All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
Navigating Remote Work: Tech Tips, Setups and more
Picture this: you’re working from the beach, laptop in hand, sun on your face, and productivity on point. Sound too good to be true? Tune in as Amy and Jack dive into the world of remote work. From beachside setups to cloud tech, they’ve got the tips to make your firm ready for this shift and set up the perfect remote workspace.
They work through how to keep your team on track with daily team stand ups, effective KPIs, travel light with minimal hardware, and run flawless webinars from anywhere. They highlight the importance of communication, trust and regular check-ins for a high-performing, flexible work culture whilst keeping your gif and emoji game strong.
So join them on their next tech accounting adventure to transform your remote work game.
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PRODUCTION
David Easton (@davidjeasty) | Insta...
Hey Jack.
Speaker 2:Hey Amy.
Speaker 1:How you doing.
Speaker 2:I'm doing fine, but I could be better. I could be relaxing, I could be putting my feet up, I could be by the beach, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Feeling like you need a holiday, buddy.
Speaker 2:Oh, don't we all? Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, you can't just work from the beach, right?
Speaker 1:But we could why.
Speaker 3:We could, why can't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why couldn't we?
Speaker 2:Damn, I guess you're right. I guess we could. Maybe that should be the topic for today how to work from the beach.
Speaker 1:I mean, this isn't a new topic to a degree, but I think that things have changed in this space a little bit, so it's still definitely like the dream was sold years ago, I guess, when sort of the zero ecosystem burst onto the accounting spectrum about the whole. You can run your practice from the beach, and today I think it would be really cool if we could maybe unpack the practicalities of that one, whether it's a beach or whether it's just somewhere that's not your office or your standard place of working.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you're right. I mean, it's cloud was that was clouds kind of. What it brought was how you can work from anywhere. But then I guess the practicalities of running a practice from anywhere is probably where the differentiator is, because if it's just you one man, band-man, band you can work from anywhere. You've got a laptop great. But if you've got a team, how do we do that? What's going to be different there? I think that's where people start to run into some more challenges, so maybe we can try and work through those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and I think over the last couple of years, obviously, with the world sort of shutting down in different parts of the world and, you know, remote working, I think that that has really upped the ante in terms of the availability to be able to work remotely. But I still think that there's a lot to be said for is that, you know, is the structure of doing that actually is it correct? Have you actually got it set up in the most practical way? Do you need to consider that when you had to possibly work remotely during the pandemic and everything, was it set up correctly or was it just like higgledy-piggledy thrown together because everything happened all so quickly?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I know where I was working in a software company at the time like the number of firms who just like made the rush call, like in that moment to be like, oh, we should have done this a while ago, but we need to do this now Because they weren't fully set up for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, and you know that was a testament to, from a Clarity Street perspective, like I'm weirdly grateful for that, that, because we helped a lot of those firms to transition across to. You know all the cloud tech and everything, but I think it's a bigger conversation around it, right, so is I guess the first question that you need to ask is is this the kind of firm that I want? Do I want the freedom to choose to where I want to be placed? Do you care about that? Or are you actually quite content with turning up to your office every day, Monday to Friday, that kind of thing? Or do you want the freedom to basically just jump on a plane whenever you like and know that your practice is still going to run, whether you were in the office or on shore, call it, or if you were out of the country or interstate, or something like that?
Speaker 2:And I think this is like there's definitely still a part of the accounting market, or any market, that thinks that, you know, working remotely or you know, not meeting at the office is going to mean that we're going to lose some sort of momentum as a team. You know we're not going to be able to collaborate, juniors aren't going to be able to learn from one another as quickly because they're not, you know, right next door to them, listening to phone calls and whatever else. So I think there are there's still like, there's a mindset you have to have. You have to trust that this is actually going to work. If you don't fundamentally believe that you can properly run a firm whilst working remotely, you know, I don't think it's going to work out that well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there's a lot of evidence out there. There's firms doing this successfully already. So I don't know why we would need to not believe that you can do it. But you know I get it. You know you could be from a different generation and this is just not how it's ever been done and so it's a new thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's an interesting one I think you do need to make some decisions as a business owner. If you do decide to do this, which is maybe you need to consider that the traditional types of employees that you would have, ie juniors maybe you may not have as many juniors because maybe you don't have the capacity to possibly educate them in the way that you have traditionally educated them. If you're not comfortable with, you know that culture piece that you believe having an office environment actually provides a junior for them to be upskilled. So, for example, like you know in my business now, to be fair, I designed it this way because I wanted it this way from the word go. So it's much easier for me because this is I thought about this to begin with Comparatively speaking to your already established businesses or already established firms that have been more traditionally office related. You know circumstances there, but you know, within my business, for example, I know that in order to work at Clarity Street, you need to be a self-starter, you need to be someone who is completely comfortable with working at home, with only coming together via Teams meetings, via Zoom meetings, getting together in person once a month, possibly once a quarter if you're interstate, but you personally need to be okay and comfortable with that, but equally saying that you know that from the word go. It's not like I'm throwing you into the deep end, like halfway through your role and like, hey, we're changing things, so, but you know that's.
Speaker 1:That's something that I've deliberately designed, so that you know the MO is, I don't care where you're located, I don't. I honestly don't care where you're located, I don't care, as, as the clients are serviced, your role is fulfilled and we are still hitting our goals and targets internally, then that's the main. You know that's what we're trying to achieve. That isn't necessarily true and correct, though, for a lot of accounting practices out there. So I think what we're unpacking today is some of the things to consider around. Do you actually is this the right move for you? What do you need to consider if you are actually going to make this move? If you're already an established firm, as I say, that is more of the traditional, you know, office bound mindset and that's the way that you've run things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if you're, if you're transitioning away from a different model to a remote model, then that's going to bring with it a whole bunch of other challenges, because you're not hiring staff with the expectations of, hey, you're going to be completely. You know, are you completely remote? Are you the kind of person who thrives in that environment? You're asking people who are used to being in an office to say, hey, we're changing things, but at the same time, it does feel that the vast majority of employees are leaning that way. At least, you know, anecdotally, that's what it feels like.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there are others who are like, look, actually my home is a mess, or I've got so many kids, or like I can't concentrate and work there and I need. You know the time and space that I get from catching the train into the office, going to the office, catching up with other peers and having those conversations is really valuable, and I need somewhere that I can do that, or that hybrid environment where you know a lot of people are finding a bit of the best of both worlds, where they can go into the office once or twice a week but also work from home and have the flexibility of that for the rest of the week or whenever they need. So yeah, I think if you're starting from scratch, building a team, and you can set the expectations like you have and like the team that I've joined certainly have that's a lot easier if you're transitioning from you know we're in the office kind of team to a primarily remote team or completely remote team. There's definitely firms who have said stuff that we got rid of the office.
Speaker 1:No one was going in. We're now completely remote um different challenges.
Speaker 2:For those two it's a hell of a lot cheaper oh yeah, not having an office, yeah so I mean that's one of the big advantages, right? So one of the big advantages is cost. So let's just kind of rattle some of these off. The cost of rent is gone, but you're now probably having to do, you probably have to reinvest some of that in, you know, engaging the team, traveling, flying the team in whatever it is. But you've got the advantage of hiring anywhere now, so you're not limited to the pool of people nearby who might be hiring. Especially if you're in a smaller city or even a town, then you've got access to the best talent around the country now, rather than just who's in your neighborhood. So that's a huge win. But you know the people are going to feel a bit more disconnected or might not learn as quickly from you, or you know you might feel that there's a level of like you know it's difficult to kind of stay on top of things.
Speaker 1:Any other advantages, disadvantages you have to spend a hell of a lot more time with your team. From a culture perspective, you do Like you need to be available as a business owner. You need to be available a lot more to actually troubleshoot a lot of the challenges that they face Checking in how you doing everybody okay, making sure that people turn up to team meetings. You're always sitting in front of a screen, so you know effectively that can be seen as an advantage or a disadvantage depending, because the advantage of that is that as long as the top half of me looks half decent, I don't care what the bottom half looks like. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:I can walk around in my slippers. It's bloody brilliant. But you know there's less travel advantage. But then some may also see that as a disadvantage. Another advantage is I can literally pick up and travel anywhere I like and know that as long as I have some sort of a crossover of time zone and I can check in with my team, then I can still do my job and the work gets done. The clients are satisfied. Things still actually tick over I think that's like.
Speaker 2:That is such a big uh opportunity that I think still relatively untapped, I think, for small businesses, business owners. You know I'm seeing more of that being utilized where it's kind of like, you know, I can do my job from anywhere, because I already do it from anywhere my house, and no one's in my house with me. So, as far as I'm aware, as far as everyone else in the team's aware, I'm just doing my work. So to be able to go and say like, hey, everyone else in the team's aware I'm just doing my work. So to be able to go and say like, hey, you look, I'm going to go to uh wherever for a week and I'm going to be working. So I'm going to be completely available, normal hours, you know, or slightly different times, and whatever it is, they're going to get back to all my clients going to do my work. But I'm going there so that I can put my feet up.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, in the mornings I can have a different experience. At night I can have a different experience, I can go see something else, go see something a bit different, and then, you know, maybe I do take a day or two of leave as well and just kind of bolt that on, but it just gives you something you've never had before and I, you know I don't see heaps of people doing this, but I definitely see it as something that why not? Like it's there, we could easily do this. I guess there's a, you know, maybe a fear from some owners that like, oh, are you really working if you're over in bali, like how do I?
Speaker 1:oh like, and two things open up in relation to that right. So there there's. There definitely has to be a mindset shift when it comes to your levels of trust around your team and setting expectations. You, as a business owner, need to get really clear with what your expectations are for your team, and then you need to trust that your team are going to execute on that. You need to have the parameters set in place for you to be able to check things so that you know what's going on and just have a bit of a bit more of a. You just need to be a bit more aware of what's going on in a different way. I think so, but the biggest thing here is trust. So, for the more stereotypical accountants who really get off on the fact that you know, if your team is sitting in front of you, then they're obviously working, which, in by my account, doesn't actually necessarily mean that they're working. Just putting it out there just because they're in the office doesn't mean that they're doing good quality work or that they're actually, you know, being efficient with what they're doing. So you need to be able to set different parameters around what the expectations are and set some different KPIs, potentially for your team as well.
Speaker 1:One other disadvantage, though, to be completely transparent, because I actually travel quite a bit and I love travelling and my dream is to one day not be in this country but still run a business and there are lots of business owners out there that do this right and still come back to Australia, obviously frequently, but to not actually be, you know, settled here per se. Travelling with just a laptop, I will say, can get challenging with the amount of screens that we're so used to having open. So I currently my tech stack at the moment right, or my hardware set up sorry, more so is I have a laptop, I have two additional screens, I have a little docking station, I have an additional keyboard, I have a separate mouse and that's all you know a fairly large desk, and I love it right. So I've got these massive screens set up and it's.
Speaker 1:It's amazing when you travel, though, you don't have that um trying to run a webinar where you you would typically have um, you're sharing your screen, um, because that you know you need to show the slide deck, but then you also need to have, you know, your notes about what you're talking about, because the presenter tabs don't actually show properly when you're presenting. You know, managing comments and things like that, like that's really challenging If you're doing that with a team or a meeting from a client perspective, for example, that is something that you do need to consider. From a hardware perspective, like, it's something that people don't really consider. They're just like oh, I've got a laptop, I'll be fine, but sometimes the practicalities of that are actually kind of frustrating.
Speaker 2:So yeah, oh, absolutely, and I think the hardware or what you need to make your firm ready is what we should delve into next. But let's first hear from our sponsors first here from our sponsors Ellie.
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Speaker 1:So how do you make you know, from a hardware, hardware perspective, how do you make your firm remote ready? What do you?
Speaker 2:so I, I mean, I think one of the big things you kind of already alluded to is like it's not enough just to have a laptop and expect everyone to go and do their job. Well, yeah, so you know more and more job ads, more and more, you know more and more job ads, more and more you know people who are hiring are at least asking the question hey, do you have everything that you need to work successfully from home? So what they're meaning by this generally is do you have a space? So you're not just working from your coffee table or your dining table because they're not designed for you know, ergonomically, for you to sit there eight hours a day and you're not going to be as productive. We've all been there Like, yes, every now and again you might want a different, you know, view or whatever, which is fine, but do you have a good space that's your space to work in?
Speaker 2:Do you have a desk? Do you have a relevant monitor or two monitors, whatever you guys as a firm have kind of decided, but you've got to be willing to sponsor this and pay for this stuff as well. If you're hiring someone who's like look, I don't have this yet, okay, cool, well, our baseline is a standing desk, one extra monitor, maybe two, your laptop. Obviously You're going to need a docking station to kind of piece that all together nice and easily. And then you know, beyond hardware you're going to have to have good software. Good, you know you can't have desktop-based tools. That's going to be annoying to install everything for everyone before they get their laptop. You want it to be all cloud-based, good internet. You know all these kinds of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you need to ensure that the team is obviously conscious of noise factors as well, especially if they're not actually working in an environment that is your stereotypical office Like. If they're content to be working overseas, for example in a cafe, that's all well and good. But what if you're doing a Zoom meeting with them? What's the background noise for the recipient of that call? They might be fine because they've blocked out the noise, but if the person on the other end of the Zoom call is actually listening to all that CAFO noise, again, that's really annoying. So you've got to make those sort of conscious decisions.
Speaker 1:The hardware one is an interesting one, right, so many moons ago I used to work at Ignition and what we had is because we were all kind of somewhat remote not all of us were, but some of us were remote and instead of the company actually providing the hardware, we were provided with a tech allowance, and that's something that I carried forward. Actually, it was. I don't know if they still do it or not, but that's something that I've carried forward for our business, which is, instead of me providing the hardware and having that, you know, it's a cost to the business, so to speak. I literally give my team members a tech allowance, which is for your hardware as in, like your computer, your laptop, your screens, etc. And therefore a phone and also a phone allowance as well, which solves that problem, basically, which means that you own it. We have to put some, you know some, security software on it just as part of that. That's sort of one of the things that you agree to, but effectively you technically own it. You need to update it within every three years, so, but that's kind of standard anyway these days. Let's be frank, a phone doesn't last any longer than two years these days, and your hardware is probably three-ish years, regardless your laptop. So that could be something that is an easier way to handle it, so that you don't have to send laptops to your team members and things like that.
Speaker 1:Depends on how much you want to control it, obviously, but we provide the specs, tell them what they need to have. You know, as a minimum requirement. Don't care if you've got a Mac, don't care if you've got a, you know, a non-Mac, what are those things called these days? Oh, a PC or a laptop. Sorry, just a Mac girl. I am, am, um, but you know, there's like we got around it that way, so and that kind of that works. But, um, so, hardware, yeah, it can be a consideration.
Speaker 1:You definitely need to make sure and that's something that you know. That's a question that I ask in interviews what's your setup like at home? Are you okay? Is everything okay, fine and dandy from that perspective? But, um, solid internet, which you alluded to before, is also another very key thing that you really need to be conscious of. Going back to the whole if you're travelling thing, there's a lot of internet out there. That's actually really crap. Hotel internet is not always fabulous. And then there's the security of, like you know, logging into the free Wi-Fi at hotels and things like that and just being a little bit conscious around those aspects as well. And that's before we even got to the software side of things, which we'll get to shortly. But is there anything else you can think of from making sure that you are remote ready?
Speaker 2:I mean on the point of internet, you know a lot of firms as well are hiring team members remotely, offshore, which is fantastic. But you have to understand that different as you've kind of already alluded to different places in the world are going to have different, you know, set up kind of, especially with respect to internet. So you know, I've worked with a lot of awesome people over in the Philippines, but at the same time, their internet infrastructure wasn't as sturdy as what we have and so a lot of cutting out, you know things would run really slowly for them and so, just making sure that, like, you've set them up for success as well, don't just forget to ask the question like, if they don't, if they need an upgraded internet connection, well then maybe that's something that you can fund, um, without probably costing that much but making a big difference. So, yeah, definitely something to think about if you about if you're hiring offshore as well, as you know, remotely, yeah, yeah, definitely I mean from a software perspective.
Speaker 2:You know we don't need to. You know, bang on about the same apps that we've spoken about throughout the season episodes and you're building your tech stack around all of those, then you're going to have good, solid software that's going to be cloud-based, that's going to work for your team across, you know, wherever they're working. But what you probably need to think a little bit more about from a software perspective is what are our routines, what are our rituals? You know, for us, I work in Australia, most of our teams are in London, and so you know, for us, I work in Australia, mostly our teams over in London, and so you know we have our daily stand-up in Slack. It's a ritual that we do and you've got to do it. Like you know, if, if anyone in the team stops doing it, then it just kind of falls over and it becomes less valuable, and so that's just a small thing.
Speaker 1:What's the daily stand-up. How do you do that in Slack as in like it's? Just a message or it's yeah cool, awesome, love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we call it stand up, because that's what traditionally it was was. You know you stand up and and and in an office together and update each other, but we just do that same update um via messages, and so it's just an example. But like having those, uh, you know, we've got, I've got a Brewer o'clock in every fortnight on a Thursday, which is breakfast and beer, which is for me to have a beer, for them to be having their morning coffee or breakfast or whatever.
Speaker 2:You know, we don't have to have a beer and breakfast, but that's what it's in there for and just to catch up. So having those periodic check-ins booked in the calendar if you need them, so those kinds of things. I kind of think, like, as long as you've got the tools in place you're using Zoom or Meet or Teams or whatever it is. You've got Slack or Teams, you've got X, Y or Z.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have the same. We have Mondays and Wednesdays. We have a morning meeting, basically, and then a Friday afternoon. Typically we have a Friday funnies just to check in how we're doing that kind of thing. But yeah, I think and it's really important it's something that I've also really encouraged the team to try not to book any other meetings. Sometimes you can't get away with it and you know the clients do come first sometimes and you have to book in a client meeting. But ultimately, try not to book in anything around that, because that's our time to obviously catch up with the team and make sure that we're all present, check in how you doing and it doesn't have to be work related, it's actually just how was your weekend, how's things going, how are you feeling? Everybody okay, because they're the things that you need to actually do.
Speaker 1:I mentioned it earlier, though, but also like regularly checking in with the team. Like there is a you know a good morning message in your teams or your Slack and a goodbye message in your teams and your Slack. Just a see you guys, slack and a goodbye message in your Teams and your Slack. Just a see you guys clocking off GIFs so much fun. Get your GIF game on. That always adds entertainment. It adds to that sort of that culture game as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, there's a big part of assessing culture in the first few weeks based on what GIFs are being posted. How many are being posted, you know, are they just standard GIFs that we're dealing with here, or have they explored, you know, the outer reaches of the GIF ecosystem and, yeah, don't underestimate that. You know a laugh. So this is a big one as well, and I think this is actually I'm glad I thought of this because I had a really good chat with Meryl on her podcast a while back the Lifestyle Accountant, I think it is and we were talking about, you know, remote first teams and communication as part of that.
Speaker 2:And I just listened to a different podcast where I think there were, I want to say, like HR psychologist types who were speaking about, you know, psychological safety and emojis and these kinds of things and how people feel and how you've got these two different generations working together, where one tends to be short, sharp, full stops at the end of the sentences send message or just sends, hey, send, and leaves it and leaves the other person because they've got no context, they don't have any facial expressions from you, they're shit scared, basically as to like, what is this conversation going to be about? What are they going to ask me to do? I have no idea. Um, whereas you just throw in a smiley face or just throw in like a little, you know. Like, using emojis in communication, I think, is so underrated, as like to the point of gifts as well, like, yeah show it gives.
Speaker 2:It gives you a way to express yourself, to show you, to show someone how you're feeling, um, and to to reassure them of how you're feeling, rather than leaving it up to them to completely fill in the gaps, because just a message can be read in 10 different ways, in 10 different tones, depending on what kind of voice you have in your head for that person. You know you can read it as an angry message or you can read it as a really nice message. And don't get me wrong, I think people should assume the best rather than assume the worst. But I get the challenge. I've been there, I've had messages before. I'm like, oh no, I'm about to get grilled and it's totally fine.
Speaker 1:They just hadn't. They'd forgotten to put something nice at the end, so you didn't understand the tone of what the message was because it was purely text. No, I get it, but I guess that talks completely to the culture aspect of this as well. Right, so you need to have first of all, you need to have tech savvy team members. You need to encourage tech savvy team members. You need to empower them to be tech savvy as well. You need to give them the space to be tech savvy and, to you know, encourage them to actually, um, look at different apps and things that could make their work life, uh, more efficient effectively right within this working environment as well. Um, and you know, like culture, yes, we'll get to, sorry I'm, I'm going backwards rather than forwards, oopsie, um, but you know, like maintaining that culture when we've already spoken about it, but having those catch-ups and check-ins and things like that, it's a huge part.
Speaker 1:Making sure that, as I said, you provide that space and that communication. That's how you encourage a team, that's how you encourage and being present as a business owner as well. You can go and be working on the beach, but you still need to be able to check in with your team. You still need to encourage them. You still need to be hey, how are you doing? How's things, what's going on with this thing, what's going on with that thing? That's you know, showing your team that you're still there, despite the fact that you may not physically be there, but you are mentally present effectively. And if you're not, and you're taking a few'm away for the next two days, don't burn the place down, metaphorically speaking, of course, because you know we don't have an office, but you know those kind of things. But I think the tech-savvy team members is a huge one Going back as well.
Speaker 1:The other things that you need to ensure to actually run this cleanly, obviously, is having the correct cloud apps without going into them processes and procedures. That I cannot stress enough. You need to make sure that your processes and procedures are clean, concise. The team knows what they need to be doing. They know where to find the information as well. They know that. You know you've encouraged them to ask questions as well. Like, if they don't know something, ask the question. You know, empower them to ask questions and don't like no questions, ever stupid, because that's what will also help with things like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:That, like the processes piece as well around.
Speaker 2:Like obviously one of the biggest parts of running a firm is going to be the workflow, making sure that jobs are getting done, so you know, making sure that you know we are filling in all the required fields, or whatever our process is to move a job into start, to move it through the pipeline, to move it to completed. This is part of having visibility over a team that's completely remote is to be able to say I want to go to my jobs board and I want to feel confident that it's going to be up to date and accurate, as at when I'm looking at it or as at the start of the week or whenever we've agreed. This needs to be up to date, based on all of your jobs, so that I don't have to be over your shoulder anymore because I've got the systems to allow me the visibility that I need as a firm owner. So yeah, to the processes, to the systems. It all kind of comes back into enabling you to run the firm remotely without needing to see what everybody's doing all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the only other one to consider here is how your clients can communicate with you. So if you are interstate, interstate's a bit different, but if you're international, how are you allowing your clients to contact you, have you?
Speaker 1:set up the correct phone systems so that they can still phone you should they need. We use what do we use? We use HubSpot so our clients can still call us. We've got, you know, generic phone numbers basically. So no matter where we are, it's effectively you know they can call in an Australian based number but we can still effectively answer it no matter where we are. So that's one way. I know Teams does it, I know Zoom does it.
Speaker 1:There's lots of options out there from that, but you still need to have the options so that clients obviously are able to communicate with you. And or that's only if you want to let them know that you're. You know sorry that you don't want to let them know that you are located somewhere internationally. If you don't really care, then you know, put your out of office on and or put your message on that says you know I'm contactable between these hours. Use this number. That kind of thing Depends on how you want to run it, but just make sure that that's a consideration and you've actually thought about that, because your clients still need to be able to contact you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good call out. That is a very good one. I had forgotten that. I mean, how many people call? Do people still call a lot?
Speaker 1:Yeah, people still call Jack, People still like to pick up the phone and have a verbal conversation with you. I mean, it's strange, I get it, but they still do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean I still go. I mean this is completely side note now. I'm like if I want anything done like very soon, then I pick the phone up, but anything else I'm kind of like email. But the problem with that is then you're this is a whole nother conversation, allowing someone to just jump the queue because they've called you. So I also don't love that element of phone calls. It's like that person doesn't follow the process. They're not going to email me, they're just going to wait till the last minute and then they'll call me because they know I'm going to take the call and I know, like if they email me, I probably you know I'll respond. When I get to them, do it. But then when you call, as soon as I pick up, you're at the top of the queue. Now you're in my mind, you're yes and no, they shouldn't necessarily.
Speaker 1:You still, you still have to vet that situation. They might have jumped the triage line per se, but you can still come back to the end of the queue if they don't you tell them.
Speaker 2:Tell them what to do.
Speaker 1:They're not you know, they're not quite dying, um, but yeah, no, I completely take on board that point. You don't want them to sort of jump the queue. But that comes back down to the correct boundaries, the correct processes and procedures. Having the correct tech set up for your team so that it's easy for them to actually function, so that they've got everything that they need if they are interstate, if they are international, and also helping them understand that, if they are on holidays as well, like this, is something else to consider. If your team do go, if they do decide to work overseas, having some clear boundaries around, are you actually working or are you holidaying? What are your hours in relation to that? That's something else to consider as well. If you are, you know if you're going to run your practice from the beach, so to speak, and or allow your team to be on the beach when they're doing their job for your practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean that element is uh, important to to know as well as like are you just a flexible firm? Because, because I think there's a difference here. Like you can, you can say, look, I live near the beach and I want to spend an hour at the beach every day great. But doesn't mean like, if you're not working when you're at the beach, that's totally fine as well. It's just like if that's the firm that we're running, which is to say, look, you can work your own hours, you just got to do what you got to do. That's a different thing when we're.
Speaker 2:If you're saying, look, you're going to go to the other side of the world and you want to work whilst you're there four out of five days a week and travel, you know three, three days a week, three day weekends, kind of thing. That's fine too, but that's a different thing to. You know two different kind of concepts. Both would allow someone to go to the beach. One is saying you want to go to the beach and you want to work from the beach. That's up to you, go for it. One saying, okay, you want a little bit of time to go visit the beach every now and again? Great, that's fine too. Just get your work done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all about designing it how you want and I think, as a starting point for those firms, I think this, just to wrap it up, my my takeaway from all of this would be for firms that are starting out, just remember, you get to design how you want your business to run, and that's a really, really, really exciting place to be. You get to choose and design this right from the word go, based on what you want. For firms that are already established wanting to move into this, I think, as long as there is clear communication with the team which is team I'm thinking about doing X, y, z. This is what I would like to trial with this. This is what the thoughts are.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the outcome is going to be, but I was thinking that we would trial this for, say, the next three to six months. What do we need to do to achieve this, or be ready for this, understanding that this is very much a trial, be really clear and concise around that. If, at the end of the trial, it's successful, then we can look at, you know, implementing this on a long-term basis. But start, you know, baby steps it, but be clear and concise around what your desires are Like don't ever be scared about telling your team around. This is what I think, this is what I want like be open and transparent around it.
Speaker 2:I think. I think it's a huge point and and my kind of key takeaway from all of this is, for this to work, you have to have this amazing trust in the people that you're working with. And it's not easy for you to just innately have a huge amount of trust with everybody that you work with. But if you've been working with them for a long time, hopefully you've got that trust. Otherwise they wouldn't still be there. But if they are new hires, I also think it's important to err on the side of I'm going to trust you until you've given me a reason not to, and then acting I still like. It's important to err on the side of I'm going to trust you until you've given me a reason not to and then acting.
Speaker 2:I still like it's harsh, but I think it's how you need to be if you're in a remote environment is to say, if that trust is broken early, then you know it's the high slowly fire quickly scenario where it's like if that trust is broken early, then that's just going to cause a whole bunch of nightmares ongoing. You know what it's like. The mirror it's smashed. You can never put it back together completely. Um, you're always going to be wondering is this person really doing what they say they're doing? Um, I don't know it.
Speaker 2:It feels like the trust element is so key with a remote team, I don't have visibility over you. So I need to know, or feel very, very comfortable, that what you say you're going to do you're going to do. If there's a problem, you're going to solve it. If you have spare time, you're going to make use of that spare time and turn it into something productive. Or you're going to let me know You're not just going to sit there twiddle your thumbs for half the day because I haven't told you to do something. You know like that's going to be a trust breaker immediately.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agreed, agreed.
Speaker 2:Well, jack, this is the last episode Time to go to the beach.
Speaker 1:It is. This is the last episode of the season, so I feel like we definitely need to go to the beach before the next season.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Let beach before the next season.
Speaker 3:Let's do it. Let's do it Well. Thanks everybody for listening, appreciate it, thanks. Thanks so much. See ya Bye, 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:Oh, stunning as always.
Speaker 3:The two of them are brilliant minds and are brilliant communicators.
Speaker 4: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.
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