Tech for Multi-Entity and Multi-Divisional Firms

Ready for a tech-tastic deep dive? Join Amy and Ajack as they unravel the enigma of multi-entity and multi-divisional tech in accounting firms. This episode explores the intricacies and opportunities of managing multiple business units under one umbrella.

Expect a whirlwind tour through the unique challenges these firms face, from juggling distinct brands to nailing those integrated reporting systems.  Centralised or isolated systems for practice management, CRM, and document management? Amy and Ajack weigh the pros and cons, with a sprinkle of humour and a dash of tech wisdom. 

Amy and Ajack have your tech toolkit covered.  So tune in for a tech-savvy adventure that promises to be both insightful and entertaining and join the accounting adventure. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi Amy.

Speaker 2: 0:02

Hey Jack.

Speaker 1: 0:03

How are you?

Speaker 2: 0:05

I'm great thanks. How are you?

Speaker 1: 0:07

I'm feeling larger than life. It's a big topic we're talking about today, exciting Large than life, multi-entity, multi-divisional, big firm tech stuff Great.

Speaker 2: 0:22

It's such a huge topic obviously because the businesses are so big, I know, but it's a yeah, it's such a big topic. You know why I'm really excited about this topic actually is because I think there's finally a lot more choice in the market out there for those multi-entity, multi-divisional firms. So I'm pretty excited to unpack this one today.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Yeah, I mean you're right. I mean I think this is probably a broader thing. That's happening in tech is more people can build tech, it's easier to build tech. So you know, the most complex tech is now having more competitors. It's not just the players we've always known. You're starting to get even some startup quote-unquote startups entering this multi-divisional, multi-entity, complicated space which is really good to see.

Speaker 2: 1:30

so I guess, where should we start? I think let, maybe let's start with what do you classify as a multi-entity or multi-divisional firm?

Speaker 1: 1:38

it's a good question. I mean, I can speak from my experience, but I think you you see it a little bit more. So my experience working in one of these well, you know, I worked at a big four firm which obviously has audit, tax, advisory, you know, government consulting. It's multidivisional, but let's, you know, let's go below that kind of firm because I think they're structured completely differently. The last firm I worked at we had different business units for self-managed superannuation team, financial planning team, we had like an accounting advisory team, and then we had like a lower level small business tax team, we had business sales as a team, and so these were all different brands all under the same you know office ownership structure. So that was really quite interesting. But the tech was complicated because you've got different apps for different teams, different CRMs. How do you get this stuff to talk to each other? Quite complicated. So yeah, I mean, how do you see it? Do you see anything different?

Speaker 2: 2:38

No, I don't see it any different. I think that there is. What we mean by multi-entity is that there are literally multi-reporting entities from that perspective, like if they've correct me if I'm wrong here but if they've got their own ABN, they've got their own bank account, they're probably a separate entity, typically speaking from a billing perspective. So therefore, that's what we mean by multi-entity. So yeah, your financial planning, your wealth division, your audit division. Some businesses classify the bookkeeping division as something different. Some classify self-managed super funds as different.

Speaker 2: 3:10

As you said, there's lots of different ways that you can slice and dice this pie. There are reasons why companies do it. There are logical reasons why some companies do it Sometimes. There are illogical reasons why companies do it Sometimes. I just like to think that they have a separate brand.

Speaker 2: 3:26

But it does make it more complex from a reporting perspective for some of the even if you're not like you're a smaller business, so this isn't based on headcount. This is the other thing to keep in mind as well. So headcount doesn't actually really impact this outcome. This is much more around the way that you actually want to structure the service offerings that you have, based on the different umbrella entities that you have within your business. So, yeah, you could have a team of 30, for example, 20, 30, but you might have two or three different divisions in that, just hypothetically. But then again you might have 250 or 150 team members and you know. Then you've got multi-entities. So I think there's you know, there's a bit of a call out to begin with, I think as well, around which will unpack, which apps will work, but I think there's also a call out to make in terms of which apps won't be suitable as well and how they also won't work, which we'll get to.

Speaker 2: 4:25

Where do we?

Speaker 1: 4:26

start. So you know we're talking today to people who are running these firms or about to split out and become multi-entity firms. Where do you begin this conversation? What are the challenges I'm about to have that I need to be aware of?

Speaker 2: 4:46

the biggest challenge that I see for this space is from a reporting level.

Speaker 2: 4:51

So from the from the top of the food chain, they want to have visibility over the entire business and then, as you work your way through the different layers of each division, as in like, from a structural perspective and hierarchy side of things, each level needs to have different access to different capabilities within the function and the operational tech side of things, the biggest challenge that most firms have is the visibility of the finances, save one, and the second biggest issue that they have is visibility from an information perspective.

Speaker 2: 5:22

So they want to see that if, if this, you know the client's getting their self-managed super fund done, which might be at a different time of year to when they're getting their standard, you know, end of year finances done. But they're also talking to the wealth team as well. They want to have, like companies want to have clear visibility over who's spoken to who, when and what and where, so to speak, so that you're not bombarding your clients with different information and or your clients are like well, I'm going to X, y, z, you know accounting practice, hypothetically, whatever the name of the accounting practice is I've just spoken to Bob in this department. Surely they'll know that I'm speaking to Jimmy in the other department. Haven't you guys had a conversation together? So I think that's probably one of the bigger fears associated with this is that accountants want to ensure that there is.

Speaker 1: 6:15

You know, these companies want to ensure that there's visibility for the team's perspective so that they can yeah, it's such a simple desire and such a difficult thing to achieve, if you know what I mean, like when the idea that your client works with three or four of your divisions and they think you're talking to one another. But I know in reality it's not happening on a regular basis. It's not happening, um, and the visibility isn't there for some, sometimes legal, reasons. You know people not needing to have access or not being allowed to have access to other divisions, documentation, notes. You know financial stuff that's going on.

Speaker 1: 6:55

You know financial planning, accounting, keeping them separate but then at the same time needing to give your client a consistent experience, and it's a big challenge. I'm actually keen to understand how you kind of have seen this solved, because it's tough and I don't know if there's like a perfect solution to it or this is the best you're going to get, because it's complicated. It's not like a tech business that might have sales, customer success and support because they can all live in the same CRM where you've got these divisions. That can't. They need to be segregated for certain things and then have to be, then want to be together for others.

Speaker 2: 7:35

Like any piece of software that's out there. There is absolutely no perfect solution here, so in case anybody's looking for the holy grail of you know solutions for this situation, I'm sorry to say there's not one.

Speaker 1: 7:48

Turn it off now. Leave the episode. It's not for you.

Speaker 2: 7:53

It's not for you Come back but it's. They're just there isn't the perfect solution. What I will say, though, is that we are closer, in the world of the way that you know we have evolved as an industry, to having a solution, which is great, because there actually are some now you know pretty cool players out there that are coming up the ranks, that are developing this functionality so that we can have greater visibility across each division of the firm. But I think one of the good places to start is understanding what each division is actually using. Which division is the largest division as well? So, within, you know, with all the different competing needs this is the other challenge that you're going to face here is that it's not just about, you know, the audit division, and it's not just about the wealth division. It's not just about the tax and accounting division. You've also got to consider what about the operations division and the support team? Like they all get impacted by all of these different softwares as well. Like you know, just especially if you're working at one of the larger businesses where they have a front of house staff, you know what's your phone system being used. Is that all connected? Like there's so many different facets to this which are really quite interesting to unpack here.

Speaker 2: 9:05

So I think, unfortunately, it's usually the largest division, probably has the greatest sway in this. It just is what it is and, typically speaking, for most accounting, multi-entity accounting practices, typically the largest division is the tax and accounting division, generally speaking. So you know first of all what is your largest division is the tax and accounting division, generally speaking. So you know first of all what is your largest division. Making sure that you understand that and therefore making sure that you understand what the needs of that division are is really important.

Speaker 2: 9:34

But do not discount every other division, because you know the whole point of looking at a solution that can be all encompassing to a degree is so that you can have as much visibility over all divisions. You need to ask, I guess, is do you want everything connected and talking? I mean, based on what we've just discussed, my opinion on that is yes, but then that's always going to be my opinion because I see the advantages and efficiency gains that you can have by having everything as connected and talking as possible, because that's where you know, and efficiency gains that you can have by having everything as connected and talking as possible, because that's where you know you get that visibility over information. So I don't know, do you have a different opinion on that one, jack? No.

Speaker 1: 10:14

I agree, like it's not. It's not plausible to have a perfectly integrated. You know, I imagine we'll get to the systems and some of them don't build integrations with each other. You can't do much about it but to to at least be trying to get to some degree, um, of connectivity here. I think is important to remove double handling to provide greater visibility, uh, but yeah it's. It's not easy with some of this, uh with some of this tech so yeah, yeah great, a great point.

Speaker 1: 10:42

Something you need to think about is I mean, if you're happy with it not talking great. Each business is a silo and that's going to be easy to set up, but it's not going to provide you the ultimate outcome.

Speaker 2: 10:52

Correct and realistically. What you're going to end up doing is throwing people at fixing a problem from a lack of integration, because people are going to have to fix, you know, lack of integrated software by manually doing processes and procedures and things.

Speaker 1: 11:04

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 11:05

You've also got. Do you want to have, or do you need to have, a centralized practice management system or a centralized CRM system? And I am talking about the two differences there practice management, time cost billing. Yes, it's got components of crm client relationship management, obviously, because that's where all of your clients and you know um information about your clients house. Or are you wanting to bring everything together based on a crm, a more traditional crm, like a hubspot, a salesforce, that's some sort of thing, so that you can see the community, the communication aspect, um between all of your clients differently? That's something to really consider as well.

Speaker 1: 11:49

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:50

I mean those three big ticket items right.

Speaker 1: 11:54

Crm, practice management, document management feel like the things you need to think about what's going to be isolated to a specific division or entity and what's going to be isolated to a specific division or entity and what's going to be overarching, because I can see a case for certain different elements in that being isolated and I can see a case for certain things being connected. You know document management. Probably there's reasons why certain parts of that will have to be isolated, but you can segregate data in a DM between different people and different divisions. A PM might actually be better to be isolated because you've got different jobs to be done with a financial planning division and a different job to be done for an accounting and tax division to a superannuation fund division. So there's different ways you would manage your workflow.

Speaker 1: 12:42

There's different processes to follow different things that, uh, you know some things recur, some things are project-based, so I can see why that might be separate. But then to have an overarching crm would be great, because then you can see oh yeah, great, bill spoke to that person, but kathy is, you know, speaking to them today, so she has that context. That's great for her. So, but, um, you know, you know this is just me talking. I'm keen to get no.

Speaker 2: 13:08

I agree with all of it and these are the considerations that you need to make. Typically, most practices have come from having a centralized practice management platform right. So, logically, that's typically the thing that they're most trying to solve, because where do you do your timesheets? In your billing, in your practice management platform, typically speaking right. So that's why that tends to be the centralised pivotal point of something that needs to be transitioned or changed into.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Does that mean, in these firms the client is getting one invoice from every division at once?

Speaker 2: 13:43

Not necessarily, but it's all coming out of the same system. Okay, potentially. Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1: 13:51

Potentially so. I guess it depends. If you're like well, they're engaged with this division and that division will charge them as they charge them and this division is a separate. They sign up to a different engagement with them and they get a different invoice from them and they you know.

Speaker 2: 14:04

Yeah, I guess that's another thing to consider yeah, and I think that there's something to consider in relation like, for example, the wealth division is always an interesting one around how they build their clients as well, just based on the requirements of what, what they're doing, so that can be a little bit different to what the needs are from, you know, like a practice management system, for example, example.

Speaker 2: 14:24

Yeah, I think another consideration here, before we get into you know, changing everything is each division actually using the latest or the most current piece of software for their division? So, for example, like the audit division, are we using the server-based application still, or are we using the cloud-based application that is available that we haven't necessarily upgraded to? That's something to consider as well, because if you're going to be making these changes and you are considering changing to more of a um, an integrated or cloud tech stack, do consider what each of your divisions are on, because you're going to get a, you know, if you're wanting the most integrated application stack, if each division is on a cloud platform, typically speaking, you will have more opportunity for integration, not necessarily native integration, but you'll have better opportunity to integrate through, you know, third-party applications, for example, if you wanted to go down that path. It's just going to be easier to integrate.

Speaker 1: 15:25

Yep, that makes sense. I mean anything else from your side to consider before we go into the apps and maybe the best practice.

Speaker 2: 15:35

Probably. There's only probably three other considerations here, but the main one would be tax and ledger. Does your tax and ledger product this goes back to the point around the largest division, which is typically the accounting and tax division does that tax and ledger product need to integrate with whatever platform you're going to move to, or are you happy for it to be standalone? That's just a consideration around that one. Same goes for work papers. Do you want that integrated or not integrated? So a consideration around that too. So they would be the last ones to really consider around. Does it need to be integrated? Does it not need to? You know, do you care? Again, it all comes down to efficiencies, basically.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Cool. Well, let's pause, let's have a listen to our sponsors and we'll be right back.

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Speaker 4: 18:06

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Speaker 3: 18:13

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Speaker 4: 18:15

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Speaker 3: 18:22

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Speaker 4: 18:25

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Speaker 3: 18:38

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Speaker 4: 18:50

I only thought there was like three or four errors, I don't think we make that many mistakes in a day, but clearly we do Not at Illuminate. No Well, I mean, it's like having another member of your team, really, isn't it? If it's looking for those things. It's kind of dealing with a whole bunch of the time that you'd spend on the crappy stuff and allowing you to have more time to spend on better quality accounting, advisory and management work when you're dealing with your clients right, 100%.

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Speaker 3: 19:17

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Speaker 4: 19:24

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Speaker 2: 21:01

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Speaker 2: 21:04

Gosh, they're good. Yeah, so we've unpacked, I guess what makes a multi-entity firm and some of the considerations that you need to have before you make any changes around. You know you want to upgrade. You're kind of potentially tired of your incumbent platform. Let's talk now about what the options are because, as we've alluded to, this is a pretty cool space. These days.

Speaker 2: 21:33

There's more players in the market that are actually developing applications from a cloud-based perspective, so non-server that are coming into the market that are finally making headway.

Speaker 2: 21:45

Because for a very long time and I would say it's only realistically been the last 12 months, probably shorter timeframe Up until this point, the main players in the market have been the server-based applications APS, myob, handy, handy not so much, but APS and Myob are probably the two front runners for the larger end of town, multi-entity, multi-divisional firms that are still there, and I feel like the majority of that end of town have been sitting here patiently watching, waiting, watching, waiting, hoping that either one of them will develop a platform that is a viable option for them from a cloud perspective.

Speaker 2: 22:33

There is movement in the MyOB front. There's some movement slow movement in the APS front, but it's you know, ultimately the point of today is to actually highlight some of the other applications that are out there that are real, true front runners and viable options for you know, practices to consider if they're ready to actually make that move. This is not to be taken on lightly either, because a move like this, it's a huge investment of time and effort for your team. Like most of these firms that we're talking about here, are 50 to 100 seats plus in terms of size in terms of where they want to fit.

Speaker 1: 23:15

Are you saying that Xero isn't the go-to for these firms?

Speaker 2: 23:20

No, it's not. From a practice management standpoint, Xero practice manager isn't the go-to for these firms, Self-admittedly, from their end as well. Like Xero would actually say that Xero practice manager is not suitable for a multi-entity firm, and the main reason for that is just a bit of a techie moment is of the way that the actual application works. Xero Practice Manager and a Xero Ledger, for example, is a one-to-one relationship. You can only have one practice management platform connected to one ledger. You can't have the practice management platform connected to multiple ledgers, unlike currently APS and MyOB have. So that's the reason why zero practice manager is not a viable option.

Speaker 2: 24:03

There are workarounds that you can do depending on the size of your business. You can still do workarounds, Like if you've got a second division or a third division, for example, but it's a small and you're happy to run. You know, you're happy to kind of keep the client information in zero practice manager and you might want to, you know, run your invoices separately directly into the ledger file that you're obviously using for that entity. There are workarounds. I mean, it's just it's a bit messy.

Speaker 1: 24:26

When I was at FYI I mean we were dealing with firms that were 200 plus staff. I'm fairly sure they were on XPM because we were integrated with them, yeah, and that's fine and they can be.

Speaker 2: 24:39

So it's not about the number of seats. So zero practice manager is completely fine for zero to about 1,000 seats. I believe Again, it's going to start slowing down once you start piling on the number of seats that are in there. It's not about the number of seats, it's about the entities. So nothing's impossible.

Speaker 2: 24:55

Just remember that you can still have, you know, your main practice managers, you know connected to your main ledger, and there are apps that can help with this, that can work, although they do have some limitations in them in relation to, you know, splitting out your finances from that perspective and, as I say, there are workarounds you could do your invoicing separately, not associated with your practice management platform. But if you want your all of the information in one platform practice management, time, cost billing for every division you know you're doing whip washups and you've got information flowing through, like invoices flowing through to your ledger, and then, when payments come through, you're reconciling that and then the payment comes back into your practice management platform. If you've got multi-entity, it's not going to flow that nicely, basically, if you're using zero practice manager. If you have a 200-seat firm though, for example, and they're all doing tax and accounting. It's just one division. Go for gold with zero practice manager.

Speaker 1: 25:52

No issues, yeah, division, go for gold with zero practice manager, no issues, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean I'm yeah, I'm fairly sure, these are multi-divisional ones, but I don't know what their the rest of their tech stack was. But anyway, let's keep moving through. So what? What are the? What are the products that we're talking about here that are at least in consideration? Then maybe we can go into what you kind of think as a bit of best practice or some options around best practice.

Speaker 2: 26:13

Yeah, so I think there's two. The two newest to the space would be FYI. Elite, which is basically FYI have developed their document and email management workflow management platform, and they've now encompassed the full practice management side of things, and that is a multi-entity platform. What we mean by that is FYI can now connect to multiple ledgers, which means that if you raise an invoice, you can direct it to the correct ledger output, which means that your practice management side of things is all encompassing. It's all in one.

Speaker 2: 26:53

So there's the FYI Elite division. They have from last check, they have just over 60 firms that have migrated onto the Elite platform from other practice management platforms. They've only been running now. They've been out of beta for, I think, about three months in the elite side of things. Uh, just remember, though, that it's the same platform, it's just they've now got additional functionality from what they had, so they're just building on to what they've already got. Um, so yeah, so fyi elite is probably the front runner at the moment in terms of the cloud-based multi-entity space.

Speaker 2: 27:30

Then, very closely behind that, you've got Cloud Connect. So they have been in development for the last couple of years as well. Their platform is like it's got the same functionality as what FYI Elite does to a degree. Probably the main difference is the user interface, the layout, so there's going to be preferences around the UI that people either like or don't like. That's always a component to consider. Functionality-wise though, it's obviously really similar functionality works in slightly different ways for different components of it.

Speaker 2: 28:07

I say that the only difference at the moment between FYI and Cloud Connect is probably the number of integrations that FYI has compared to Cloud Connect. At the moment, between FYI and Cloud Connect is probably the number of integrations that FYI has compared to Cloud Connect. At the moment, as, in FYI has been around for a lot longer, they've built a lot more integrations due to the document management side of things. Therefore, those integrations will actually flow through from an elite perspective, so that you're going to have more options out there. Cloud Connect, though, has a really strong roadmap in terms of what their integrations are that they are building.

Speaker 1: 28:34

Is that just the practice management tool, or has it also got the DM side of it as well?

Speaker 2: 28:41

So Cloud Connect at the moment also does have a DM side, as in. They currently connect through to your SharePoint, so each firm's own SharePoint. But they are also building out their own document management platform as well. They have basic functionality around it, but they are developing that to a deeper level as well. Cool.

Speaker 1: 29:00

Both of these.

Speaker 2: 29:02

The other one would be and it's been there for a while actually, so forgive me when I say that there hasn't been one. There actually has been one, which is GreatSoft, acquired a few years ago now by Myob, so it was called GreatSoft. It is now called Myob Practice Manager. The thing to note about these three apps that I've just mentioned being FYI, elite, cloud Connect and now Myob Practice Manager, is, interestingly enough, they all connect to zero tax and zero ledgers, if you wanted them to. So if you wanted it to connect to your tax and ledger side of things, it can. Therefore creating a more integrated CRM side of things, because all of your client information is all talking to each other effectively from that side of life. So they're probably the three that are. They are the three viable options, I think. Definitely at the moment.

Speaker 2: 29:51

Some, like you know, it's obviously a personal preference in terms of what the needs are and what people like more than others. At the end of the day, as a business, you need to go and look at what is going to be most suitable. That's the big decision here. The other ones that are in the market that are coming along, as I said, is the APS side of life is building something based on a Salesforce version, so they do have so Handy. There is a tax product within that space, so the access group own that component. They are building out a platform which is, you know, getting there as well. I'll be completely transparent. I haven't seen it, I just hear things about it. So, yeah, that's why I'm like I don't know too much about it.

Speaker 1: 30:44

Yeah, that probably means it's still a while away from anyone using it.

Speaker 2: 30:48

That's correct. But you know, I keep hearing that it's coming. But I've been hearing that it's been coming for the last probably oh, I don't know about 15 years since Xero came onto the market, basically. So actually, no, that's not quite right. That's a bit of a lie. It's probably the last five-ish years that we've been hearing that something's been coming in that space.

Speaker 1: 31:08

All right. I won't hold my breath.

Speaker 2: 31:11

Yeah, that's yeah. I feel like it's closer than it's ever been. Okay.

Speaker 1: 31:16

Well, it should be.

Speaker 2: 31:17

But yeah, I know right, because we're further down the track. That's really funny. What else have we got? So the other thing that you could consider doing from a practice management side of things, you could consider looking at carbon down this side of path. It be, um, from a multi-entity side of things. It would be a slightly disconnect between the invoicing side, but that's not a deal breaker for some firms. So you know, and they are obviously building out on that functionality as well from invoicing as in having it connected to different ledgers, from a workflow management, a crm perspective, carbon is a potential consideration. I think there's a bit more development that they need to do in that space if they wanted to go after the multi-entity, multi-divisional market vote. That's how I would put it.

Speaker 1: 32:02

I mean for a bit of self-promotion here. I mean, if you're pushing anything into one zero, you can then push it out into multiple zeros via a tool like Mayday. So if you need it, if you set it up and it's all pushing into one zero ledger and you needed it to go into multiple zero ledgers, you can. There are tools out there that can help with that kind of stuff as well.

Speaker 2: 32:21

Does it flow back though as well? Does information flow back?

Speaker 2: 32:25

What needs to flow back Are we going to have this discussion live, let's do it. Why not? Why not? Well, does it flow back? So from, like you know, uh, if you're creating invoices as you're pushing it to mayday, for example, and then you're splitting them out into multi-entities, the payment, so you know you've done your reconciliation, a client's paid, you, does that then push back so that from a crm side or practice management side, if the admin team's going to see, oh, has this client actually paid their bill, they can see it without having to go into the ledger file to see if the finance is like, to see if that invoice has been paid.

Speaker 1: 32:58

Well, it depends where the client is paying into. But you know I think the answer is yes, like it's a recharge from one entity to another, so it kind of it does depend. There might be intercompany loan accounts that are involved here. Without going into, you know, all the nitty gritty detail, it seems like something that can be done.

Speaker 2: 33:19

Yeah, yeah, cool, nice one. The other ones that are standalone that have come up as well is Scoro, which is has a slight integration, I believe, but that's another possible consideration from a workflow kind of practice management platform. Zepo was another one that was talked about for quite some time. I think that's more of a data aggregator, though, rather than an actual practice management platform. So it talks a big game, but in terms of its actual functionality, as I say, it more aggregates data than anything, um so, and then there are some, probably some other additional little apps that you could use to sort of assist in this space for the larger firm. So like, if you didn't, for example, want to go down the zero ledger path and you wanted to have a separate zero tax, like you didn't want to have tax within zero, you could have a separate tax. Oh, like, there's heaps, there's a couple of them there out there. You know, whatever you'd like to use, you could use active ledgers if you wanted to. That way, you're not restricted to only using zero ledgers, for example, right? So active ledgers is another consideration there, same as active work papers. So you've got that integration there, which is kind of cool.

Speaker 2: 34:25

You've got my Prosperity, which is good from a I want to say part document management, part document portal. More from a client side, it's allowing your clients to have greater visibility over their documents related to different departments that you obviously operate under. So if you've got, if that client's dealing with the wealth division plus the I don't know the tax and accounting side of things, then the client can see all of their documents associated with that in one spot. So, from a kind of a portal thing, also a really cool app side of life as well. So that's another option there. What else is there, jack?

Speaker 1: 35:10

Well, I mean, I guess there's, depending on what divisions you have, depending on what kind of business units you've got. There's some other tech to think about. I know Xplan is commonly used among financial planning divisions. You've got BGL and Class. Both offer a self-managed superannuation fund software. So if you've got an SMSF division they're going to be useful. Caseware is one for auditors and I think you've got another one for auditors there too.

Speaker 2: 35:38

Cloud Office, which is more for self-managed super fund audits yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:42

Okay, yeah, x-plan is an interesting one, so like what we're obviously trying to highlight here is the cloud options which give you the greater functionality from an integration perspective. X-plan, as far as I'm aware, whilst it's the biggest player in the market, we're still yet to see a cloud option with X-Plan. There are a couple of other players that are coming up in the ranks I'm not entirely aware of them, none that are, I think, as feature-rich as what X-Plan is at the moment. So I believe that there is a cloud version of X-Plan coming and, or it's kind of, here, but it's not as true cloud as what we would like it to be, as far as my understanding of the platform is Sure.

Speaker 1: 36:25

Okay, that makes sense. I mean, before we wrap up, I mean I get it. Each of these multi-divisional, multi-entity firms is going to be different. They're going to have different splits between how they're. You know what division is the biggest. You know how they want things to, where they want their focus to be on the client side, or they want it on the invoicing side, or the reporting side, or the workflow side. So I get it. There's going to be different options here for different types of firms. But I mean, is there a standout kind of best in class right now stack that you kind of would recommend the most, or see the most, or seems to cover the bases the best?

Speaker 2: 37:07

So the biggest question around that is do you want to tie yourself to a tax and ledger side of things? You want to tie yourself to a tax and ledger side of things. If you are wanting to tie yourself to the Xero ecosystem from a tax and ledger perspective, then the three outstanding front runners although I would say two of them would be FYI, elite, then Cloud Connect and then the MyOB Practice Manager, based on the fact that it's a viable option not necessarily the best, but it is a viable option because it integrates. Okay, they would be my three picks. So, yeah, elite, cloud Connect and then potentially a MyOB would be a consideration. There is like that gives you the option. If you're going down the FYI path. You've then got many more options for all of those other apps that we just spoke about. You've effectively got integrations with most of them, or the opportunity to integrate in some way, shape or form with most of them.

Speaker 2: 38:00

Things that we haven't discussed, I think, are different CRMs. It could then sit over the top of that Overarching, like you know, things that we could. You know some other considerations is your Microsoft suite. Microsoft, like a lot of these bigger firms, are already using functionality around like Power BI. So, considering you know where does Power BI actually sit into all of this, the thing that I really like about Cloud Connect is it has embedded Power BI in it, which is a pretty cool functionality, slightly different to the way that FYI works. But FYI has the same functionality. It just works a little bit differently. It's not embedded in the product.

Speaker 1: 38:38

Yeah, and then you've got. I guess there's separate players as well in that space, Like Atani is one that does specifically Power BI reporting too, Yep. So yeah, Okay, cool, I mean it's a big space.

Speaker 2: 38:50

It's a big space and I think that's something to that these bigger firms need to take into consideration is your Microsoft suite, like that can play a huge role in some of the decisions that you're going to make. So, from a CRM side of things like Microsoft Dynamics might be a consideration if you're wanting a CRM. It's going to be a bigger beast to build, but it's going to potentially be a bit more customized to what you need. It's just going to be harder to possibly build it.

Speaker 1: 39:15

I mean, I think and I think, like a lot of our episodes have probably focused on kind of standard, typical firm tech stack kind of stuff, where you know if you give it a good go, you can get some way there just yourself. Um, the recommendation is still always to get some advice and speak to some people and make sure that you do it the right way. But I think whenever, whenever you're talking multi-entity, multi-divisional firms, you're not going to do all this yourself internally.

Speaker 2: 39:40

There's so many moving parts.

Speaker 1: 39:42

You're a massive firm. There's the changeover, the change management of teams, so obviously you're going to have experts that you're going to involve in this process, no matter what way you go.

Speaker 2: 39:53

Yeah, definitely, and I think one of the other things is that some of the other bigger firms are actually considering, you know, what are we doing with AI? What are we doing with things like data lakes, those kind of things and data lakes being, you know, a place to actually pull all of the data from all of the different applications that you're using to then start getting greater visibility over what it could do Like, the world of a data lake is very exciting, and we could have a whole episode on that little topic, jack, but you know that is also a consideration. We want to ensure that, if you are looking at AI, data lakes, all of those kinds of things that, where possible, you've got as many opportunities to gather that data. That's the other reason why all all those apps that we've discussed today effectively our cloud have opportunity to get access to the data in them so that you can pull that data and then get greater visibility over the client situation.

Speaker 1: 40:48

My brain feels like a data lake right now, absorbing all of that, so maybe a good place to end it. Thank you all for joining us and, you know, for listening. In Love it.

Speaker 2: 41:00

Thanks so much, jack, great to chat.

Speaker 1: 41:02

Likewise, see you, see you.

Speaker 3: 41:10

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 4: 41:19

Oh, stunning as always.

Speaker 3: 41:20

The two of them are brilliant minds and are brilliant communicators.

Speaker 4: 41:23

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 that's podcasts or social media.

Speaker 3: 41:42

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