The Skills The Profession Is Crying Out For - FTTP Pt 2 || PLUS APP NEWS + ESG Reporting from Xledger

[00:00:00] We need to focus more and more on skills, particularly in this AI environment where we're talking about potentially significant disruption. There was a lot covered and you started doing a lot of AI buzzwords, didn't you? Now are we getting into some of the things that are more around leadership or which way do we go from now? Wellness and sustainability are what I see as the key points for the youth coming through because one, they know about it but secondly, we need to do something about it.

[00:00:27] We need to latch onto the things that make us human, make us really good advisors for as long as we possibly can before robots completely take over. Do you think this is just a shade of like a new age type of programme? If you can't afford that as an accounting firm or a bookkeeping firm then you're clearly doing something tragically wrong. When do you think we're really going to start to feel the pinch for needing to report on this?

[00:00:52] We're starting to see it already. I came from the housing sector, you know, nearly five years ago and it was a topic then. But we're seeing more and more in RFPs, in just general kind of conversations. Don't be afraid of asking questions. If they can't make a conversation on anything, then how would they speak to their clients? Hello everyone and welcome to today's Digitals in a Crawl World podcast brought to you by the digital disruptors that are John Toon, myself, Lee Stallard and Ryan Pearcy.

[00:01:20] Today we're covering some app news in the industry and we're also going to have some more snippets from you, Jonathan Toon, from the finance takes the piece. I keep meaning to say finance takes the piece. What can we expect? What do you think? You know, there was a lot covered and you started doing a lot of AI buzzwords, didn't you?

[00:01:45] But now are we getting into some of the things that are more around leadership or which way do we go from now? There were a few AI buzzwords, but I think for me again, I think it was a huge opportunity around skills. I think we need to focus more and more on skills, particularly in this AI environment where we're talking about potentially significant disruption. And we need to latch onto the things that make us human and make us really good advisors for as long as we possibly can before robots completely take over.

[00:02:13] I would wholeheartedly agree with that. And I think it's super important that we spend a bit of time in connecting a little bit more. And to that end, we are looking at our next cut of events, are we not? So that we can make sure we get our own connections in place. Last year we did the award ceremony and we did a few different games night. So axe throwing account hacks and the digi games event.

[00:02:43] So what's on the docket this year, John, our social secretary, Goul. Social secretary. Well, I think we're going to, I think we're going to try and do the same. We haven't quite agreed, have we, between all of us, exactly what the plans are. But we will definitely do a count act because there's a huge amount of demand to that. I'm keen to do digi games again for Sadas because I think it went down quite well. We need to give it another year, give it another run, see what happens.

[00:03:13] Definitely do the awards again because that was so much fun, wasn't it? And I think we can make it even better and bigger than last year. And yeah, who knows what else? I mean, again, we probably won't do something around FAB because it's a bit challenging to do something around the NEC. But there's lots of other things going on. And do you know what? I was actually thinking about whether or not we should do some kind of like digital disruptors, like hackathon event or something crazy like that. Or maybe even do like a summer event or something. Because I think there's space in the calendars for more things. So we need to, we definitely need to have a think about it.

[00:03:41] And if anyone's got any ideas or suggestions, I'm open to being receptive to someone coming up with a crazy idea that we can run with. Yeah.

[00:04:15] Most definitely. It's a fun night. I was going to say fun, boozy night, but actually you don't need to be boozy because I've been, I've been dry for actually, again, now we're talking since December. So, and I'm loving it, John. So. It's having a terrible turn in me. Certainly. No, it's great. I actually just got fresh off the bat of a weekend of celebrating my daughter's birthday with her, having various people over and whatnot. Yeah.

[00:04:42] It's great fun just to enjoy a bit of fizz, but the naughty kind, which is the zero percent, completely 0% the alcoholized sparkling wine, which is amazing. So shall we push on to our app news today? And then we can crack on into the final taste of yeast. Why not? Let's get, get, get busy with the news. Kicking off this week with Ignition, the leading proposal software for service-based businesses

[00:05:10] who have appointed Greg Strickland as CEO and Amy Fu as CFO to strengthen its leadership for the next phase of growth. Strickland, who takes over from founder Guy Pearson, brings a proven track record in scaling SaaS companies such as Box and Product Board, is already driving a 50% year-over-year revenue increase in North America. Under his leadership so far, Ignition's seven and a half thousand customers generated nearly

[00:05:39] $3 billion in revenue through the platform in 2024. And Amy Fu, the new CFO, brings invaluable experiences from her roles at Zendesk and Culture Amp, where she scaled operations to support significant growth. And Fu is going to focus on financial planning, capital management and operational efficiency as Ignition continues to expand, helping service-based businesses such as accounting firms, consultancies,

[00:06:07] legal services, and embrace the kind of recurring billing models and improved cash flow predictability in those businesses. So big changes at the top. Ignition is poised to continue transforming the future of professional services as a whole and deliver predictable revenue and business growth for its clients. Any news on the grapevine, John, on Ignition's success over the course of the last year since

[00:06:37] the changes have come around? Because I know that we saw a big boom in Ignition over the last few years, but last year took a bit more of a silent approach within the market. This sounds like they're really carving a course of their own. So any rumblings, any noise that we should know of? Nothing specific from Ignition. I mean, I think you're absolutely right because we saw very much a quieting down in the UK market

[00:07:04] for sure and quite a few of the people associated with them in the UK left and moved on to other opportunities. I saw a guy in the summer in the States last year and he was quite chipper about the opportunities that they were seeing. And I guess for him, he's been at the helm of the business for quite a long time now, so it feels like a good opportunity to sort of hand over to this new team. And we've seen this before, haven't we? With other businesses, tech businesses in our space, as they scale up and scale out,

[00:07:33] the founder generally does at some point have to sort of step aside so that someone else can take the business on to the next level. And I think quite often what you tend to see is you tend to see there's a bedding in period, which is kind of natural as the new people take over, get familiar with the business and the people and the organization and the marketplace and stuff. And I think what we'll need to look out for is what's going to happen this year in 2025 from an Ignition point of view. And it's a busy market, right? We've got obviously Johnny Gaunt launching Socket last year and bringing that into the market in the UK.

[00:08:02] You've obviously got other people in the market that are well-established like Ignition as well. So clearly if people like Johnny and others have spotted an opportunity, then there are still opportunities there to grow and expand in this market. And I guess Ignition will need to react to that. I have something from Workflow Max, which for anyone that has forgotten, sort of spilled out of Xero, I think it was last year or was it the tail end of 2023? Time runs away with me now. But now under the ownership of BlueRock, there was a period of transition as people moved between the two systems

[00:08:31] and everything up and running. But BlueRock are now on top of the products and have launched a whole bunch of new updates and stuff like that. So very simply, one of the things that they've just launched is a milestone widget which displays upcoming and overdue job milestones right on the dashboard as you log in. So you've got that visibility of what's happening and whether or not you're a little bit behind on jobs in that calendar view, which is really helpful. There's some enhancements to invoicing and permissions. So you've now got more control over who can create invoices and then how to cancel them if you need to.

[00:09:00] You can also bulk delete draft invoices. So, for example, if you've got recurring invoices that need to be cancelled for whatever reason or something's gone a little bit awry, you can kind of do all that and get on top of things. You've also got the ability to attach documents to a purchase order in the system, which again is quite helpful maybe from a practice management point of view, if you want to add a copy of engagement watcher or something to that. You've got that functionality now as well. And they've also enhanced the ability to filter down on reports and make the reporting a little bit more user-friendly

[00:09:31] by just enhancing the number of filters and the granularity of what you can do in there, which for anyone that is involved in running a practice, it's quite often something that's really important as you kind of dive deep into department performance and things. And then they've also got some standard reports which have just been launched. So a job costing report, an hour analysis report and some lost earnings reports in terms of being able to track recoveries. All of these, I would say, are sort of fairly basic fundamentals for a practice management solution.

[00:09:59] So actually I'm surprised that they're not already there historically, but really important to see that. And then there are some just general other enhancements in terms of some additional customer notifications. And they've done some work in the background on the Xero integration so that you can pull timesheets between Workflow Max and Xero payroll. So it just makes that sync a little bit easier. That is live in Australia, about to come into New Zealand and about to come into the UK products.

[00:10:26] So it might not quite be there yet, but it's definitely on its way. And then finally, you know, Suite files and Workflow Max have always had an integration. And again, that integration has been more enhanced and there's more capability with that enhanced integration as a consequence. So it brings with it the ability to do things like digital signing and to edit PDFs in the product, which you weren't able to do prior to that. So there's a whole bunch of things that have been launched into Workflow Max, which is great to see.

[00:10:53] And it's good to see that the team at BlueRock have been working hard to enhance the product because, to be honest, your workflow Max had flatlined seriously under Xero's ownership and really hadn't gone anywhere for a long, long time. And we've got Aslan, a UK based employee fintech, who has raised $5 million in seed funding to revolutionize how employees currently get paid.

[00:11:12] The company offers flexible pay through its rewards cards, providing employees with tax efficient cashback on all purchases, including holidays, which helps their pay to go a little bit further. So in addition to cashback, Aslan allows users to choose when and how they get paid, giving them control over their finances and tangible budgeting each month.

[00:11:36] I don't think this is very new in terms of the number of fintechs that have tried to come at this space before. But what is interesting is maybe it's the right time, right place. The flexibility in which they're operating in is an environment where payday schedules often force the employees to rely on overdrafts and credit cards, which cost them up to 40% in interest.

[00:11:59] Since the launch last year, Aslan has gained traction across industries, mainly in financial services and luxury goods, with clients across all types of salary levels, many earning over 50k annually. So these aren't low budget workers, but instead those that are then looking for optimal gains and how to use their money more efficiently. And the company's success reflects a significant demand for flexible pay and reward solutions.

[00:12:26] At least that's what they say that benefit both the employers and employees. With that in mind, in the funding, they plan to expand offering adding budgeting tools, financial education, and even more rewards features to enhance employee engagement and retention.

[00:12:43] I do think this is just a shade of like a new age type of program where you are now looking for better deals in general across your credit spend or across your data when it comes to what's happened with open banking. You can see predictably how much money comes into the account.

[00:13:07] And if you're a decent earner in the past, you relied on just the credit cards, being able to know what types of package to offer you. I guess this is, again, another form of bridging what you should be receiving as a reward or something to incentivize you.

[00:13:24] And I think as open banking, open finance and open accounting in general have become more prevalent, that it's not really a surprise to me that we're starting to see, again, another crop of these types of offers come out. Now, like personally, I think I looked at some of the ones for myself just, you know, as indie, not as indie and any other guys.

[00:13:47] But I just find it fascinating that, you know, if you're really quite financially savvy, you do have quite a few different offers that are given to you, credit card offers that then include, you know, whether it's global insurance or whether it's like, you know, these clever things where you get a benefit of like all the insurance for all the cars that you hire abroad, for instance. They've got all the maximum coverage already included, so you don't have to take that package out every single time that you're hiring the car.

[00:14:17] And it's just small nuances like that that just help your money go further. Some of these things aren't exactly new, either, you know, being able to advance your salary and do things like that. You know, those products have been around for a good long time now, but clearly there's an opportunity in the market, isn't there, as a consequence of what's happening. Right, something completely different then from Companies House, which is that they are launching their very own agent filing system.

[00:14:39] So anyone that's familiar with dealing with HRC knows that 99 times out of 100, you'll be filing on behalf of your clients using the agent services. And effectively, Companies House are now launching what is effectively a completely equivalent system. And really, the whole reason around this is that, you know, we've now got these changes that are expected to be announced probably later in 2025 and come in force in 2026 around cleaning up the Companies House data.

[00:15:07] So this is around things like being able to verify that directors are genuine people and that the Companies House are going to expect some form of ID verification when, you know, directors' details are being updated and checked. And the same for addresses and some of the contents of the database. And as most accountants will know, the Companies House database is running deep with all sorts of problems.

[00:15:29] And Dan Needle's been having an absolute whale of a time over the last few weeks reporting on all of these potentially, you know, dodgy companies that look like the banks and potentially being used to scam people out of money. And so it's not out of time in terms of, you know, Companies House are well aware this is a problem. The government have been well aware this is a problem for a while. So to be fair, they, you know, previous governments have sat on their hands and just not been quick enough with some of this legislation, but it's finally coming. But the consequence is that as accountants and bookkeepers and stuff, we will need to get an agent service account set up.

[00:15:57] The earliest you can do that is you can start to apply from the end of the month, so 25th of February. And at the moment, there isn't a deadline for when we have to transition. But again, I'm likely to expect that to happen towards the end of this year. And that means that also as an agent, we will have to verify our own details. But it will mean that it's a little bit easier for us then to verify the details of some of our clients.

[00:16:21] So we won't have to go to all of our clients and ask them for ID to be submitted to Companies House, because hopefully we'll have done that ourselves through our AML processes. And that will allow us to sort of shortcut some of that process, which is really helpful. The other thing that's also quite interesting about this announcement is that it's tied into the whole government one login idea, which we reported on previous news. This is effectively the government's sort of new single sign-in service.

[00:16:43] So that allows you, rather than having an agent account for corporation tax and then one for VAT, one for personal tax, which at the moment are all firm-wide, they're going to drill down and it's going to become like an individual-based login, which is better in so many ways. It's better for cybersecurity. It's better for control. It's better for managing access to the right things that are most appropriate for the staff roles and responsibilities you've got to do. And it also means that you're not sharing like a generic login across a whole team of people who, you know, for a period of time will come and go as you recruit people and people move on.

[00:17:11] So from a security point of view, it's really, really great. So this is all happening, like I say, in the next few weeks. And, yeah, I'll be interested to see what the uptake from accountants and bookkeepers is and whether or not people sit on their hands and wait and leave it until this has to be, you know, becomes mandated, which is inevitable. But the timescale for that is unknown at this moment in time. And did I catch there was a fee, John, as well, that's involved? I think it was a £55 registration fee, if I remember rightly. Yeah, £55, I think it is.

[00:17:41] So, yeah, interesting that there is a fee because obviously to be a HMRC agent, there's no cost at the moment, but there is for a company's house. But I guess, you know, £55 in the grand scheme of things, is that expensive? No, not really to be able to do this. And if you can't afford that as an accounting firm or a bookkeeping firm, then you're clearly doing something tragically wrong. You said something really early on about the sorts of companies that Dan Needle has highlighted on Companies House.

[00:18:09] And I cannot honestly say to anyone that doesn't already follow Dan Needle, don't do it. Just don't. It's like, if you follow him, you will easily. That will be the end of at least an hour, two hours of just going down the rabbit hole of reading like 100 page reports just on, you know, any of his findings or anything that he's kind of dug up. Oh, it's addictive. It is addictive. I've got something else on Intuit.

[00:18:35] Intuit has announced it's testing a new QuickBooks online interface that integrates MailChimp, who they previously acquired a few years, a few years back. MailChimp, the email marketing software. It's aiming to help businesses boost productivity and profitability. Currently, the test targets new QuickBooks users who aren't yet connected to accountants.

[00:18:54] And the interface includes a carousel that displays key applications businesses use daily, making it easier to complete the essential tasks that a business needs to complete within their UI. They can choose to opt into the test. And if they do, they'll see the combined QuickBooks and MailChimp experience. Accountants can also participate as they have access to a new platform when managing clients' books. If they prefer the traditional interface, accountants can opt their clients out of the test at any time.

[00:19:21] The integration is highlighting the continued focus on delivering a more connected platform for all of the apps within their ecosystem. With an emphasis on co-creating solutions with accounting professionals, accountants are encouraged to share feedback directly within the platform to help shape the future features.

[00:19:40] It's really great because, again, we've seen things that have been acquired and maybe the bedding in has taken quite a few years because it's not, you know, this is like a two years later bedding and acquisition into the software. And anything is, I can't help but thinking that the play that sometimes QuickBooks and Intuit in particular, it's this whole thing around Intuit, QuickBooks, MailChimp, they're all just, the brand architecture is so different.

[00:20:09] What's offered in one jurisdiction for the fact that, you know, they go direct to business in, say, North America and it's super aggressive. Intuit plays a super aggressive relationship with accountants in North America compared to what we get here across the pond. It's all very gentle and friendly, isn't it? It's through the accountants, the accountants to give feedback, but directly integrating into the businesses because we still want the accountants involved.

[00:20:33] But anyway, yeah, hopefully that synergy is more conducive for businesses than less conducive to using the QuickBooks platform. I guess that's just a reflection of the market though, right? It's like, you know, America, you know, we know the market is running out of CPAs, you know, there's a shortage of accountants qualifying and coming into the profession. So it makes sense for QuickBooks to go direct because there's no real competition and there's no need to worry too much about the marketing channel through the accountants.

[00:21:03] Whereas, you know, over here in the UK, we don't have the same kind of pressures to a degree. And the competitive forces are probably a little bit more balanced as far as, you know, Intuit has pretty much a monopoly in the US and not so here in the UK. And so they happen to compete, say, Agent Zero and Free Agent and others. And all of their messaging from those brands is around, you know, engaging with that channel, engaging with accountants and bookkeepers and how they're so important to business. So I guess you've got to adapt your marketing, you know, to the respective market as a consequence.

[00:21:32] Okie-kokie, one last update from Dex then. Are they still the busiest, you know, accounting tech provider in terms of updates and things? I mean, I guess Free Agent might argue about that. But certainly Dex have announced another big update. And this is the global availability of their Soho Books integration, which was announced just towards the tail end of January. I think possibly whilst I was away skiing, in fact.

[00:21:55] And essentially what this now means is that if you're a Soho user or a Dex user and you fancy using a different GL or automating more of your accounts payable processing and expense processing, you can now do that with Dex. And that plugs and plays in a similar way that it does to, you know, those people who are familiar with using it across, you know, other platforms like Xero, QuickBooks, et cetera. So, you know, this is just, you know, this is quite simply just Dex expanding their reach, which makes total sense.

[00:22:23] And, you know, this is the way that these kind of players have got to provide your access to the markets. Brief, the advisory platform for accountants has introduced their Notetaker. It's a big release for them and it was one of their most requested features in 2024. And the Brief AI Notetaker is purpose built for accountants and advisors. And it syncs with your calendar to transcribe meetings and say video recordings seamlessly into their software.

[00:22:50] Generates AI powered advisory focused summaries that utilize a full context of your client's journey on Brief. For example, check-ins, past meetings, goals, actions, et cetera. And it makes it easy to edit and send meetings summaries to clients with their goals, progress and action items. You can pair it with the AI prep to make meeting with clients even more impactful and personalized and efficient. I have not used this particular software. Perhaps you have, John.

[00:23:19] And I know that there are other softwares out there at the moment that provide this sort of technology at a base level. But possibly Brief in terms of how they are leveraging the latest technology is it's a more enhanced workflow that can take place in terms of a dialogue between the client and the accountant. Penny, for your thoughts? Yeah, I mean, Brief has come through the early adopters hub, which I'm part of. And obviously, Ryan's also part of as well.

[00:23:49] And they launched in Australia, which is their home market, gosh, 18 months or so ago. And again, they worked with the early adopters hub to kind of refine that and get out into the market. And now the two co-founders, Kate and Matt, are here in the UK for the foreseeable future to really manage the launch of the products in the UK market. And I know Matt in particular has been working really hard on working on this update and this release, making sure it's all done.

[00:24:16] And I know that Kate's been busy cracking the whip to make sure that Matt stays on track and gets it delivered on time. So kudos to both of them for that.

[00:24:22] But I think, you know, again, you know, this is a part of the market where we've seen a few players like Clarity and, you know, the Gap and others trying to get into the market and trying to get a piece of software in people's hands to really help with these kind of advisory-led services that, you know, accountants quite often struggle to deliver or struggle with the bandwidth or the sort of the training requirements that you have within a firm.

[00:24:49] And, you know, Brief and all of these other players are all trying to address that by trying to make this process as easy as possible and to sort of try and take some load away from our staff and almost sort of send it back towards the client and engage with them in a particular way to get insights. And, you know, one of the things that they do, which I quite like, is they sort of, you know, quite regularly contact clients and sort of say, you know, what's keeping you up at night? You know, and then that can be reported back to the client manager or the client partner to then form part of a conversation when you meet them on a regular basis, whether that's monthly or quarterly.

[00:25:18] So, you know, I think that's quite intelligent. And note takers, everyone's desperate for a note taker and everyone's desperate for an integrated note taker that allows you to have good quality meetings, but without the load of having to keep on top of notes and keep on top of action points and follow up. And again, we're seeing, you know, quite a few people like the, you know, Jordan Vickery and the team have just launched something in the market fairly recently. I think they called it vinyl. I can't remember what they call it now, but I think it's vinyl.

[00:25:46] And, you know, obviously there are note takers within, you know, Zoom and, you know, co-pilots and, you know, Fireflies and a whole bunch of other ones. But it's really about having that integrated in your suite so that you can manage that more effectively. So, yeah, I think it's an interesting time. We're not currently using Brief at the moment just because it doesn't work for us in terms of our timescales for implementing a new product. But they are very much on our list in terms of something that we want to explore further, probably towards the middle to latter part of this year,

[00:26:13] once we've got a bit more time and capacity to implement something new and change some of the workflows that will be required for our teams. Lovely. Well, so if you're interested in any of the apps that we've spoken about today or you just want to find out a little bit more on them, then please do drop us a note and I'm sure we can find either the right person or at least a little bit more intel for you on how well they work.

[00:26:43] So we've got another little piece from Exledger and we're joined by Laura and Ben to dive into ESG reporting and how Exledger does this, which is not something we see in a lot of systems nowadays. So I guess my first question prior to you, Laura, is why has Exledger focused on ESG? Our history is we were founded in Norway and we've got a good presence in the rest of the Nordics as well.

[00:27:08] They have a very strong stance with ESG, climate accounting, and they're way ahead of the game that we are in the UK and the rest of Europe as well. And it's just something that even as a business we do focus on. For example, our office, we have, I don't know how many plants, but it feels like a million of them to make sure that our office is as neutral as possible. And we just can see that trend of that becoming more and more important in the industry.

[00:27:37] Cool. And ESG is pretty broad. Is there a specific area you focus on or you equally can cover all areas of ESG? Yes, it's largely the data-driven areas. So when you've got ESG, you've got your environmental, social, and governance. Environmental is the main area because that is very data-driven. You've also got social, which is quite data-driven in terms of gender pay gaps and gender diversity.

[00:27:59] But those areas where it's based on the data we have in the system, whether it's carbon reporting, whether it's waste management and that kind of stuff, that's where we can provide a lot of help. Cool. And then to say carbon accounting, it's not something that I've done a lot of. And I know the regulation or guidance on this can vary in jurisdictions. So how are you tracking it? Let's not get too technical. But I assume when, is it when people are inputting information they have to put in the carbon elements as well? How does it work?

[00:28:27] Yeah, so there's a variety of ways to track it, whether it's from the resource, so you entering your carbon emissions, entering how much energy you're using, or whether it's arguably a bit more simple, almost working back for how much you pay for electricity or something. So you can work out kind of reversing the factor and working back how much that carbon or kilowatt power would be. And then we can do the calculations off the back of that to find your CO2 equivalent and get into the reporting. Cool. So it's flexible in that you can go in both directions.

[00:28:58] You don't have to worry about, as you're entering a transaction, if you don't put it in there, then you're kind of stuck. You can kind of work in review, maybe even the end of a period where you're going, okay, well, let's work out from that spot. Exactly. If you want to do as simple as just enter your meter readings, that's the easiest level you could do if you wanted to. Cool. So that's obviously the direct side. Do you cover the indirect side as well? So where you've got suppliers that you're not going to get like a carbon accounting bit of information on that. How would you handle that at the moment?

[00:29:27] So there's a lot of factors and emission factors that are called, we call them resource factors, that you can use on external supplier information or from suppliers. So either largely you can work off cost-based. So again, giving you estimates of industries and how those can be calculated all the way to the reporting side.

[00:29:46] But what you touched on there is one of the hardest parts of climate accounting is getting the information from your suppliers or getting information from the upstream, downstream of your supply chain and how that impacts yourself. So as much as we can only provide help on the data you get, there's an element of if you're going to what we call the scope two and three, that's the hardest part. Definitely. It's like electric cars, right? They only get traction if there's enough charging points and they don't build charging points until you've got enough electric cars. So what comes first?

[00:30:16] And until you've got the tools that you've built that encourage clients to record it and therefore be able to work out what their impact is from their sales perspective, it's not going to proliferate down. But we're seeing this more and more, the requirements we expect is to grow. Laura, from a, especially UK perspective, are you, when do you think we're really going to start to feel the pinch for needing to report on this? We're starting to see it already.

[00:30:40] Absolutely. We've got a lot of clients in the housing sector and it's already, you know, I came from the housing sector, you know, nearly five years ago and it was, it was a topic then. But we're sitting, seeing more and more in RFPs, in just general kind of conversations about our kind of position, but also what we have in the system. And, you know, we end up showing what we've got in the system and we know it's going to go a lot further than it is today.

[00:31:05] And it's kind of blowing their minds slightly because they weren't expecting anything, maybe one or two, you know, little bits. But actually, even the amount we've got today is kind of quite considerable. But as I say, it's becoming a hot topic, say, in the industries, but also with accountants that we are speaking to. So it's something that, you know, their clients are starting to ask them to start seeing. A lot of them are kind of not panicking, but kind of worried that they're going to have to do this manually.

[00:31:33] You know, we've spoken to a lot of people that are spending, you know, hours and hours trying to create these reports. Where XEDU can kind of remove all of that because a lot of it is done kind of as you go. You know, as Ben said, the CO2 off mileage, that's done as people enter expense claims. There's no additional work there. All of our dashboards are pre-configured. That's real time, meaning that, you know, you've kind of ticked that one off the list already.

[00:31:58] Yeah, I've done this myself where for a business, I've basically gone, OK, they want to know what the carbon footprint is. I now have to do this all in Excel and it takes blooming weeks to sort it out. So, yeah, if you've got the tools there, the streamline it, that's going to massively help. And, you know, we've talked about it in the prior sessions about the fact that you're a big differentiator for you is outsourcing.

[00:32:20] So do you see that outsourcing and climate accounting or ESG reporting really, you know, combine into a superpower, I guess, for XEDU? Yeah, definitely. And I think with what we're seeing in outsourcing is more of that hybrid approach. So in the previous session, speaking about, you know, them still having some finance staff within the business, it's that added value.

[00:32:42] You know, using XEDU with the automation that you can get out of it, that time saving, we're finding a lot of our outsourced partners are actually adding more value by using things like our climate accounting, you know, the ESG elements of it just to add, you know, that differentiator, not just for XEDU, but for the firm as well. So that accountant has got other things they can offer that end client. Yeah, brilliant. I mean, that will make sense. Ben, I'm going to come to you and be very nerdy here because I like doing that.

[00:33:07] So what is probably, what do you think is the best feature of the ESG reporting or the, you know, the carbon accounting in XEDU? What's your favorite one? I think there's a couple. I think initially the automation behind it, once you've helped the system calculate in terms of giving it some emission factors and saying what your cost is for various things, that data will analyze in the background. The calculations will happen for you. You're not exporting. You're not doing anything to it.

[00:33:38] You can, at real time, go and see that data and get your ESG information, your climate accounting information straight out, possibly in more detail than you would have done before because a lot of it is automated for you. So again, it's ease of access of data once you have the configuration. Brilliant. Thanks both for coming on. The fact that you already have this in the system, possibly because you come from the Nordics and there's more pressure compared to the UK market, but the fact you've already got this

[00:34:05] is a big win for those that are trying to do that outsourcing for clients that want and will be doing reporting on it. So yeah, really insightful. Thank you. Thank you. Shall we throw it over to your finance takes apiece now? So you can, you know, do the big reveal. Let's get some more great insights from the gang who were on the ski trip and some, you know, some useful things about where the challenges lie for us, I think,

[00:34:30] in terms of skills, opportunities, and what kind of challenges we might get from potential competitors coming to our market. Very quickly, how many glasses of wine did you have before you did this recording? Well, that's a good question. Do you know what? I don't think we had any glasses of wine. I think we did, we were served with champagne partway through the conversation because the round tables and stuff that we did were always done before we had an evening meal. So it was kind of, you know, that was the way it was. I can't count for everyone because clearly, you know, what people were doing on the slopes

[00:34:58] and if they were going from bar to bar during the day and drinking Irish coffees before these things happened, you know, that's their own, they have to take responsibility for those things. Oh God, stop giving us a disclaimer. We know you're an accountant, okay? Excellent. We'll give it a listen. The actual question is, what other skills or mindset will new entrants bring into the profession

[00:35:23] and how does it change the look of the profession, i.e. what we're capable of and the qualification? Excellent, excellent. And bear in mind, we're talking about new skills, okay? We're not talking about double entry, which we talked about. You can tell there was fucking bookkeepers in the room last night when we were talking about this. And we're not talking about financial disclosures or auditing. We're talking about new skills, new skills that we should be bringing into our marketplace or that other people that might come and challenge us in the market will bring in. So that's what we're talking about. So who wants to go first? Who wants to ask a question, make a statement?

[00:35:52] Alice has always got an opinion, so let's start with him. Come on. No, fuck it. You're sitting down. Go on. Go for it. You just literally just want me to ask a question. A question about how you feel about things. How I feel about things. In reference to that question. Yeah. I was massively put on the spot here then. How do I feel about things? And I think, fucking hell, I really am on the spot here. Go on, Alice.

[00:36:20] I think we are at a precipice of a big, big, well, I want to see a big, big change in what we do, what we deliver, how we think about what our clients want and therefore hire different people to be able to deliver what our clients think is value, not just deliver what we have

[00:36:43] been for many decades selling, which is audit, which is annual accounts, which is tax, which is VAT, which is payroll. And we see, I think we see it drip fed into the professional. You know, we have seen it drip fed into the profession where people are coming from a more commercial background and being able to be more aligned with what our clients want

[00:37:08] to know, want to hear, and using the underlying skill sets that we have as accountants or accounting professionals or bookkeepers and using those base skills, but actually topping them up with the commercial side of things as well. The chap to my left is not an accountant. He runs an accounting firm and he runs what I call a multidisciplinary accounting firm where he sells different functions into firms. So he's not a one-stop shop, but he sells accounting.

[00:37:37] He sells management support. He sells marketing. He sells strategy consulting. And I think Pete's a great example of somebody coming in with a different skill set. And for those that don't know, actually, I'll just elaborate a little bit. When I first met Pete, he explained the background to it. They did a piece of consulting work for an accounting firm. The accounting firm said, this is really good. Thank you. We're not going to do it. And Pete said, this is so good. And the opportunity is so good. I'm going to do it myself.

[00:38:03] And I think that's an example of a skill set that's come in or someone with a different skill set and background that's come into the accounting world and gone, actually, I'm not going to sell accounting. I'm going to sell support that they want, which is marketing support and it's strategy consulting and it's accounting, of course. How are we going to get these sort of skills, you know, these interpersonal skills into the industry? I think it's really difficult. And I think something that we can see here is that we've got some amazing, courageous

[00:38:32] business leaders, like what Joe and Zoe are doing, for example, is incredible. I've heard so much about these unique stories. And I think it's a little bit of a bubble would be my interpretation. So we've got people who have been in the profession for a really long time who maybe aren't so open minded and willing to try new things. But then, as you mentioned, there are a lot of people that are coming in. And I think it's a challenge in a lot of industries. They're coming in, they're working from home. They're not inspired by work.

[00:39:01] It's a paycheck to pay for their hobbies and like going and doing what they want. And I think it's really difficult to motivate those people and get them really brought into the business. I think this trip is a perfect example of mixing work and pleasure. And I think it's just trying to find a way that's going to motivate those people to be inspired by business again. Because I think, from my perspective, hiring younger people, it is really difficult. So trying to find those things to play on. Can we pass the mic to Gav first? And then we'll come around.

[00:39:31] Don't worry, I can keep count. I'm an accountant. It's going to be mid-dite when we finish, but you can keep count. That's all good. And I've told some of the people here, but I can only tell you, from my angle, from what we're looking at doing and sitting down to analyse it. And what we're planning to do is to bring in Pilates, to bring in yoga, to bring in wellness

[00:39:53] into a sustainability environment, along with business coaching, accounting checks, and therefore doing daily or two to three day courses so that people can come in and experience all the different things. And therefore, get a fresh outlook on life in the same ways that I think what we've done in here. And therefore, I'm trying to bring that into the farming environment that we've got so that they can then also contribute into sustainability.

[00:40:22] And therefore, by doing that, we'll also pull in sustainability experts to then move it forward. And can I just follow up on that quickly? Because there's a lot of incentives there for staff. But what skills are you trying to get them to develop other than maybe coaching and other things? It wasn't for staff. That's for clients. For clients as well. So everybody across the board. So to repeat the question. I'm just interested what angle you were looking for.

[00:40:47] Because there's a lot of incentives there in terms of offering Pilates, yoga, et cetera, in terms of trying to get that work-life balance sorted. But what skills? Okay. Because I think business is going to become more stressful. I think because accounting will not stay the same as it is. Look how quick it's changing. And wellness and sustainability are what I see as the key point for the youth coming through. Because one, they know about it. But secondly, we need to do something about it.

[00:41:13] And if we bring it into an environment for that, then it will retain our profession moving forward. Because it will keep it at the forefront of all the other activities we do. And if we're giving them the benefit of being able to relax and understand and develop and grow. Then, you know, I can go all day. You know. No, no, no. Develop and grow. Then that will help them within their own businesses. Because they'll take it away and take it and use it in theirs. Okay. Super. Sam? And then?

[00:41:42] And James. Oh, yeah. He's going to. My question. My question might be out of date now. No, no. Keep going. Keep going. I guess the easiest way to predict the future is like the current state of momentum. And there's people here who probably run practices for, I don't know, five, six, seven years plus. I'm interested. You're recruiting right now. Like, is the skill set you're looking at? Like, is that fundamentally different to what it was seven years ago? Like, has there been progress?

[00:42:12] Or, yeah. How has that changed? Okay. Pass the mic to Anto because I'd love her to answer that question. I will come back to you in a minute. But I can compare it with our team in India. So what I'm looking for is I'm not looking for accounting skills. I'm looking for how they come across. So my interview with them is like I ask them anything. And if they only answer yes or no, for me, it's not a good fit. Because if they can't make a conversation on anything, then how would they speak to their clients? And also what I found when I was previously asking, working as an account manager, yeah,

[00:42:41] it's so hard to get feedback from you guys. And you only tell feedback when you're frustrated. You're not telling if it's something right. And it's really hard to get that from you guys. So when something happens, yeah, and you build up that frustration, it's like your end of your patience. So I think giving feedback on everything that the team is doing and being an example for them. So, for example, if I work with young people, younger than me, I'm very young.

[00:43:12] I lead by example, so I'm very open. I'm talking about anything and give really good feedback. This is how you should speak to them. This is how you should do it. This is how you should don't be afraid of asking questions. So that's my view on it. Thanks for joining us on today's episode. We're really glad that you could tune in and listen. If you're still listening, then do give us a shout out on LinkedIn. Share the post or at least engage with us to let us know what you enjoyed about this week's episode.

[00:43:41] If you want to know anything more about the upcoming events, anything that we've got in the docket in terms of events for social or for seeing us at one of the accounting events, then get in touch. And if you haven't already done so, please do review this podcast imminently, urgently, as a matter of priority, just so that we can start tracking whether we're ticking the boxes or not. So, John, anything to add?

[00:44:11] No, other than it's always a pleasure to do this and we hope you enjoy listening to the pod. Catch you on the next one.