64 ⎸ How we collaborate with clients Part 2

 This is part 2 of our previous episode where Meriah (my Director of Operations at Team Shoup) and I are breaking down how we collaborate as a team to get everything done and maintain our team culture.

In this episode you’ll hear:

• the tech and tools we use to collaborate externally(client-facing) and a few that we use to collaborate both internally and externally
• how we get the most out of these tools
• our favorites
• tips to handle learning new tools

Products Mentioned (some are affiliate links)

• Xero
• Hubdoc
• Acuity
• Dubsado
• Kajabi
• Relay
• Spark email
• Google Drive
• Voxer

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

• Podcast Episode: Why We Are A Xero Firm
• Podcast Episode: How to keep your client data secure
• Dubsado Decoded: Dubsado DIY Tutorial
• The Bookkeeping Business Accelerator
• The Bookkeeping Biz Workshops
• Elevate
• Katie Fleming Podcast Episode on Voxer

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram Stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper

For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:

Visit our website: ambitiousbookkeeper.com

Follow the Blog: ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blog

Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeper

Connect on LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/SerenaShoup

Connect of Facebook: Facebook.com/serenashoupcpa

Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.

Podcast Publishing Tools

• Podcast Editing: Ian Gilliam: iangilliam.com
• Descript (affiliate link)
• Buzzsprout (affiliate link)

This episode is sponsored by: LiveFlow
Receive 20% off your first 3 months by using code AMBITION at checkout:
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Transcript

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[00:00:29] Serena: Welcome back to the Ambitious Book Podcast. And today we're tackling part two of my conversation with Mariah on how we work together, virtually as a team on the last. Episode where we talked about the tech and the tools we used, we mainly focused on our internal collaboration among the team. So today we're going to focus on a couple crossover items that we use to collaborate internally and externally with clients. And then we'll dive into more of the external applications that we use. So welcome back, Mariah, how are you today? 

[00:01:05] Meriah: Thank you, Serena. So good to be here with you as always. I'm doing fabulous. Thank you. 

[00:01:11] Serena: Great. Yeah, we have to pretend like we haven't been talking for the past two hours. We're just on our team meeting and then our one-on-one tackling some housekeeping things. And so now we're back and we're talking about the applications that we use to drive collaboration with our team and our clients. So should we start with some of the crossover items where we left off last time? 

[00:01:37] Meriah: Sounds good. All right. So our first one really that's for both OCB and AB and internally and externally would be our email and that we use Spark email for and Spark has actually been a pretty neat program because we can have conversations internally about the email that you have to be careful, cuz those can sometimes get lost 

[00:02:06] Serena: Yeah,.

[00:02:08] Meriah: But I think it's kind of handy rather than sending an email back and forth and back and forth. You can just have a conversation within that email thread about the email. 

[00:02:18] Serena: Yeah. So for anyone who's wondering kind of what Spark is, it's an email client. So we use Gmail to host our internal, you know, our @ambitiousbookkeeper.com and at, of course, booking.com emails, but Spark is like, An alternative to Outlook. So a lot of people who use windows, computers, they use a mail client, which is typically Outlook where you can connect a calendar and , have all of your threaded email conversations and things like that. So we use spark because our whole entire team is on MacBooks. 

[00:02:55] Meriah: yay. 

[00:02:56] Serena: We made the switch this last year and I just, I love it. So that's a whole other conversation probably for a whole nother podcast to talk about, windows versus Mac. So we all are Mac and right now Spark email client is only for Macs. So we have 'em on our phones and on a computer. And we had explored using something like a help desk ticketing system initially, and it's kind of pricey. So we decided to try to make Spark work for this. 

[00:03:28] And I don't know if we went in this, on the last podcast, but it kind of overlaps, but we use Google workspace. So we have our emails on there. And the way that we manage instead of using a help desk ticketing system, we have a centralized email inbox. So we have a help at of course, bookkeeping that we use to communicate back and forth with clients through email, that everybody has access to that inbox. So we can all always see the drafts. We can see the sents and we can see anything in the inbox. And currently the way that we're managing that is Mariah is monitoring the help inbox for anything that comes in and pinging us in Slack. If something needs our attention and then assigning it in Asana.

[00:04:15] So there's lots of cool integrations that you can do with all these programs. So within Spark, and you can probably do this with Outlook, if that's the email client you're using, you can integrate Asana or whatever project management system you use, hopefully integrates with your email client and you can create a task of an email or you can ping the person and grab the link to the email, which is how we're doing it. You're grabbing a link to the email, Dropping it in Slack in whatever channel it belongs in. So if it's related to a specific client, it goes in that client Slack channel, and you say, this email needs your attention. We're having you respond to the client that yes, we got the email. We're gonna tackle this question or whatever it is. And then the person who needs to action, that gets a message in Slack and from there, are you converting it to a Asana task or are you going into Asana and creating the task? Cause you could do it either way. 

[00:05:11] Meriah: yes, you can do it either way, but for now I'm just, it's been really quick and easy to just create an Asana task from Slack, but just to go fresh into Asana and create the task there. 

[00:05:22] Serena: So that's kind of how we're handling that right now. And since we're small, it works. If we had a team of 50 people and an help inbox of hundreds of emails a day, we would probably be switching to something like Help Scout 

[00:05:36] Meriah: Yes, probably so .

[00:05:39] Serena: I really encourage even if you don't have a team yet, if you're planning in the future, it's really good to have a help inbox that all of your client communication is in, so that nothing really gets lost and that kind of segues into Google drive. So that we use internally and externally. So, do you wanna talk about how we use Google drive? 

[00:06:00] Meriah: Sure I'll start it off and then I'll hand it over to you. 

[00:06:03] Serena: So I'm not just taking over the whole entire podcast, like it's mine or something. 

[00:06:08] Meriah: Well, let's see. Imagine that it actually is your podcast. So, yes, we use Google Drive and that's for both internal, external, and for, of course, bookkeeping as well as Ambitious Bookkeeper. So we use Google Drive all around. That is where we store client information. And Serena actually did a detailed podcast on client storage and everything. So you can go back and listen to that, but I will let you add to that. We also use that for internal documents that we have for both OCB and ambitious bookkeeper as well.

[00:06:50] Serena: Yeah, and we use Google drive. We share a folder within our client folders with our clients as kind of a portal. So instead of using a different system that our clients have to log into and access things like Lisio or basically any other external client portal. We're using Google drive because it works for our clients and they're used to using Google drive anyway. I've talked about other bookkeepers who use all the Microsoft products, so the Microsoft Office and they use OneDrive instead of Google Drive.

[00:07:24] So whatever you do, like just go back and listen to that podcast. We'll link it in the show notes where I kind of go into detail. And I also have a blog post on it where we talk about how we structure the file folders and do all that. So I just like to caveat that, like, because of the industry that we work in, the clients are already on Google drive. So it's not really adding anything to their tech stack. And so it's easier for them to adopt. If we worked in a different industry that wasn't on Google drive, where everyone was in Microsoft, we might use something different. I don't know, but this is what works for us. So that's how we handle it. 

[00:08:02] Meriah: Yes. And it's been really great to have the version where we just have a shared drive rather than the different shared folders. That way, if you have somebody that leaves your organization, let's say, and they created a bunch of things. Well, when they leave your organization, their files go with them. 

[00:08:22] Serena: Yeah. So there's different levels of Google drive in. I highly recommend doing the professional version. You will pay more for it, especially with the additional users that you have, but it's important to have control and the file access in, in that regard, Should we move along to what I have highlighted Voxer? So do you wanna talk about how we use Voxer? 

[00:08:47] Meriah: Sure. So we use Voxer internally and externally. And once again, in both of course, bookkeeping and ambitious bookkeeper. So as far as how we use that internally as a team, really for me, Serena is the only member of our team that I'm on Voxer with. And that really has become more of just an extra layer of, Hey, I really need you and this is kind of urgent. So we don't Voxer all the time. It's mostly for urgent things or we've had some really exciting things that we just couldn't wait to share with each other that we'll Voxer . 

[00:09:25] Serena: Yeah. 

[00:09:27] Meriah: That's always exciting to have those, those huge wins you wanna share. And then as far as coaching and Serena has a genius there that I will let her take over and, and share about actually coaching within Voxer. 

[00:09:44] Serena: Yeah, and I have to give credit to my coach, Katie Fleming. So I joined a while back, one of her Voxer mini mines, and she runs a little Mastermind in Voxer for a week, and it was a really great way to witness how to set boundaries in, in Voxer and make it to where it doesn't take over your life because it is like a walkie-talkie. If you give people a hundred percent access to you and don't set any boundaries, it can be difficult. And it's honestly the same thing with email or anything else. Like you just have to know how to set the boundaries. So if you're interested in learning how I learned how to run Voxer, I learned it from Katie Fleming and she even just recently published a podcast on how she runs it. So I'll, I'll link to that in the show notes as well. But basically we use Voxer in I use Voxer in my coaching. So in, in one of our programs called elevate, we do a group Voxer. It's a very group program. We cap it at 20 and we'll be doing another cohort in October. So I'll link that in the show notes, you could go to ambitious bookkeeper.com/elevate, but basically. We do weekly lessons in zoom live. And then in between the calls, you have access to me and each other in a group Voxer, to be able to ask more questions, dive deeper, get feedback on stuff. I use it in private coaching. So I have a couple of one on one clients where they have access to me throughout the week in between their calls as well.

[00:11:18] And I do Voxer with a few clients as well on the bookkeeping side. And that's mainly because it's easier to get a hold of them that way. And it's still asynchronous communication. So we can communicate verbally when it works for them. And it's a little easier than a Loom video if it's just like a conversation and you don't need to demonstrate anything. So yeah, I do have a couple clients that that's the best way to get a hold of them and get information from them. So I use it and none of them take advantage of it either. It's just kind of goes along with like choosing the right client that understand boundaries. 

[00:11:57] Meriah: Yes. Yes. I was just thinking about that.

[00:12:02] Serena: cause I mean, it could get out of hand, but I've never it's usually, I'm the one that you uses it more. With them then they do, because I know that's the best way to get ahold of them and get information I need and that doesn't get buried in email. And so if it's a quick, like, Hey, I just have a quick question. It's easier to get ahold of them that way. So. I'm the one that uses it more on them than they, they do. 

[00:12:28] Meriah: That's perfect. Because you have chosen well, correct? Would you say you've chosen your clients well, and you've outlined and set those boundaries? Which is very key. 

[00:12:38] Serena: Yeah absolutely. And the other way that we're starting to use Voxer is side with my CFO days. So when someone books, a CFO day with me, they get a workbook and then they also get access to me and Voxer leading up to the CFO day so I can help them work through the workbook without being on a call with them if they get stuck. So far, no one has really utilized that either, but it's available to them and it's just another value add type thing. And the CFO day thing is something to cover and elevate as well. A little shout out. I give you all the resources 

[00:13:20] Meriah: So you should come on in to elevate. 

[00:13:23] Serena: Yeah. And on a more basic level, we cover spar, we use Google drive, hub, doc Asana, OnePath Slack, and Google forms. And we're constantly adding to that too. So if there's a consensus of like multiple needing. Help on how to use a specific piece of technology in the context of the bookkeeping business, because yes, there's always the help documentation that is generic and available to anyone who uses the software and those trainings. But there's always little nuances on how we use them. That's why Alyssa created a whole course on Asana on how to use it in a bookkeeping firm. So it's very specific, there's specific ways you want to utilize certain tools for our industry. So we've done something similar with the other little pieces of tech that we use.

[00:14:17] And we have a bonus inside of the bookkeeping business accelerator called the tech vault. And that's where we've loaded in kind of our little nuances on how we use these tools. So with that, we should get into some of the other tools we use so, which, what do you wanna start with Mariah?

[00:14:38] Meriah: All right. They're all fun. I guess. So I'll jump into Kajabi. It's kind of right up there next. So Kajabi hosts our website for both, of course, bookkeeping, Ambitious Bookkeeper. And that is where the program that Serena just talked about BBA, Bookkeeping Business Accelerator, and all of our other programs that is where they live within Kajabi. And so Kajabi really is kind of a one stop in so many ways for us. It's also where we house our contacts and where we send our emails from, and I'm probably forgetting something Serena, what else do we use within Kajabi? 

[00:15:20] Serena: Yeah, so we send our monthly newsletters to clients from Kajabi. And also of course we send all of our newsletters for Ambitious Bookkeeper, but I also use it on the other side. We have our team onboarding training in Kaja as a course. And. Yeah, I think you pretty much covered it. Our websites, both our websites are hosted on Kajabi. 

[00:15:43] And you can create payment links through Kajabi. So I do know someone else in our industry, Katie Farrow. She uses Kajabi to actually bill her clients as well. So she sets her clients up on a recurring subscription within Kajabi. So it auto charges them every month. So you can use it in that regard as well. There's lots of different ways that you can do things. We don't do it that way because we do things through Xero and Dubsado. But yeah, so Kajabi's a fun one. I probably wouldn't recommend Kajabi for anyone who is not planning on creating digital products or courses, because it's probably just like a little too much. But if you have that in your mind for the future, Then it's worth investing in Kajabi. And if you're gonna use it for email marketing and digital products, I highly recommend it. If you don't want to do email marketing or do digital products, it's probably too robust of a program just to host a website on, you can accomplish that in something like Squarespace. 

[00:16:41] Meriah: Squarespace is a great platform as well.

[00:16:44] Serena: Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So. I quickly mentioned Dubsado. So I guess we could jump into that because that is what we, I'm pretty sure if you've been listening to the podcast for any amount of time, you've heard me talk about it. But that is the program that we use to onboard our clients. So the whole lead capture, we get information from people who are interested in working with us. And you can see that process live on our website. If you go to ofcoursebookkeeping.com/contact. That is where we collect information from potential clients who are interested in working with us who have not yet booked a discovery call. And then we do our proposals and our engagement letters and our whole onboarding process is done using Dubsado. That a blog post I probably need to update, but it is one of the most popular ones. So I definitely need to update it to how we're using Dubsado today because we use it more now than we did when I created that blog.

[00:17:51] But. Yeah. So I would say Dubsado is a really key software our business, on the bookkeeping side for collecting the documents from clients, getting them all onboarded. And then the question I always get is like, well, do you do your workflows in there? And I don't, I use Asana because Dubsado does not play nicely with recurring workflows. So we move everybody to Asana once they're onboarded or pretty much once they've signed their engagement letter and paid their first invoice, they get set up in Asana with a project. 

[00:18:26] Meriah: So what is your favorite part about Dubsado? 

[00:18:31] Serena: I would say my favorite part is the proposal experience for the clients. I've gotten a lot of compliments on that it seems customized. It's very, we have it pretty templated per client, but it's very custom to our branding. So I've looked at other proposal softwares that are built for accountants. And while they have some great features. The thing that I still love the most about Dubsado is that we can customize it to our branding, and that seems to work really well with our client base. So if you work with creative entrepreneurs who may be our graphic designers or Some sort of creative marketing agency or something you're gonna stand out if you use something like Dubsado, because you're not gonna feel like an accountant to them. And let's be honest, most clients, most small business clients don't want you to feel like an accountant to them. 

[00:19:24] Meriah: Very true.

[00:19:25] Serena: They want you to. Feel like another business owner that they're working with. So the more that you can showcase your personality in that intake process, or onboarding process, the better. So I would say that's probably my favorite thing about Dubsado. What about you? Cause we use it on the Ambitious Bookkeeper side too. 

[00:19:44] Meriah: Yes. I think it just, you can make things so pretty and personal and I really like that added touch. And it's a little bit of a learning curve, but once you kind of get past that learning curve and Serena has an amazing course onboarding on autopilot, to kind of help walk you through. But once you get over that learning curve and you kind of see how things work in the intricacies, it really makes sense and it flows and then you can really get in and play with it and make things pretty and fun. 

[00:20:18] Serena: Yeah. And if you don't wanna set it all up yourself, there's definitely resources. There's lots of Dubsado specialists out there. We've had a couple on the podcast. So if you scroll back and just search Dubsado, you'll probably find, but Kendra Courtney is kind of our go-to person to send bookkeepers to because we've built. A whole kind of package with her on how we use Dubsado. And so she will set your Dubsado up, basically identical to the way we have our setup.

[00:20:47] And you won't have to like rethink through the process of onboarding, it's already kind of done for you based on how we do it. So there will be small tweaks you might wanna make. So that's definitely recommendation on that. If you don't wanna learn how to set up Dubsado yourself. So we also use Dubsado, an Ambitious Bookkeeper for our podcast sponsors because they need a contract and they need an intake form and all sorts of information that we need from them. So we've-- you've actually set Dubsado up for that side of things, which is great. 

[00:21:25] Meriah: It was fun learning. Like I said, there was a little learning curve to it, but your, your program. See, that's great thing. When you have in-house programs, you just go through 'em and learn . 

[00:21:36] Serena: Yeah, I know. Sometimes I forget that we've already, like, we've created this, so why don't we just send the whole team through this program to learn? 

[00:21:45] Meriah: Absolutely. 

[00:21:46] Serena: Yeah. So that was Dubsado, the other software that is kind of a crucial player in our onboarding and new client process is Acuity. So do you wanna touch on kind of how we use that and how you use it too? 

[00:22:04] Meriah: Sure. I would say, I think with all of these, there's a learning curve to it, but Acuity is one that I think has a learning curve, but it is a very robust scheduling program where you can have different categories for different appointments. You can schedule certain types of appointments to where you have time blocked off before time blocked off after. And you can have certain groups where they have their certain timeframes. Say like I do podcast pre-interviews and I do testimonials. So shout out there, by the way, just brief pause. If you have a testimonial that you would like to share with us, we'd love to listen.

[00:22:50] Serena: Yeah. And the reason we have a testimonial like appointment type is so that you don't have to, you don't have to think about what you want to say in your testimonial. Mariah will walk you through some questions that will get the answers that you want to give. And so you don't really have to think about it. And then we'll just clip pieces of the, the interview. So you don't have to be like super nervous, you just get to show up and answer a couple questions. 

[00:23:15] Meriah: Yes, absolutely. And just share your experience. And so, yes, please. If you have a testimonial that you would like to connect and hop on a call with me, send an email to support@ambitiousbookkeeper.com. And I'd love to hop on a call with you. So I have different timeframes around, say for example, those testimonial calls versus a podcast either sponsor call or a podcast pre guest interview. And so you can set up to where those appointment types have different availabilities and you can set your schedule, really customize your schedule, with those appointments. And then also I think the intake form is a huge aspect of that. I know Serena uses it in her coaching and it's very handy to have a client, a coaching client, or a bookkeeping client, fill out information and details before you hop on a call with them.

[00:24:10] Serena: Yeah, that's something we cover extensively in the bookkeeping business accelerator is the pre-call questionnaire. Which actually isn't that part of we give access to that for the Bookkeeping Biz Workshops. Don't we? You can purchase that in addition.

[00:24:28] Meriah: Yes. 

[00:24:28] Serena: The client success templates. So in the client success templates, when you see that pop up, if you're going to join us in the workshops, you'll also get access to that pre-call questionnaire that you can put in whatever calendar you use, or you can put it in a Google form and get information from clients before you hop on a discovery call with them so that you can focus more on their pain points and all that good stuff. So highly recommend grabbing that, but it's also available to anyone inside of BBA. 

[00:24:59] Meriah: Yes. Tons of value there. And then you don't have to think of what am I gonna ask it's already right there can just really focus on serving your client. 

[00:25:08] Serena: Yeah, absolutely. So next step we have basically our core tech stack for inside of the business, with our clients. So Relay is the bank that we like to hook our clients up on Hubdoc is another tool. And then Xero so those are like our three core tech pieces for executing the bookkeeping for our clients. Which also , even though we're doing a deep dive podcast, I go even, I would say in a more interactive format. I teach all these and how we use it in an overview of this tech stack in a, in a webinar format or a presentation format with slide deck and all that kind of stuff inside of the bookkeeping, this workshops, we dedicate an entire workshop to just talking about this text. So if you have additional questions that come up from this podcast, I would highly encourage you to join the workshops. You could go to BK workshops.online because we'll have an entire day dedicated to this where I will answer whatever questions you have and help you through making the decisions on what tech stack to use. So with that, let's dive into, I guess, Relay. You've used Relay a little bit, haven't you?

[00:26:27] Meriah: Yes. I think Relay is just, you know, it's very rare anymore that you can get the kind of customer support and service that I feel Relay offers. And I think especially, it's not always easy to recommend certain products or certain banks or services or anything anymore nowadays. And as Serena has always said, if we recommend it, we believe in it and we use it and definitely with Relay, you have so many options with accounts that you can have, and they're not just nickling and diming you to death either. They are really there to serve. Not only your benefit as a bookkeeping firm owner, but also for your clients and Serena can kind of unpack those intricacies more, but I highly definitely recommend.

[00:27:21] Serena: Yeah. So Relay technically isn't a bank, it's a financial tech company, which I didn't even really realize until recently I was like, oh, so they're basically just like an interface between you and a bank, but they work with a bank, obviously that's FDIC insured, but the interface that you get is better than what you get with a regular bank. So you can create you can basically create an account in five minutes because we just recently had this happen with a client that we recommended Relay to. And she had it all set up within five minutes, as long as you have all your documents in order. So you have your EIM letter your LLC documents, your driver's license, you can just upload all of it. And your you're set up within a few minutes and then you can also create up to 20 checking accounts. They don't do savings accounts, but that's okay. Cuz literally you can't get any interest on the savings right now. So it doesn't even matter, but you can create up to 20 different bank accounts.

[00:28:27] So for those of you who have clients or yourselves who do the profit first method or envelope budgeting or whatever you wanna call it in your business, you can create separate bank accounts. And probably the best part about Relay that I love is that it has a direct integration with QuickBooks and Xero. So you don't have broken bank feeds and you also have access to the bank statements, so you get a dashboard when you invite your clients in kind of like you have a dashboard for all of your clients in Xero, or all of your clients in QuickBooks that when you log into QuickBooks online accountant, you can see a list of all your clients. Well, Relay has the same thing. So you can toggle between clients and pull their bank statements. You can set it up to automatically push the bank statements to Hubdoc, if you use Hubdoc, or receipt bank or decks or whatever it is. So you can create all these efficiencies and not have to bother your client's bank statements.

[00:29:24] Meriah: Super nice saves you so much. 

[00:29:27] Serena: Yeah. And it's free. So they. Take their money on the use of the debit cards with the merchants. So most banks like to charge you a monthly fee, but Relay doesn't charge you a monthly fee. They get paid by you swiping your card. So they charge your merchant wherever you're buying stuff from that's who gets to pay for your bank accounts.

[00:29:52] Meriah: That works. 

[00:29:53] Serena: So if you ever wonder, like, how are they, how are they even making money? Well, that's how they're making money and they make us. Small a small bit, if you're on their pro account, which includes their bill payment processing and stuff like that. So we are on Pro inside of the Ambitious Bookkeeper. And so we have free ACHs next day, ACHs, all ACHs are free, but if you do the next day, it's free. If you're on Pro and bill pay is free, which is, you know, writing checks and things like that. And that's only $30 a month still. It's still like a really good deal. 

[00:30:30] Meriah: Absolutely. 

[00:30:32] Serena: So yeah, if your clients need a better bank, I highly recommend relay that'll make's sponsored by them. Right. But I do we'll link it in their show notes. Yeah. Okay. So next you wanna talk about hub doctor Xero. 

[00:30:52] Meriah: I will go ahead and grab Hubdoc and then I know how much you love talking about Xero. 

[00:30:58] Serena: We love it so much. We have a whole podcast about it. We'll link it in the show notes. 

[00:31:02] Meriah: Right? Exactly. So Hubdoc is a receipt capturing system that is incredibly hand, especially for those clients that like to have receipts in a shoebox. They can just snap pictures of them and upload them to Hubdoc and then you can get them assigned to the proper categories and places that they need to go. So Hubdoc is incredibly beneficial and useful, especially in the virtual working environment and the virtual space. 

[00:31:39] Serena: Yeah. And it helps automate like the things. We used to do manually. So like looking at an invoice, looking to see what the invoice date is, the amount and the vendor name. Hubdoc extracts all that information for you. And so it makes you so much quicker at what you're doing, because now you're just kind of doing quality assurance check just to make sure they got it right. You're not having to search for that information and go through all of that yourself. And it's very accurate. I've I only have a handful of items that sometimes it won't pick up the amount, but then it's just Xero. And so I just update it. 

[00:32:19] And it has the AI stuff going on. So it remembers what you coded that last invoice to that vendor to, and how you set it up. Like I said, inside BBA, I show you exactly our process with Hubdoc because we have a way that we use it across the board with all clients to stay consistent. So it remembers how we've entered the transactions from last time. And that's a huge deal for us too. Sometimes I take for granted. How awesome the tech is that we have, and forget what it's like to actually like hand key an invoice in. And you forget how much time you're saving until you end up with a client that maybe you don't have a tool like that. And you're like, oh, wow. I'm like hand entering these invoices. Imagine how much time it would take if I was doing this for all my clients. 

[00:33:10] Meriah: Yes. So big time suck. Hubdoc helps you be a ton more efficient. 

[00:33:17] Serena: Yeah. I would say one of my favorite features of Hubdoc is that we just tell our clients to upload everything that they get into Hubdoc. So if it's a tax notice, if it's a bank statement, if it's a receipt, like just send everything to Hubdoc and Hubdoc sorts through it and helps you file it away. 

[00:33:35] I often get asked the question, like why Hubdoc instead of Dext because I use both and first of all Hubdoc is owned by Xero now. So it's free in your Xero subscription. So that helped make the switch a hundred percent to hub doc. But the other reason I really, really prefer it over Dext is that it files the stuff away in the same way that I used to file things when I worked in accounts payable and corporate. So you file things by vendor and it names the file for you. So you don't have to sift through a bunch of stuff, but if. For instance, something comes up where. You need to see all of the bills from just one vendor to see, when was the last time they invoiced us or did we get an invoice from them every month? So you can just pull that file up and see all the invoices from that one vendor in an organized way like you would with a physical paper file, like in the old days in AP. 

[00:34:37] Meriah: Oh yes. 

[00:34:37] Serena: We would have Manila folders for every vendor with, you know, the check stub attached to it that we used to print. Well, now it's all digital, but I just like the way that it files everything and it names, it automatically based on the data it's extracting. So it saves a lot of time in that regard too, because yes, we could create the files that way ourselves. But why, if there's a system that will do it for you? 

[00:35:01] Meriah: Absolutely. why make extra work for yourself when you don't have to? 

[00:35:06] Serena: Yeah. And so that's hub doc. And like I said, we go into that in more detail inside of BBA on how we use that as a process for all of our clients. And the last thing we have on the list, I think we've gone through everything. We have Xero, so... I don't even feel like I should have to. I don't even, I don't even think we should really go into this honestly. There's a whole entire episode about why we are a Xero firm and it's kind of funny. In the last cohort of elevate, I was rewatching the first lesson, because I'm gonna give you guys a sneak peek of what it's like to learn inside of Elevate by giving you access to the first few minutes of one of the lessons. But I was rewatching that lesson and I think it'll be on the, that this part will be on the podcast in a couple weeks. But I basically took a poll of everyone in the room. So there's 20 students in Elevate. I took a poll to see who was on Xero and who was on QBO because I wanted to make sure that I used the system that was most common in the room to teach from. Cuz we do hands on demonstrations. And everyone was on QBO and one person was like, you must know something that we don't. Why you're on Xero and not QBO? And so, yeah, maybe I do know something that a lot of people don't, or don't just don't realize and it, but a lot of it has to do the industry that we, we work on. And also just my preference of a system I I'm used to working in ERP systems that have major controls. Like you can't just delete things and you have to void things once they're posted, and there is a whole function called posting that QBO just doesn't have and it really, it scares me.

[00:36:54] So anyways, that's one of the main reasons why I love Xero, but I just like the functionality of it. It's a beautiful software. And yeah. So if you wanna know why we're a Xero firm, there is an entire episode and we'll link to that in the show notes. It's from earlier on in the podcast, I wanna say. Episode 10 or something like that, but don't quote me on that. I should have looked that up before. But if you just search your podcast player Xero firm, if you're on the ambitious bookkeeper podcast, it should pop up. So with that Mariah, I know that you actually have done some stuff in Xero for me cuz you, you handle a few things. So what would you say is your favorite feature of Xero from a user standpoint? 

[00:37:37] Meriah: I would say this might sound redundant and I apologize, but I think my favorite feature in Xero is hands down their customer service and customer support. When you sign up for Xero, you get like a personal, I wouldn't call it an assistant. Yeah. But what, what's the actual technical term Serena?

[00:37:58] Serena: I think they're just called account managers. So it's technically a sales role, but here's something really cool that I didn't even know about Xero until XeroCon, is that every account manager actually has a background in accounting. So your account manager has either had a bookkeeping firm or has a bookkeeping certificate, or is currently enrolled in an accounting major or has their accounting degree, or has a CPA license. Like they are serious about making sure that your account manager understands what you're trying to achieve. And their help support is amazing, but the account manager is almost like a business partner. Like I talk about my business goals with my account manager. They're trying to help me figure out where I wanna take my firm. So yeah, it's crazy. Like the, how much they pour into their accounting partner. 

[00:38:56] Meriah: Yeah. And the support you get, you just don't find that. So I think the support aspect is huge and they're just, maybe it's a sales role, but it's not, they're not just all about trying to sell you something. It's not that at all. It's not the icky sales it's, how can we support you? How can we, you know, are you struggling with any aspect of the software? How can we make it better for you? How can I help your experience be better? They really, really wanna serve. And I just love that. Yeah. Especially in this day and age, because it's such a lost art and so hard to find.

[00:39:26] So I would say that is one of the big things and also the invoices that you can set them to repeat. Somebody can just pay their invoice by credit card or ACH or whatever when they receive that. And that makes it really nice for the back end of what I do sometimes for on the AB side.

[00:39:45] Serena: Yeah. Awesome. Well, is there any other closing remarks that you have about all of the tech any words of wisdom again, for our listeners? 

[00:39:59] Meriah: oh, words 

[00:40:00] Serena: We can feel overwhelming. It's a lot. 

[00:40:02] Meriah: Yes, it can. I mean, we just, how many, I didn't even count Serena, but we went through quite a list of tech that we use, but. She's counting it up, but truly we would not, we would not be able to function and function well in the virtual environment that we do without all this tech. And how much is how many , how many items of tech? 

[00:40:25] Serena: It's 19 is. 19 that we went through on this episode in the last one, but I, I can almost guarantee that we probably use more tech than what we talked about.

[00:40:38] Meriah: Agreed. Absolutely agreed. 

[00:40:43] Serena: It's a techy world out there. 

[00:40:44] Meriah: It is a techy world. Do you have an, an absolute favorite one that, that tops that just jumps out at you that you love? 

[00:40:53] Serena: You know, I would say. I love Canva. I think that's because it's my like creative brain. Like I love playing around in Canva. So that's one of my favorites. And then I would say on the client side of things. It it would have to be Xero . 

[00:41:19] Meriah: I knew-- 

[00:41:19] Serena: A true accounting nerd. 

[00:41:23] Meriah: I love that. I absolutely love it. 

[00:41:25] Serena: What about you? 

[00:41:27] Meriah: I think my favorite, I really enjoy Notion as much as I really had a hard time with it. And I'm not an expert at it now, even, but I just really like how it can hold so much. Like it's the brain and it can just hold so much material for both businesses and basically everything we do. I would say Notion is pretty amazing. I would say probably for me, Also then Acuity, because I love being able, I love being able to control my schedule and being able to block off where I wanna block off or say, okay, I need 20 minutes, you know, in between this appointment and that appointment and things like that. And I love having the different types of appointments.

[00:42:21] Serena: Yeah. I love that. I love that about Acuity too, because I have definitely guarded my time lately. And I would only be able to do that in the way that I have with a tool like Acuity, because I do have like a group type of appointments that only get appointments on whatever Tuesdays or Thursdays. Right. And that way I just, I just know no, one's gonna be able to schedule with me on certain days and it's just really great to be able to control the calendar that way 

[00:42:52] Meriah: It is. It's nice. 

[00:42:55] Serena: and I get little summary emails every week of like, this is what's coming up this week. So I have like a little email that shows me all of my external meetings at a glance, which is kind of nice. So, yep. 

[00:43:08] Meriah: I get a little email every day at four. I get an email for the next day. oh, 

[00:43:13] Serena: See, you can even customize your alerts. I have mine just said to weekly, 

[00:43:18] Meriah: You can customize all kinds of things. 

[00:43:20] Serena: Yeah. You know, that is one thing, the more your software can do, the more robust it is that higher, the learning curve is going to be, but it's worth it if you want to be able to use, you know, Like Dubsado or Acuity, like, yeah, you can go simpler, but if you need to be able to customize certain things, you're gonna have to just, you can suck it up. 

[00:43:42] Meriah: Absolutely. I think the learning curve yep. Suck it up. And I think the, a key thing to keep in mind is you have to have a growth mindset. You just absolutely have to. It's gonna be hard. You're gonna struggle, but it's gonna grow you. It's gonna be good for your mind. It's gonna be good just for your overall wellbeing to push through and struggle and learn new things. Yes. There is a balance, don't overwhelm yourself and just get totally bogged down, but have a growth mindset and plug into the resources. I know I mentioned this last time, but plug into your resources like Serena, you know, with, with BBA, with the workshops, coming up with the onboarding on autopilot. Plug into the resources and use the gifts that other people have acquired that they wanna pass on and share to you so that you don't have to struggle in the mud so long.

[00:44:38] Serena: Yeah, that's a good point. All right. Well, I think that was great closing remarks. So thank you so much, Mariah, for doing part two of this episode with me, this one definitely was longer. 

[00:44:53] Meriah: I wasn't watching the time. Oh! 

[00:44:56] Serena: But that's okay. So we are going to link lots of things in the show notes on this episode. And just one more little plug for the workshops. If you're newer in business and you need this broken down. A little more, the workshops are for you. If you are further along in business, and you've got all this tech stuff down and maybe something sparked your interest about the CFO day or offering advisory services, I highly encourage you to jump into the next cohort of Elevate. Spots are filling up. We start in October, so, all right, are we good? 

[00:45:33] Meriah: We're good. It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

[00:45:35] Serena: All right. Thank you all. Welcome. It was my pleasure. We'll talk to you later in Slack. 

[00:45:40] Meriah: All right. 

[00:45:41] Serena: Awesome. Bye.

[00:45:43]