Yogesh Patel opens with a phrase he had just heard on the main stage: the AI discount. If AI makes the work faster, how does a firm stop the saving going straight to the client as a lower fee? Indi then brings back the idea Dext pushed at its insider day, that the system of record does not have to be where the work happens. Alastair calls it the headless ledger, and Damon Anderson later tells us the AI-native ledger was the big story of the day, name-checking Digits, Light, Campfire, Rillet and DualEntry. He also gives the market a three to five year runway, because real firms have real people, real trust and HMRC to work with.
Paul Layte from Ascendant walks through four versions of the firm delivery model, ending with a question nobody was asking two years ago: do we need offshore at all, or can AI agents do this? Andrew Douthwaite from Alliotts, part of the Shaw Gibbs Group, talks about life after a private equity deal and what he would build with a war chest. Daniel Rock from SuiteFiles previews the new connect portals and the agentic chasing on the way, and Trent McLaren from Vinyl explains why the real gain from an AI note taker is the mental load it lifts.
Kate Hayward, Xero’s UK Managing Director, and Kendrick Hair from Fishbowl talk through a family-run yoghurt maker that has grown threefold in 18 months on Xero and Fishbowl. Kate brings the number of the day, two in five UK small businesses did not know if they were profitable last month, and news of a Xero and The Loop hackathon in November. Kendrick explains Fishbowl’s new accountant’s ledger.
Katie Hawking from TaxAssist comes off a women in accountancy panel with SilverFin and a line worth taking back to the office: be the women we want to walk behind. Ryan closes it out at The Loop stand, giving compliance four years before the way firms deliver it changes completely.
Also covered: James Howell and Dan Cockerton on putting on the show and taking it to the US and Barcelona, Phil Hobden on what Sage has been asked about Intacct and MTD, a new firm owner five months into practice, Lisa Marshall flying in from Canada and discovering FreeAgent, and why they walked straight past John Toon.
Chapters
00:00 Intro, live from the Digital Accountancy Show
01:33 Employment Hero
02:10 Yogesh Patel on the AI discount
04:50 First time at the show
06:40 Why come to DAS, and skipping John Toon
07:47 James Howell on building the show
10:16 Dext and the headless ledger
12:21 £4m in fees from LinkedIn
15:57 People and agents in one org chart
18:36 Andrew Douthwaite on PE and a war chest
24:31 SuiteFiles and agentic chasing
26:06 What Baker Tilly does differently with AI
30:56 Phil Hobden at Sage
32:56 Five months into a new practice
35:56 Fractional CFO or outsourced finance function
38:06 Dan Cockerton on DAS in the US and Barcelona
42:56 Trent McLaren, Vinyl and the mental load
45:26 Paul Layte: do we need offshore at all?
48:26 Katie Hawking: be the women we want to walk behind
52:16 Damon Anderson and the AI-native ledger
55:09 Joiin
56:16 Xero and Fishbowl: two in five didn’t know
66:40 Lisa Marshall, all the way from Canada
69:35 Ryan Pearcy: plan now or have it thrust upon you
73:25 Outro