Helping complex and Multi-Entity clients with Xero and Add-Ons

Amy and Jack are back baby! And talking tech for the big leagues. Is managing multiple business entities with Xero creating more headaches than solutions? Discover how to overcome these challenges without transitioning to costly ERP systems. In this episode, they explore real-life scenarios that show how biz owners can navigate the complexities of multi-entity management using Xero and its robust app ecosystem.

So if you want to gain insights into the critical role you can play in leveraging tech solutions for bigger players this is the ep for you.

Get ready to buckle up and come on the newest tech adventure with us.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey Jack.

Speaker 2: 0:03

Hey Amy.

Speaker 1: 0:04

How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 0:07

I'm well, thank you, how are you?

Speaker 1: 0:10

I'm okay. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. This is what we're going to talk about today. It's such a complex issue, so I'm feeling a little overwhelmed.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Well, hopefully, by the end you'll feel less overwhelmed and have a little more clarity. That's why we're here.

Speaker 1: 0:24

Yeah, he's hoping, he's hoping.

Speaker 2: 0:27

So what are we talking about? What's causing that?

Speaker 1: 0:30

Well, we're unpacking complex and multi-entity clients with Xero and add-ons. So that's what we're unpacking today. It's a big, big topic.

Speaker 2: 0:52

That's juicy. That's juicy I actually did. Well, we at Mayday, where I am, we've been doing a bunch of stuff on this. I guess we've kind might still have your mum and pop shop, where it's a single entity on Xero. It's been there for 10 years. But you've also got a lot of ambitious business owners that you're probably working with who are stretching the limits of Xero, running e-commerce businesses across the globe, opening up multiple bakeries and running them in different locations. And how do you deal with that when it comes to your accounting and advising them on the tech to use?

Speaker 1: 1:49

I think that's. I mean Xero, self-admittedly, is not trying to take on the really big, complex companies. They are more typically aimed at, as you say, the smaller end of town. But yeah, what about those businesses, as you say, that started 10, 15 years ago on Xero, which in the right space, but they've now all grown up, they've got their pull-ups on. You're not wrong. They need lots more.

Speaker 2: 2:14

Xero's own website says you know, accounting software for small business owners, kind of thing. Their investor deck recently came out and said, like, small businesses are their target, and then either side of that are the micro businesses which are semi in their space, and then the slightly bigger businesses which are also semi in their space, and they've kind of got those three as their target persona. So we're really talking today about the, the ones outside of that target persona, who themselves don't want to leave Xero. They like Xero as business owners because it's easy to use. Whenever they hire new staff, the new staff know how to use it. Whenever they work with a different accountant, the accountant knows how to use Xero. They really don't want to go up to that ERP level software where hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to be spent. Years of implementation is going to happen, consultants are going to be involved. They just want to avoid that as long as possible, and sometimes it's not something that you can avoid, but sometimes it is by using the app ecosystem.

Speaker 1: 3:14

So when might a client need help to make Xero work? So at what point do you feel like a client gets to that stage where they're like I actually need something bigger, but I don't want to move, I don't want to change. Well, I mean, I think, if they're coming to you.

Speaker 2: 3:32

I've spoken to a few accounting firms. You know partners, directors in those firms who have kind of said, look, we had our clients come to us saying, guys, how can we do better with this? Like this is a really tough process. Or the accounting firm themselves was doing the books in the back. You know behind the scenes and saying, like this is becoming a nightmare. Um, you know, 50 entities on zero.

Speaker 2: 3:54

We've got these mega spreadsheets where spending days just like doing invoices between different organizations for the transactions that are happening, and you know it. You start to feel the pain, I guess, and and once that pain gets to a you know too much, then something has to happen. Um, because you can't just keep doing more and more and more and closing your month end, you know, 60 days after the end of the month, you've got to still have your accounts up to date. You know, hopefully within five days a month and maybe within within 10 days of month end. But once things start to drag out to 20, 30 days, then businesses can't make good decisions and so they're going to be starting to say, hey, we need to look elsewhere for our accounting software if Xero can't do it. And that's where you as an accountant as an advisor to them. Just having some knowledge of what is possible is important, because I think, to your point, it's overwhelming how many apps there are, how much tech there is.

Speaker 2: 4:48

So I don't think this is an episode that's trying to say hey, you should know everything about every app so that you can help your clients go further on Xero. But to have some idea of what you could do, I think is really important.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Yeah, and I think sometimes it can be easier to a degree to find some apps in the ecosystem that can support your client staying on zero, if that's the right move, then moving them to a whole other level of call it ERP system for example, that you know it's just you as the accountant, may not be able to service that client as well moving forward if they were to move, that's not why you should stop them from moving. Don't get me wrong. Don't misinterpret that Like if it's the right need for the client, then that needs to happen. But sometimes it might be an easier option to like they've already got their accounting side of things set up. What are the other tools out there in the ecosystem that might actually be able to support them so that they can still have a streamlined internal operation from their client's perspective?

Speaker 2: 5:48

I think that point of it being easier for you as an accountant you're right. I mean that shouldn't be the predominant reason, but it is a reason. And I think what it touches on is the myth that surrounds how far you can go with Xero and kind of the misconception that you can't go very. You know it's for small businesses and my client's turning over $20 million. So therefore I think it's probably time they move off Xero. It's like dollar amounts have nothing to do with whether or not you can't be on Xero. You can be a billion-dollar company on Xero. It more has to do with transaction volumes whether not you're going to say what are the transaction volumes?

Speaker 1: 6:26

what are some of the issues that you that it has to do with?

Speaker 2: 6:29

so there are. There are transaction limits, soft transaction limits, in zero, which basically mean that at some point, if you've got I don't know what they're not, I think it's like 10 000 invoices a month or something like that yeah, you know, do not. I think there's some pages there's some pages on the developer website for Xero and I should know this a bit better.

Speaker 1: 6:48

I think it's about 10,000 as well. You're right, yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:50

Like there's different things as well. So it's not just invoices, there's other components that come into that. It's like once you start hitting that, you'll visibly start to notice running your GST reports are slower. Trying to run a P&L will be slower, like there's different reports that will just at some point you won't be able to run them. You'll have to ask Xero support to run them for you, and so you'll know that you're reaching these limits because you won't be able to use the product anymore. And so for some businesses that's going to be it. Hey, we've reached the limit. There's nothing else we can do we can't use. There's no other apps we can add on to make this easier. We have to go to an ERP, but there are some who are just not using the app ecosystem in the right way.

Speaker 2: 7:29

So if you're an e-commerce business doing thousands of transactions a day, a week, whatever it is, and you're pushing every transaction into Xero because you've got an add on that does that, that's going to be a problem. But there's other add-ons, like the Shopify and Xero official add-in that just does like a daily balance. So you're going to have 30 transactions a month in Xero. You're not going to have 10,000. So then you can use Xero for years and years and years. Your business can be massive because your transaction data is somewhere else. Xero is your ledger. It doesn't have to have every single transaction from every single you know, yeah, client you're working with.

Speaker 1: 8:06

Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, I like it. Are there any other limitations from a zero perspective, before we get into some of the solutions, I guess I guess the other two key ones that come up most often are like permissions-based stuff.

Speaker 2: 8:22

Yep, like permissions based stuff, um yep, because you might have stakeholders you know, head of sales or head of marketing or head of whatever who do have some need to look at numbers but who shouldn't really be in the accounting ledger at a certain size of business on a day-to-day basis. So therefore, you want to have reports that are only visible to them. But you can't do that kind of stuff in zero. You kind of have to give them access to the accounting software, or not give them access. There's ways around this with things like Geocon, where you can put the reports into a Google Sheet and then share that spreadsheet with them and have the data updated.

Speaker 1: 8:56

I'm a big fan of Geocon Exactly Big fan of Geocon, love it.

Speaker 2: 9:00

So it's another one of those where, if you're not aware of it, you're not going to know, you're going to think we have to go ERP. But actually there is a decent workaround there. It's not even a workaround, it's just a solution. And then the other one that comes up a lot is tracking category limits. So for some reason, zero limits you to two tracking categories which, if you want to report departmental, you want to report region, you want to report location, that's three, like if you've got specific locations within regions. Well, that's two of your tracking categories. What about departments? What about? Like, bigger businesses need more than two tracking categories and there are some apps and ways that you can kind of work around that a little bit. I I think Calcsa might have some functionality there, I can't remember exactly, but that's one where if you need to report to five, six different directions, you may be limited. You can expand your chart of accounts and you can have five different rent income accounts so that you can split it out.

Speaker 1: 10:00

But obviously that's not the intention and we know that is a workaround, because at some point your chart of accounts is going to be ridiculous and that's not best practice either so anyway, user permissions, transaction limits, tracking, category limits seem to be three of the big reasons why yeah, yeah, yeah, cool um inventory, I think is you know, obviously we've sort of touched on that one as well but inventory clients, that there's always going to be limitations with solely using Xero if you have inventory as well.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Yeah, inventory, you're right, inventory and manufacturing-related businesses seem. I'm not an expert at that space, but they do seem like it's more integrated, like what they're doing is, you know, the manufacturing component, the inventory storage component, the accounting is all actually quite together and you can't just have a bolt on to solve all of those problems at a certain level at a certain level, yeah that does seem to be a like you might not even be that big of a business.

Speaker 2: 11:00

You might just have to go erp because you've got these complex needs, and that is one of those you're right 100%.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Yeah, and I think there's also something you said for you don't like. There are a lot of businesses out there that are in manufacturing and you know inventory like that have inventory needs. For example, xero isn't their sole piece of call it operational software. They need something else, just like in the accounting industry in in the accounting space, right? So you know you led your file. You don't spend all day, every day, in it for your own internal operation. You spend a lot more time in your practice management, in your document management, those kinds of things, and it's no different to any of those other businesses. They would need a separate piece of software typically to run things and then integrate with Xero, but Xero can still be limited depending on what their needs are, even at that level.

Speaker 2: 11:52

Yeah, you're right, absolutely, absolutely. So I mean, I guess, having identified where Xero's limits are and having a bit more of a grasp on, maybe the businesses that are, you know, may actually have to leave, versus the ones who can get over those limits or deal with those limits through app add-ons and whatever else you know, I mean you deal a lot with app add-ons.

Speaker 2: 12:07

I know you do it mainly from a practice side, but kind of what's your perspective on how to go about that process, because there are a lot of apps. We're going to rattle off a lot of them in kind of the second half of this session, but if you're looking for something.

Speaker 1: 12:21

What do you suggest? To begin with, I think you need to speak to. It depends if you're on the client end, then speaking to your accountant. That's the first point, definitely. The second point would be looking at the Xero ecosystem, looking at the Xero app store, because there's heaps out there, no different to anyone else. Speaking to anyone else that might be a colleague in your industry as well, to see what they use, that would be another thing to to assist with that from that perspective. Um, I think as well. Um, when you do jump on the zero, you know the ecosystem.

Speaker 1: 12:54

And looking at the add-on store, looking, actually just chatting to some of the vendors, getting an understanding of what they do, so you can go and investigate what what's out there. Obviously, before you do all that, you need to identify what your pain point is. That'd be the first thing identify your pain point. But, yeah, speak to your accountant about it. Obviously, from the accountant side of things, it's kind of that in reverse to a degree.

Speaker 1: 13:18

If your client comes to you and says, hey, I've got this problem, you either know the answer or you don't. Typically, accountants don't like to not know the answer, so the answer is probably going to be. I don't know the answer, but let me go and find out. And then it would be speaking to people like speaking to you know, add-on partners, integration partners, you know those kinds of people that could actually assist you with a bit of information. Whether you pass that client along to them for additional information and or depends on what you've got set up in-house, like you know, do you have a team that's actually dedicated to this sort of stuff, or you listen to a podcast, just like this, and we give you some answers. Jack, that's a thought process.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yes, you're right. Hopefully this is helpful. I mean something escaping me. Anyway, if it comes back to me I'll mention it, but I think you're a hundred percent right.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Just being up being aware of of it is kind of part one, yes. Then being proactive in introducing things is part two, where you've kind of moved beyond just knowing about apps and generally what they do to being like, hey, I've seen this work for a client or two, I'd be happy to recommend it to a client. And then there's the use level, where you're actually using it in your own business. Maybe you're you know, if you've got an outsource finance function in your firm, your team are using this software themselves. So therefore, if a client comes to you who says, hey, I need a solution to this, you'd be like I know exactly what you need, we use it.

Speaker 2: 14:36

So that's kind of the three levels we talk about. Awareness is kind of like the lead you don't know much about these apps, but you know it, you know something. So if a client comes to you and says I'm really struggling with my um, you know inventory or multi-entity needs or whatever it is, hey, I've got a solution for you, but I'm not going to be proactive with it, then introduces a bit more proactive. Hey, I can see you're doing a lot of these transactions. Shall we have a call? I think I might have, I might have a better way for you to do that. And then, yeah, use is kind of the top level.

Speaker 1: 15:08

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Speaker 2: 19:13

Let's crack on to part two.

Speaker 1: 19:16

Wonderful. Let's hear it. What are some of the common solutions? Do we reckon?

Speaker 2: 19:20

So I mean, I think, as you've done with your amazing app stack for firms, you have to break it down into areas, right, because there's there's a lot of different apps.

Speaker 2: 19:31

Yes, there's crossover, for sure, but generally they fall into like a category yeah, so they do the categories that uh, they're different from the practice app stack, obviously, but like I look at ar and ap as a kind of big category where you've got a lot of apps, um, we'll kind of run through these in a sec. Spend management I've got that in there separately to ar and ap. It's a little bit more on the banking side, um, but still there's probably crossover with ap, ar as well. You've then got intercompany accounting, multi-entity accounting. That's kind of a newer, a newer play. That's where we are and so that's kind of it seems to be a newer category.

Speaker 2: 20:13

Then you've got reporting consolidation tools. You know those tools are dashboards, they're rapport packs, they're consolidated accounts. Generally speaking, you'll see apps that do those things together rather than just one of them. But some apps out there do like a simple solution to just one piece, forecasting, or like forward planning. There's some apps in that space too which deliberately separate themselves from reporting on past and consolidating past numbers and saying we don't do that, we look forward only. But then you'll also see the reporting tools sometimes have forecasting features, hr and payroll. I think even it can be forgotten about because it's a little bit to the edge of accounting, but it's still there. Payroll accounting is absolutely there. You've got as well data ingestion or, for lack of a better term, that Dext style receipt capture yeah, receipt capture.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Yeah, cool, that's in there, yep.

Speaker 2: 21:14

Those kinds of things. Manufacturing and inventory is a big one, and then I mean the only other one that sometimes we refer to is FX, whether or not you consider that separate to. You know, ai, ap, spend management, those kinds of things. So I mean anything else from your side that you think I need to add to that kind of list, and then I can start speaking to the apps no, nothing that I can think of.

Speaker 1: 21:39

I think that you've covered most of them, but the only one that I was going to say was a uh, the receipt capture, that kind of element. So you've got that one down. Yeah, absolutely, I mean, maybe we start there.

Speaker 2: 21:48

So receipt capture wise, you've got two main players. I guess you'd say but yeah, we'd agree, yeah no, I'd agree with that.

Speaker 1: 21:55

So Dext is kind of the main one, dext and Hubdoc.

Speaker 2: 21:59

It's interesting because, working with in-house finance teams a bit more now, it's actually a lot of them use Hubdoc because I think it's included in Xero. It's right there. Accounting firms I find the other way where they all go Dext. But I guess it's like because you've got a scale that you're working across. You're doing this every single day. You've gone out, looked for a solution and found it. Maybe you implemented it 10-15 years ago, I don't know and you still use it and I think it is best in class based on feedback I've heard. But hubdocs absolutely are there and a lot of your clients might be using it, a lot of your bigger. If you haven't gone out and proactively said, hey, maybe this would be better for you, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1: 22:39

Yeah, I tend to agree with that. You could also use the functionality just with emailing and or uploading a receipt via the Xero app, for example, directly. That can be sometimes a little bit disconnected to a degree, but not dissimilar to Dext or Hubdoc. I find that Hubdoc is probably the easier pick from the perspective of for a lot of firms, as you say, that haven't had somebody actually giving them some information. So if a firm hasn't been proactive with their client base to say, hey, you need to start using an app to capture your receipts and things like that, and the client has just gone oh hey, there's this additional function within the Xero app, I'll just start using it. Then typically they tend to use HubDoc.

Speaker 1: 23:24

But I think a lot of firms who are right jumped on Dext and have been using it and from all intents and purposes, it is definitely the one that is the more fleshed out. It's definitely. I saw some really cool stuff recently actually around what they're planning in the Dext world as well. Not allowed to say anything yet, but it's kind of cool stuff that's coming. So, yeah, I think that that's probably definitely the front runner in terms of that space. But more than anything, it's just as long as you can get that information from your clients in the most easy and methodical way, and it's capturing all the relevant information. That's the aim of the game here, right?

Speaker 2: 24:05

And if your client does not have a solution in this space, please, like this should be this is low-hanging fruit.

Speaker 2: 24:11

It's low-hanging fruit Because they don't want to be, like this is a huge win for them not having to deal with this stuff manually, keying stuff in manually, Like if they're not aware that there's a solution for this. They will thank you so much. And like it's crazy to think that there's still businesses who don't have a solution to that, but there are. So, please, if you've got any clients not using one of those tools, definitely start there.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Yes, agreed with that one. Agreed what?

Speaker 2: 24:39

about um, ap, ar. So accounts payable, accounts receivable uh, there's different apps in this space depending on what you're trying to achieve. So look into them to figure out like the nuances and details of this. So light year is one that comes up a lot with respect to accounts payable, so they do a lot on that. I think they also ingest some data, like from supplier invoices and bills and whatever else, where you've got statements and you're comparing statements across multiple entities and there's a bunch of complex stuff here. They're reading those documents, they're comparing them across different organizations. So if you're dealing with a lot of suppliers, you get a lot of supplier statements. You want to make sure you're not paying bills twice, all this kind of stuff. I believe that's where don't get me wrong they're going to give you a better explanation of their product than I am. But that light year is a big one.

Speaker 2: 25:31

In the AP space. You've also got ApprovalMax. Now they kind of fall in the AP AR, they fall into financial controls. They are also releasing some spend management functionality now as well. So you know, go have a look at them if you haven't already.

Speaker 2: 25:49

But you know they began their journey, hence the name ApprovalMax allowing for approval workflows when it comes to purchase orders being approved. And then, before you know, you've got teams of people, now Xero's, you know. One or two levels of approval weren't really good enough, so Approval Max kind of comes in. So that's quite a popular solution out there for bigger businesses. Yep, you've got Chaser on the accounts receivable side, which is really to kind of. You know, yes, zero has please automatically remind my uh client every three days or seven days until they pay their invoice. Chaser takes that kind of concept to another level, like way more functionality in that area, way more opportunity to get those um, you know, those debtors sorted. Um, so feel free to have a look at that. I know that there's been a couple of people come to me wondering how they can solve that and they just didn't know Chaser existed.

Speaker 1: 26:43

So absolutely keep an eye on those From your side. Yeah, you've also got IODM, which is a debtor chasing management, just like Chaser, same as Debtor Daddy, which was probably one of the originals. Just like Chaser. So, debtor Daddy, just like Chaser, same as Deader Daddy, which was probably one of the originals just like Chaser, so Deader Daddy's been around for a while now. Yeah, I just did a quick Google. I'm like are they still around? Do they still exist?

Speaker 2: 27:03

They do so yeah, both of those IODM and Deader Daddy are two other ones as well, and I think there's always like an apology on behalf of any of the apps that we leave off this list, because this is by no means a complete list of 10.

Speaker 1: 27:19

No, it's not extensive, it's not.

Speaker 2: 27:22

If you search accounts payable on the Xero app store, there's going to be more than the apps that we've listed. If you search payments, there's going to be more, and those keywords are important when you search the Xero app store as well, because I know that there's different apps that will appear for different keywords. So really focus, try and understand what that app is really good at, because there could be multiple in the same space, but one will be really good at something and another will be really good at something else. So, moving down to spend management, yep, so this has been a really popular one over the last few years. This is effectively uh, you know, not a complete replacement to your bank, like you're gonna still need to deal with probably one of the big four banks or one of the bigger banks for, you know, loans and credit facilities and whatever else.

Speaker 1: 28:03

You still do. You definitely still need to deal like, especially from like just getting the finances in, and you still do, unfortunately.

Speaker 2: 28:10

Yeah, yeah. So you're still going to have that. But these guys are coming in and saying, from an employee spend management perspective, they can make life a whole lot easier, make it really easy to spin up cards, apply budgets to those cards, get those cards out to the relevant team members, track that spend, make sure that the spend that they're putting through is directly going to the relevant budgets, which is then going to the relevant tracking categories and codes and zeros. So there's a lot of automation happening here, rather than someone getting a you know credit card statement and then keying it in, even with Dext or something like that. It just makes life a whole lot easier.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Oh, and even getting like trying to get a team member a credit card, a business credit card with your standard bank oh my gosh, that is the biggest pain in the butt, oh, and biggest pain in the butt.

Speaker 2: 28:53

Oh, and then imagine you've got remote stuff like, it's so much easier using these tools to get, um, you know, cards sorted for the team and to manage that spend. So that's a big one. And the the key players here are wheel and air wallocks yep, so both of those, um, they're going to have different pricing structures, they're going to have slightly different benefits and features. So you check them both out, figure out what's best for you. Airwallex is global, I believe. Wheel is getting there, as I understand it. So you know. But there's a couple of different things, like Wheel's just releasing physical cards, whereas I and I don't know. Airwallex, I think, has previously had them already. So there's going to be nuances and details here. So check them both out.

Speaker 1: 29:36

And Airwallex also does international payments as well, so I've used them before too, like if I've ever used contractors overseas and things like that. They have a really good FX rate exchange rate, so it's quite comparative and can be a cost-effective solution from that perspective.

Speaker 2: 29:52

Yeah, and I'd say that's kind of their foundation. Where they started was really good international transactions, fx rates, those kinds of things. So definitely look there.

Speaker 2: 30:00

And as I mentioned Approval Max is entering this space, so keep an eye on them too. Interesting. I've then got intercompany accounting. I guess you could also just say accounting automation in that area. So Mayday, where I work, we're in that space. We're really trying to take. We're looking at what are the manual accounting processes that are happening each month and how can we automate those. So there's still a lot more for us to do, but we're looking at things. At the moment we're already solving intercompany loans and intercompany balances, ar and AP matching between internal organizations, recharging and oncharging between entities reallocating within an entity. So these are situations where one entity is paying for rent expense on behalf of the whole group. Well, we need to split those costs out and invoice the relevant entities and get those costs into the right zero organization. So this stuff used to just be completely manual process, but not anymore. So if you've got any clients on, I suppose, if you've got any clients who are multiple entities, that's kind of where an app like Mayday would come in.

Speaker 1: 31:09

Yeah, does Account Kit fit anywhere in here, just out of curiosity? So I mean.

Speaker 2: 31:16

I see account kit more as a practice tool than a direct client yeah, yeah, fair but if you are doing the back house like outsourced finance function, then potentially um, because that's going to do a lot of your div 7a calculations. It also has intercompany like loan module. I don't know what other features and functionality there, but I still see it as it's more in a practice management crm space yeah, okay with some of those features, but it is where they began their journey.

Speaker 1: 31:47

That's why they're called yeah, I mean they come. Yeah, the compliance tools are amazing. So from that perspective, from any internal side of things, but yeah, from mayday is more of a an external client functionality. Is that my understanding?

Speaker 2: 32:01

I mean if you've got a big client that you're dealing like, well, I mean recharge functionality, we'd be the only ones who are doing that. There's a lot. There's a whole bunch of nuances and details you don't have to get into on this today, but there's probably only a very minor crossover between what we do and what something like Account Kit does. And I'd say Account Kit's more of a you know practice management tool with some of these compliance functions, Whereas, yeah, Mayday's a accounting automation tool for any multi-entity business on Xero. So, yeah, it depends who's using it. It can be both the client or the accountant.

Speaker 1: 32:35

Yeah, okay, what about um reporting consolidation?

Speaker 2: 32:39

well, this is the biggest busiest space in the world. Uh, for whatever reason, there's always a new reporting tools coming out, and I think it's because they they are attractive tools like, uh, you know, it's easy to like, get excited about a dashboard, like you know, yes, on a stand, or whatever, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 32:54

There's something attractive about a dashboard on a stand or whatever. I don't know. There's something attractive about it, maybe from a marketing standpoint. So the key players here, at least the ones that I see, mentioned most often Spotlight, an old classic. I don't mean that in a bad way. They've just been around for a long time. An OG Fathom is really well used.

Speaker 1: 33:16

Sift is probably like the what was that Fathom being another, og yes.

Speaker 2: 33:22

Like.

Speaker 1: 33:22

Spotlight yes.

Speaker 2: 33:23

Absolutely, and I think there were a lot of others back in the day that aren't there anymore. So you know, those two kind of won that fight Futurally.

Speaker 1: 33:32

Futurally as well, which is you know. I'm sorry, I just had to. I just remember what their original name was. But Futurally is another one from one of the more original.

Speaker 2: 33:41

Oh yeah, yep, yep. So they're still Futurally, still still going. Sometimes I forget.

Speaker 1: 33:48

Oh, that's a really good question. They were acquired, I believe so, oh yeah, by Sage. That's right.

Speaker 2: 33:53

Yes, so there we go Okay, cool SIFT over South African based team. They're doing really good things and I know a lot of firms really like them and their pricing. Join is a newer one I've heard about recently which does really simple consolidations. So they make doing consolidations easy and quick. So that could be one if you're just looking for a consolidation tool, and then one I know you know quite well.

Speaker 1: 34:21

Yeah, Translucent. I caught up with a team over in the UK when I was over there recently. They also do some really cool fun stuff around reporting consolidation. Yeah, it's going to be watch this space. I think, with Translucent, they are making a lot of head waves in this area.

Speaker 2: 34:41

Yeah, ambitious project as well. So, yeah, very ambitious, yeah, so there's a lot of different spots in there, different competitors and once again I guess it's as a firm you're trying to figure out which horse do we want to back?

Speaker 1: 34:54

really, I don't imagine you want too many different tools in in use here, but you might want a couple for different scenarios yeah, and I'm glad that you said that you might want a couple, because I'm I really struggle with you go to a like and this probably doesn't happen as much these days but you go to a trade show, um, you might catch up with one of the one of the vendors and you look at and and you're just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing because you have one client in mind that you need to solve a problem for, and then you come back to the office you're like we're going to roll this out for every single client and then it falls flat on its face because you know, the advisory piece and the reporting side of things just doesn't fit every single client.

Speaker 1: 35:29

So I think sometimes you do need to be conscious that not all clients will fit into, say, the Fathom funnel or Spotlight or SIFT or whatever. It is right. You might need some clients that are on one, some other clients that are on another, but, as you say, you don't necessarily need all of them. But maybe just be conscious that it's not a one-size-fits-all either, just based on what the client's needs are.

Speaker 2: 35:54

No, absolutely agree, Absolutely agree. And being aware of what's out there for those edge cases and those interesting clients that might need something else is key, because there's details here. You know which ones can I report or consolidate on a transaction level, which ones are at an account level. This is stuff that matters to accountants, so you know, know what the tool does what it's capable of.

Speaker 1: 36:17

Yeah, exactly, I get asked this one all the time. But what's the best forecasting tool? And I'm still the front runner that we consistently hear, so I would love to know if there's another one, jackie might know, but we get consistently told that Castaways is the best forecasting tool.

Speaker 2: 36:33

Yeah, I hear the same thing. I think there's been a growing hope that the cloud version is going to be out and good. Uh, yes, because they've been on desktop for so long and they have been everyone's preference in terms of most powerful. That's what I needed to do. Works really well, um, and I know that they are building and I think they're beta testing, if they're not having maybe just released their cloud version. So fingers crossed that the cloud version delivers on, um, everything that the desktop one did, because it has been a really good tool for a very long time. I used it back at the firm my last firm and although, yes, it's a desktop tool and it could look prettier in certain ways, it was extremely powerful for what it can do. So you can do simpler forecasting on other tools like Fathom, but I think if you want that real deep, driver-based three-way forecast, that's where Castaway probably wins.

Speaker 1: 37:30

Yeah, okay. What about cash flow forecasting?

Speaker 2: 37:33

Yeah, so you might have clients who have the simpler cash flow forecasting needs. This is more your small business level, where they just want to make sure they can pay payroll in a couple of weeks' time. So Float seems to be the main player there. Xero's released their own version of it, but from my own testing a little while ago, it leaves a little bit to be desired.

Speaker 1: 37:52

I feel like the Float app is a much more superior experience, typically speaking.

Speaker 2: 37:58

You get what you pay for, I suppose right.

Speaker 1: 38:00

Yeah, it's exactly it. You get what you pay for when it comes to this. And you know again, self-admittedly from the Xero ecosystem side of things like the whole, the whole reason why the ecosystem exists is because while Xero um, you know, might have originally intended to not build out certain functionality within their platform, there's obviously a need to build out at least basic functionality. Um, and you know, that's the reason why the ecosystem exists for all the apps, because they don't want to be everything to everyone. You can't be everything to everyone. So that's why the ecosystem is for all the apps, because they don't want to be everything to everyone. You can't be everything to everyone. So that's why the ecosystem is there for those much deeper functionality pieces. So Xero will give you a lighter touch version. Again, it's for your small business. Typically speaking. It's the whole point of why we're having this conversation today.

Speaker 2: 38:43

Yeah, exactly, look from a time perspective. Just to wrap up relatively quickly on the last two couple of areas here because I think they're still very relevant. But I just think, like the others that we've covered are very accounting related. So HR and payroll is accounting related, but it's kind of edge accounting related. Um, so employment hero seems to be kind of the key one that I see a lot of. But you've also got like more time sheeting tools and stuff like that. I haven't written down here, but deputies obviously the main one tanda, I think is another one.

Speaker 1: 39:17

Then you've probably got a whole nother world of construction trade though, so I'm not going to go into, you know those are so many payroll apps and things like yeah, there's a key pay, is another one like there's so many different payroll apps out there and hr apps. You know there's hr central, there's happy hr. They do components of what we're talking about. They're probably more your actual, more hr management side of things, but they do have components of um, you know, time shading and bits and pieces in there as well.

Speaker 2: 39:43

So yeah, and it all comes under that same conversation. If you've got a client who's growing they're on zero, they're reaching its limits they probably need to be having a decent HR system. So it's relevant to talk about. And the last one which I forgot to write down, but manufacturing and inventory. So the two key players-.

Speaker 1: 39:59

Oh, where do we want to begin?

Speaker 2: 40:00

SYN7 and Unleashed yeah.

Speaker 1: 40:02

I was like where do we want to begin? There's so many of them, but yeah, the two main ones are Unleashed and Sin 7.

Speaker 2: 40:08

Yeah, yeah. So I'm not an expert on either of those tools, so I'm not going to claim to be, but they are the ones that help most.

Speaker 1: 40:19

And some of the inventory tools are ones that I used to know have merged and been bought and sold, and it's just ah.

Speaker 2: 40:24

Yeah, there's some big changes, so keep an eye on it. I mean, this space is always changing. There's always acquisitions and bits and pieces happening, so hopefully you're not listening to this in three years' time.

Speaker 1: 40:34

Yeah, definitely hey. So what services can you offer around this? Like you know, wrapping things up, because we're, you know, looking at the time here in terms of what we've been talking about today, because it's been a really big episode which I didn't think that we could talk as much on this one. Jack, you had told me it was going to be a big episode, so I understand, but what are the services you can offer around this?

Speaker 2: 40:54

I mean I think that there's two main ones.

Speaker 2: 40:56

So, like that virtual CFO outsource finance function is really popular at the moment.

Speaker 2: 41:00

So that's kind of saying we're going to do all your bookkeeping, we're going to do your payroll, we're going to be your finance function for as long as possible until they have justification to go out and hire someone or a couple of people to do the in-house finance role.

Speaker 2: 41:15

And that means you would be the ones using this tech and you would get to know it, and you'd get to know it well enough that you can then provide systems advisory services to other clients who may have in-house finance teams or may be looking at them or may not know what's out there. And so you can kind of wrap those two services up together. Where one is, you're doing the work and getting paid really well to be the outsourced finance function, because you're a portion of a person's wage but you can still get chart, you can still charge quite a lot for that, and then, because of the knowledge you're building doing it yourself, you're in a really good spot to advise your other clients, who maybe aren't there yet but on what tech they should be using or considering. So I think those two work hand in hand really really well together yeah, awesome, I think.

Speaker 1: 41:57

Yeah, once you do know about it, definitely. Otherwise, if you don't feel like you know enough about this, you know the implementation side of things. Find someone that does, because you know that will obviously be of benefit to your client as well. And you're the implementation side of things. Find someone that does, because you know that will obviously be of benefit to your client as well and you're still the trusted advisor.

Speaker 2: 42:11

From that perspective, I think there's a heap of value in this service offering, though, oh, I'll shout out there's a, there's another brand that we kind of uh closely attached to, called CFO tech stack, and I'll call that out for anyone who's in this space. We it's a newsletter, basically Um, you can find it on LinkedIn cfotextactcom, and they do like they're going to have an advisor portal kind of thing, so you'll be able to see people on there who are that you know, I guess, from a finance perspective, tech stack implementers. So you know, knowing there's a resource that's going to point you to the resources is kind of a cheap way of getting there as well.

Speaker 1: 42:48

Yeah, I agree with that, I agree. So we've covered off a lot today. Are there any final things that we haven't touched on that you wanted to talk about, jack?

Speaker 2: 42:58

No, I think that was a big one. That was good.

Speaker 1: 43:01

It was a good one. I have much more clarity. No, I have much more clarity now actually, now that we've unpacked it. I think going through those, each of the different areas, has been really helpful just to unpack that. So, yeah, it's been a really good session. Thanks, so much.

Speaker 2: 43:14

It's been great to chat. Amy from Clarity Street has clarity. That's what we want.

Speaker 1: 43:17

Yes, this is what we want, the aim of the game.

Speaker 2: 43:21

Cool, all right.

Speaker 1: 43:21

Thank you, jack, see you. Thanks so much, bye, bye.

Speaker 4: 43:30

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: 43:38

Oh, stunning as always, the two of them are brilliant minds and are brilliant communicators. So we hope that you have got some incredible learnings out of this episode and if you'd like to continue to follow us, make sure you check out our website. Find us on the socials you'll see accounting adventures, or look for all Aussie accounting adventures wherever good stuff can be found, whether that's conferences, whether that's websites, whether it's podcast or social media remember to share it around my friends.

Speaker 4: 44:04

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