Capacity Planning That Actually Works

Feeling flat because the work just will not quit? You're not broken, and you're definitely not the only one crying softly over a lodgement list. In this episode, Will and Amy stare down the big awkward question: why do Aussie accounting firms keep getting absolutely smashed by compliance, when the ATO deadlines are about as surprising as tax being due in tax season?

Then they go and kick a sacred cow right in the shins. That "capacity planning problem" you keep blaming? Often it's just a too many clients problem in a trench coat, fed by being lovely to a fault, saying yes on reflex, and leaving your workflow planning until the whole thing's already ablaze.

So what does planning ahead actually look like when you're not just winging it and hoping? This is where Will and Amy have your back as they work through the best practice bits, the practical tips, and the fixes you can actually use before next season lands on you.

If this one hits a nerve (in a good way), smash subscribe, send it to the accounting mate who needs it most, and leave a review so more firm owners can stop suffering in silence.

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Transcript

Why Capacity Planning Feels Hard

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey Will, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Good Amy, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:04

I'm actually pretty okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Yeah, you gotta bring a little bit more energy than that.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

I am A-OK!

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hell yeah. What are we doing today, Amy?

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Well, probably the reason why I'm not as A-OK as what I normally am is because I am just feeling flat stick at the moment, and it's probably because I don't have much clarity around capacity.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Oh, and what you're gonna plan around that capacity. I don't know how I should spend more time thinking that one through. Uh yeah, capacity planning.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Yeah, good segue, buddy. Um, that is what we are talking about today, which is capacity planning.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

I am gonna learn plenty from you in this episode because I reckon I would be one of the most inexperienced capacity planners that has ever touched or graced the accounting industry. I just I feel like I keep things very simple, and I feel like I have kept this too simple, and I'm maybe not kicking enough goals with capacity planning, and I have some problems to work through.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

And yet I might um disagree with you on that because I think that there are far too many accountants out there who try and over-complicate the shit out of capacity planning, and they don't keep the uh KISS principle, keep it simple, stupid, alive. Great.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

I'm uh I'm fantastic at keeping things simple.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

So uh and that's what I've uh what what I find interesting though is that I think that it is the one area from a tech perspective in the industry that is yet to have been overdone yet in the world of cloud accounting.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Brilliant. Let's unpack it after this.

The Real Reason Lodgements Slip

SPEAKER_01 1:50

So here is the problem. We have lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of work. Because in Australia, obviously the ATO and or in your respective countries, the tax department, will dictate that you have a crap load of compliance work that you need to get through.

SPEAKER_02 2:10

We like we we're in a great industry where the work is just not going away.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

It's not going away anytime soon.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

And it comes back every year. Like if you're an architect, no chance. If you're a marketing agency, no chance. Lawyer, no chance. I mean lawyer sometimes. But accounting just keeps coming back for more. See you again next year, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Unless you're a really bad accountant and all your clients don't love you. Whichever. You know, both might be true and correct. But no, I'm joking, of course.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

I have experienced this on a number of occasions. See you next year. Oh, ghosted, never again.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah. Uh and we're not here to talk about the whys as to, you know, clients leaving or not, but ultimately you are correct, which is there is a fairly good perpetual level of c of work from a client's perspective. Every year it's rinse and repeat. Every year we do the same thing. And what I don't understand is every year accounting practices still struggle to get all of their relevant compliance tasks submitted on time. Yep. And sorry, I know that there are a number of reasons before anyone who isn't a public practice accountant sitting there going, Whatever, Amy, you don't understand what's going on in our world. I really do get what's going on in your world, and I do appreciate that there are many variables as to why you may not be able to achieve your lodgement targets. But I'm going to throw something out there and say this. I don't think that you have a capacity planning issue. I think that you have a too many clients issue.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Zing. That's bold. Too many clients. Too many clients? And that infers that it's not enough of the right kind of clients? What are you are we like carrying too much dead weights? What do you mean by too many clients?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

I think that as a generalized statement, accountants are too damn nice and you struggle with the word no.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

And therefore that turns into saying yes to a lot of work that you might ordinarily go, oh, I don't really want to do that, but sure I don't do that because that's part of the greater good for this particular group, or this person referred me, so I can't say no to them because then they, you know, that person who referred me might think that I'm not doing my job, and there's so many little variables with this, but I think that a lot of it is not just the wrong type of client or the wrong type of clients, etc. I think it's a combination of a multitude of things.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Yeah, in uh in general, I'd say we're pretty good at being people pleasers and wanting to help people out, do the right thing. It's not a bad thing until it is. No, it is a bad thing. We can be can become our own worst enemies and it becomes your Achilles heel because then you don't want to say no, you say yes to too much, or you're not good at setting expectations and setting boundaries, and then all of a sudden you have a capacity planning problem.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

So a really good analogy at the moment that I'm so uh people might know that I do operational coaching and it's not business coaching, so I'm not like one of the other really great business coaches out there for the accounting industry. We do it on an operational level, so I'm good at that level. Um so practice managers, admin, team members, and things like that. And we uh track lodgement targets every month, basically, right? So we can actually see what the average you know firm is lodging and things like that. Now, at the time of recording this, we are currently 10 days away from the Australian lodgement deadline date. 15th of May, baby. 15th of May. And this is a timely opposite, you know, it's obviously a timely um chance to talk about this topic because at the moment I would say all of our coaching groups bar one thus far.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Are you gonna give us a number? Has actually reached the minimum 85% requirement. What's the average, would you say, right now, 10 days out from 15th of May? In all of your experience, what's the average where are most firms at?

SPEAKER_01 5:52

I can tell you that it's 65%. Oh, two weeks to go. Yeah. Not even ten days.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Well, we're behind that. Yeah, it's to be fair though, we've got a lot that are in the queue that are ready to go that will just get click button lodged on the on the 5th or 14th or 15th.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Sorry, are they the ones that are in suspended?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Uh what's suspended?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Uh as in held for lodgement.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Yeah, held for lodgement.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah, okay. You can hit the button now and that I can guarantee that that won't I c oh my gosh, that one. Um the suspended lodgement topic. Um I can tell you that it is never more than about three percent of your totality of lodgements that are being actually held. Accountants love to inflate that figure to make themselves feel way better. Sorry, it's about two to three percent.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Are you calling me out on my bullshit?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, I'm calling you out on your bullshit, buddy. Um so much so that we have in our recent update of our reporting actually now got a suspended lodgments one because a lot of the larger firms go, oh no, we've got heaps that are held for lodgment. No, you don't.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

So why why the problem? Why are most firms 10 days out, you reckon it's 65%?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Uh because there isn't enough workflow planning to begin with, and I think that there is not enough proactivity. There is another issue which is we keep on saying yes to new clients because there is sometimes a bit of a scarcity mentality of I better say yes just in case. Also, not just scarcity, but I also don't want to let people down. I want to be a nice person. I like saying yes, because you're all good humans.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

I like saying yes because I like the idea of growing a business. And then you kind of put the how's this working and get delivered as an afterthought, and then you don't think through added an extra couple of bums on seats to do this stuff. But all of that leads to capacity planning. When is the right time to start looking at capacity planning? Now.

Say No And Plan Weekly

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Why now?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Hang on a second. Now and then every week.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Oh, okay. So ongoing, just like you're all it's a live process. It's not a once-in-a- once-a year process or a once-a-quarter, it's a live process.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

It is a 100% it is a live process that keeps on going.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

How do the best firms do it? Paint the picture for me.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Every two weeks they would be looking at workflow, not WIP as in like current work in progress, but it is a combination of current work in progress, and it's also future calling in, proactively calling in that work. So every two weeks they should be having a meeting to go, all right, what's planned for in six weeks' time, can we start proactively contacting clients to call that work in? Not the accountants, the admin team.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

To then keep on chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing at some point in about four weeks after the first call, you g you have to make the cutoff call and go either they're they've said yes, they've responded, or nah, we're bumping them to the end of the queue. And then you start calling in further clients, like clients, client work for the next month just in case you don't have enough to call in. But it's all about proactively doing it. And I think most firms at the moment are so scared to change to proactivity because they're consistently chasing their tail from being reactive because they haven't lodged most of the other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

Every every day the objective is usually how can I get the inbox back down to a maintainable, manageable level so that tomorrow morning I'm not completely overwhelmed with everything that's got going on. So by the time you get to how do you it's hard to find time to dedicate towards being proactive. Um I I I fall into that trap all the time. Yeah. What's the best way to start?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Like give us a well the the other issue though is that most accounting practices are like, well, we've got clients literally knocking on our door.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Am I asking for work to be done, like brand new clients or existing clients?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Existing clients. Oh yeah. But then they've also got new clients that they can't say no to. So most, in my opinion, over the course of April, May, June for Australian accounting practices, that is like no, no new clients. Whoa. Put them on a wait list. Whoa. Put them on a wait list. Don't say no. I would say yes. Correct. I have you have you got your 85% lodgement? Why are you saying yes to new work?

SPEAKER_02 9:39

We're okay, we'll be fine with 85%.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

But also, why isn't it 100%? Because in my opinion, what business do you have taking on brand new clients if you're not currently lodging 100% of your basic bear bread and butter compliance work?

SPEAKER_02 9:53

If we don't have 100% by 15th of May, it will be because of the clients not following our process, and we would look to dising like we'd run a process to go, do we actually want to escalate this and disengage?

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Which I love. Which is great. Many firms won't do that though.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

No, I I but I think you are setting yourself up to fail if you can't, if you don't have a plan to get to 100, and then if there you need to be reviewing and doing a retro on why you didn't get to 100 by 15th of May, don't just pat yourself on the back for getting to 85.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Correct. That's my point. Is it and you know, and most firms don't even get to the 85 and they're asking for extensions. And in my mind, that tells me that you have way too many clients.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I just um there's like there's got to be a circuit breakup for because if most firms are facing into that and struggling with that, like what is the right first step to take to change the trajectory, change the behavior, and get into the good habit? Like, what do you do first? No. Just say no to new clients. To new clients. Until you've figured out what your capacity plan is to make sure that you will be the 100% no to new clients.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

So it's not a say no. Not saying and you can do new work for current clients. That's okay. Although I'd still put a kibosh on that one for a little bit of time. But brand new clients, put them on a wait list. And the answer to that is I'm look, we don't have the capacity at the moment to provide the service that you deserve.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

But that's only if you're not able to keep up with your lodgement obligations and you are drowning and like you're not on top of it. If you're on top of it, by all means. Like if I envisage, paint the picture of the perfect practice, which doesn't exist, but aspirationally, if I was going to get there, you're always, you've always got excess capacity so that when new stuff pops up, you can jump straight on it and you can be a differentiator for you, is that you always have capacity to jump on your opportunities, service clients with new stuff that comes through, win new clients. So you should be shooting for not how do we plan capacity planning to just get to 100. It's almost like what is how do you go 10, 15, 20% over the top of that and still maintain your bottom line to give yourself room to grow? Is that the right way of looking at it?

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, definitely. Minimum 9% lodgments every month from the 1st of July. So July, 9%. Let me check the maths on that. 12%. That will give you your 85%. I'm addicted to my advice. 85% by the first of April, which then gives you three months, fourth straglers, tax planning, trust resolutions, and all of the other crap that over the last couple of years, governing bodies have decided to lay on to the accounting industry. TASA, Ostrak, um AML, AML, the Austrak stuff. Yeah, like and then everything else, right? The the the compliance, just the barrage of compliance changes that keep on coming to the accounting industry.

SPEAKER_02 12:38

And right now I feel like more than I've ever seen before, and I haven't been in practice for more than a hot minute, but it just feels like the HO is ramping up. Dialing it up, dialing it up.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Correct. That's exactly it. So that would give you that would give you capacity if you did that. The challenge though is no one plans for the Christmas break. And what happens is after the first week of December, everybody's brains switch off. And then everybody's brains don't switch back on until after Australia Day. And then all of a sudden we go, oh my god, there's so many lodgements still outstanding. Yeah, when when uh when did December Bazaars do?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

When's FBT? Correct. Yeah, correct. And then when's your 31st of March is? Yeah. When are they coming through? And then oh you got 15th of May, and then what are we doing for tax planning? You just you can't leave it to after January. That I will a hundred percent agree. You have to be so on top of it well into the financial year.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

You need to get a heap of work done, compliance work lodged before Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

Yeah, otherwise you're chasing your tail for the next six months. Literally. And that prevents you from getting into the good behaviour for next year.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Which is a large proportion of firms. A very large proportion of firms. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

I'll chuck us in that bucket. We're in there right now.

The Simplest Spreadsheet That Works

SPEAKER_01 13:46

So I think one of the other things that I also struggle with in this industry is that there isn't actually a great piece of software to do capacity planning. What is there? Um my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Sure, give us a favourite to start with. I've got I use a spreadsheet right now.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

That's my favorite an Excel spreadsheet. Did I steal your thumb? I'm sorry. No, no, no, it's fine. No, it's fine. I just thought it was.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

It's not like keep it simple, stupid, like you said. Love that. How simple can capacity planning be in a spreadsheet for people that are just getting getting into the good behavior and starting that good behavior for the first time properly? How simple can it be?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

It's so simple. Uh here are your column headers. Client name. Group. Group name.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

Keep going. Yeah, column A, column B, what's in column C?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Uh Work type.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Proposed work month.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah. Oh, so you would yeah, but you would go horizontally across all the different work types. Uh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, vertically. Because you want a date.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

I I this is just compliance work.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yeah, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah, okay. And I'm talking activity statement, FBT, you know, your tax return. Yep. Um, it's like business structures you need business structure in there as well. You need business structure as well. So therefore that would dictate what work type it is. And then you would have a budget from a dollar perspective, a budget from an a time perspective.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

So you basically have a vertical listing of all of your jobs, tasks, however you manage it, but you basically have a listing of all the lodgements that need to get done, and then what your budget is going to be, and then obviously what your pricing and packaging is going to look like around that particular lodgement. Yep. And it's that simple. And then you stick a date and a person's name is.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

You don't even need a no, you don't even need a date. Oh. You want a work month. You just want a proposed work month. Yeah, yeah. Literally, what is the month that I'm going to be doing this work in? So then you can filter via that month and you can go, all right, in the month of November, how much work have we got? Roughly how many hours, roughly how much dollars. So then you can actually go, okay, am I actually going to meet my budget? That's the first thing. And B, do I actually have capacity based on human beings?

SPEAKER_02 15:53

If anyone has capacity out there, take a snippet of what Amy just said, chuck it into Claude, and I swear that someone's going to come out with a really good app for capacity planning.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

So what so this is what's also interesting, right? Because I actually have I have a dream. No, don't reference that, because that's really bad reference. But I do have a dream for capacity planning for the accounting industry.

Sponsor Break And Tools Shoutout

SPEAKER_01 16:19

But I reckon before we go that far, how about we hear from our wonderful, wonderful sponsor? What a teaser. If you're still chasing invoices, did you know that Pinch automates payments directly from Zero?

SPEAKER_02 16:37

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Well, that means that you get paid on time every single time.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Does that also mean that you can offer clients flexible payment options like direct debits and even payment plans, just all without the admin?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Damn straight it does. Oh yeah. And the best part is it's built and supported by actual real people here in Australia.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Oh, so if you need help, you're talking to someone who actually gets it.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yes, and that's what we love. Thanks so much, Pinch. Thanks, Pinch. This episode is brought to you by Business Automation Works, the team behind ATO Mate and Omble.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Now you likely already know ATO Mate as that solution that has completely transformed our practices, manage ATO correspondence, reducing processing time by sometimes up to 90%. Yeah, it's awesome. But did you know that the team has also built a new solution called Ombul? It is designed to give your practice total visibility by consolidating all the real-time data from the ATO into one powerful dashboard. If you've mastered your documents with ATO Mate, then it is time to see how Ombull is going to help you stay proactive with client lodgements, payment plans, and any outstanding account balances and debts.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

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SPEAKER_02 18:01

So if you are not using ATO Mate, then get on board. And if you already are, then take it to the next level and take a look at Omble. And a very special thank you to our friends over at Spotlight Reporting, who we know are the ultimate business intelligent platform.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

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SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yep, Spotlight empowers you to move beyond numbers and into deeper visual storytelling, insightful recommendations, and very clear actions as well, which is what we know every client wants and yes needs. They don't just want to be told the numbers, do they, Will? Nope. You don't want just the generic report. Sometimes you do want to be able to do a little bit of razzle-dazzle in front of a client, show some complete competence in your strategic CFO advisory capability, which looks at things from multi-currency consolidations, cash flow forecasting, and of course benchmarking all the way through to also incorporating perhaps ESG reporting when necessary.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

So if you're not using Spotlight Reporting for your clients, get on it at spotlightreporting.com. Thanks guys. We love you. Yeah, we do.

The Dream Capacity Planning App

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Um so my teaser was here is my like if I had a dream, um, for how a capacity planning app should actually work. And whilst you think that it could be really easy to do with AI, I don't actually think it's as easy as what you think it could be.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

You've thought about this, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yeah, damn straight I have. Go on. Um no one's actually created it yet, but I believe that there are some apps out there andor people that are creating it. And if anybody andor any of those apps are listening, uh can you please just at least reference Amy that the idea came from her?

SPEAKER_02 19:52

But like are we on the same page that there's nothing out there right now that is like the leader in the category of capacity planning?

SPEAKER_01 19:59

I would agree with that. You know, the only thing that comes close and something that not that I have too many firms that are transitioning away from CCHI firm these days.

SPEAKER_03 20:08

However Sorry, Dag reflect.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

However, I will say that CCHIFM does have a not too bad capacity planner. As in, it basically shows you the capacity, allows you to put work in, and then it actually goes, hang on a second, this person, you've you've allocated this amount of capacity to this person. Uh, there's 50 hours on Will, there's only five hours on Amy, what's going on there? And it actually does show you that. So that's what it I think partly the capacity planning should do. That's the first thing. What I actually think it needs to happen, what needs to happen though, is that it needs to connect in with a few different apps, and that's why it's gonna be hard. I think it needs to connect in with the ATO. Which next to impossible. Next to impossible. However, I think that because if you you if you're working in the zero land, I think that it can work. Because with the connection that Zero will have with Zero Tax, and therefore what they're gonna be able to surface onto the dashboard in the new Zero partner hub, I believe that this will work a little bit because you'll be able to see all of when your lodgements are done.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Wait, hang on. Why do you think that you need to do you you don't need to have a live connection into the ATO? You can just download your outstanding lodgement list at the start of the year or your full client list and you can start from there and then just run a report every month for what has and hasn't been done, and it would automatically reduce the list. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Surely you could do that. Definitely you could do that.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Although I would like it live.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

This is my wish list list. But yeah, this is my wish list.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

But there's like definitely known problems with getting this data through an ATL API, which is why I think it's correct. Okay, there are. So you've got to go third party through your zero tax XPN. Hypothetically. Maybe customize some reports or like pull from an API?

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Uh in my ideal world, I would love to pull from the API. Okay. But like we can baby step this. So the reason why I think it needs to be connected to because it needs to look at Last year's plus planned for next year's. And the reason why I want it to look at last year's is because I want it to be able to pull things like how much time was spent, how much did we write off, how much did we bill the client, who did the job, when did we start the job when we're timesheet entry is put against it, versus when we lodged the work because they can be differing. So I want it to pull that information. Then I want it to be able to go, using all of that, now let's plan for next year using the capacity of the current team. Let's imagine that they're going to be here for the next 12 months, based on what their capacity is, based on their hours, which you could pull from again. I'm just using XPM as an example here, but you can obviously pull people's capacity from that based on the days that they work and the hours that they work.

SPEAKER_04 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

And then that should be able to go, all right, well, based on last year's workload and based on what we can see is still on your list from a lodgement perspective, this is what we have as a baseline capacity plan for when you did the work last year versus when you're going to do it next year and just for your basic compliance work. That should give you the space to then go, right, that's all of the compliance work. And if you get it to look at you know at last year's stuff, you can then also go, what advisory work did we do? What non-compliance work do we do? What is all the other bits and pieces that we did for this client to factor in that capacity? And you should be factoring things like you know, your asset can reviews and your CFO work and your tax planning and all of those kinds of things, which aren't technically compliant, but they are requirements.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, good capacity plan. Should have everything. Well, it starts with compliance. Like the baseline is just have a capacity plan for your core compliance.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Yeah. And I know they uh people don't even do that though. People don't even go basic compliance. They look at their list, but they don't go, here's my list, and this is typically how long each piece of work actually takes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

Here's what needs to happen. One step further, here's how it's going to happen.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Correct. And then do I have enough team members and capacity with my team? Yeah. Because it like I think the the other challenge here is uh the industry is screaming out for this, you know, we we don't have enough human beings. I would agree. But equally, do you have a capacity issue? Do you have a tech issue? Do you have a planning issue, or do you have a we've got too many clients and therefore too much work issue? I still go with the last one, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

There's a common sorry. It's not binary, there's like a thank you.

SPEAKER_02 24:40

It's just uh I in general feel like the accounting profession is underpaid relative to other professions. In terms of the value that can be delivered. Wait, what? Go. Tell me.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Underpaid. No, no, there's a very big difference between being underpaid versus you are undercharging.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Uh yeah, agreed.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Oh I'll give you an example. I have had half a dozen conversations today alone with people where we talked about price rises. I'm like, you're gonna raise the you're gonna look at last year's bill and raise it three to five percent anyway, and they go, yeah, probably. I'm like, mm-hmm. Yeah. Did you see the email that came out recently from Zero in relation to the ?

SPEAKER_02 25:24

No, I didn't, Amy. Tell me more about this 7 and 10% price increase from zero.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Correct, a seven and ten percent. Can I just highlight the 10%? Whereas when I turned around to the clients and went, Why aren't you raising it 10%? They go, I can't I can't do that. I'm like, why can't you? Well Zero just did it. And like, yeah, but I'm like, why are you any different? Yeah. At what point do you think that your service is less valuable than a software provider's service?

SPEAKER_02 25:47

I I find it difficult to be so binary with commodity-based pricing like that. Like I I find my I don't like I know there's so many different pricing strategies and theories out there. I can only share what my experience has been. My view is you go bang on in the middle of the market for compliance, you deliver from an experience and a service perspective so that the client likes dealing with you, respects that you're fair on what the job that can be done that they could go and get anywhere else. But because of the way that you've packaged up and you've handled, you've done the service delivery side of it, that should unlock the advisory, the deeper engagement that comes over time. Like you can turn a $3,000 company tax return into a $6,000 a month virtual CFO type engagement, not because of your pricing strategy, but because of the way that you've packaged it up and delivered it. So I don't I wouldn't say that we're undercharging. I think that we are not necessarily delivering the service that we are charging market rate for in a way that allows us to grow and scale the business and reward staff and pay them more. That would be me.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

I agree wholeheartedly with you about that one. No, 100%. I also agree that we are not as an industry charging our clients enough. Therefore, we're not able to pay our team as much. Therefore, those accountants are going to industry rather than public practice. It's a trap.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

There's a ceiling. There's no ceiling in practice.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Well, yeah, sure. But just don't tap it public practice.

SPEAKER_03 27:29

Don't cross over to the other side. It's not so green.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

That's funny. So anyway, so that's my dream from a capacity planning app, right, basically, is that I think it needs to look at last year's and then forward think this year's. And then it needs to you need to be able to manage that regularly around the proactivity of calling in that

Admin Versus Partner Client Touchpoints

SPEAKER_01 27:47

work. So once you've actually called in that work, you can then go, all right, I would now like I would now like to send that to my engagement software to then re-engage the client for this year's work, hence that cycle continues basically.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Can I just ask a question on you mentioned earlier about get the admin team to do stuff? I'm I'm conflicted on this because to a certain degree, I feel like clients appreciate and respect the proactive outreach for doing things when it comes personally from the person that manages the relationship and that you've got the connection with. I don't mind follow-ups and things like that to come from admin, but any views on like the role that the client manager or the partner should be taking in leading the process versus just letting it all be done behind the scenes from back office?

SPEAKER_01 28:30

If the viewers could see my face right now, I'm sending daggers across the desk to a lot of people. Is that a dagger? Absolutely not. I'm sorry to say absolutely not. I think that the admin accountants, in my opinion, do far too much admin work. Here's the analogy. An admin team member cannot do what you do from an accounting perspective because we are not trained or qualified to do it. Unless somebody wants to teach us. Just saying. But anyway, we're typically not trained or qualified. And just because accountants can do admin doesn't mean that they should. Spend your time doing the work that you can do, not the stuff that we can't do. Whereas an admin team member can actually do it. The other thing that I would say is yes, whilst you think and believe that the client appreciates it coming from you. They don't give a shit. They don't give a shit. No offense, but your ego is far too inflated for that. No, no, I disagree. I There are definitely things that I think that need to come from you. 100% they are.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

But I look at every engagement that I've ever that I personally have ever stepped up from a core compliance engagement to a strategic fractional CFO type engagement, it has always come from me leading the relationship side and initiating contact every time.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Sure. But then at what point do you go, I'm going to get my assistant Amy to send you the contract across? Yeah, that's fine. That's what I'm talking about. That part.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Yeah. But for me, first outreach, first impression, first touch comes from partner, comes from director. Sure. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

But that's that's because a client has either contacted you via your website, picked up the phone and called, you've been a referral. Of course that comes from you.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Yeah, but even next year, like next year's job, check in, quick phone call, whatever. Hey, we're gonna send you out. Um because it might actually lead to a series of conversations that open up more opportunity for you that you wouldn't have to be.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

You still have to be across it, I agree. But why can't the admin team member go, hey, just reaching out on behalf of Will? Um where it's not personal enough. But it is.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Why isn't it? No, no. There's got to be like a personal touch to it. Otherwise, clients just it it feels like it's a commodity service and they will treat us as as much.

SPEAKER_01 30:37

But it is, it's compliance work. It's not though. It's compli I'm talking about compliance work.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Yeah, but the compliance work it is connected to the advice. It's great.

unknown 30:45

Me too.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Um it's like helping me stand like helping me stand my ground. Not stand my ground, but like have clarity in how you can move from a compliance engagement to an advisory engagement. You I feel like you just cannot do advisory without compliance, and you have to do compliance really, really well from a service perspective to have the right to allow a client to drop their guard, drop down their walls, and let you into their world where you can start talking about bigger, more meaningful stuff that allows you to pitch high value work in the future.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Why do you need to do that at the beginning of the job?

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Why wouldn't you do that hypothetically throughout the like Because I can answer that, because there are moments that you pick up in the conversation early on that frame what the entire experience is going to look like. Quite often compliance is not always black and white. There's definitely grey areas, and how you navigate the gray areas with a client throughout the start of a relationship. Are you talking about brand new clients? Brand new and existing as well. Like compliance is never black and white.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

No, I yes, I get that. But brand new clients, I'm with you. 100%. Should be the partner, should be there.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

So thinking about an example, so we worked with a family business up on the Gold Coast, um, had a bump a year last year, had a bump a year this year, but they're starting a couple of years out from retirement now, and there's you can just tell when you have that initial conversation that it's different to the last couple of years. And that opens up other opportunities for planning for what the strategy is going to look like from a succession perspective, which is things that we just would not have got exposure to if we just had a sent a generic, hey, reaching out on behalf of Will, here's the stuff that we need to get get going on compliance work. It just it wouldn't have it opened the door to way more valuable conversations around potential exits, succession planning, estate planning, um, a bunch of other things, which just flat out would not have existed if an email came from from someone admin.

SPEAKER_01 32:36

And I agree with that. However, you are also in growth mode at this present moment versus a number of accounting practices that aren't necessarily.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

But our capacity is 100%. We're planning at 109%. So we're we're good on top of our launchment list right now. We've got capacity for growth.

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah, correct. You do have capacity for growth. We're trying to talk about accounting practices who don't have that capacity. Yeah. No, I agree. And and I think that there is a unless unless most accounting practices want to cull their client base by 20% to actually give them that capacity to then have that personal touch, by all means go for gold.

SPEAKER_02 33:07

If there are okay, I change you've convinced me to change my achievements. If there are clients that you don't want to work with more strategically in the future, have your have your admin, get rid of them or have your admin team handle the whole initiation process. Fine. If you want to get treated like a commodity, then it's fine to go into that and not look for uh a better ribbon to wrap around compliance. But if there are clients and you know you've got high net worth clients or clients where you know there's more scope, then yeah, I would be seriously considering the way that you approach the compliance process. And me personally, my style is I want to initiate that, I want to get on the front foot and I want to have a phone call before any emails get sent out from anyone.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Sure. I love that you think that 99% of accounting practices out there actually have the capacity and the time to jump on the phone and call every single client before that email around compliance work. What but what's everyone doing? I love that you think that there's that much capacity out there.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

Having those conversations with clients is the best part about being in practice, in my opinion. We're not all sitting behind a keyboard bashing away at email. I mean, we are for part of the day, but we're definitely on the phone. We're defin like we're interacting with clients, we're engaging, we're trying to win new business, we're helping people get through sticky, difficult situations. We're on the phone.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Can we go back to the initial conversation where I said there is a large proportion of firms out there that are sitting at 65% lodged?

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Does that give you some insight as to why I'm like, not everybody's in your position? I think that every firm owner andor business owner aspires to be in the position that you are in, or a large proportion of them do. Yeah, exactly. I've agree with that. Careful what you wish for.

unknown 34:37

No matter

Pricing Reality Check And Client Matrix

unknown 34:38

what.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Just nail your capacity planning before you even think about growth.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

Basically, that's And that's kind of where this all comes down to, is that you need to nail your capacity planning. So something else I think that everybody needs to consider in terms of capacity planning is your client matrix, which actually leads into that as well. So your client matrix is not is, you know, uh the dollar figure that you are getting that clients are currently being billed.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

That's a fun exercise, by the way. When you actually sit down, run the list, and you go through and you're like, here's what everyone should get billed based on stock standard market rate compliance versus what they are?

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Oh shit. Hang on a second.

SPEAKER_02 35:11

We're leaving a little opportunity on the table here.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Can we now then throw in there what your write-ons or your write-offs were in relation to all of those clients? Because you know, there is a there are oftentimes there is a misconception between your favorite client or your best client or the client that's paying you the most versus how much time you're actually sinking into that client and what your average alley rate is on that client. And I think that a lot of firms would be quite shocked to look at how much that client is actually costing you versus how much you're how much you think that you're making out of them.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Yeah, it's so true. Like you can spend a week on a $3,200 annual compliance pack and you could spend two and a half hours for a different client and charge potentially double the price because there's maybe two entities in the group or whatever.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

But like you as a if you're a decision maker in a practice, at some point you're gonna have to figure out a way to get visibility over those kinds of insights. Otherwise, you're just you're bottlenecking yourself and your living opportunity on the tables. And that's where good capacity planning, if understanding how much time was spent by a client on the same job last year. I see where you're going with this, Amy, and I like it. Penny dropped.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Yeah, and we got there. Um that's funny. Um, but yes, this is the reason why you do it. And then to add to that, you need to do some whip reporting, which is what I just kind of said. Doing the let's actually look at how much we charge that client and how much time we spent on that client. And you can actually, there's reports that you can run out of. I'm I'm just using XPM as an example, but there are all of the systems out there you can actually run that reporting.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

But this is how most firms are doing that. Most firms are running WIP, if they're not fixed fee, they're still running WIP reports, but and then figuring out how much they're invoicing, writing up, writing down at the end of the month.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

I'd really love to say yes.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

Oh, but you you there's some methodology for how firms are getting invoices out the door. No one's just plucking a number out of thin air and going, let's stick that on the invoice.

SPEAKER_01 36:59

No, I think what they're doing is what stereotypically happens, which is what did we do last year? Plus or minus 3%, 3 to 5%.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

No. Surely. Oh my god. Guys, back me up.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Yeah, not everybody's doing that, of course not. You have to track. I agree you have to track it. That's why I'm raising this.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

If you've got a good business services, Matt, like if you've got a good reviewer, they should be providing insights to whoever's signing off on the invoice on like, hey, maybe had a junior, spent a little bit more time on it.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

But like, not signing off on the invoice. That's how much we're scoping the proposal beforehand. We're not doing whipped-based billing. Well, we we want to we want to do upfront pricing. No, no, I'm fine with well transparency. Little column A, little column B. Yeah. Yeah. I think for sorry, a large proportion of fees, I believe, should be fixed price. I'm not talking annual serve, I'm not talking retainer base.

SPEAKER_02 37:50

I think compliance should be fixed price unless by exception there's over you need to do write-ons because the thing's a mess and you didn't know that before. Agreed. I am with you on that. But you shouldn't be you should be having enough um room in your fixed price model that you're very rarely doing any write-offs. Like why would you be writing off anything fixed price? You've just taken on the wrong client.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

Yeah, because we haven't scoped it correctly and/or we just keep saying yes. Yeah. That's why.

SPEAKER_02 38:19

Yeah. So there should be my there should be way more write-ons, ideally, especially when it comes to compliance. Now I understand if there's going to be write-offs when you are first year, you're figuring out a client's strategy, is over investing time in the relationship and figuring out the work and things like that. Ideally, you make a strategic decision. Are you going to bake that into your engagement? Are you going to write it on? Are you going to price it in from a fixed perspective? You can make that call yourself. But uh, yeah, like there just ideally, there just shouldn't be that many write-offs unless it's educational for the team member. Yep. Um, there shouldn't be. You should be looking for way more opportunities to write on for valid reasons, and you should set expectations with clients up front in the engagement that these are where we would look to um recover some cost when it's out of scope. Got to have that conversation up front.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Agreed. Um as part of this, uh, you should also be review reviewing your client list. I mean, I feel like we've covered this already, but just to be on the safe side in case anybody missed it, could you start culling some clients that are actually like not fruitful, not going to generate them?

SPEAKER_02 39:22

If you're not at 100%, then why are you not at 100%? Correct. What are the clients that are not at 100% and what are the clients that stopped you from getting to 100%? And next year, when you're looking at how you're going to get to 100%, which of the clients are going to be blockers to helping you get there? Yep. Who have you overserviced? Who can you just not carry into next year because they're going to hurt your 100?

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Correct. That's exactly it. Um, but also if you can't get your 100% lodged, then why are you offering additional non-compliance-based services? Because it's f I get that. I'm not helping. Back to my original point. You've got too many coins. You gotta call.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

You've got to have a capacity plan to get to what is it, 110? What will we say, 110%? Like what's something reasonable to shoot for?

SPEAKER_01 40:04

I reckon actually 120%. Because if you think about all of the non-compliance things that everybody does, you at least need a minimum 20% additional capacity for those extra bits and pieces.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

If you want to grow and scale and you want to do more interesting work.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

Yeah, more interesting work, I think, is a better way of saying that. Just the more interesting stuff. So you're not just doing the standard compliance stuff, which some people like, and that's okay. Yeah. Um j because w we probably need to think about, you know, we've been babbling about this one for a while. Um, I want to talk about some apps in the marketplace.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

I don't know any, so. Oh, it's not true. I know one. What? I know link reporting.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

That one's what I just added to that one. They are okay. So there are a few apps out there that kind of do capacity planning, and I'm waiting for each of these apps to hit me up um off like once this has gone to air and to go, can I please show you my capacity plan? Because I think that mine is amazing. And I welcome it. Show me how amazing it is. But until it does everything that I want it to do on my wish list, which I've spoken about earlier, then ultimately. Are you really that good? I know that was brutal. I know that was brutal. I know it was brutal. Um, okay, so my favourite pick is still XL. Good old-fashioned XL

Capacity Planning Apps Worth Watching

SPEAKER_01 41:07

spreadsheet. I genuinely feel like that is the easiest way to consistently manage workflow, like proactively contacting clients, managing capacity, managing workflow from that perspective. As in before it gets into the office. Once it's in, then it goes into your workflow system like an XPM carbon, FYI, whatever your workflow system basically is. Okay. Um I know that FYI Elite has a little bit of this in there.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Is it released?

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Uh that's a really good question. I'm asking because I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

I know that it's coming, if not there, and I should probably know the answer to that one. I I cannot confirm or deny, I'm very sorry. We'll get back to you next episode. Tune in next time, anyway. So, Link reporting definitely does something. Um, as I said, CCHIFEM does.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

But the link, just on the link reporting guys, like they've been doing this for over 10 years now. This is kind of their jam. So I'd like to think that they've got something good, but there are others coming to the party that are gonna give them a good run for their money.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

So Yeah, I think so too. Like I I like the guys at Link. I think um This is a plug for Link.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

How did this happen?

SPEAKER_01 42:18

I don't know. Uh retainer-based billing, though, is an interesting one when it comes to using link reporting, just as a side note. So I think that um something else that I have seen in the public, I don't know if I'm allowed to tell people about these, but then I'm also like, meh. Do it. Spill the beans. Yep. Spoiler, spoiler. I know that um account kit is building something. And I know that I I believe that Dashboard Insights is building something as well. I don't know. I don't hurry up, guys. Yeah, my point is that it's there's actually some there's some good players in the market that are really actually thinking about this in the best possible sense. Um because I'm excited by the fact that it can actually do things. I think look, I think carbon can kind of quasi do it. Quasi being the operative word there. I've never logged into carbon before. Okay, so I think they they could do it in a way, but it's not fabulous, which is why I'm gonna go back to at the moment. Oh, then there was also PlanRite. Planwrite, which is a plug-in to XPM.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

They're hang on. N Z but they're not specific for the accounting industry, or they are?

SPEAKER_01 43:25

They are. Oh. They are, except it relies on you having all of your jobs in the system planned and actual. And oh, I don't know that I love the way that that works. Personal preference. That is a personal preference.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Someone, let's hope that dashboard insights, account kit, others can beat our spreadsheets.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Oh, I'm with you on that. Like, there's so many cool apps out there, and I every time I speak to one that could possibly do it, I'm like, have you thought about doing this with your app? Have you thought about doing this? How about you build capacity? How about you build capacity? I think the challenge is that obviously XPM doesn't do capacity planning at the end of the day, right? You could do it based on task management, but that is a pile of corrup.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

Hang on. And we know what it is. Isn't there a little widget on the homepage of dashboard of XPM around that has forecast or capacity?

SPEAKER_01 44:11

You're funny, Will. You're funny, Will. You're funny.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

Um look, we know that my business partners team calls it practice damager. That's brutal. I know. That's brutal. Sorry, I shouldn't have thrown Tim under the bus there. I laugh every time he does.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

You know what? For it, I think it does everything pretty damn well for the most part. I don't think that it definitely doesn't do capacity at all. Um it definitely does not do capacity in any way, shape, or form. So um I know also the guys at Vibe CFO, which used to be called Itani, um, which have now produced a little app called Eva. That's a nice name for an app. I know, it is pretty. It's quite cute. Um so I think that Eva will be able to give you the information, but will it be able to spit it out in the way that uh we want it to in a nice pretty spreadsheet and that kind of thing? Probably not. See, I want to drag and drop functionality. That's the other thing. And I I may have seen one. One of the apps that I mentioned might have been building that.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

Oh wow. Well it does seem like it's something that you want to be like you want to be able to customize it to the accounting adventure. Thanks for joining us for this technique. Like to visualize a capacity. Because not everyone's gonna digest and want to see their capacity plan and forecast and ideas the same way as the other thing. It's a little bit of a personal thing, so I understand why drag and drop and a little bit of dashboard customization is necessary.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

But is it does it need to be does it need to be that customizable? Yeah, exactly, right? Let's let's talk about work papers in an episode, Will, and talk about how how subjective that is.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Oh, that's not don't get me done episode.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

That's definitely so triggering. All right, uh so w at the end of the day, when it comes to capacity, let's round this one out.

Cadence, Ownership And Overplanning Traps

SPEAKER_01 45:57

When it comes to capacity planning, I think the more you can plan, the better you will be. However, it is not a it's not a one and done, you do it at the start of the financial year and then it's just done. It actually is something that you need to consistently manage on a weekly, fortnightly, at least minimum monthly basis. And this isn't just a I'm gonna download the lodgement list and see where we're up to. This is a proactively contacting clients and managing that stuff. But you need to start with as a bare minimum, uh, you know, an Excel spreadsheet. Actually, with the use of custom fields in XPM and automations in FYI, you can actually do reporting out of that to do capacity planning. That is something that I completely forgot which I thought about it. Well, no, you spit it out into a report, which then if you wanted to, you could then spit out into Excel. But custom fields in XPM can actually manage this process as well. It's not it's not as pretty. And it's not drag and dropy, but it can be done.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

And it can it's basically live though.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yeah, it is live, correct.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

That is Okay, so that's one of the benefits. All right, I'm not gonna dismiss that one. Okay, so I will consider it. It might be better than my spreadsheet. It might be better than my spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

I still think the spreadsheet's the best. Sorry, I I will I will hands down say that I personally feel like the cleanest and simplest way is an Excel spreadsheet. Oh, then what are we doing here? Stop talking about this. Until one of the apps wants to deal with it. Because I think the other issue is that you can spend too much time planning your capacity as opposed to actually doing the work. And I think that's probably my other takeaway for today, which is you can overplan.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

Who should do it? Who, like what's the role of the capacity planner? Who owns that role in the practice? Admin. Ooh, yeah, practice manager.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

In conjunction with the accountants. So those workflow meetings around proactively contacting clients needs to be with the admin team and the accounting team. So it needs to be a this is what we believe we should call in because the accountants ultimately hold a relationship with a client. And then it's a okay, admin, can you please go off and contact the clients to call in that work? Yes, you can call or the accountant, whichever. You know what, whatever. There was a look. There was a look. Whether it's the admin or the accountant, but I send that email.

SPEAKER_03 48:00

I make that phone call.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Anyway, I do believe though that it's the practice manager slash admin who actually owns the management of that spreadsheet, that proactivity, same as they should be managing the workflow, the start dates, the due dates of the jobs once the proposals get out. You know, like there's so many things that accountants I think sending the query list to the clients, 100% accountant. Copying in the admin team member though, so that they can chase the client when the client only responds with half of the things that you actually requested. That's admin. Admin, 100%. But the initial query list, accountant. Hooray! You can you can have that one you can have that one admin thing. You can also you also get to review a lot of stuff, right? So admin can put the proposal together. You should be reviewing it before they hit send. You know, those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

But you I'm reviewing what before gets sent? The query list.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

No, if you send if you get the um admin team member to send the proposal, like here is a service, this is what we're charging. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, send, you know, if you want to review it, you can review it. There are lots of things that you can review. You still have a hand in, but I think it's more you should be reviewing, not doing. Ah, yeah, that should be sort of. They should be doing under your instruction. You should be reviewing if you feel the need to.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

Yeah, sending an engagement, I think that's an admin y thing, because you've obviously spent some time during the conversation, meeting, getting familiar with the client, doing discovery, all of that. I don't think you need to send the actual engagement. I think it's fine for admin to do that. But every year, touching base, pre-compliance, that's that's your gem? That's my gem.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

Doesn't have to be everyone's gem, but only because you have built that into your capacity, Will, and I love that.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

And when I say me, I don't actually mean me, I mean personally. I mean the the client manager, the person that you want to be the first principal point of contact in the firm for that client is should be the one taking the lead. So if you've got client managers in your accountants that take that role, associate directors, whatever, empower them to do that, is my view.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

Yes, but the way to empower them is to plan enough time so that they can do that. Of course. So my other takeaway from this is please start saying no. Please start putting clients on a wait list, April, May, June. Yeah. Please. Only if you don't have capacity at the moment. If you're struggling to get your lodgement list actually done, then there are a multitude of things that we can talk about. Um, which that's another episode though. Well, we have been babbling about capacity planning for so long.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

I've loved it. Me too. Thank you, Amy. I'm fired up. I've walked away with some insights. There's some things to go and implement, there's some things to keep exactly the same, like my spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

There's some things that he really disagrees with me on, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

And there's always things that you disagree with me on, but that's not exclusive to this episode. That is this podcast. Yes. Thanks, Will. It's been a been a pleasure. Thanks, Amy. See you next time. Bye, everyone.

Key Takeaways And Final Challenge

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Hey, hey team, it's Allie from All Aussie Accounting Adventures. Thanks for joining us for this tech edition and joining Amy and Will. We hope you've picked up a few great insights and ideas. If you'd like to keep following the adventure, make sure you check out our website and find us all across the socials. We are everywhere. You know us. Just search All Aussie Accounting Adventures. Whether it's conferences, the website, the podcast, social media, there's always something happening with us, so make sure to follow. And don't forget to share the episode with your accounting mates. We love that stuff. So thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next adventure.