All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
Ditch the Chaos: How to Nail Client Onboarding Like a Pro
Client relationships start long before the first deliverable—and your onboarding process sets the tone. In this episode, Amy and Jack get real about what it takes to create a streamlined, scalable onboarding experience that builds trust from day one.
They break down the core components of an effective onboarding system—think clear processes, the right tools, and a team that knows exactly what to do. From proposals and welcome emails to internal workflows and client-facing systems, this conversation covers the practical steps that make a big difference.
You’ll also get a behind-the-scenes look at the tech stack that powers the process, including tools like Seamless, Content Snare and Ignition, and honest thoughts on what’s worth automating—and what still needs a personal touch.
Whether you’re onboarding five clients or fifty, this episode is packed with strategies to help you deliver a professional, consistent experience every time so get on board the tech accounting adventure and take a listen.
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David Easton (@davidjeasty) | Insta...
Hey Amy.
Speaker 2:Hey Jack.
Speaker 1:How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm pretty good, thanks. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:I'm feeling out of touch. I'm out of touch. It's been too long.
Speaker 2:More context out of touch with what buddy?
Speaker 1:Out of touch with onboarding tools for accounting firms. You know, new client comes on, it's all exciting, and then we need to actually wrap our arms around and gather you know, not to give them a big hug, but to gather all those documents and we bring those into our firm and then it's a seamless process for them from there. But I don't know how people do this anymore. How do they do it?
Speaker 2:what I find amusing is that you think that the process has changed since you've been in practice oh well, it's been a little while, so I hope it has. I hope it's better uh, look, I think that there has definitely been an identification in terms of the industry and an acknowledgement that this process is not done as well as it could be and that there is an opportunity and room for improvement here.
Speaker 2:So the tech is definitely better. Is the process 100% down, pat? I think this is where you know it's probably a little bit more subjective and something that we can probably unpack a little bit as well yeah, okay, I get you.
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe we start this with you know, because I think let's you probably know all the apps that that are in this space, what they're doing. Then there's obviously a process component. So does the you know tail wag the dog or who who drives what? Do we build our process around our the tech that's out there, or do we have a very custom onboarding, depending on the experience we want to give our clients? I imagine there's something we can discuss there. But first and foremost, you know what's the problem.
Speaker 1:If you know, I don't really have one. What's the bad? What's bad about not having a good onboarding process?
Speaker 2:it's about client retention, like there's nothing more important uh important or more annoying and frustrating. If you're a client, if you've just had this great meeting with you know this brand new accountant, and they've promised you the world. And this is going to be an amazing experience because I'm clearly coming to you as a new client, because I am already frustrated with my past accounting practice, for whatever reason. So I've just had a really great meeting with this new accountant and he's promised me the world, and then he doesn't deliver, and then the experience about onboarding is just a crappy experience. It doesn't set the scene well, like it doesn't set me up for success moving forward.
Speaker 1:It doesn't put trust in me as a new client not 100, and and that applies to everything- you know, if you're not just about accounting practices, agree you're previously an employee, getting a job and you sign the contract. It's been a wonderful experience. And then you day one. It's like oh wait, this is what I'm going to be dealing with. Oh, that's not what I thought, uh-oh, um, that's not good and first impressions count. Um same thing with tech companies. You know, when you sign up to an app, the website looks great demo ran really perfectly and then you come on board and suddenly it's clunky and it's not loading and things aren't as integrated and connected as you thought and it's like oh, you know now even if you solve those problems.
Speaker 1:I've always got like a little bit of a yuck feeling that, yep, this isn't actually as good as it was claimed first impressions count yeah we are judgy, judgy, judgy humans at the end of the day, right, and we have very high expectations.
Speaker 2:I think, especially in the industry that we're in, especially in the accounting industry, have very high expectations of ourselves, right? So, therefore, you know, our clients also have high expectations, so we get frustrated when things don't work out the right way. So, if we have that frustration when we are dealing with the apps in the marketplace and or, you know, as a new employee, for example, for the two examples that you gave, how do you think our clients feel if we don't deliver?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And for something so important, you know you kind of you want the confidence that things aren't going to slip through the cracks, that things are going to get done on time. So if I say, oh, I'll get that information from you in the next week or I'll touch base to get it, and then you don't touch base for three weeks or a month or you kind of come with haphazard requests as and when required, you've already broken that trust a little bit and that experience is off.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, absolutely so. If you don't have this process kind of down pat, I think it's one to prioritize because, as much as you know, an internal process is good. It's important for streamlining workflow and making sure everything does get done. You know, if you've got a little, a few bits and pieces that are a bit hackier, a bit manual here and there on an internal side, client never sees it, job gets done, it's all good. I think trying to hack together something from a client facing perspective is not quite, um, so long-term suitable. But yeah, I think so what does.
Speaker 1:What does a real onboarding process actually look like? You see this stuff in action all the time, so yeah, definitely thinking about well.
Speaker 2:One other thing, though, just to consider here as well is I think that in the, in the, in this day and age, the way that we behave, our behavior is just generally right. We all want instant gratification, we all want things to be easy, we want them to be seamless, we want them to be just clean, and I don't have to really think I can just make it a really good clean process. So the other thing to consider here, when you were talking about, you know, when we're talking about pros, cons, etc. Is you need to consider what the benefits are to your clients from the client facing experience. It does need to be easy for them as well, like it needs to be a very easy, not a click heavy, not a. You know that no one should be emailing you stuff Just as a side note. That's the other thing. Keep that in the back of your mind, especially sensitive information, because the onboarding process you are dealing with a lot of sensitive data, so you know it needs to be clean and easy for the client. So, whatever app you're using, making sure that that is making sure it's secure. But yeah, they're just a few things, so sorry to tangent a little bit. No, it's fine. So a process, I guess, from this perspective, is high level. I'm just going to spitball some ideas around this, right, and this is how I feel like they should go into the order, but it's not always going to go into the correct order based on your personal preferences. All right, so this is how I okay. So the new lead contacts you um contacts of practice. Now, in one of our previous episodes we talked about crms, um.
Speaker 2:So, in theory, in an ideal world, however, they're contacting you. If you are using a crm in an ideal world, you would like that contact to somehow end up in your CRM platform, all right. So, whether it's on your website and they book in a meeting because you've got a calendar link and your calendar link is either, you know, linked to Calendly or HubSpot. Hubspot goes directly into your CRM through that calendar link, or Calendly could then, you know, zap and connect to a different kind of platform. Point is they contact you to book in a meeting. All right, this is where you've I centralize how this information comes and always try and get it back to a consistent way that clients are contacting you. So, even if they phone you, email, you contact you through the website, try and always get them into the same system in the same funnel from that point. That's the first thing, because consistency is key here. The next thing is that the meeting's scheduled right. So, whether that was done automatically online or you've obviously started to schedule it, for you Schedule that meeting.
Speaker 2:I would then recommend sending a qualifying form and a confirmation email, something like a can't wait to meet. You really looking forward to this. Here's the time and date of the meeting. A lot of this can be automated based on the software that you're using, so this is not a hard one, and the qualifying form should be things like name of business, you know, maybe your turnover, maybe what tech are you already using? Like, what accounting software are you already using?
Speaker 2:Why are you looking for a new accounting practice? Or why are you looking for a new accounting practice? Or why are you looking for a new accountant? Um, yeah, absolutely lots of different things. I guess it can be on this, you know, on this form, but keep it. Don't overload it with too many questions like this. Isn't the onboarding form right? This isn't like all the information that you're trying to gather about them. This is more about qualifying them around. Are they going to be the right type of client that I want to work with, which, ironically, means that you will have had to have think, thought about what's your ideal client let's definitely have that whole conversation right now I just feel like sometimes public practice accountants don't think about that.
Speaker 1:They don't spend enough time thinking about they need their tax return done. That's my ideal customer profile is it really though?
Speaker 2:no, it shouldn't I know, right, that's. That's not entirely qualifying, but it could be like what industry they're in those kinds of things. Right, you know how many entities? Do you have, any group structure? But even then I wouldn't even get to that point. Um, you might want to ask them how up-to-date is their bookkeeping and or their tax lodgements. I mean, all the potential new clients might lie to you and say that you know it's a hundred percent and they're all up to date, but no guarantees on that front. Um, but yeah, basic qualifying. Are they the actual ideal client you should actually understand. If you don't know what your ideal client is, I strongly recommend you taking a moment to actually ascertain what that is, because it will make life easier, moving forward in terms of attracting the right type of clients that you want to work with. It should, in theory, make life easier for you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. I think it's always hard for people the first time to say no to someone or say you know, I don't want your business because it's not within my. But you know, I think once you realize the benefits of it long term, yeah, there's a huge amount that you can get from it.
Speaker 2:Yep agreed. So the meeting and during that meeting there is. I would strongly encourage the use of some sort of ai note-taking tools that we have covered off in again past episodes. Um, I would strongly encourage the directors to be consistent with their note-taking so that they can, I guess, make sure that the admin team off the back of that meeting actually knows what's going on. Also, this is a good opportunity as well from a BD perspective. If you're looking at some junior accountants that you'd like to upskill, get them in on the meeting Not all of them, because they obviously have to go and do work but if you're actually trying to expand um the skill set of some of your you know your more junior client junior team members sorry, getting them in on those initial conversations with some of the clients is actually quite beneficial because they can actually see you in action, see what it takes, help them to understand what's going on um in a client's profile. Um, were you ever part of them in practice?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, um, the, the smaller firm that I worked at, uh, in you know, my early days, they they'd bring me into some of those conversations, if you know, because they had the intention that I would eventually be kind of the one that they would communicate with, ongoing. So, I think, just like not having that introduction being over email, but having that introduction actually happened in person, even though it was the partner or director leading it, it meant that I wasn't just some random person behind the scenes, I was, you know, someone that they'd met and spoken to.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yeah, I recommend which goes to that whole client success. Customers, you know, customer focus, that kind of element.
Speaker 1:It's all about the experience that you're providing for the client because if you pretend like you don't have other staff and you're going to do it all then as soon as you do, because you know you have to hand that over to somebody else you become this massive bottleneck because only you're allowed to email them. You know, I get it. Maybe there's some situations where that's going to be relevant, but for most people the intention is, at some point I'm going to hand this relationship over or hand a lot of the work over, and I need that team member, that accountant or junior person to be able to communicate directly with the client. I think setting that tone up front with them and say you know, if you walk out of this meeting and don't want to work with us because I have brought in someone a bit more junior, you know what kind of person you know, do we?
Speaker 2:really want to work with you kind of thing, if that's going to be a problem so it's a really good point about yeah, no, it's true, but it's also a really good point around the bottlenecking. Like we see too far too many firm owners that are the bottleneck because they haven't handed the relationship over or haven't even introduced someone else to hand the relationship over, and it's we're on it.
Speaker 1:So I mean, it's one of those scenarios where, sure, because you're handing it over to somebody else, there may be scenarios where they don't do as good a job, or they're not as quick to respond, or they're not as good quality in their response, or they just don't have as much experience so they make a mistake on something you wouldn't have. But if it means that you as a firm can serve as 120%, 150% of what you would alone serve, then it's okay. If 5%, 10% don't last because you've had some issues and eventually those staff get better and better and better and then you just increase that capacity even more Agreed.
Speaker 2:I think there's something to remember in this industry that there is absolutely no shortage of work out there in this industry. That there is absolutely no shortage of work out there for this industry.
Speaker 2:There's a shortage of good quality clients, potentially, potentially, but there's no shortage of work yeah, 100 so, uh, okay, so we've had the meeting with client, you've understood who I am, what I need, why I'm coming to a new accountant, what my circumstances are, all of those kinds of things. At that point I would encourage, um, a post meeting, follow-up email, um, and at this point you might want to send a nice, pretty brochure, if you need to, if you hadn't already done that. Just, you know great to meet you, blah, blah, blah, that kind of thing, um, and at this point, this is where things get a little bit different, depending on your circumstance and situation. Okay, so typically I would then prepare a proposal and send it to the client, and the proposal is an interesting one.
Speaker 2:You could either go straight to the point of I'm sending you a proposal with a scope of work, or you could send a basic engagement agreement so that you could get access to the client's relevant files, etc. Like their zero file, their quickbooks file, whatever it is to do a more in-depth scoping session of their actual situation, so that you can understand, when they said that their bookkeeping was perfect and they were up to date with all their ATO lodgements, that actually they probably weren't. So you can scope it correctly. Um, which means that you could do a little bit more of an onboarding, but you don't have to go do deep onboarding there. Uh, but it's kind of that's your personal preference. I think that if you're going to do further scoping, you should be sending a very basic engagement agreement. If you're getting access to a client zero file, a quickbooks file or something, without getting basic engagement tools, in my opinion that's like you're driving a car without insurance. I mean, you can in this country, but you're an idiot.
Speaker 2:Sorry, it's like yeah protect your butt is where I was going with this right just protect your butt smile so, um, so, once you've done your additional scoping, then I would be sending probably a a proper fee proposal to the client. Um, off the back of that, in theory, the client's all excited. Uh, they accept the proposal, yay, um, you could consider is there a nice like welcome email or a welcome gift or something? It depends on the firm. There are firms that do that. Depending on you know what you would like to send. If anything, I think at a minimum send an email, a personalised email that kind of thing, that would be my thing.
Speaker 1:And what about the person? Who, if it was a referral, do you send them to?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, you should be sending them something At least. Again another note saying thanks so much.
Speaker 1:You know this client's just powerful, especially the kind of work that we all do. You know, generally speaking, the engagements are hundreds, thousands maybe. So you know, a small gift, depending on what they like, I think is nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, following that, the admin team potentially sends an additional form, a checklist, a something to that. You know that new?
Speaker 3:client for any seeking any additional information from them.
Speaker 2:That point, in terms of seeking the additional information, can happen at varying points throughout this process. All I would recommend is, whatever the process is, is again make it consistent 100 yep, and I think this is really.
Speaker 1:I think this is. This is one of those things where having it like obviously we talk we will talk tech in a second. We'll talk about the apps that are involved in this process or that can be involved I think this is one of those where you know if you've ever been on the other end which I have recently, you know, building a house with a process that asks for everything over email how disjointed and bad that experience is as an end user, as a customer, versus being able to go back to the same place over and over again to say, oh no, that's not what we needed. This is what we needed. Or.
Speaker 1:I've now added three more things that we need from you, based on that last response you gave. This stuff is so hard, you know, yes, it's for you, it's your job, but this is what you do. Of course you're thinking about it, but if you're a customer or client on the other end, they've got five minutes on a Thursday night where they look at this email and they're trying to pull together everything and everything they can and send it to you.
Speaker 1:Then one of them miss things and forget things. And don't get me wrong, you know we'd love a client who, who, perfectly checks it all off.
Speaker 2:But I think, trying to make it as easy as possible and not have to go sift through a a thread from three weeks ago to find that they forgot a dot point that you asked, I think, that's you know we can help from our side to make their life easier and that will hopefully help ensure you actually get what you want yeah, from them, I agree, and I think that's the place that has, since you being in practice this is a place like uh, which we'll talk about that's actually come quite a ways in terms of the tech that's available to help help you, to help your client, basically to make it a nice experience, shall we?
Speaker 1:pause. Yes, let's pause.
Speaker 2:Let's hear from our wonderful sponsors Help you, to help your client, basically to make it a nice experience. Shall we pause? Yes, let's pause.
Speaker 3:Let's hear from our wonderful sponsors.
Speaker 3:Ellie, if you have been paying attention to any content news lately, you would have seen that there are some significant cyber security challenges that go on in the world around us, not for big guys, but for little guys and everybody in between, whether it's hackers trying to get access to our data, whether they're trying to change passwords, get cash, whatever it is, it is real, it is here and it's something that, as accountants, we really need to be aware of, right 100% and that's why at All In we have Practice Protect.
Speaker 4:It is the foundation on which we stand in our cloud solutions. It offers superior cybersecurity for the modern accounting firm right, which is us right. Superior it controls, access to client data, you can manage your risk, you can stay compliant with an all-in-one platform, and a little birdie tells me that some insurers, if you use this product, will give you a discount on insurance. Now, if that's not a reason to use it, I don't know what is. What do you think, andrew?
Speaker 3:I think that's incredible, and I believe they have over 6 000 cloud integrations and counting, so whatever platform you've got, they probably can protect it amazing, as always.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much sponsors. Um, yes, where were we? We were wrapping up the process, were we? Have you wrapped up the process or you got more?
Speaker 2:no, that's no, that's pretty much the process.
Speaker 2:I think the only thing that we haven't wrapped up as part of the process is what happens internally, because we've wrapped up the process insofar as what happens on the client side. We haven't really covered off what happens on the internal side and how you can kind of trigger all this sort of stuff right, and this is potentially a bit of a bigger beast. But I think the main things to remember here around you know there's a few bits and pieces that you need to obviously done from an internal tech perspective. So having a checklist, an onboarding checklist, of all of the different apps and all the different onboarding components that you need to do is going to be paramount to making sure that this process is actually clean and, you know, streamlined for your admin team effectively. And I'm talking things like have you added them to? You know, for the Australia market, the ATO portal? Have you done the ID checks? Have you done the agent client linking? Have you got access to all the apps? Have you onboarded them to all of your apps? Like as in, like your practice management?
Speaker 2:your document management, all of those kinds of things. Have you gathered all their information? Have you saved all the the documents you've requested, like there's actually quite a lot there, um in there, to to kind of remember and it makes sense as to why things get missed, because there is a lot to remember insofar as you know all those bits and pieces. So I would strongly recommend having a checklist.
Speaker 1:What do you use for that? Just a spreadsheet, or do you have something?
Speaker 2:No, so we've got a couple of options there. So FYI has a really good automation. So we've built a customised automation which you can use as a standalone. So let's pretend that you are purely using Zero Practice Manager and FYI there's a really good automation, that we've a custom automation that we've built, um, that actually goes through every single step in the process of you know, um, everything that you need to have done, uh, and it's kind of a it won't let you move to the next step until you've done the thing that you needed to do, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:So there's that. You can also then customise it if you are using other options. The other thing that you know 98% of accounting practices have access to is your Microsoft 365 account, and I say 98% because apparently that's the stats on Microsoft versus Google from accounting perspectives. Through your Microsoft 365 account, you have Microsoft Forms, and Microsoft Forms is a really good way of actually just ticking things off to make sure that they're done. If you wanted to, that feeds into an Excel spreadsheet, but you know. And yes, you can also do Excel if you really wanted to, but you know.
Speaker 1:Hey, there's still some scenarios where, where there are used. I suppose yeah, but yes, good to know that there's a few few options out there. Yeah, what are the other key pieces of tech, uh, that you see used regularly throughout this onboarding process that you've described, and is there a way you can kind of bundle them together, you know, into almost you know? There's obviously certain tools that you're using, maybe in the upfront portion of this, prior to them signing the proposal.
Speaker 2:It's part of signing it, post signing it, maybe that's how you can break it up I think this comes down to what you're kind of already using, potentially as well. So that's the first thing. And then also understanding what the integrations are as they stand today and equally, if you have the appetite to wait, understanding what's going to be built. Okay, so what's on the roadmap for building? So I think the major ones that I see that are being used to begin with. So in the first initial like if you wanted to do data capture around, you know just the basic. Why do you want to meet? Capture around? You know just the basic. Why do you want to meet with us? You know the I can't think of the word now, it's failed me, but the form that basically cancels them out or qualifies them qualifying form got there eventually. Sorry, yeah, the qualifying form. If you're using HubSpot, you could use a HubSpot qualifying form. You could also use a Microsoft form. You could also use something like Typeform, tally, you've put down there as well.
Speaker 1:Jack. Yeah, tally is just like a Typeform equivalent, but it's got a really good free plan really easy to use. So it depends what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:So that's the qualifying forms. You could also use those ones if you really wanted to. For the actual additional information, like when you're going through the setup process. If you're wanting to look for a more cost-effective option around, I want your names, addresses, entity names, abns don't ask for tfns, um, abns, like you know the all of that, like all of that kind of information, you could use those forms as well.
Speaker 2:But if you want the next step up, a pretty cool platform that's out there on the market at the moment is Seamless, which does connect in with Xero Practice Manager at the moment. The reason why I quite like it is that it actually pushes to XPM so you can send a basic engagement out of there, no fees or anything, just you know your basic engagement agreement. Plus, you can send all the relevant forms to get, do all the onboarding, client data gathering, that kind of stuff and then push it across to xpm so that it's one less data capture piece or manual data entry piece, which is what I quite like about it as well. It also takes you through the, the id, as well. It also takes you through the um, the id verification, and it also takes you through your agent linking process as well. Now, when I say it takes you through, that the client still has to do the stuff on the end. This is obviously for the australian market, um, but they do have to.
Speaker 2:You know, it gives them instructions very cool the other player in that space is content snare, the. The only caveat to Content Snare Content Snare does everything the same. The only caveat at the moment is that Content Snare doesn't push to xpm. It only pulls from xpm. It is being built, though, and I know that it is very much on the roadmap. It is very soon to be coming out.
Speaker 1:It is high on their priority list, so that's just something to know as it stands right today yeah, but content snare's primary focus would be more on the the form and form builder side and would be deeper in terms of that functionality, if I'm not mistaken it is, but it can quite literally handle everything for the most part.
Speaker 2:That what seamless does, um, something else that seamless does have that probably content stay doesn't, is that they do have like a uh call it a lead capture functionality within their platform. So what I mentioned before, when you do the, you know if you uh through your website, if someone books a meeting with you through a Calendly link, you can actually link up Calendly to Seamless so that you've got that experience for the client, that automatically in your per se CRM slash onboarding tool. So that's also kind of a pretty cool one there as well.
Speaker 1:Ignition Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:They are definitely there there. Ignition have also brought out just recently uh into their beta. Um, they are also doing a lead management tool, so that's pretty damn cool from that perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's big yeah, it is quite big. Um, I'm I mean, look it's, it's no secret. I think that ignition is a very powerful piece of software and I think that it plays a pivotal role in the engagement and onboarding process for a lot of firms. The thing to note around it is the data capture component. It can capture data. It doesn't necessarily push it all across to XPM, though. So I would probably more be using Ignition more from a. Let's engage the client for pre-scoping. You know, you could just send a basic engagement. You don't need to put a dollar figure or anything in there. Once you've done the scoping, you could send them a proper fee proposal. Off the back of that proper fee proposal being accepted, you could then send the additional like a link. For you know, either through Contents Now or through through seamless um for those additionals. Um, the founder of seamless actually uses both, ironically, so he actually uses um seamless and ignition um for his full onboarding. Um, my boy clayton, yeah our boy.
Speaker 2:If you're listening, good stuff uh, so it's definitely got its place. So the theory there would be that you have the meeting, so the client books a meeting sorry prospect books a meeting. That information pushes to Seamless. You manage the process there. You might send them a basic on engagement, get access to what you need to. You might also send the onboarding information across as well to that potential new client You've looked at once. You're happy with the basic, scoping that, yeah, you want to take them on as a client. You could send them that onboarding checklist. They fill it in, you push it across to XPM. Once it gets to XPM you then pull that from XPM into Ignition, create the fee proposal, send that to the client. They're now engaged, they're paying you. It deploys jobs.
Speaker 2:It's all in that lovely little synchronistic experience from that side of things sounds beautiful there is such a way to describe a client onboarding process look, it's probably my favorite way that the tech works, but um so yeah. So there there's some. Um. The other ones that are out there, fyi, as I mentioned before, does a pretty cool automation around an onboarding process and you can actually get FYI to do the heavy lifting for you. It's not going to do the form building bit at the moment.
Speaker 1:They said they're going to do that, but I've heard it's been waiting for a while.
Speaker 2:So if you're listening, FYI team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've even heard that it's actually. The functionality is there. They just haven't released it and it was meant to be released as part of Elite. So I don't know, this is another poke for them. Come on, come on, fyi team, get that one happening. Forms, give me forms. So yeah, so FYI is actually they can do a lot there as well. Onboard Me is a new one new player in the market, built by one of the guys who effectively spent a lot of time building Greatsoft Okay, so many months ago, nice. The bit that I quite like about Onboard Me is it does everything that I've spoken around. You know what seamless does and what ignition does and that kind of stuff. Like it's a pretty cool, powerful tool. It is new, but it's pretty cool and powerful. They are in the process of building integrations at the moment. It does ethical clearance letters as well. So I quite like that. I quite like that it actually it's another trigger point.
Speaker 2:Because, at no point did I actually mention ethical clearance letters being sent.
Speaker 1:That's another thing that the admin team has to remember to do. Yeah, far out, yeah, well, I mean it's. It's interesting, uh, how specific some of these tools are getting you know, like and I think this is the world where we're we're moving to, which is, I guess it depends on your attitude towards tech as to whether or not you love this stuff.
Speaker 1:it's's like, wow, there's new tools handling these new kind of um, small little pain points along my process, Um, and I can automate things, but also I think that means you inevitably you're moving away from you know, we've been in a best of breed, uh set up for a while now where you know, we've moved away from everything being run by one big platform provider to a whole bunch of different tools, but because it's so quick and easy for people to create tech now you know someone can spin up an app to do a very specific thing, so I think you know figuring out where you draw the line. As to you know, I think it is great that you've got these different options for these different pain points and, depending on how you build your, your workflow, you know, but you don't need 20 apps to onboard a client, so you do not.
Speaker 1:At some point you draw the line and say look, these three tools for my client onboarding are really streamlined and seamless. This fourth one is really useful for this particular challenge we have because of the way we work, whereas another firm might handpick another one of those tools out, and that's great because you've got options. So it's a great thing that there's all this tech and all this tech and all these tools, because it means that you've got all these different niche solutions for different kinds of firms who do things in different ways, or specific pain points throughout that process, depending on how you know. How many ethical clearance letters are you dealing with on a regular basis? If it's a high volume, maybe for you that's a piece of tech that's really valuable, versus a firm that doesn't deal with a high volume of new clients um, you know they.
Speaker 2:They can manage that manually, but other components are going to be more detailed and I think that's a really good point and probably something we should have started with. Actually, even though we're kind of similar towards the end, which is this is only relevant if you actually are onboarding a high volume of clients. If you're not onboarding new clients you know, every week, like if you're only doing one or two a month, maybe this process doesn't need to be that in depth, maybe you don't need to over, you know, overcook the chook, as one would say, and you know have loads of tech and that kind of stuff of you know associated with this needs to be clean, needs to be consistent, connected and a good experience for the clients. But if you're only doing one or two because you're current, you're not in a growth phase within your practice, then scale it back a bit. But if you are in a growth phase, this is where I think that getting the tech right is actually really important.
Speaker 1:You got me hungry now, overcooked the chook.
Speaker 2:Overc. You got me hungry.
Speaker 1:Now over cook the chook um, hey, so there's some more tech, though, that I wanted to go through in this process, right so?
Speaker 2:quick go for it. Um socket is another um onboarding proposal building engine similar to the world of ignition.
Speaker 2:We've mentioned that one before yes um, I think in the world of id verification, because that's becoming a requirement in many countries, there's a pretty cool little piece of software called Stack Go which directly links in with XPM or it doesn't have to, but it does link in. So that's quite helpful. Anitra, it is powered by Stripe, so the ID verification powered by Stripe Seamless does. Id is powered by stripe, so the id verification powered by stripe seamless does. Id verification powered by stripe same as content snare does the same thing. And then bgl. I think it's through cas360.
Speaker 2:If it's not, my apologies to the team, but bgl also has an id verification functionality. I think it works a little bit differently, um, but um, the point is, is that out of all of them you still need to technically eyeball the client? Just just keep that in the back of your mind. Um, but yeah, they're the id verification ones, um and agent client linking for the australian market. Unfortunately there is no tool that does that. The only thing that um I find really helpful is both seamless and content snare. They give some really good step-by-step kind of idiot-proof instructions which still don't idiot-proof it for clients but makes it easier.
Speaker 1:Nice, no, that's a good shout because that is relatively new on the radar. So, if people aren't aware of those tools, definitely go and have a look. If you don't have an ID verification process at all, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shameless plug.
Speaker 2:Clarity Street did recently do an onboarding workshop, which is listed on our website, so if anybody wants to get access to that, they're welcome to.
Speaker 2:But regardless, you know this is a bit of a beast. I think the summary for me to take away from this is spend some time and work out what your actual process is. Try and keep it, as you know, as easy as possible easy from both the client's perspective and the internal perspective. Don't over complicate it with heaps of apps, but equally, look at what the apps can do and make sure that they integrate so that the client flow of information is really good. And I think my final piece would be if you're a director in a business and you're the rainmaker, please bear in mind that if you don't follow the process, whatever process is set, it has a huge knock-on effect and will actually impact the experience to the client, because it will impact your team not only the accountants but more so the admin team when you don't follow the process of what you're meant to do with this, sorry that was a bit harsh that was quite mumsy, but you know.
Speaker 1:No, that was good. Well, thanks, amy. I don't feel as out of touch now, so I appreciate the walkthrough and hope to all of our listeners that was valuable Enjoy. I will speak again to you soon, amy, and we look forward to speaking with you all soon.
Speaker 2:Yes, thanks, jack, great session, bye, bye.
Speaker 4:Hey team. It's Ellie and Andrew from All Aussie Accounting Adventures here. I hope you really enjoyed this episode with Amy and Jack. What did you think, andrew?
Speaker 3: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 that's podcasts or social media.
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