The Unstoppable Accountant - Grow your Accounting Firm

Tools & Technology for Accountants: How we do it

• Arun Mehra

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In this episode, Arun and Chris look at how Samera use, implement and adapt to changing tools and technologies. 

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Hello everyone, welcome to well, welcome back to the Unstoppable podcast. Today we're going to be talking about tools and technology in your accounting firm, and again I'm joined by Aaron. Hello, aaron.

Speaker 1:

Hey Chris, how you doing mate.

Speaker 2:

Not too bad at all, right. So technology, I mean it's changing everything in every asset of every I I mean not just business everyone's lives, um, is that good? Is that good though?

Speaker 2:

well, that's, that's probably another, uh, another episode, okay all right the ethics of uh technology, but I mean just to kind of explain. So my dad is a spark, a self-employed that's electrician for non-UK audiences, and I grew up and still to this day actually, I remember a few months ago saying this, but once a month he'll sit down with all his receipts, all his papers, and he'll get them together to send them off to his accountant. And it's not something we've ever really seen us do in Samara, either Samara Global or Samara Dental. We've always been very technology minded how can we make it better? How can we use it to make things easier? So, just as a quick overview, since you started, um, samara dental, how's technology changed things?

Speaker 1:

yeah, so I remember the very first client that we I got in the firm, starting over over 20 odd years ago, and my heart sank, okay, because a box of papers arrived in my offices and I thought, oh my god, what have I got myself into? Okay, and and therefore I thought I have no idea what to do here. I don't really want to go through all these records, it's not really what I'm accustomed to. So the first thing I had to do is go and hire someone and join my team.

Speaker 1:

Luckily, I found someone who joined my team and he could piece it all together yeah but from that moment onwards I realized that, um, paper records and all that type of stuff were not really what I wanted to where I wanted to take this. We had to use technology to be smart. Um, not just because I had a sinking feeling when I ever received a box of papers, which is probably part of the reason, but I think we could streamline things, not just for ourselves but also for our clients, and ultimately make things more efficient for them, and if they're more efficient, they run a better business, we run a better firm, they're happier, they might pay lower costs as a result of it. It's a win-win, okay.

Speaker 1:

So technology has changed massively in the accountancy space. As I said, from boxes of papers to now where clients are now either scanning documents or documents are coming directly from suppliers into various types of software such as HubDoc or Dext or something, and then it can even be posted automatically, with certain rules set up, into Xero or QuickBooks with just someone just reviewing it. And it won't be long now where AI will even do much of that. So it's evolving. Now lots of people saying well, if technology is evolving so quickly, will there be any jobs for accountants? Well, they'll still need to be people. Okay, people still need to review what the technology is doing and then, and ultimately, people will move up the value chain where they can offer more. If technology is doing a lot of the number crunching, those people need to develop their skills, become better communicators, better business advisors, that type of thing. So I think that's happening. That will happen over the next few years too yeah, that's um.

Speaker 2:

One of the articles we uh published actually quite recently, was about how the account of the future may well need to, in their heads, realize they need to move from number cruncher to advisory. Um, it's not just going to be. I mean, like you said, technology ai is going to do so many things that were bread and butter 20 years ago, the little bread and butter two years ago, chris no, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah and that's about one year ago and suddenly, like technology is just ai, for instance, just changed it completely.

Speaker 1:

You see that in the marketing space, don't you?

Speaker 2:

oh yeah, absolutely like. Ai isn't going to destroy jobs, it's going to alienate the people who won't evolve with it. It's going to make so many things easier, as long as you understand the roles are going to change. So me, as a marketer, like you said, seo, search engine optimization is my bread and butter and AI isn't going to kill it, but it's going to make it a lot easier. So I'm going to have to develop and kind of realign what like the value I can add. Um, because a lot of the knowledge I have, chat gpt will be able to do. Um, it probably can at the moment and I just haven't found the plug-in yet. Um. So yeah, we, I mean technology doesn't. It's not gonna destroy jobs, it's gonna evolve them and people. Everyone needs to evolve with it.

Speaker 1:

Um yeah, totally a great example. This is a fun example. But the other day I was talking to my son, who's 19 and he's at university and I said okay, so what do you cook? Okay, he's cooking. He said what have I've got in the fridge? I said what do you? How do you? How do you, how do you get your recipes? He says I write into chat gpt said what have I got in the fridge? I said how do you get your recipes? He says I write into chat GPT. This is what I've got in my fridge. Can you give me a recipe to make it? And suddenly, within seconds, he's got a recipe to make some type of thing with it and what he needs and what if he doesn't have it. But it's all there. So this is what technology can do.

Speaker 2:

He has five items and before you know it he's got a nice, lovely meal made for me. I did exactly the same thing a few weeks ago, my wife said right, we've got these things in the fridge. They're about to expire. What should I do with them? We said let's just ask Chachi. We said we've got this.

Speaker 1:

we've got this we options and I think we made, uh um, egg muffins, yeah, um, yeah, I mean, it's incredible, something you wouldn't have tried, perhaps otherwise is it so?

Speaker 1:

that's the thing. So that's where technology it can. It can open your eyes up to other ways of thinking and speed up processes. So therefore, you as a human being can then start thinking of other things. And ultimately, ai will never replace a human, there's no doubt about it, will never replace humans brighter, smarter, faster, but and will evolve. But we can use ai to to support us yeah.

Speaker 2:

So would you say those were kind of the key drivers behind, because, again, we've never shied away from technology. Um, anytime something pops up, we give it a go. We give it a go. Yeah, would you say, like kind of just not being left behind because things are going to pick up. Um other people will make these technologies work for them, so you do not want to get left behind by that I, I totally agree.

Speaker 1:

But one thing I've noticed in the accounting space is so much out there, so many apps, so many, and so many seem to be doing the same thing as others, and how do you kind of choose one from another? And sometimes you don't really know, and it's perhaps one that comes first to market or second to market. The ones are going to be the winners and everyone else who's trying to follow suit afterwards are going to struggle to yeah to win it, to win any market share.

Speaker 1:

So it's just a interesting space at the moment. The technology side, particularly in the accounting space, we actually these be.

Speaker 2:

Quite well onto my next question, which is going to be what criteria do we use when, say, um new, well, any new technology comes out? What kind of criteria do you use to decide which ones you're going to go for? Is it price, is it um usability, is it customer support, word of mouth?

Speaker 1:

I think, honestly, I, I don't think, I don't think it's any of those. Honestly, what will happen? A great example is some community software that we've been trying to evolve. You know, this is a great example, not just accounting, a community related software. We've been trying different options over the last few months. You pay the subscription, you start using it and you realize, god, it's not right for me, and then you cancel it.

Speaker 1:

Then you do another one. Okay, you use that one, you try that, you cancel it and you try another one. So it's trial and error and what fits right for you. Now, sometimes you might get some and you can read online and see all the blog posts and talk to other colleagues in the sectors and what they're doing. But ultimately but I would many years ago I'd be thinking, oh, my God, I've got to pay another subscription, okay, to try this out, and it might not work.

Speaker 1:

I'm completely the other way now. I think, right, that's a new piece of software. I haven't seen that before. Let me try it out for two or three months. If it's going to work, yes, fantastic. If it doesn't, okay, I've learned, I've eliminated it. Okay, so I would encourage people to actually try these things. Okay, um, get the demos, try them out, see if it works for you. If it doesn't knock it on the head, move on. Don't take a year subscription. Do the monthly one. Okay, it's a bit more expensive each time, but, um, at least you'll then know whether it's the right product for you yeah, can you think of any um specific examples?

Speaker 2:

we don't really have to go too much into brand names, challenges, failures what have we encountered in the past, either for global or for Samara Dental, where we tried implementing a new platform or a new technology and it either didn't work or they're just challenges we had to overcome.

Speaker 1:

One comes to memory actually in the last three or four years yeah I won't mention the name, but it was a practice management related software and and it it was a good price, don't get me wrong. And so it was like very attractive, or let's try this out, um, and we implemented it, but it just didn't have the support, and that was. That was the problem. You, you put everything into it and you did it all, but then, when there was a failure at some point, there was no one to really support you. So how do I fix this? Or how do I get around it? And it was just. It proved to be very time consuming, um, and costly exercise, and I realized you know what um? That's why it was cheap, yeah, um. So don't think about price isn't important. Go for something that you think has got the staying power and the support structure behind it.

Speaker 2:

You know, from the marketing side one that leads to my mind, just because it amused me was for our dental practices. We tried to implement a chatbot on the website the website and things were going wrong, and again it was a problem with customer support. Um, I went onto their website, got onto their chatbot and their chatbot didn't work. It was awful and we realized instantly well, if their own chatbot doesn't work on their website, their chatbot's not going to work on ours so we knocked that straight away.

Speaker 2:

That just always amused me, that they couldn't even get their own one to work um.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, customer support is a.

Speaker 2:

It's something I think people really kind of overlook, um especially in the tech space.

Speaker 1:

The tech space is so important because tech is always changing and people need that help. Yeah, and you need that support though.

Speaker 2:

You really need it yeah, and with good customer support, I mean, you'll forgive a lot of issues if someone can help you solve them. Sure, easily, swiftly and well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, correct.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, people focus on price, they focus on usability, but customer support is so important. It's really something I don't think people really think about a lot, sure, sure. So what about successes? Um, uh, technology we implemented either in the practices, in the um accountancy, that really worked well and kind of changed the game for us on the accounting side, I think one.

Speaker 1:

There's a software that we use called ignition. Okay, and that's been a real game changer for our firm, because you can collect payments in advance. You send the engagement letter, you collect payments in advance before you even do the work. So the debt to days, or debt, any outstanding debt from clients, is virtually zero or zero um. So you've eliminated a, an overhead straight away or a credit controller having to chase up money, um, so those types of things have been really. That's been as an example off the top of my head, I think. Um, what else has been really good up? Well, the marketing side.

Speaker 2:

You you'll probably think of something that's good on the marketing side some good software, what's I mean there's loads of um little ones we've used that I mean help me literally on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, so we'll be going into content creation and digital marketing in a few, in a few uh episodes, but so we'll cover them. But things like I mean canva, yeah, I use it every single day. Um, it's essentially a free um graphic design, uh product, uh platform. Now, as aaron will tell you quite happily, I'm not great at um graphic design, yeah, but canva I'm really not um, but canva helps a lot, um, and I use it all the time. Um, I mean chat gpt couldn't be more useful for um content. Um, not for creating it, but for planning things, um for ideas, for brainstorming. Um, yeah, there's so many plugins on there I mean on our website, things like search engine optimization plugins that kind of give you checklists of things to look for. Yeah, I mean you literally couldn't do digital marketing without it.

Speaker 1:

You think about it. There's so many aren't there. We use so much technology.

Speaker 1:

Now I know that's kind of why I was dreading this episode, because we could be here for hours talking about technology we use because I mean, when was the last time we wrote anything on a bit of paper other than our strategy meetings, when we're just making a brain? But it highlights to me what we could do and, I think, what we'll do. After this podcast, we will actually put a list of all the kind of apps and workflows that we use. I think that would be quite helpful for people, so let's do that.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, there is um, we do have a tech stack on the blog that does list a lot of the technology and the apps and the platforms we use. But yeah, we do need to update that because there are ones we've taken on in the last few months that we really need to update. So I'd recommend people go and have a look at that because it does kind of give a good list of the stuff we use literally on a day-to-day basis.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Okay, cool, good list of the stuff we use literally on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, yeah, okay cool. I mean, again, for me, what's most important when I'm looking for new technology is, I think, yeah, it's. I mean, price isn't a massive one, because as long as it works, it'll pay for itself, um, and if it's not paying for itself, you probably didn't need it to begin with, correct, um. So for me, it really is things like customer support and usability. I don't want to have to go on a course or have a three-week onboarding process to be able to use something, and if something does go wrong, I want it fixed quickly by talking to someone, not having to go on to a knowledge bank yeah, like microsoft's one, they're not that great that you have to ask. Like google's, you ask a question, it asks you another question. You ask question, then it gives you a 200 words article and it says was this helpful? Um, I know how big google is, but you really want to talk to someone who knows, who can just explain.

Speaker 1:

Right, this is what you need to do that's the bottom line, but you're on the phone and talk to someone, isn't it exactly?

Speaker 2:

we're old school. Yeah, sometimes the bigger ones don't have the capacity to do that they don't want to do it.

Speaker 2:

They don't want to, they're not interested, they don't need to but, yeah, I think the best for me, personally, the best technologies I've used have always had a personal customer support. Um, yeah, I mean for big ones, there's always going to be someone on YouTube who's had the same problem who'll explain how to fix it, but they're not always going to have the exact problem you do. So, yeah, I think customer support is probably the biggest, one of the biggest factors for me in determining what technology I want to go with. So, when it comes to implementing things, it's not always a one-size-fits-all um. So you get customization, integration, um. So how do we really do that? Do we look again, do we look, for smaller companies that can um build things bespoke for us? Um, how much we rely on our um developer alex to integrate things?

Speaker 1:

um, I think yeah, I think we don't look for custom built stuff outside of the firm. It's just too that's too expensive, to be honest with you. But, as you said, we have an in-house team member, alex, who's our kind of developer who develops a lot of the stuff for us, who's it's actually very helpful to have that. Um. We also rely on kind of technology like zapier, which helps automate many things, connects different systems together. Um, and alex, you're also other people quite familiar with it, so it's actually quite good to put it all together. Um, so I think that's important, um, but I wouldn't go cut, so I'd look at using different systems and seeing how we can piece them together using connectors like zapier yeah, okay, when we do implement new things, how do we go about training?

Speaker 2:

um, because I mean personally on the marketing side, it's usually you and me who find these things, and then we kind of learn by doing, because quite often they've got a free version. You play around with it, you see how well it works, you find out what the paid one's going to be and whether you need that. But with things like the accounting software, how do we go about the training side of things? Do we essentially rely on the training provided by these companies and then get used to it? Yeah, we have to.

Speaker 1:

If you look at the wider team, of course we rely on their training, that they support, and they have training support packages and people to do it. But I know just the best way to learn is just on the job. Just do it. I know that myself and I would encourage other people just to play around with things. And like last night, as I said to you earlier, we were using one platform for community building and I'm trying to test out another one. I spent a good few hours on it last night. I thought, oh my goodness, this new one's. It's really good, it's interesting. It doesn't have all the features of the other one, but it's better in other ways. You know what that might be a better option.

Speaker 1:

So then, when you and me then had a chat this morning with the other team members, and lo and behold, we've kind of done a U-turn. I'm going to try something else. Hopefully it'll be right for us, but you've got to be willing to experiment. As I said in previous podcasts, it's all about test, test. Let's try the software, let's give it a go, okay, yeah, the worst thing it could be is is no. Okay, then we've. We spent, wasted a bit of money and a bit of time, but or at least we've eliminated something that's saying that it didn't doesn't work for us yeah, um, and what about?

Speaker 2:

so I mean, have you got any tips, um, or things you've learned over the last god knows how many years? Um, in smooth transitions, like especially when there's somebody who's been using the same program or the same process for a long time. They don't want to change, they don't trust these newfangled technologies. How do you really get the team on board with a change in technology? Yeah, but get rid of them, cool.

Speaker 1:

Next question yeah, yeah, sorry, joke, joke, joke. Seriously. Seriously, what we do is it is a change management issue, yeah, and it's about getting people's buy-in, so it's getting them earlier into the process. Have a look at this, give it a go, see what you think. Now, some people are more receptive to that.

Speaker 1:

Others are more um kind of hesitant but as long as you get one or two sponsors of the software or change who think, oh, actually this is quite good, you then kind of make them the kind of champions who then can support and roll it out to other people and support other people. So I think there will always be a different learning curve for different people and different desire to learn and change but, ultimately, you've got to drive it through um.

Speaker 1:

At some point you're going to say, well, we can run both in parallel for a period of time, but eventually, on this date, it's going to be cut off and you're not going to have access to the old thing. So you've got to be quite um clear about that as well yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

It's about really communicating the again like talking a lot a couple episodes ago. It's about communicating that vision, um, and the goals to the team, making sure they're on board um. So how do we measure how well it's going um? Is it how much the price got caught, got cut? Is it how much um the client clients are? Is it how much the clients are happy? Is it whether it's sped up processes, a combination of all?

Speaker 1:

I think it has to be a combination.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what's most important to you.

Speaker 1:

I think it has to be a combination of efficiency. Drives the delivery things being done quicker, are we saving money? Are the team happier, so they're less stressed with stuff? Okay, because the technology's doing, making jobs easier for them. So you've got to look at a variety of factors. Um, it's not just one, one kpi, it's a numerous one, some softer one. The softer ones are usually more important because if it saves people heartache and headache and stress, therefore then that they have a better, they enjoy their job more than they can do other things as well, so that that, to me, is really important as well.

Speaker 2:

I think it's a combination of that with driving efficiency through yeah, that's another reason it's really important to not just get the team on board, but to get the feedback from them, because you can't just implement a new technology and walk away from it and expect them to just carry on with it. You need to understand how it's working. Whether it's working um, what impact it's having. Is there another technology that could do things even better? Um, did we make a mistake? Should we go back to the old uh process or platform? Um?

Speaker 1:

so yeah, I think just recently we had a implemented some new kind of document management system in the accounting side of the business and all bells and whistles. It looks great, and one or two members were like, yeah, let's do it, it's going to go from. We implemented it and then suddenly other team members oh my god, it hasn't got, this hasn't got that. What do here? But slowly but surely we're answering all these questions and, to be fair to the company that sells the software, they've been very patient and supporting and trying to help and get it all right and slowly but surely the team members are becoming more convinced. Are they fully convinced yet? No, probably not. They'll take time, but it's a change managing issue. But my, my view is that we but we took this decision.

Speaker 2:

It certainly improved for certain things we just need to have a few workarounds for the other things, so I think that was a good choice in that respect. Okay, would you say, um, the overall strategy of samara and samara global have changed at all over the last 20 odd years, or has it always been kind of forefront technology? Let's test things when they're available, let's try and change the game.

Speaker 1:

I think we've always been about testing technology, but I think if I had to look historically, I'll be brutally honest with you. When I started out, I was quite young and naive and I thought it's all about technology first okay.

Speaker 1:

Now, if I look at it, I'd say technology. Second, I'd say people. First, hear what the people want, what they need. How's technology going to solve their problems, rather than try and impose technology onto people. Understand the problems and see, they'll know the answer. Okay, and either they'll say we can use this existing technology to solve something, or oh, this is a product we've seen out there. Aaron, do you want to? Should we have a look at this? So look at it from that. Look at the people and what they need and what they want.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and it could be a combination of both. That just made me think of a really good point. You need to listen to the people, because a technology could be brilliant, it could work incredibly well in every way possible, but if the people don't want it, it won't work, correct? And I was uh listed this podcast a while ago and someone was making the point that apparently you cannot make um drive-through restaurants work in germany um mcdonald's starbucks. They've all tried and it's impossible to do because it's a cultural thing in Germany that people do not want food in their car under any circumstances.

Speaker 1:

Is that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So it doesn't matter how efficient your drive-thru is, how well-placed it is in a location, how well-priced it is. It's just known in the food industry you cannot make drive-thrus work in Germany, and it's got nothing to do with the technology or the process. It in Germany, and it's got nothing to do with the technology or the process. It's just what the people want.

Speaker 1:

Correct.

Speaker 2:

So, on a similar note, future trends. Let's end on this. Ai is the obvious one, but maybe things like communications. Where do you think the technology trend is going in a currency?

Speaker 1:

I think the technology trend is going in a currency. I think the technology trend is going further and further. There will be more technology.

Speaker 1:

AI as you said, but how does that impact the sector? I think, as you said, it goes back to people becoming more important relationship, communication, trust, because the big issue is technology. Do you actually trust it? And therefore, you need that validation from a person to say okay, oh, I spoke to Chris, I spoke to Aaron, I spoke to John, I spoke to Ravi, I spoke to whoever to validate this is all okay. So I think people are going to pay people. I think, even though people talk about AI taking over roles, I think the role of people maybe it's my experience and age are going to become much, much more important in the new AI age. That's my view.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because that's going to make number crunching a lot easier. So the accountant role will have to move into expertise and advice, really not just crunching numbers but explaining why the numbers are there, where they are, how they can be improved, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

And then also the added value advice on top of it. And do you actually like the person you're talking to?

Speaker 1:

okay, it's that trust and that relationship building that's so important, and I think, that'll become much more important as opposed to because everyone who have the same ai tools, okay, yeah, it's then thinking how do I differentiate myself? And do I differentiate myself through the added value, through a niche, through communication, through you name it, and that's that, and that that's down to people. That's not down. Ai can't do any of that yeah, no, absolutely one.

Speaker 2:

Well, maybe one day it will, but for now I won't be around yeah, humans are still in the driver's seat for now.

Speaker 2:

Maybe Sky and I will take over one day, but until then, thank you very much. I mean as much as you can cover in 25 minutes. I think we've covered a decent amount of what we do technology-wise, tool-wise, at Samara. So, yeah, I hope everyone found this useful. Remember that technology is a help, it's not a barrier. It's not a barrier, it's not a competitor. It's there to help you and as long as you use it right, implement it right and you implement what your clients want, it'll make everything easier, swifter, cheaper and work better. Essentially, Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Chris.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much. Right, we'll see you all next time in module two, where we'll start looking at marketing and getting more clients. Perfect Thanks. Thank you very much, everyone. Goodbye, bye.