Exploring the Landscape: Global Tech Innovations in the Accounting Industry
Dec 18, 2023Season 2Episode 18
All Aussie Accounting Adventures
Get ready to embark on a thrilling voyage of discovery through the world of global tech in the accounting industry with Amy & AJack as they are hitting the road for the All Aussie Accounting Adventures TECH edition.
Amy and Jack approach the question of whether we, in the Australia and New Zealand accounting scene, are the frontrunners in tech or if our international counterparts are hot on our heels?! They traverse the landscape of cutting-edge apps and startups from around the world, showcasing how these innovations compare to our AUNZ market.
They also introduce you to the latest, most exhilarating apps and tools within the Australian market that are causing ripples and shaping the industry's future. This episode will leave you inspired to reimagine your approach to tech in accounting. So, tune in for a podcast episode that combines global tech with insightful tech revelations!
CHECK US OUT ALL IN Advisory | Chartered accountants, business advisors & transactional experts Illumin8 | Purpose-led cloud-driven accounting humans Clarity Street | Bringing clarity, time & ease to your practice. Your accounting systems, people and processes working together. Simply. Seamlessly. Early Adopters Hub | Bringing together innovative accounting tech startups with the most forward-thinking accountants in the world - Where the Future of AccounTech is Made.
CHECK US OUT ALL IN Advisory | Your squad of award-winning accountants, tax wizards & biz visionaries, perfectly tailored to elevate your biz. Let's soar together! Illumin8 | Purpose-led cloud-driven accounting humans Clarity Street | Bringing clarity, time & ease to your practice. Your accounting systems, people and processes working together. Simply. Seamlessly. Mayday | Revolutionise your finance teams multi-entity month end through real-time accounting
Get ready to embark on a thrilling voyage of discovery through the world of global tech in the accounting industry with Amy & AJack as they are hitting the road for the All Aussie Accounting Adventures TECH edition.
Amy and Jack approach the question of whether we, in the Australia and New Zealand accounting scene, are the frontrunners in tech or if our international counterparts are hot on our heels?! They traverse the landscape of cutting-edge apps and startups from around the world, showcasing how these innovations compare to our AUNZ market.
They also introduce you to the latest, most exhilarating apps and tools within the Australian market that are causing ripples and shaping the industry's future. This episode will leave you inspired to reimagine your approach to tech in accounting. So, tune in for a podcast episode that combines global tech with insightful tech revelations!
CHECK US OUT ALL IN Advisory | Chartered accountants, business advisors & transactional experts Illumin8 | Purpose-led cloud-driven accounting humans Clarity Street | Bringing clarity, time & ease to your practice. Your accounting systems, people and processes working together. Simply. Seamlessly. Early Adopters Hub | Bringing together innovative accounting tech startups with the most forward-thinking accountants in the world - Where the Future of AccounTech is Made.
CHECK US OUT ALL IN Advisory | Your squad of award-winning accountants, tax wizards & biz visionaries, perfectly tailored to elevate your biz. Let's soar together! Illumin8 | Purpose-led cloud-driven accounting humans Clarity Street | Bringing clarity, time & ease to your practice. Your accounting systems, people and processes working together. Simply. Seamlessly. Mayday | Revolutionise your finance teams multi-entity month end through real-time accounting
Yeah, I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. I'm looking forward to this, as always, in fact, I don't need a fun fact, I don't need a quote, I don't need a joke to introduce this episode, because we're talking about global tech and globe. Trotting through this together is just too long a low hanging fruit to ignore. So shall we get into it?
Speaker 2:
Yes, let's get into it. Let's jump on our steeds and explore the diverse accounting tools around the world. Let's go further afoot than what we normally do. Normally, we just talk about the Aussie stuff and then the NZ stuff. So let's talk about the global stuff today. Yes, or why?
Speaker 1:
What do we want to do that?
Speaker 2:
for Well, because I think you know what, as much as we are spoiled here in terms of the tech we have available to us, there is so much innovation overseas Like there's heaps over there, and you know what. I will preface this by saying we are phenomenally spoiled here. We really are truly spoiled in the AUNZ market for all of the apps. So I think it is it's nice to actually get a little bit of perspective around what is actually going on overseas as well, just to see what other apps there are in the market and sometimes remember how spoiled we are.
Speaker 1:
And I think another thing is that, you know, we have been leaders in the market for a while, you know, thanks to Zerot, kind of dragged the rest of the ecosystem along with it. But the rest of the world in accounting tech is absolutely catching up caught up in some areas ahead of us. So I think, I think it's important to keep an eye on the global tech landscape. What are the apps out there that are doing well in the UK, in North America, you know? Are these the apps that might potentially be coming down under at some point and disrupting? You know what we're used to. So keeping an eye on that. But I also think, I think, kind of as part of wrapping up the season and talking global tech and what's around the corner, let's highlight a few of the other little upcoming apps that are out there. Maybe they are AU, uk, nz based, but let's, let's, let's chat about them too. They deserve a spot.
Speaker 1:
So, might be a little bit of a rapid fire. Overview of apps.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, cool Disclaimers. I think we have a few disclaimers about what we need to remember about global tech. So I think the first one is like most global tech in the accounting space isn't going to work locally, so obviously, like from a tax perspective, like there are tax jurisdictions, you know globally, the ecosystem it's, you know it can be different as well. So that's definitely one to remember.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, and I think you know we'll probably butcher the description of these tools to some degree. You know we've, you know we've spent a bit of time looking into them and somewhere more familiar with others. So you know if, if they are listening, if the founders or members of these startups are listening to us describe their apps. You know, apologies.
Speaker 4:
We're sorry.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's right. That's right. We've tried to wrap our head around them as quick as we could. So, look, I'm happy to kick off. I've. I've got one international startup, uk based startup that is called RQ or RQ ratings. I think the ratings has fallen off, but that's still in the domain. So RQ ratings. It's a client relationships and referrals kind of platform.
Speaker 1:
We're basically trying to solve that problem where accountants are trying to manage and collaborate with other professionals financial planners, lawyers, things like that you know, giving them a platform to manage those connections, those relationships, and see what those other parties are actually doing with their clients. So I think there's other elements to it as well. But interesting, interesting problem to solve. You know, I think there's a use case there for certain firms. You know, if you've got a super tight internal network of connections and friends that you use, perhaps this is a place that just provides you a platform to make it a little bit more little easier to work together. Yep, and, of course, if you don't have that network, I think it actually helps you to find the right kinds of people as well. So if you're looking for a financial planner that knows X, y, and.
Speaker 2:
Z.
Speaker 1:
I think there's there's capability in there that allows you to do that too.
Speaker 2:
That's pretty cool. It'll be good for an end user perspective. Definitely. I think that's a great option. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So you got one.
Speaker 2:
Um, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, UK. Tell me about Mayday. I want to cause you know a bit more about Mayday than what I do, I think.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I've seen them at a couple of Zerikons here as well, so they are UK based, but they they have a. I suppose they've started to grow in Australia, new Zealand, I believe, maybe even Asia too a little bit. So they are looking at the month end accounting process. So I think this is this is definitely relevant to accounting firms, probably let's say, 25% relevant to accounting firms, 75% relevant to in-house finance teams. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:
So cause they're looking at zero organizations only, so groups that contain multiple zeros, and saying, look, there's a lot of inter-company transactions, there's a lot of recharges going on and there's some complexities around. If you've got a bank feed that has transactions going through it, but some of those transactions relate to other entities in your group, how do you, how do you reconcile those transactions in a nice easy way? So there's a few uh products. I think there's three products inter-company stuff, recharge stuff and the business reconciliation as a group. They are well and truly underway, they're growing relatively quickly and they actually have a public product roadmap, vision, kind of thing on their website too, if you want to check out kind of where they're going, cause at the moment it's multi entity only, but they do have single entity stuff in in the works so soon. It will be probably more relevant to accounting firms too.
Speaker 2:
So I've got a bit of a question around that one then. So how is that different to say, the likes of account kit in terms of their, you know, inter-company to entity loans and things like that? Like how does that differ, I guess?
Speaker 1:
Well, my understanding is that account kit has a a lot of other functions and they're they're moving a little bit more into workflow. So I think there's, I think there's the, the general concept. The compliance features of account kit then yeah, so the compliance features of account kit versus this. I think there's the inter-company stuff is inter-company balances are probably. I haven't compared each feature in every second, but I think they're quite similar products. I don't think account kit does recharges like Mayday does so.
Speaker 1:
I mean it's. It's that. It's. That classic example of Mayday is specifically going after the month-end process and saying we're going to be entirely focused on this, so there'll be a little bit more nuanced and detailed and they'll have specific features that add value to that process. Account kit has that as a feature within a toolkit of other things. They're not trying to solve the month-end process though, so it's. I think that I think you're right to call that out. There's a crossover there. The intercompany feature in Mayday is free, so it's it's for them. That's kind of the baseline. You need that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so anyway, I think I think there's room for you could have a count kit as your workflow and and CRME kind of app, and Whether or not use their intercompany balances doesn't matter too much. You could use theirs or you could use Mayday. So, yeah, I don't think they're mutually exclusive.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it's nice. So that again there's just, there's now choice. There's more choice because I know that you know account kit, in that specific, our feature of their app has been like the leader for ages, like that. It's like go to them, go to account kit for that particular feature, but equally, account kit has so many other features as well. So you know it's good that there's, you know there's choice out there with Mayday.
Speaker 1:
I like it, I like it, yeah, yeah and, as I said, it's at the moment, I think, a little bit more internal finance teams. So they're not going to use account kit. They're obviously not an accounting firm. They don't need a count kit. So it's. Yeah, I think there's some crossover market a little bit with a little bit of feature crossover, but you know generally Enough difference. So, yeah, what else do we have? I know there's another player in the multi entity space, translucent. Yeah, yeah, yeah tell us your thoughts.
Speaker 2:
I caught up with Michael Wood when I was in the UK earlier this year. Actually, michael and I have known each other for years and years and years. We did a roadshow way back, one of the very first road shows that zero ever had. God, I was close to nearly 15 years ago. Anyway, we'll think about that. When we caught up. Michael Wood is one of the. He's the original founder of receipt bank and you know huge, ambitious effort from receipt bank, you know. You know we're now he's now moved into the world of translucent Again, solving some of the features of multi entity. So I guess you can probably talk a little bit more around the multi entity thing but from what I understand it grabs like feet for rather large businesses. It does grab, you know, financials from lots of different places and basically packages them up into one. So that was my baseline description if you want to spend on that check.
Speaker 1:
I think that's right. My understanding of it is so you've got a group with lots of different accounting Software's, not just a big group. So, yeah, made a focused on. They're different as well. So it's important to understand these aren't going after the same things, but they're both in the multi entity space. I think people think they are competing, but I think they are different.
Speaker 1:
Translucent is looking at okay, you've got zero here, quick books there. Yeah, something else here, google sheets there. You know how do I bring all that together? And it provides almost like a layer over the top of all of those. Well, I mean, that's the intention of it.
Speaker 1:
It's still early days, so I think to say that it's doing that today is it's not yet, but it's a big, ambitious project. They've raised a lot of money. There's a lot of challenges there. So it's one to keep. I think one to keep your eye on if that's a relevant, if you've got clients that have that that challenge, because it's, as I understand it, it's almost like your alternative would be to move to a massive ERP like a net suite or something like that, to try and get all of your entities on the same system. But it's just such a huge project for those groups that they want to delay that as much as possible. And this is this is for a certain Type of multi entity group, providing trying to provide that layer to say, hey, maybe for another few years or maybe indefinitely I'm not sure what their goals are long term, maybe indefinitely, you don't need to use a net suite. So it's grabbing that real top end of the, the zero market. Yeah, so that's how I understand it.
Speaker 2:
Are they out of beta yet?
Speaker 1:
I can't remember actually Say where well, what they're doing is they're building these apps. They're building like a. They built the search app, which I understand is out of beta.
Speaker 3:
I could be wrong.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, but I think that's out of beta. So that's just that's one component of what they're building. They're building some reporting stuff. I think that's definitely still in beta, and then I think in future They've got some other. They're calling them apps, you know, apps planned to basically sit on top of this Layer of data that they're creating by bringing so yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:
I think it's a very, very challenging thing to do, yeah, which is why you know Michael's. Behind it is raised a lot of money to do it, and it'll be one I want to keep an eye on to see.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, where it goes. Yeah, looking at I mean looking at where receipt bank was, and now that it's called dexed, obviously, and you know what that's been able to achieve. Yeah, definitely keep our on that one a little closer to Australia Firm checked or connect works. Nz's AML technology. Talked to me about that one.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so I mean this is. This is a startup we did a little bit of work with as part of early adopters hub, so I know them relatively well. So they they have a product called connect works in New Zealand which is a AML and a little bit broader than just AML, kind of hand what's a work flow?
Speaker 2:
What's?
Speaker 1:
anti money laundering. So yeah, we're clarifying that, because I don't, I don't know, is it not a thing here, like I?
Speaker 2:
don't. I don't think it's a massive thing here yet.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I believe.
Speaker 2:
I believe that it's just not. It's the same as the ID checks like I, like you know, know your client checks right. So over in the over in NZ it's huge, whereas here I mean you should be doing it. It is definite you need to be doing it, but yeah it's still the. I guess the compliance around it is still a little bit loose.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, and the UK is very heavy on it too.
Speaker 1:
So there's, a number of players over there and connect works did some research with us into the UK market and realized that they needed to bring a slightly different product to the UK and so they kind of rebranded and simplified it and focused really heavily just on the AML component that was going to be valuable in the UK and that's kind of why they Launched their UK product as firm check and it's from reports it's going well over there. So I mean I think I think, whether it's firm check or more broadly just AML, I think it's a watch this space in Australia too.
Speaker 2:
I agree.
Speaker 1:
If the New Zealand Legislation is is making a requirement, the UK is making a requirement, I think it's going to get tighter and tighter and tighter and stricter and stricter and stricter around this. And there's some real complexities in this, like I remember seeing in these calls. And you know you've got as a firm, if you've got a business that you work with and they have a, they're a subsidiary of a group and in that group there's a director who's from a you know, you know Country X or Y or whatever, and there's that's a risk You've got to know like this makes life hard.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, firms yeah that's why the tools you need good tools to make it easier.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, solo GPT.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, this is one that I I just saw the other day, so I mean I don't know. Do you know about the custom GPT's coming out of open AI?
Speaker 2:
A little bit. I'm a bit I'm a bit vague on these. I'll be honest with you, yeah, so so chat GPT, I think we have no relatively well.
Speaker 1:
It's like an open thing anyone can chat to and it just kind of pulls back what it figures out from its library of data, Including the internet, up to a certain date. Oh, A custom GPT is where you basically say I only want you to pull from this information, so I'll upload the tax legislation, I'll upload my personal internal firm processes, whatever it is, and now you can chat to it and it will only pull from. It'll speak still speak natural language, but it will pull from the data it knows. So you could do these for internal processes. So when you're onboarding a new staff member, if they've got a question, they can just write to your custom GPT and it would respond with the relevant answer based on what you've uploaded. You could do this for tax as well, and that's what these guys have done. So I think it's-.
Speaker 1:
Interesting. I really haven't looked too much into it, but solo GPT it's NZ focused. It's mainly, I think, for sole traders to actually type in and answer, get their tax questions answered. So I think it's one more. So not to look out for former, you might use it perspective, but one to keep an eye on is like do you as a firm maybe want to start thinking about what could we have as a custom GPT that's ours and our brand and that we could actually help our clients with, or help our staff to get up to speed as advisors, or how can you use this technology? It's a good example of that, I think.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, okay. Along the similar vein of that is a new little AI tool as well, called EVA, which is by Etani.
Speaker 4:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:
And they are doing a similar thing as well. I caught up with Cameron Lynch just recently in relation to that, and EVA is basically a little AI bot that sits in turns of like. It looks at your XPM, for example, and your zero data, and you can ask it questions like tell me what the productivity was for Jack the week beginning the first of November?
Speaker 2:
for that week period and you can ask it a question. It will spit out the information like instantaneously. So it takes that, I guess, that reporting to a whole new level, like things like tell me what the clarity straight group, what's their whip position sitting at, for example, right, and you can actually ask it questions like that and it will look at the data and it'll actually spit out the answers for you. So I think that's another one that's in the similar vein. That's pretty cool in relation to that space. So watch that space as well.
Speaker 1:
It's kind of cool. And now if we move west I don't know, east, west, to North America, obviously, let's move around the globe, whichever way you wanna go. The US in particular is a very startup focus country. There's heaps of good tech coming out there but accounting tech has never really been.
Speaker 1:
we've been better at that. They are starting to pick up, though, and I think it's definitely a market worth watching. The problem for them or the problem for us, if they're the innovators is that our market's so small to them, so, but we're very good early adopters as well. We are pretty adaptive, so I think there's an opportunity for US startups to bring their tech to Australia and New Zealand. But yeah, I mean, what are you saying? I know there's one called TaxDome. Do you have any experience with that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, taxdome. I took a look at that one recently. It's a full practice management suite. It's pretty. It's bloody cool, if I'm being honest. I looked at it and just went, oh my gosh, it does so much Like it integrates, like it doesn't. Sorry, integration apologies, it doesn't technically integrate.
Speaker 2:
I believe it integrates with Intuit over in the US at the moment, for obvious reasons, because Intuit's such a big tax product, et cetera. They are looking at an integration with zero as well. Not as far on the roadmap. It's further down the roadmap for obvious reasons, based on the market that they have. But it has, like, inbuilt document management. It has inbuilt signing solution. It's just got all of the things that we currently have in possibly different apps or what we're used to in a server application. If you think about it from the AU market. It has that all combined into one in a cloud product essentially. So it's got great potential.
Speaker 2:
I know they've already got clients in Australia, which is pretty cool. Clients are actually already using it. So they're just using zero tax, for example, or one of the other tax products out there as a standalone. They're just not integrating it, but they're using TaxDome as a practice management because it comes with templates for all of your letters and all of your, all of that kind of stuff. Like it comes with workflows, so your jobs and your tasks and things like that, like all the different tasks associated with it. It comes with pre-built templates. You can obviously design your own as well.
Speaker 2:
It's a, as I said, it's a fully integrated practice management suite. So workflows, invoicing, document management, integrated signing, a whole heap of stuff. Watch this space. I think if they you know, in a couple of years time, if they actually do come to the Australian market and do look at integrating with one of the cloud tax products, it's potentially a great choice, a additional choice in the marketplace for that one. So, yeah, I really like it. So, jack, talk to me. Here's another one LiveFlow. Another one from the US, what's that one?
Speaker 1:
So I only know about these guys because I'm that's somewhat advocate reader of Jason Statt's newsletter and he's obviously based in the US and they're plastered all over it, so I think they're they're a major sponsor of his, which is fine, but so so I haven't used it. I don't know anyone in Australia who's using it, but it seems simple enough. It's kind of like GiaCon, If you know GiaCon being the connection between Xero and Google Sheets. It is effectively that, but for QuickBooks. So obviously less QuickBooks users here, so probably not a huge market for them.
Speaker 1:
But I did notice that their website says Xero is incoming soon. I don't know how long that's been sitting there and I don't know how long that will take, as our last episode will allude to. Some of these things take a long time, yep, but I mean, I think the concept of saying we're not going to we're not going to stop you working the way you want to work, accountants, we know you like spreadsheets. We're just going to try and help you do that better, you know, by bringing in live data and making it easy for you to pull what you need and keep it up to date, and you know. Otherwise, I think people do try and say no, no, stop using spreadsheets, use this because it's better.
Speaker 1:
But that's now changing how accountants work and I think there's a certain kind of firm who's like yep, let's do that, let's get rid of spreadsheets. And there's a certain kind who are like I'm never going to let this go. So work with me, not against me. There's just so much flexibility in a sheet that you can't really replicate that in a built for purpose tool. So stuff like this, which is the connector between the two, I think, has a space, has a role to play.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, awesome On the top. You mentioned GACON. We actually use it internally at Clary Street. It's awesome, Love it. So there's a little shout out for GACON because I don't think we've ever covered that one. But yeah, that's a Google sheet that connects to zero and zero practice manager. Interesting.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, definitely worth shouting out because they're actually here and you can actually use them already, so probably better than anyone who's not here yet.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
So cool, Great. There was another one that I spotted. I had a few people talking about it in the early adopters community. It's an app called Runway, yeah, and I mean at the moment I don't know if it's an app or just a website. This is some of the stuff that you get when you spend enough time looking at startups. You realize that there's these startups that have these amazing websites and you try and sign up and there's just like a waiting list or whatever, and you're like, okay, does this even exist?
Speaker 4:
Probably not yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so you know which is fine.
Speaker 2:
What do you reckon what's runway going to do? What have you found that you think it will do?
Speaker 1:
It looks cool Like if you go to their website. It's like a combination of a spreadsheet, a dashboard notion. It's quite a cool looking place. You would go to see your numbers and whatever else and to build reports and dashboards and things. But you know, with a lot of this stuff it's like until you show me you can actually do it. Yeah, then I don't really want to shout out too much. You know, anyone could build a pretty picture on a website. So I'm sure it's more than that. You know they say they've got a lot of funding and whatever else, which isn't always actually a good sign. Sometimes that's a sign that they're going to waste a lot of time on a lot of money rather than be very focused. But yeah, I kind of want to hold any further comment. But if you have a look at the website, it looks pretty. So if you're looking to build a new website, that's probably a good place to have a look. It looks nice.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, okay, cool. What's the next one? What else you got?
Speaker 1:
This one's a bit of a bigger one. I guess it's an app called Puzzle, which is more than just an app. It is an accounting software, as far as I understand it. So interesting.
Speaker 1:
You know, it's not an uncommon situation where you get the classic story of how startup star is A startup founder is building a startup and they struggle with their accounting and they think couldn't this be easier? Couldn't we build a better solution than zero or quick books? Life should be better and easier. So then they go off and build it without actually knowing how accountants think can work.
Speaker 1:
I don't think these guys would be that, because they seem to have gotten further than that, but it seems like this is an accounting software built for startups, so basically trying to make it easier, quicker, a little bit more aligned with how startups look at tech, and then also having inbuilt reporting on burn rates and runways and things like that stuff that you have to be reporting back to investors on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:
So it looks cool and I think it probably works in the US, because they don't have that super tight ecosystem that we have, where you've got your accounting software connected to your PM and your tax and whatever else. It's almost like we have these golden handcuffs here because we've we're so tightly integrated Stuff like this, that's cool. We can't even use because it's not fully integrated with everything, so it's like it doesn't matter. But it's cool to be on the lookout for new GLs and new accounting tools. I think because you know per some of our other conversations, we want competition here so that, so that you know Zura can continue to innovate and have a reason to.
Speaker 1:
But also there's probably just you know, there's been advancements in technology over the last 10, 15 years, so let's benefit from those two. So, keeping an eye on puzzles, probably yeah, probably one with yeah.
Speaker 2:
I think that's an interesting point. That was well around. You know, the global outlook versus the what you just mentioned. Then the AUNZ market. We are so tightly integrated here with the the zero ecosystem of apps, if that makes sense that we do struggle to actually think about, you know, unless it integrates to, we actually really want it, that kind of thing, and I suffer from that greatly. But you know, the global market doesn't suffer from that nearly as much. They are quite. You know they are quite content with having standalone products, like the UK market. They don't care that they have, you know, one product for this that doesn't talk to the next and they just do things separately. It's it's like that's just easy. They don't whinge about it, they don't mind about it and they're quite content to have multiple options. So I don't know it's an interesting thought process around as many integrations and things Do we need them all? I still say yes. I definitely still say yes.
Speaker 1:
It's the juggle, because you get major efficiencies from it.
Speaker 3:
But you also lock yourself in. So you're now stuck.
Speaker 1:
So if something really cool comes around, you can't even use it because you are so uh, yeah, you're stuck in your, your ecosystem. So it's a good thing and a bad thing.
Speaker 2:
But yeah, a great double-edged sword. Um, before we come closer to home, what I wanted to actually touch on is why don't we ever see apps coming from Europe or Asia? I, just as a general, just as a generalization, I'm like I mean, there are some because I'm a little bit closer to the UK and there are definitely.
Speaker 1:
European apps. You know we've worked with a few that were, you know, in the Nordics and that seems to be a place I think there's.
Speaker 1:
There's only certain areas that have similar, I suppose. I suppose I look at, like Commonwealth countries as having quite similar tax systems. So accountants play a similar role in Australia and New Zealand and the UK and Canada, yeah, even to the US, it's quite different. And then you go, yeah, you go to Asia or you go to Europe and you've got, you know, you've got another hundred that are operating differently and have different systems, and so I think there's just that, yeah, good, call out, yeah, I think it's that.
Speaker 2:
That's my so bringing it a little bit closer to home. What's new on the horizon in the AU market, cause we've both got a couple here.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean one or so, two that I'll call out off the bat. One is BVO pro. So business valuations online pro business vows has been around for a while and Brett, the guy behind it, has done business valuations for a while. He's done business valuations for a very long time for an accountant, all these things, so he's an expert at it and he's built a tool for himself to use and now he's like actually, I'm just going to make this a tool that people can subscribe to and use themselves so you can sign up and do your own business valuations for your clients or you can do appraisals. So if you don't want the risk of a vow, you could just do an appraisal and you're not signing off to say anything sort of super formal, and you can also do it and then you can send it to them to review and formalize as well. So, yeah, that's cool, the kind of the play there is, obviously valuations, but also, by making it super low cost, it means that as an advisor, potentially, you could be doing valuations with your clients on a regular basis and showing them look, if we start to put these things in place, look at your valuation going up, look at your actual potential exit one day is now worth $500,000 more than when we started. That is the value I'm offering you through my services. So it's interesting, yeah, yeah. So I think there's some long term upside there.
Speaker 1:
And the other app I'll mention is brief. We've spoken about brief Previously. They are in the business advisory and advisory meeting space. So super nice, clean, simple product to use. You know, basic, super easy pricing to. So you know you can kind of get started with a few clients and then you can ramp it up as you do more and more advisory.
Speaker 1:
So if you're doing regular advisory sessions monthly, quarterly or even, you know, by any or something like that you need somewhere to kind of manage that and you know how can I have the conversation with my client and be well prepared and know what's on their mind. They have a cool feature where, basically before you have a meeting, their system can automatically send out a check into your client, say a week before, and the check-in just has some simple questions. It's kind of Andrew Andrew talks a lot about his question stack. It's kind of like sending a question stack out to your client a week before your meeting so that you actually know what's on their mind, what's keeping them up at night what's causing them difficulty, and that can be well prepared for your meeting. And it's also trying to solve some of the challenges advisors have with bringing younger staff in to do it, because you allow them to be more prepared so they feel more comfortable in the meeting. They're not winging it so much. So there are a couple from my side. What about you?
Speaker 2:
I have Cloud Connect, which is a new one. I might have mentioned that a couple of times as well throughout previous episodes. Cloud Connect with a K for Cloud, another practice management platform Again started with the need for better than what's out there at the moment, so it's much better than what is from Cloud Connect. It's basically, you know, it's practice management. It doesn't connect from a tax perspective yet. I believe, however, they are working on that to zero tax.
Speaker 2:
It does connect, though from an invoice in perspective works the same way as what zero practice manager does. You create an invoice that pushes to your zero file automatically. I'm pretty sure it also pushes to. I think they've got a QuickBooks integration automatically as well. It's got document management integrated with it as well, and I think that they can integrate with SharePoint at the moment or OneDrive. But watch this space on that one, because I believe that they're also going to try and tackle the multi entity aspect as well. So that will be kind of cool from Cloud Connect. And another one that I came across was Hero Blue, which is just a new little app Finance Schedule Generation and it's a storage tool, so that one's just a cute little app. One of our clients actually designed that one, so that's kind of cool. What else have you found?
Speaker 1:
Someday, I think, the Carbon Accounting app. That's one to keep in mind as well. I've been watching this space with interest, thinking do small business owners really have? They're just trying to survive and make money. Do they really want to worry about carbon accounting? But I see more and more that they're going to get caught up in the supply chain of the big players who do have to care about it. So a coals or a wool worst. They just won't work with anyone who they can't get reliable carbon accounts from Because they have to report to their CSR kind of stuff corporate social responsibility that they are meeting requirements, so it's going to be a trickle down effect, which may take a while to happen, but it's interesting space nonetheless.
Speaker 1:
Yes, interesting.
Speaker 2:
Let's not open up that.
Speaker 1:
Sounds like you have no perspective or opinion on this, so let's keep going to the next app. Finlert have brought out another one.
Speaker 2:
So Finlert, they create accounting tools, so they've got a couple. Their most recent one is SubSync, which is a pretty cool little tool and we actually use it internally as well. It's a connection between your Stripe account and your Xero account and it basically allows you. So when you actually take a payment from Stripe through, say, you know, you have something on your website and you Stripe is your payment gateway, it doesn't actually create an invoice and push an invoice across to Xero technically. So what SubSync has done has taken that on board and they've basically done that, which means that your reconciliation it actually creates an invoice. It also takes care of the fees associated as well. So that's a pretty cool little tool. If nothing else, it means that you can actually have a real invoice associated with a payment, rather than just a bank rule set up as to. You know, that's where my Stripe account's going and that's where the Stripe fees are going. I think I explained that one correctly, jack, anything.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, no, that sounds good.
Speaker 2:
Cool what's on the horizon, because we've got a few, we've got a couple more.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so super rapid fire on these guys. These are just apps that are still in the making that I'm aware of Yep Through early adopters hub. So 445 is a UK based month end automation tool. So keep an eye on those guys for if or when they get to beta and you know you want to sign up. You've got TaxTorch, which is still being built as well. Uk based. It's a tax plan tax planning tool which I think has some good initial feedback to. And then you've got Formula, which is formula spelt without an A at the end. So F-O-R-M-U-L-R that's kind of a sheet style forecasting tool. So trying to find the middle ground between a spreadsheet and a forecasting tool. Cool, good friends out of Adelaide building that, so keen to see where they take it.
Speaker 1:
But, yeah, that's pretty much it from me.
Speaker 2:
Oh, that's been great. I've loved traveling around the world. Now it makes me want to go overseas again. Actually, I want to travel. Thank you for that, Jack. What's your takeaway? Any anyone that you're really excited about?
Speaker 1:
Takeaways at the end of the season and you know. So you can, if you want, go for a trip, get around, and I'm looking forward to some travel too and seeing a whole bunch of Accountants and startups and stuff I don't know. I don't know I just, I just have enjoyed the episode so yeah, I have to.
Speaker 2:
thank you so much, jack. It's been great and, as always, thanks to our listeners.
Speaker 1:
See you next season. Yeah, bye.
Speaker 4:
Hey team. It's Ellie and Andrew from all Aussie accounting adventures here. I hope you really enjoyed this episode with Amy and Jack. What did you think, andrew?
Speaker 3:
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Speaker 4:
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