Dheeraj Pandey: The Tech Stack Mistakes Firms Keep Making

In this episode of the Canopy Practice Success Podcast, KC Brothers sits down with Dheeraj Pandey, co-founder and CEO of Credfino, a fast-growing firm that supports more than 100 accounting and tax practices across North America.

Dheeraj shares how Credfino started during the pandemic, how they quickly scaled to a 70-person team, and what he sees under the hood of so many accounting firms today. From tool overload to process gaps, to content that misses the mark, he explains the most common mistakes firms make—and how small shifts can create massive efficiencies.

You’ll also hear how top firms are using automation, SOPs, and smarter workflows to handle more volume with better accuracy, plus what Dheeraj believes AI will realistically change over the next five years.

In this episode, we cover:
• How Credfino grew from a startup to a 70-person operation
• The most common software and workflow mistakes firms are making
• Why customer research is the missing ingredient in most accounting firm marketing
• How automations and strong processes help firms scale
• Where AI is headed and how it will reshape accounting roles
• Why every firm needs a clear ICP and consistent marketing effort

If you support clients, run an accounting firm, or manage operations, this conversation is packed with insights you can put to work today.

Follow Dheeraj on LinkinedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pandey-dheeraj/

Website: https://credfino.com/services/hire-offshore-tax-accountant 

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Transcript

KC Brothers (00:01) Welcome to another episode of Canopy Practice Success. I'm your host, KC Brothers, and I'm here with Dheeraj Pandey. Today's guest is the co-founder and CEO of Credfino, where he and his 70-person teams port over 100 accounting and tax firms across North America. Credfino stands out by combining marketing, offshore tax support, and technology consulting to help firms grow and run more efficiently. Dearage is passionate about using tools like Canopy and smart automations to help firms scale and operate like a 24 hour practice. We're excited to dive into his journey and insights today. Welcome, Dearage. Dheeraj Pandey

 (00:45) Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for having me on the podcast. 

KC Brothers (00:50) Yeah. So tell us a little bit about how you found this opportunity. What's your background in? Did you start with outsourcing just yourself? And then you're like, I see. Tell us that story. How did Credfino come to be? 

Dheeraj Pandey (01:07) Yeah, so it's an interesting story. think, you know, we were we were hit by covid around 2020 2021 and everybody was working from home and you know, we were me and my co founder were ⁓ were quite entrepreneurial in nature. So we were always discussing business ideas. My wife actually used to work for a CPA firm and helped and helped them on the marketing side and We just spoke to the CPA firm. said, okay, you you guys do good marketing for us. Why don't you go ahead and do the stopping piece? And I said, okay, you know, so both me and my co-founders, we are more on marketing strategy, operations side. We were not really accountants. So we brought a third co-founder on board. And so from there, our journey started. We had a client for us in 2020, 2021. And so that's how we started CRETFINO. ⁓ grew very organically initially, would say, ⁓ built a really deep connection and relationship with the first firm that we had learned a lot from that experience. And now as you introduced, we are ⁓ a decent sized firm and servicing the entire North American market with really high quality services. 

KC Brothers (02:30) ⁓ You have made the leap that I've wanted to make. So I'm no CPA either. I'm no accountant, but I interview so many people like yourself, other ⁓ operationally minded CPAs or consultants. And then I also see the trends in the market. I'm like, shoot, I should just start an accounting firm. I know enough about all of the non-accounting stuff to get the business up and running. I could do this, but it scares the crap out of me. ⁓ So good for you! That is so awesome! 

Dheeraj Pandey (03:00) It's scary. 

KC Brothers (03:05) ⁓ So you started that without the CPA experience, brought on someone. ⁓ How long did it take you guys to get to the point where you're at, where you've got 70 people ⁓ supporting the amount of firms that you're supporting? 

Dheeraj Pandey (03:20) So it took us about four and a half, five years to reach here. And we've seen good year on year growth and we are kind of ready for the next phase of growth with the kind of changes that are coming towards the industry. 

KC Brothers (03:26) Awesome. Okay, awesome. It's funny how we found you too to set up this interview for the podcast because someone at your firm was posting things on LinkedIn and tagging us. Do you remember who that was? 

Dheeraj Pandey (03:55) Yeah, it's number 10. She's a partner in a firm actually. 

KC Brothers (03:59) Okay, okay. ⁓ And we were like, who is this? We were thrilled to see someone making such ⁓ flattering comments about Canopy, but then we even dug into our customer day like, they're not a customer, who are they? And then we found out about your firm and your business model, and by supporting so many accounting and tax firms across North America, you have to deal with a variety of... 

Dheeraj Pandey (04:02) Yeah. Cutting. 

KC Brothers (04:34) So tell us a little bit about what you see. You get to get under the hood of so many firms. What are some of the most common mistakes that firms make that you're like, let me just fix this one thing and you will be a much happier human being? 

Dheeraj Pandey (04:58) And I think that's a great question. Firstly, I think one of the mistakes that people do sometimes is they don't really, I would say, understand or deep dive into the requirements they have and they select a software based on how they would probably meet somebody in a networking event and they would say great things about the product and they go ahead and. 

KC Brothers (05:16) Mm. 

Dheeraj Pandey (05:26) say that looks good, let's go ahead with it. And then ⁓ they realize that their style of working and the kind of practice that they have across accounting and bookkeeping and tax, the tool is not working the way they want it to be. So that's one mistake which I've kind of seen people do a lot. They've got sold on a product without their independent vetting or really looking at what is it that they really want and then they're stuck with the... with the tool and this is not just about I would say the practice management side. This is across the other tools, know, the tax tools, the filing tools that people use as well. We've heard it many, many times, you know, from our clients and switching is a big problem. People find it very hard to switch, especially from the tax filing tool. And we come across every day with clients who who want to switch but they cannot because it's just, you know, they've worked on it for a couple of years and it's so hard for them to make the transition. The other mistake which I see a lot of firm owners do is bring on more tools wherein the existing tool itself can do a lot of the stuff that they want. So they've not really explored the tool in its entirety and they are, you know, plugging in more tools on top of that, layering more tools on top of the current tool that they have which has more capabilities and they're not really exploring ⁓ it to its fullest potential. So these are a couple of mistakes that we've seen clients make. course, given that we work in a very deeply integrated way with our clients, that's a USB out of a phone, we get to go under the hood of so many practice management and other software that we have these discussions extensively and we know that firsthand that this is a challenge. These are the challenges that are the clients that work with us face. 

KC Brothers (07:31) Yeah, you know, it's funny. A lot of this is not unique to accounting firms. I've seen this in my own career as well. Vetting software is not easy. ⁓ Keeping track of who does what and even taking the time. I think maybe the trickiest thing about accounting that I haven't experienced in my career is the seasonal aspect that it's always going to be hard to slow down, to speed up. It's always going to be hard to set aside time. to think through, what are my pains when it comes to my software ⁓ before vetting software? ⁓ But I feel like that's amplified in accounting ⁓ based on deadlines, whether that's tax season or even like end of month with bookkeeping. ⁓ It's just hard to see that, to make the time to do those sorts of things, but it pays off in the end. ⁓ With that said, what are some of the most innovative ⁓ behaviors or choices that you've seen some firms make? 

Dheeraj Pandey (08:40) So I think a lot of forms are very tech savvy now. We've seen forms use custom automations, wherein they are connecting different tools and pushing data between different tools. For example, a client that we worked with, we actually set up a couple of automations for them. Things like, you know, sending data when a lead comes in on the calendar from Calendly. We used to take the data and use make and push the data into Canopy so that nobody is actually going ahead and creating new client records and mark that the data when it goes into Canopy, the client record is inactive when you actually go to the EL stage ⁓ in Canopy. You can mark the client as active and ⁓ that's how you start with the engagement and it also keeps our overall. client count low because, know, canopy prices on the number of active clients that you have. So we solved that those two problems through a custom automation. Now maybe, you know, some client would have used a tool, brought in a new tool to solve for that, but some minor automations or small automations help. The other thing which I've seen extensively is the use of a proper process-driven approach when you are implementing a workflow. ⁓ Very, very ⁓ important if you have ⁓ strong SOPs in place and if you have teams really working through the entire workflow ⁓ with a senior member allocating work, a junior member executing work, and you getting together, meeting, and having an agenda on a monthly basis or quarterly basis to review your processes and improve. the way that you are setting up the work when the team, your team is using it, that's in itself, I think, very innovative, I would say, because right now the tools exist in this, like exist, the technology exists. It's also a lot about adoption, and it's also a lot about proper usage of the tool, which I think lacks in some forms, but a lot of forms that do that well, they do it exceptionally well. So for example, a couple of firms, do 10,000 returns, 15,000 returns and they use Canopy. So they've really championed the workflow part of it. And that's why they've been able to do that amount of work, that volume of return. Whereas a lot of firms kind of struggle with being able to do volume-based work because it's very hard to have that kind of a process championed and set up. 

KC Brothers (11:28) Yeah. I love that you mentioned some processes too, or even in-person things. Your tech stack is only one element of your operational success at your firm. There are all of these things that happen outside of it. The coordination, the ⁓ buy-in from a variety of people across the typical usage of softwares of like, yes, we want to use this. But yeah, even just like getting to the other end. having annual reviews of your processes. I love that you mentioned that. I feel like that's an opportunity that isn't often utilized. 

Dheeraj Pandey (12:12) I agree. 

KC Brothers (12:14) Um, yeah. So talk to us a little bit. You, do a lot with tech, with the operations, but your background, like you said, is in marketing, right? 

Dheeraj Pandey (12:29) My background is mixed background actually. I've spent a lot of time. I started my career actually as a software engineer. So I'm a software engineer. Then I did my MBA in finance and I was working in finance roles for a couple of years, FP &A strategy and planning roles. And then I moved into investment banking. 

KC Brothers (12:34) Okay. 

Dheeraj Pandey (12:54) and I was heading the investment banking operations of a boutique, French Investment Bank, the last job that I had. And as I was telling you, my wife was working on the marketing side for the CPA firm. So I was kind of, you know, dipping my feet into marketing as well. Yeah, so it's a mixed experience. I've done program management, I've done financial planning and analysis, I've done strategy and planning, I've done marketing. 

KC Brothers (13:08) That's what it was. Yeah. Okay. 

Dheeraj Pandey (13:22) Right now, one of the rules that I need is marketing. So it's a mixed bag, kind of an overall experience that I have. And I think that also, that along with my tech background, helps, gives me that advantage to be able to look at problems holistically and solve those problems for the clients that we have. 

KC Brothers (13:42) Yes, it's a completely different ⁓ worldview almost, the way you approach the problems that an accounting firm might come to you with. Thank you for reminding me that it was your wife that had the marketing experience. I brought that up because, and I love, you guys must be quite the power couple. You guys compliment each other so well with you and your various experiences, programming. ⁓ 

Dheeraj Pandey (13:48) Alright. Thank you. 

KC Brothers (14:09) Finance, investment banking, you're very much more of that. I feel like you probably jive well with the accountants, with the partners. And then your wife with the marketing. Accounting firms are not traditionally good at marketing. Talk to us about what the opportunity was that you saw there and what you started offering with marketing. 

Dheeraj Pandey (14:37) Yeah, so I think that's a really, really good question. And I can really jump deep into this one ⁓ because I am a fractional CMO for a lot of accounting firms and CFO firms, know, tax advising firms, et cetera. One of the challenges that I see is that accountants don't really do good customer research and ⁓ they jump into the content piece. and then they execute on it and then they don't get results. And it all stems from the fact that the customer research was never done in a proper way. You've not segmented your audiences, you've not looked at the customer journey, you've not looked at their buying journey, your content is not aligned on that path. And ⁓ you go ahead and start posting content with the wish that it gets results. It doesn't and then a lot of 

Dheeraj Pandey (15:49) takes time for, it takes good amount of research and time for you to test what's working, what's not working and looking at the buyer journey and enabling the buyers across the entire journey with the right kind of content for them to ⁓ convert. That's one problem which I've seen extensively across all the firms that I work with and we actively solve. ⁓ for that. lot of firms, the other problem is a lot of firms come to us with preconceived notion on what works and what not works and what does not work. Some firms come to us that, you know, we want to do Facebook ads and then we ask them, but why do you want to do Facebook ads? And they will say that, you know, I think it will be successful. So they come with preconceived notions. They don't really think through. They don't, sometimes they also make mismatch. There's a mismatch in their expectation versus their stage versus the channel which will get them the results. For example, if you are a young firm, you need leads in the short run. There's a different approach that you will need to follow. ⁓ If ⁓ you need to go to friends and family, you need to go to networking events, start to build your social profile, ⁓ build referral partners, ⁓ message a lot of folks so that you can talk to them and get your first couple of clients versus when you are an established firm, you have the leeway to really place the entire customer journey, launch a long-term content ⁓ plan, and optimize it for long-term brand building and conversion. So this is, a very typical mistake that I have seen is that this There's a mismatch in the expectation versus the stage versus the approach that accounting firms follow when it comes to ⁓ marketing. Marketing also is very rapidly changing with the AI overviews and the LLMs that have come in. We see that accountants are really behind on these things. This is something that my firm is also very actively solving on. Accountants right now are using a lot of AI for producing their content, which is very clearly visible. people right now are looking for authenticity. And authenticity is what's catching attention rather than generic content, which is AI written and ⁓ clearly identifiable. So that differentiation also is very important. And ⁓ accounting firms that you work with, we kind of help them ⁓ on that part as well. So yeah, this is, would say some of the things that there's a lot of opportunity with content, if accountants do good customer research and they have a good, I would say, know, content aligned with that, with the buying journey, it can yield results. ⁓ They just need to test experiment and understand what's working, what's not working. 

KC Brothers (18:42) Yes. Yes. my goodness. For those of you who are just listening, you can't see me furiously nodding my head as Diraj went through all of that. with, so Diraj is in India and I'm in Utah. And so there's a slight delay and I was just like, put me in coach, put me in coach. want to, cause Diraj, just hit so many key points when it comes to marketing. And before I say a couple of things, because the marketing wants to share all of the things that I've learned too. Why? Do accounting firms need to market themselves? Why do they need to have a marketing effort or even a hire? 

Dheeraj Pandey (19:47) Yeah, so multiple reasons. think if you need ⁓ whatever your approach is, whether you are relying on, ⁓ you know, referrals or local SEO, these two things we've seen, you know, consistently work really well for accountants, you need a consistent and a dedicated effort around it so that, ⁓ you know, you can grow your business if that's the aspiration. ⁓ Secondly, you will have churn from your existing clients. So you need ⁓ new sources for you to be able to ⁓ get new clients. even if that source is reference or local SEO, you need a dedicated effort. You need time. And the way most small firms operate, and I would talk more about smaller firms because the bigger firms, they generally have found a way. Right now, a lot of growth is also driven through acquisitions. So a lot of firms are growing through that, but generally smaller firms, struggle with marketing because they are still doing a lot of work themselves. So that's where I think streamlining and optimizing your firm and finding the time to have a dedicated effort and budget on marketing with a long-term view is very important. You cannot have a three, four, five months view on marketing and think that it's going to work. You need to be at it. ⁓ And then you need to double down on things that are working for you. And you need to have somebody who runs it with you, for you, you do, you that's for you to like, that's where the accounting comes to choose. But, ⁓ you know, whatever, whatever you find that's working for you, you need to continue doing that so that you can basically get new clients as your existing clients have. I would say that there are lot of forms which have a different approach around marketing. are forms like Little Fish, example, Keela. ⁓ I follow her content and she wants, she's basically content with the kind of form that she's built, know, small form. She wants her form to be at a specific threshold and have, I would say, good work-life balance and good life. And I think in that situation, when you're not really I would say very growth oriented. ⁓ You want balance. Then also, think personal branding and ⁓ having references is important and having a process wherein ⁓ you can sustain the current amount of work that you have. And then also, you can basically choose the kind of clients that you want to bring on board in a very good way. That's also very important irrespective of what size of the firm you are. ⁓ especially in this small and medium ⁓ accounting firm space, ⁓ you need to have a dedicated marketing approach. And ⁓ as I explained, you can make it work. just about ⁓ finding the time and dedicating some effort with a long-term view for building it as a success pillar for your business growth. 

KC Brothers (22:48) Yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So few things I do want to hit on. I wanted to ask you that question first before I offered anything ⁓ because I know it's not typical of an accounting firm to market. There are fewer accountants than there is demand. ⁓ And so for the most part, it's not hard for an accountant to find work or for work to come to them. But the thing that I see coming from people like yourself in the industry is like, but are these the right clients? ⁓ There's a push to evaluate ⁓ the efficiency of your firm when you're a generalist, as well as the work-life satisfaction when you're a generalist. Opportunities really do start to open the more you do. niche down and become an expert. ⁓ I'd even say I had this thought while you were talking that we've also talked a lot on the podcast about operations individuals. If you're small, have one person who splits their time between operations and marketing, a non-CPA individual. Like these are two really crucial behaviors. And the reason why I say they could be owned by the same person too is because they both care about 

Dheeraj Pandey (24:19) 

Thank KC Brothers (24:30) ICP. They both care about the specific characteristics of the type of client that you want to serve as a firm. Now, to your point, you also talked about AI and creating content. AI is creating content is one of the first and most used probably use cases of AI because it's easy, but to your point, it's also not authentic. It's not, but you didn't use that word, used a different word. I'm trying to remember what you said, but with content too, the thing I wanted to... 

Dheeraj Pandey (25:05) genuine maybe authentic 

KC Brothers (25:11) Say that again. 

Dheeraj Pandey (25:13) ⁓ I must have said genuine or authentic. I think either of these two words. 

KC Brothers (25:19) Okay, yeah. You can use AI to ⁓ speed up a lot of your marketing processes without sacrificing the authenticity or the genuineness because it's not necessarily about the volume of content, but the ways in which you use it. And you also said the word long-term, which I was really glad you said because marketing really is the long game. test stuff a lot and then you tweak and you tweak and you tweak. ⁓ But then there's also just the long game of getting to brand awareness too. And that is so much more easily done when you have an ICP or just a limited number of ICPs and you're not a generalist. It makes marketing easier. It makes your operations easier. And I feel like because of that, it's just going to make you a more profitable firm too. ⁓ So our last question, Diraj, where do you see the future of accounting operations heading over the next five years? 

Dheeraj Pandey (26:36) that's an interesting one. ⁓ think a lot of it ⁓ is going to be AI driven and tech driven. ⁓ Right now, I see that the adoption is not as much as we perceived it to be. Last year, I would say there was a lot of talk of AI. And in one year, AI is starting to do like like a lot of the work, but when people are actually testing the tools, ⁓ they are finding that, you know, it's doing good, but it's not to the level that they would want it to be, especially when it comes to, I would say, the tools that already exist in the market that are market leaders, ⁓ because they've already built an infrastructure around their core product. It's not so easy to embed AI and kind of for people to use it and adopt it at large. A lot of our clients, ⁓ they're still kind of reviewing the AI tools. And ⁓ I'm not talking about the chat GPT of the world, of course. I'm more talking about AI that is either native to the products that accountants use, be it QBO, et cetera, or the new tools that are coming up which kind of sit on top of the the code tax or accounting product like ultra tax or code books and work with that. ⁓ So in either of these cases we are seeing adoption but we are not seeing the adoption we're not seeing adoption at a pace at which we would want. ⁓ I think in five years there is going to be pricing pressure because of AI and there is going to be a much larger adoption with much more mature models than exist, than those exist today. In five years for sure, whatever work a staff is able to do now, they will be able to do much more. If a person can do hypothetically X volumes in a month, they can do double or triple of that number for sure. ⁓ The pricing, I think, would have pressure because it's going to be easier to do stuff and people will understand that a lot of the work is getting done through tech. So there is going to be that pressure. And ⁓ I think the lower roles, like the bookkeeping roles or ⁓ the tax prep roles, the simplest of stuff, of course, is what I'm talking about. those roles will have a lot of challenge from technology. ⁓ The upper roles, which is, for example, human in loop, AI products, when your person needs to actually review the work of the work that's been done by AI, those roles will continue to exist. Advisory roles will continue to exist. ⁓ I don't think that the bookkeeping and taxpayer roles will go away, but there will be a lot of pressure on those roles ⁓ with a good amount of adoption. and ⁓ pricing pressure on that nature of work. 

KC Brothers (30:05) Yeah, I couldn't agree more particularly to what you said about the more entry-level roles. That will be a really interesting thing to watch and see how firms still train entry-level talent while still utilizing the efficiencies of tech. Anyway, Deeraj, it has been great to chat with you. Thank you so much for your kind words that you've said about Canopy. We are thrilled to be a great provider in the space for you and other firms to utilize. 

Dheeraj Pandey (30:42) Thank you. Yeah, we are really happy that a lot of our clients use Canopy and it makes our life easier as well. And we look forward to working more closely with you guys and seeing how the product evolves.