicing part of what the business is doing.

[00:18:35] Whereas I think Glenn would be more involved just directly on the revenue piece.

[00:18:39] And perhaps that's just the new business and the growth there.

[00:18:44] God, it makes sense.

[00:18:45] And as you say, he's got to keep up to date with all of the new releases from Dex as there is another one.

[00:18:51] They have now released approvals for cost items.

[00:18:55] So I guess as Dex and ApprovalMax seem to be competing now with ApprovalMax releasing Capture and Pay,

[00:19:02] Dex now has approvals.

[00:19:03] And you can tailor it.

[00:19:06] So you can create custom approvals focused on multi-level approvals.

[00:19:10] It can automatically route to the approvers based on cost category, supplier, project, those kind of things with automated reminders.

[00:19:18] I don't know if it's got delegates or delegation from the start, but it is something that I guess those that have been using Dex a while have had to look at ApprovalMax to fill the gap.

[00:19:31] Maybe this will now mean that they can just work in one platform.

[00:19:34] I've not had a chance to play with this yet.

[00:19:36] It is hot off the press from us recording.

[00:19:37] So, yeah, I'm intrigued to see how much it compares to what ApprovalMax does.

[00:19:44] Yeah, I think it's going to be interesting to see this, isn't it?

[00:19:46] I haven't played with it or tried it out yet, but there's going to have to be an impact between both Dex and ApprovalMax as a consequence of both of the product developments that they've done

[00:19:58] because ApprovalMax has gone backwards into the OCR.

[00:20:01] Dex are going forward into approvals.

[00:20:03] And, you know, effectively, I guess they've sort of shared almost a symbiotic relationship in the ecosystem for quite a while because it was natural that, you know,

[00:20:10] if you had reasonably complex invoice scanning needs, you probably ended up with Dex or I guess auto entry probably.

[00:20:18] And then if you had an approval process requirement, then it was almost invariably going to ApprovalMax.

[00:20:24] Yeah, I've already had it.

[00:20:25] I mean, it's literally off the press.

[00:20:26] I've already had a client that uses both tools reach out and go, do we need to use both tools now?

[00:20:30] And I do wonder if this is going to, although, you know, they've created something to try and expand their footprint,

[00:20:38] I wonder if the competition between the two is ultimately going to lead to less revenue because people pick a platform.

[00:20:45] And if that is the case, I don't know who triggered it.

[00:20:47] Who was the one that first said we are going to develop this?

[00:20:49] And the other one, oh, God, I've got to react and build something to, I guess, go the other direction.

[00:20:55] But this is where, I guess, as tech expands and releases new things, you get a consolidation.

[00:21:00] People move from one system to another.

[00:21:02] We predicted it earlier this year.

[00:21:04] And as ever, it continues to roll out.

[00:21:09] And a little bit of sad news covered by Tom Herbert.

[00:21:14] So, again, the closure of the payroll site, which was a multi-award winning payroll software, is closing down in the 2024 to 2025 tax year,

[00:21:28] citing declining customer numbers and an increasing burden of running the service.

[00:21:32] So, for those that will recall, and I can recall this at the time because I worked at an accounting tech and we were nominated and shortlisted for one of the payroll awards.

[00:21:45] And every year, the accounting excellence software awards, when they were in existence, the payroll site did win it for five years or something ridiculous.

[00:21:55] So, but obviously, there's been a lot of influx of sort of changes and legislation in the payroll space.

[00:22:02] And it's become a little bit more complex.

[00:22:04] So, that's probably been a higher burden from a software perspective for the payroll site to keep up with.

[00:22:11] And Stephen Tucker, the managing director of the payroll site, has said that they want to close the business in an orderly manner and give sufficient notice for customers to prepare for the closure of their payroll site.

[00:22:26] So, services will remain available for the 2024 to 2025 tax year and process year-end, including the P60s.

[00:22:33] But after that point, it will close down.

[00:22:37] And obviously, there's been quite a lot of competitors in the space.

[00:22:40] We've more recently seen some new vendors come into space like Buddy, the existing ones like BrightPay, Capium, Coconut, FreshPay, Iris' Staffology and QuickBooks Online, as well as Sage and Xero, all moving into that cloud payroll space.

[00:22:57] So, for anyone that is obviously on the payroll site, there will be a migration period and customers can continue to subscribe.

[00:23:07] And the service will be available for the whole of 2024 to 2025 as a tax year.

[00:23:12] After that, the developers will stop providing support and users will not be able to run pay calculations with pay dates from 6th of April 2025 onwards.

[00:23:23] And this follows on the back of my PAYE being acquired earlier this year or the end of last year.

[00:23:31] And I think they also cited their fit there.

[00:23:34] It feels like there's been a race to the bottom on price for a lot of these as they compete.

[00:23:39] So, I'm not sure this is the end of payroll software closing down.

[00:23:44] Although, I do remember that Xero said that payroll is one of their three pillars, I think, focus in the UK from a tech perspective.

[00:23:53] So, I would assume they're going to be building functionality out in their system to compete.

[00:23:58] And maybe they're seeing challenges as well.

[00:24:01] I think in the perspective of seeing products like Buddy, which has only really been in the UK for, what, a year?

[00:24:09] I guess probably not even really officially launched until earlier this year.

[00:24:13] I find it surprising that whilst one product sees an opportunity in the UK market, seeing one or two others no longer seeing that opportunity.

[00:24:23] So, yeah, fascinating to kind of see.

[00:24:28] I don't quite understand what's triggered those kind of consequences.

[00:24:33] I must admit, payroll site is not something I was familiar with.

[00:24:35] So, maybe it's just a marketing issue, a marketing and sales issue more than a product issue.

[00:24:42] I've got a little bit more news from Sage, who have been doing some research in the accounting bookkeeping market.

[00:24:49] They have interviewed around about 1,000 accountants and bookkeepers across about six different countries to kind of, I guess, test the pulse of the accounting and bookkeeping sector

[00:24:59] and just really get a feel for what's keeping people awake at night, if you like, where their strategic thinking is going, what they're struggling with, and other things.

[00:25:08] And, yeah, there's some great insights in here.

[00:25:11] So, yeah, there's about 30 pages of information and data in here.

[00:25:14] But, you know, some of the key highlights that I found is that, you know, 96% of accountants and bookkeepers say that our work has shifted significantly in the past five years,

[00:25:27] which I guess probably isn't too surprising as kind of technology has had an impact and obviously regulation changes and other things have come along the line.

[00:25:34] And, you know, their research also showed that around about 50% of accountants and bookkeepers feel successful in their roles and fewer than half feel impactful or valued in their practice,

[00:25:50] which I think is a really, you know, telling sign of maybe, you know, either, you know, that they're maybe operating in practices with poor, you know, sort of, you know, operating practices,

[00:26:02] maybe, you know, poor morale as well as a consequence.

[00:26:05] And, you know, I guess we were talking about culture before as well, you know, poor culture and culture, I think, is a really important thing.

[00:26:12] And, you know, that's probably contributing to the churn that maybe some of these practices are experiencing.

[00:26:20] But there are some real great opportunities.

[00:26:23] Inevitably, AI came up on the list of things that people are wanting to focus in on,

[00:26:27] but also growing skills and the attributes of the staff and trying to improve not just themselves, but their teams.

[00:26:33] And also working on building and growing on their client relationships to offer more personal service.

[00:26:39] And, of course, the advisory word gets bounced around as well in there.

[00:26:42] The one thing that I did take away from this, the top five skills that people are looking for in terms of like attributes that are critical to success in the accounting world at the moment are reliability,

[00:26:52] responsibility, problem-solving, strategic thinking, technical proficiency in financial reporting,

[00:26:57] and then operational skills pretty much voted across the board by more than two-thirds of the respondents.

[00:27:04] So I find those really interesting skills.

[00:27:08] I mean, for us as a practice, you know, problem-solving or curiosity is like one of the key things that we always look out for with our staff.

[00:27:15] Yeah, problem-solving is kind of a given now for or forever with accountants.

[00:27:19] I think the fact that they've seen a massive shift over the last five years is probably going to pale into insignificance over the next five years

[00:27:28] as AI properly takes hold and starts to completely change the way that we engage with our clients,

[00:27:36] utilize tech, and I guess research answers to problems.

[00:27:42] So, yeah, I think that if they're struggling with change, they're not going to like the next five years.

[00:27:47] So good luck to everybody.

[00:27:50] I'm not cynical at all.

[00:27:51] So I've got something from Iris who have launched a new practice-in-a-box solution.

[00:27:58] This is built on the powerful Iris Elements cloud-based accountancy platform,

[00:28:02] which we've talked about many times on the podcast.

[00:28:06] They've been rolling out different elements across Iris Elements as the built-out functionality.

[00:28:11] And my understanding of this is that they've taken certain parts of the Iris Elements platform and pulled it out,

[00:28:19] bundled it into something that will work for those that are launching or the small practices that want to grow

[00:28:26] and, I guess, maximize things such as like client satisfaction, engagement with their team.

[00:28:33] And the bits that pulled out are onboarding compliance tools.

[00:28:37] We've talked about onboarding in this app news already.

[00:28:48] It says about the ability to delegate tasks and focus on core activities, which really doesn't answer anything for me unless it's just task management.

[00:28:56] And then integration into the Microsoft 365 suite, which makes sense, but also a modern website creation.

[00:29:04] So you can take the Iris Elements system and also bring in the ability to create your own website focusing on SEO.

[00:29:12] So I think this is, as I guess they're aiming at those new practices, a bridge solution rather than going all out with Iris Elements.

[00:29:21] They can create or utilize something that's aimed at those smaller practices to launch them.

[00:29:25] And as they then grow, they can kind of expand into the rest of the Iris Elements platform.

[00:29:30] So is this something that is fundamentally different or is it just a positioning of making it easier and a little bit more of a gateway to get fully stuck into Iris?

[00:29:43] John, what do you think?

[00:29:46] Iris, I think I've always had a little bit of a battle in terms of convincing smaller practices that they should either go to them or stick with them.

[00:29:55] And as they're kind of rolling out, you know, Iris Elements and stuff and people are moving out of the traditional sort of Iris suite, that's, you know, I guess that's one of the challenges, isn't it?

[00:30:06] Is that, you know, the Iris suite was kind of all encompassing.

[00:30:09] You know, the Iris Elements platform that they've got, you know, really is just the functional thing for you to connect other pieces of technology to.

[00:30:17] So I guess this kind of practice in a box concept, maybe it mirrors a little bit of what Sage has been trying to do in terms of bringing together, you know, their technologies.

[00:30:25] So they've been having accounting and HR and payroll and other things all brought together in one place.

[00:30:30] So, you know, I think this is basically just, you know, the suite of the future in terms of its cloud technology powered rather than being on-prem.

[00:30:38] And they're just trying to bundle everything together because, you know, I don't think for the first time that we talked about the problem to, you know,

[00:30:45] I guess the incumbent players as they work on this transition to cloud is that it makes it easier for practices who are buying technology to choose not to use your products because you could go down the best of breed route.

[00:30:59] Particularly, you know, now as I think, you know, there is a balance of power that's more evenly spread between the purchases and the sellers of the technology insofar as, you know, practices are much more aware of what technology can and can't be capable of.

[00:31:14] And also, you know, whether or not they can do things like connect competing products together in the same ecosystem and make themselves more efficient as a consequence if they go down that best of breed route.

[00:31:25] But John, like that was a lot, a lot of words where I just want to know, would you buy this?

[00:31:34] Like seriously, that's what we're looking at is would you go in with this product and package as it is?

[00:31:40] No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't buy it. But then I would don't buy it because I don't buy I don't buy single sweet solutions because you don't you have to compromise too much.

[00:31:49] You know, best of breed for me is a world and it is the world of cloud.

[00:31:53] And, you know, that's the way that's the way it works for people.

[00:31:56] You know, the whole purpose of us moving to cloud is to not have to compromise.

[00:32:01] So there you go. So it's basically a rebundling or packaging something together, but still probably doesn't suit the purpose that you're saying that it needs to do.

[00:32:12] But not every practice has that strategy of best of breed, right?

[00:32:15] Some people do just want to buy from one single supplier and buy it all in one go.

[00:32:19] And they're comfortable to make that compromise for, you know, maybe the purposes of ease of use or they don't have the technical skills to stitch these things together or they just don't want to have to worry about that.

[00:32:31] So to migrate from there once you started in it.

[00:32:35] See, if you got started in it, how do you migrate from something like that?

[00:32:38] Well, again, it depends on what contract terms you're seeing in this space.

[00:32:43] I mean, this is one of the things, you know, this is one of the bigger challenges I think that practices need to be strong on and aware of is that what you start to see, particularly products that are more in the enterprise space.

[00:32:55] And, you know, you've got to be honest, Iris is in the enterprise space, even though it serves smaller firms typically.

[00:33:03] Is that, you know, we're now seeing more and more things like two and three year contracts tied into a SaaS product.

[00:33:10] Whereas, you know, the whole, again, the whole thing about SaaS is it should be a rolling monthly or maybe sometimes you might get tied into a year contract.

[00:33:16] But two to three year contracts in SaaS, I think, are a little bit outrageous personally.

[00:33:22] And that's the challenge is like if you're locked into something like this, you're not then going to be able to see the opportunities of what best of breed are or even take the opportunity of someone else coming along with a better product that does something specific that you want to do and you want to bolt it on quickly.

[00:33:39] So one last one from Xpend, who have now launched a new feature where they have integrated MasterCard and Visa business card transactions into the platform.

[00:33:51] So in effect, via the Xpend platform, you can settle out in real time the card expenses that occur on whether it is a business card, your business card or multiple business cards.

[00:34:07] You can claim the expense real time in the platform and it's through Card Connect, which has a couple of important attributes.

[00:34:16] So they can connect all of the business cards to a single platform and it has multi-card acceptance.

[00:34:22] And that means that users can view and submit all of their expense claims in one app, whether they paid on the corporate Barclay card or a business HSBC card.

[00:34:33] And then also those cards can be viewed in the app instantly so that it's real time enough.

[00:34:40] You can see there's no waiting time between making the payment and seeing it in the expenses app.

[00:34:45] So it's fairly seamless.

[00:34:47] It means that if you're a manager of the expenses of the finance team, then you can sign them off for the approval flow and the accounting reconciliation in fairly real time, in a real time manner.

[00:35:03] And I think that's really great for a remote based workforce, which most of obviously Xpend has focused on is that the fact that you can manage those expenses.

[00:35:11] And we've not really seen much of that in the UK.

[00:35:15] There's been other apps that have done it in this space when it comes to connecting multiple cards to one app and seeing the data in real time.

[00:35:23] But they haven't really been UK ones.

[00:35:25] I think we covered Expensify in the past has done that.

[00:35:28] Most of the apps that have existed haven't really innovated much in this space.

[00:35:33] I have to admit that from what I knew of Xpend, it's a good little platform.

[00:35:39] It's been running fair, like a very steady organic growth pattern, never taken any kind of big VC money.

[00:35:47] So actually has never really had to have the same pressure to grow at like rocket speed or lighten pace or whatever you want to say.

[00:35:59] So they've never had that same problem as some of the other big ones have had to do like Pleo or Spend S, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:36:05] So they're at least able to spend a bit more time on just the product and really understand how they can benefit like the technology and expense flow and being as real time as possible.

[00:36:20] For some reason, I've got a shaped head on my floor.

[00:36:27] There you go.

[00:36:28] Wow.

[00:36:29] Okay.

[00:36:29] Oh, nice.

[00:36:30] It's a Lego head.

[00:36:31] Is that a Lego head?

[00:36:32] It is.

[00:36:32] It's a Lego head.

[00:36:33] There's the hat.

[00:36:34] I was looking down.

[00:36:35] I was like, what the heck's that?

[00:36:37] That's weird.

[00:36:38] And it was like an indie figure, isn't it?

[00:36:40] It's got like brown curly hair and a brown thing.

[00:36:43] Isn't that a little bit freaky, John?

[00:36:46] I'm waiting for him to pull one out that looks like me and then it'll be really upsetting.

[00:36:49] He doesn't have one that looks like you.

[00:36:50] You're irrelevant, I'm afraid.

[00:36:54] Yeah, I wouldn't ask where he keeps his little indie Lego thing.

[00:36:58] Is that you, John?

[00:37:00] That's nearly John.

[00:37:01] Look at the hair.

[00:37:03] Oh, my God.

[00:37:06] And then, now it's me.

[00:37:10] Oh, dear God.

[00:37:11] If I shave my head and I look like you, there's a serious problem in the world.

[00:37:15] Everyone looks like me if they shave their head.

[00:37:17] I could be tempted, though.

[00:37:19] Maybe that should be part of the ongoing self-destruction.

[00:37:23] So we can put out your bold demeanor as well.

[00:37:25] Whee!

[00:37:28] Absolutely.

[00:37:28] Except mine will only be temporary because it'll grow back, hopefully.

[00:37:31] Right.

[00:37:31] Okay.

[00:37:31] Let's crack a roll.

[00:37:35] Cool.

[00:37:36] Who's...

[00:37:36] So no more banter.

[00:37:38] No, no, no, no.

[00:37:38] None.

[00:37:38] That banter is done.

[00:37:39] I'm going to get performance anxiety here.

[00:37:41] We need kind of like the equivalent of Viagra for banter.

[00:37:44] That's what you need.

[00:37:44] Well, we can just take a pill.

[00:37:46] Instant banter.

[00:37:47] Yeah.

[00:37:47] Or do you have to wait four to six minutes?

[00:37:51] I don't know.

[00:37:51] I made up that time frame.

[00:37:53] I literally have no idea how long it takes to kick in.

[00:37:56] You've just revealed so much to try in that moment.

[00:38:00] That was made up, people.

[00:38:02] I'm going to Google it now, though.

[00:38:04] See it.

[00:38:05] There you go.

[00:38:06] That's all you need to know.

[00:38:07] That's Ryan's warm-up.

[00:38:08] Four to six minutes.

[00:38:09] What a four-play commitment that is.

[00:38:13] 30 to 60 minutes to start working.

[00:38:15] So I was very optimistic.

[00:38:19] Is that or it's just a placebo for me?

[00:38:22] And it just takes four to six minutes for the blood flow to work.

[00:38:28] Maybe you're not doing it properly.

[00:38:31] Is this repository?

[00:38:32] Have you not been swallowing it?

[00:38:34] You've not been swallowing it.

[00:38:35] That's why you get a stiff neck instead.

[00:38:37] Put it in my ear.

[00:38:39] It's where it goes, right?

[00:38:49] I am here with Ariona at the launch of Bolt,

[00:38:52] which has been an absolutely spectacular night.

[00:38:54] And like 110 people, I think, here at the QuickBooks offices.

[00:38:56] So congratulations to you, Ariona.

[00:38:58] That's incredible.

[00:38:59] And you gave a really exciting speech

[00:39:02] introducing the concept of Bolt

[00:39:04] and the history behind what brought it all on.

[00:39:07] And it's slightly emotional as well,

[00:39:08] which was lovely to see because, I mean,

[00:39:10] I feel like you're a cold, cold person sometimes.

[00:39:14] Probably not.

[00:39:15] Not anymore, right?

[00:39:16] Not anymore.

[00:39:16] Amazing.

[00:39:17] But I'd really like to hear from you.

[00:39:19] I know you kind of talked to the audience

[00:39:20] about why you decided to bring around Bolt

[00:39:23] and the ideas behind that.

[00:39:24] But in your own words,

[00:39:25] what is it that you're trying to fix,

[00:39:27] trying to solve for accounts, I suppose?

[00:39:29] So honestly, it's just putting other people

[00:39:31] in my shoes from years ago.

[00:39:33] I wish I had some...

[00:39:34] These shoes?

[00:39:34] These shoes, yeah.

[00:39:35] Okay.

[00:39:37] I wish I had somebody to help me on the journey

[00:39:39] to go digital, right?

[00:39:40] I didn't know where to start,

[00:39:41] what I should be doing,

[00:39:44] where to kind of start from start to finish.

[00:39:46] So if I had someone that said to me,

[00:39:47] this is what you need to do,

[00:39:48] these are the softwares that you need

[00:39:50] and we will integrate it for you,

[00:39:52] I would have been like, thank you so much.

[00:39:53] It wouldn't have taken four years

[00:39:55] and nearly 1.5 million pounds

[00:39:57] to try and guess how to do it myself.

[00:39:58] So I hope that I'll be able to kind of lift all of that pain

[00:40:04] and get rid of it for people

[00:40:05] so they can focus on, one, having a future-ready firm

[00:40:08] and just going forward and making a difference

[00:40:11] to so many businesses.

[00:40:12] Amazing.

[00:40:13] And is this going to be a bit of a mixture

[00:40:15] of a coaching relationship,

[00:40:18] a consultancy relationship, a mentor relationship?

[00:40:20] How do you think it's going to pan out?

[00:40:21] So I say to everybody, no, it's not a consultancy,

[00:40:24] it's not coaching or anything like that.

[00:40:26] Although there is an element that is involved in that

[00:40:29] because you can't transform and implement

[00:40:31] a whole digital system of someone

[00:40:32] without talking to them about what we're going to do,

[00:40:34] why we're going to do it.

[00:40:35] But my goal is not to go in and coach people

[00:40:38] and then go out, I want to go in,

[00:40:40] tell them what we're going to do,

[00:40:42] implement everything myself

[00:40:43] and then say, here's your new business, you carry on.

[00:40:46] I feel that's where I will make a difference.

[00:40:48] So it's a bossy relationship, is that what you're saying?

[00:40:49] Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

[00:40:52] I love it.

[00:40:52] And I know there's a whole bunch of sponsors here

[00:40:56] and some of the vendors that you've been working with

[00:40:57] in the past as well.

[00:40:58] Yeah.

[00:40:59] But are you going to be sort of agnostic in your approach

[00:41:02] or are you going to align amongst the things

[00:41:03] that you're familiar with?

[00:41:05] So with each firm that I go into,

[00:41:07] how they're going to be set up digitally will be unique

[00:41:10] because each firm will have different clients,

[00:41:13] different ways that they communicate with them,

[00:41:15] different team members.

[00:41:16] And you cannot, I'm not going to have a one size fits all

[00:41:19] for anybody.

[00:41:20] So based on what I learned about the firm,

[00:41:22] then I will go in and recommend,

[00:41:24] based on what you'll say, based on your team,

[00:41:26] your clients, this is what I feel is right for you.

[00:41:28] And that will not be the same for each firm.

[00:41:30] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:41:32] Yeah, yeah.

[00:41:32] And what are the key kind of challenges

[00:41:34] that you're expecting to kind of have to address

[00:41:36] or overcome?

[00:41:37] I mean, I guess number one,

[00:41:38] probably a big challenge, right,

[00:41:39] is convincing other accountants to trust you

[00:41:41] to take them on that journey, right?

[00:41:42] Yeah, I think that's going to be the biggest one.

[00:41:46] And to say, this will make a huge difference.

[00:41:49] It's going to be difficult,

[00:41:50] but by the end of it,

[00:41:52] it's going to make a huge difference to your life.

[00:41:54] Not just the business itself,

[00:41:55] but it's the business owners' lives

[00:41:56] that I want to transform

[00:41:57] because I've seen it happen with us.

[00:42:00] But I think one positive element here

[00:42:01] is that I don't need to do as much convincing

[00:42:04] because I'm just going to do it for them.

[00:42:06] Whereas before our own firm,

[00:42:08] I had to do it every step of the way.

[00:42:09] And obviously it took a lot longer.

[00:42:10] So it was a case of what's going on?

[00:42:12] Why is it taking so long?

[00:42:13] Because I was learning what we need to do.

[00:42:15] So I think hopefully this time around,

[00:42:17] and we have a lead time,

[00:42:18] hopefully three months from start to finish.

[00:42:21] So within three months,

[00:42:22] it's intense conversations

[00:42:24] about their pricing strategy,

[00:42:26] their marketing, their sales,

[00:42:27] their team, communication with clients.

[00:42:29] It all falls within that.

[00:42:30] But at the end of it,

[00:42:32] I'll say, here you go.

[00:42:33] I've trained you and it's ready.

[00:42:35] You can carry on working.

[00:42:36] So it's not so much extended.

[00:42:38] So they're wondering

[00:42:39] what's going to happen next.

[00:42:40] Amazing.

[00:42:41] That sounds incredible.

[00:42:42] So basically what you're saying to me

[00:42:43] is I've got three months to make it

[00:42:45] so that I can fit in your shoes.

[00:42:46] Is that right?

[00:42:47] Absolutely.

[00:42:48] Amazing.

[00:42:48] Absolutely.

[00:42:49] Well, Ariana, I wish you every success.

[00:42:51] I mean, I've really enjoyed the launch party.

[00:42:52] It's been really incredible.

[00:42:53] Thank you so much.

[00:42:54] And like kudos to you

[00:42:55] for starting this new venture

[00:42:56] and getting out there

[00:42:57] and putting yourself out in the market again, right?

[00:42:59] Thank you so much.

[00:43:00] I'm so, so appreciative

[00:43:01] to you and to everyone

[00:43:02] who's come out to support

[00:43:03] and to our media sponsors as well.

[00:43:05] I'm honestly,

[00:43:06] I've lost the words

[00:43:07] with how well it's gone.

[00:43:08] Super, super, super quick.

[00:43:10] Well, I'm sure if anything is to go by,

[00:43:12] your track record

[00:43:13] and your steely determination

[00:43:15] is going to make this a real success.

[00:43:17] So congratulations.

[00:43:18] I wish you all the best

[00:43:19] and I'm sure it's going to be very exciting, right?

[00:43:22] Thanks for joining us on today's episode

[00:43:26] of Digitals in a Crawl World.

[00:43:28] We hope you enjoyed the content

[00:43:29] that we've been able to present to you today.

[00:43:32] If you've got a comment,

[00:43:33] feel free to reach out to myself,

[00:43:36] John, Ryan or Lee on LinkedIn.

[00:43:39] We are always open to feedback

[00:43:41] and if you think there's something

[00:43:43] really interesting in the space

[00:43:44] that we haven't already touched upon

[00:43:46] on the podcast or in Digital Digest,

[00:43:49] then please holler

[00:43:50] because we're always interested

[00:43:51] in hearing more topics

[00:43:53] that we should be talking

[00:43:54] or focusing or putting a spotlight on.

[00:43:57] So thanks for joining us

[00:43:59] and we'll catch you on the next one.