Tech Transformation: Meeting Accountants’ Evolving Needs

Rob Brown: 00:00:01

The future of accountant, isn't just about

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numbers and financial statements.

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It's about empowering businesses to make

informed decisions, navigate complex

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challenges, achieve their financial goals.

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And everyone recognized that Kansans

are at the heart of this and must become

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trusted partners with business acumen

expertise in data analytics, storytelling,

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strategic guidance, taking the clients

towards success and whatever your role

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is in this ecosystem, you need to stay

ahead of the curve to stay relevant.

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And that's why this accounting

answers podcast was conceived to

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keep you informed and competitive.

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I'm your host, Rob brown, and

I've interviewed 111 accounting

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experts, leaders, advisors, vendors,

and influencers in the last few

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months and collected for you the

very best and latest thinking on

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what works and what is coming up.

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And this week, they show 10 to 15

minutes gets you the low down on

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what matters today in the rapidly

evolving accounting landscape.

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And the professional is shed

in its traditional image of

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number crunching, embracing a

bold new future data technology,

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strategic guidance, reign Supreme.

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I've asked the same five questions

throughout covering the next

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generation of accountants.

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The proactive advice they need to be

given the drivers have changed the

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role of tech and software vendors

post the best predictions for the

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next few years, let's get started and

hear what our experts have to say.

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We've been focusing all

this week on the question.

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What could the tech software vendors

do better to serve accountants?

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The answers you hear covered?

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The vendor accountant relationship and the

needs of accountants that are not being

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addressed by current accounting software.

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How could this software be more

user-friendly and intuitive for

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accountants and their clients?

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How is AI playing its part in the

evolution of the accounting role,

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all these aspects and more come out.

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As we check out the answers

of our resident experts.

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Chairman the thoughts?

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No.

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Is I ruined Mira CEO of Samira global,

dedicated to Albin accountants build

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and scale their films on a global scale.

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With strategic advice and insights

into international markets.

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Arun Mehra: Yeah, that's a difficult one.

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I think we're, we're thrown so much

tech us over the last few years, every

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week, there's a new bit of tech and a

new provider of something or another.

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And hands off.

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I'm guilty of kind of being one of

those people who are guinea pig.

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We all try the new thing and then

realize, Oh my God, what am I doing?

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I'm just creating more

headaches for myself.

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So I think the tech vendors

have to ease the information

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out and a more managed manner.

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I think at the same time.

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They have to, communicate the

benefits of their software.

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So what I mean by that, like, I know

certain software providers, they're

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always evolving their technology, but

half the things I'm not even aware about.

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So they need to be doing more

training to, to their accountants.

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It's all well and good

watching a YouTube video, but.

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That's all well and good, but there's,

there's not enough input and we don't

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really, I know in my firm, I'm sure

we're only using like 30 percent of

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the power of the software that's there.

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So I think they need

to do that much better.

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because a lot of the software is all

comparable now, and I think their

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challenge will be, they've spent all

these development costs and they obviously

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want to charge for this on a monthly fee,

but there are always other vendors out

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there who are going to undercut them.

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So.

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I think the real benefit, the

ones that will succeed will be the

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ones that train their clients, i.

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e.

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ourselves, train the accountants much,

much better, and they provide that as

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part of their whole package, and it's,

just makes them, stands them out in

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a different, amongst everyone else.

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I think that's, the real difference.

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Next we welcome.

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Ashley leads known as the 15

minute guy teaching professionals.

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How to leverage LinkedIn effectively

in just 15 minutes a day to grow their

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network and business opportunities.

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Ashley Leeds: This is a great question.

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It's all about education.

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It's all about showing the

masses of what can be achieved.

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I think the thing is with accountants,

um, I can say this because I've been

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working with them for over 16 years.

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They know what they know,

they like what they like, and

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it's very difficult to change.

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out of out of the habit that you've got

into because your practice is working.

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But if we don't change, we're

going to become dinosaurs.

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We've got to move with the times.

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We've got to adopt all these things.

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And I think because we're in the position

of seeing what's going on, we're seeing

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the cream, we're seeing the technology.

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Lovers move faster and do things.

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And I think it's, down to, us and

the vendors and everybody else in

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the industry to start educating and

helping them, giving them some guidance,

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pointing them in the right direction

and just, you know, helping them.

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And I think the software vendors

need to be talking a lot more to

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each other and opening up their APIs

so that we can make things just.

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Move together and start thinking

of coming up with communities.

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there's some great software vendors out

there that have got a lovely community

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and people are going into Facebook groups

and, and talking to the, the owners, the

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developers of the software to actually

say, look, this is where we want it to go.

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And all these different ideas are coming

up, you know, in this big think tank

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that years ago that never happened.

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And I worked for a software

company, back in: 2007

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And, We just did what we thought we

weren't listening to our customers and

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today the opportunities are great for

those software vendors to actually open up

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and let people tell them what they want.

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And the benefit of all of this means that

we're going to have accountants doing

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better things, getting better clients,

getting staff to come and work for them

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because they're working in an environment

that is exciting and cutting edge.

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And it just makes it

a little bit more fun.

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And at the end of the day, the clients are

going to be served an awful lot better.

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And I don't think accountants are

going to be hating December anymore

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or January for that matter, because

they're going to have the team and the.

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The success that all of the

software is going to give them

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Next we hear the perspective of

Becky Glover and a woodwind and

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finance director, board member, and

business leader, renowned for her

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strategic financial leadership and

commitment to driving business success.

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Becky Glover: Yeah, so something

that really gets to me is

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technology can do a lot of data.

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So it's a lot of data, it's

all stored in one place.

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Yes, that's amazing.

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What I really want, and it's

coming but it's not there yet,

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is more beautiful visualizations.

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Because a lot of the things that

accountants do, yes, it's data,

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it's collecting it, But then it's

having to translate that data to

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the CEO, for example, and say,

this is what I'm seeing now.

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This is what's happened, and this

is where I think we're going to go.

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So these are the projections.

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But if we can do that with beautiful

graphs, or it might be any kind

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of visualization, it makes things

a lot easier for people that

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aren't financially trained to see.

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So I think that's something that

tech really needs to work on is

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just a push of a button or a drag

and a drop, something really easy.

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So you can manipulate that data

and make it beautiful for lots of

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different people to view it in.

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I think it's a, it's a big problem

because a lot of the technologies

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are like, you know, we're plug and

play just put us in and then all

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of your problems will be solved.

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And it seems like there's

a lot of softwares that

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seemingly do the same thing.

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So why should I pick

this one over this one?

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and I think there's a lot of training

for accountants for the debits and the

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credits and the IFRSs, but there's

very minimal training that comes with

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here's how to use your new software.

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So yeah, and I think that does roll

into again, if you're talking about

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technology, AI, automation, those

sort of bigger picture stuff, we're

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not having enough training on how

to use them and how to prompt them.

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So again, if we can get better

training there, it will make the

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outputs hell of a lot better.

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Next please welcome Ben Richmond, a

chartered accountant and us country

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manager at zero, where he leads

initiatives to empower small businesses

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and accountants with innovative

cloud-based accounting software.

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Ben Richmond: Yeah, this is a

great question for me, obviously,

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coming from my position at Xero.

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Um, but it's one I take very seriously.

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Look, and I've been critical of ourselves,

and I've been critical of others as well.

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You've got to meet.

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Accountants and bookkeepers and

small business where they are today.

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So as the technology's gotten

faster, it feels like every vendor,

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and we at Xero being guilty of this

as well, we're trying to portray

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ourselves as the most innovative.

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We're trying to paint the, the next,

the next future thing, you know,

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and we've got to take it back to.

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Let's make sure we help them put

wheels on their suitcase before

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we put them on the plane to Mars.

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because we're often scaring them,

you know, like driving change

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through fear is not the right way.

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And so what I really encourage

people for the vendors to do,

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including us, take a step back.

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Realize what's needed at the time.

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Realize, you know, be consultative

with your partners, be strategic and

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excite them with what those imminent

possibilities are, break it down to how

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they're going to do it and you show them

what's further down the line, but bring

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that back to like where they're at today

and how you take them on that journey.

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And I think the other thing is

to remember, like we love growth

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and lots of people love growth.

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But not every accountant or

bookkeeper you're working with

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is going to be growth obsessed.

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So what's important to them is a timeout

with their family, being able to work

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from the beach for the long weekend.

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And actually technology

is going to enable that.

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And so I think us really understanding

what's important to them, what are

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they trying to drive and bringing what

you can do in alongside that journey.

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So show them the way, don't scare them and

excite them versus driving through fear.

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Diving into the conversation now is Blake

Oliver, founder of EMR, where accounted

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10 CPE for listening to podcasts.

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Blended education with entertainment

to support the accounting

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professions, continuous learning.

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Blake Oliver: So when it comes to

vendors in the accounting space,

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the biggest challenge is just lack

of integration, interoperability.

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It's really hard to connect apps and

to automate the flow of data when.

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You have when you don't even have APIs,

when you don't have a way to move the data

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around, AI is going to help with that.

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I think we're going to get

more and more of these macro

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type tools inside of windows.

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third party add ons that will be

able to move the mouse and click

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around and type on the keyboard.

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We've called this robotic

process automation.

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It's only been available to enterprises,

big companies for a long time.

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And I think AI is going to help

bring that to more and more

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small and mid sized businesses.

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but.

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We really still need vendors to build

connections at the very least, build

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a connection to Zapier or some similar

API tool so that we can then connect

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whatever your app does to thousands

of other apps that we may be using.

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that's the biggest barrier,

especially in the world of tax.

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It just shocks me how.

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Old school these apps are, and how

there's no way to connect, say my

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proposal management software to my

tax software to say, create a new

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engagement or to get that data out of

the previous year into something where I

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can populate a client organizer online.

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Like this is, this is

really basic and it just.

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It's kind of a shame, honestly, that

the vendors have been so complacent in

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that space that they haven't done it.

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So, I, I really encourage them to do

that because I think those that do will

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have a huge advantage in the future.

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and vendors that don't make this change,

I think will be at risk of disruption.

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And this is something that we've seen.

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Over the decades, uh, since

the computer revolution is that

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companies get really complacent.

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Uh, just look at Google, for

instance, Google's an amazing company.

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80 percent of their revenue or more

is still from traditional search.

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And that is all being disrupted by AI.

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And now they are playing catch

up because they got complacent.

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They, they owned the market, and the same

thing could happen to these other vendors

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in the accounting space, just because

you've got most of the market for tax

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prep now doesn't mean that in five years

you will, because some disruption could

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come along, and AI could enable a startup

to create a very sophisticated tax prep

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program that would have taken hundreds

of millions of dollars to do before.

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So those barriers are coming down and,

and these vendors need to wake up.

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Microphone (TONOR TC30 Audio Device)-2:

So they have five grand

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answer to the question.

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What could the tech and software vendors

do better to serve accountants each

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work in depth that week, Monday through

Friday, we give you the insights of five

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top influencers in the accounting world.

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On this critical area of the

tech providers, software vendors

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and how they serve accountants.

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That's 25 valuable perspectives,

viewpoints and best thinking every week.

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And with each fresh week comes a

fresh question and more thoughts

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from the best accounting leaders

and influences we can find.

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Thanks for listening to this brand

new accounting answers podcast.

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And sharing the show with your friends.

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If you want to join the conversation,

you can plug into our community of

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implementers@accountinginfluencers.com

and check out our virtual

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These happen every few months

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The great opportunities to raise your

profile, build valuable connections and

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share your thoughts with influential

peers until next time, this is your host.

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Rob brown, saying stay informed,

stay relevant and stay connected.