Ep: 94 Top experts answer: "What could the tech/software vendors do better to serve accountants?"
The Accounting Answers Podcast, hosted by Rob Brown, asks critical questions of the experts, leaders and influencers who shape the decision-making of accountants, CPAs and finance professionals. Today we ask:
What could the tech/software vendors do better to serve accountants?
You'll hear insightful and passionate answers from these 5 experts and influencers:
Jessica Freiburg | Managing Partner of leading Chicago accounting firm Sassetti LLC
Jim Bourke | Partner @ Withum & Global Advisory Leader at HLB International
Jody Grunden | Partner and Virtual CFO Practice Leaders Anders CPA + Advisors
Joe Woodard | Woodard CEO and host of the Scaling New Heights Conference
John Fenton | The CEO Sensei empowering accounting pros to amplify their leadership
Tune into more on this daily show for short, sharp episodes that keep you informed of what's happening in the accounting world and the whole ecosystem of consultants, organizations, vendors and advisors who serve them.
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The future of accounting isn't just about numbers and financial statements, it's about empowering businesses to make informed decisions, navigate complex challenges, achieve their financial goals, and everyone recognises that accounts are at the heart of this and must become trusted partners, with business acumen, expertise in data analytics, storytelling, strategic guidance, taking the clients towards success, and whatever your role is in this ecosystem, you need to stay ahead of the curve to stay relevant, and that's why this accounting answers podcast was conceived to keep you informed and competitive. I'm your host Rob Brown, and I've interviewed 111 accounting experts, leaders, advisors, vendors and influencers in the last few months, and collected for you the very best and latest thinking on what works and what is coming up. In this weekday show, 10 to 15 minutes gets you the lowdown on what matters today in the rapidly involving accounting landscape, and the professionally shed in its traditional image of number crunching, embracing a bold new future, data, technology, strategic guidance, reign supreme. I've asked the same five questions throughout covering the next generation of accountants, the proactive advice they need to be given, the drivers have changed the role of tech and software vendors, plus the best predictions for the next few years. Let's get started and hear what our experts have to say. Today we're again asking people who care about accounting a simple question. What role do the tech providers and software vendors play in the evolution of the industry? Technology is playing an increasingly crucial role in the accounting profession, and the consensus is the tech industry needs to step up to meet the evolving demands of accountants, but how exactly? Listening as another five of our 111 influencers and experts share their wisdom and their best insights. Let's take a few moments now with Jessica Freiberg, managing part of leading Chicago accounting firms, Seti LLC, who brings a wealth of expertise and leadership in driving the firm success and client satisfaction. One of the challenges right now with all the software vendors is there's just so many options out there. It's honestly hard to keep track. It's hard to know what the right solution is when you have an issue or when you're trying to solve a problem for a client or internally for a firm. So I think that's one of the challenges is really just under standing each application. Sometimes it can be helpful when they really target a problem that you're having, and you can identify, "Okay, this is the solution to solve this problem." But of course, you don't want to have 100 different solutions that you're working with. So I think that's part of the challenge. I know it's really helpful from our perspective, when software developers have somebody who has experience on the accounting side, specifically on the public accounting side, and they can really pinpoint how their solution is going to address some of the strains that you're having or that you're facing with the changing environment. I think with some of the bigger vendors out there, there's a reluctance to change, and therefore, it creates a lot of challenges because now we're trying to add on other solutions to make it more user-friendly or give us the results that we're really looking for, especially when it comes to internal data and how we're analyzing that data to run our business. Join me now as we listen to Jim Bork, the force of nature that he's the partner with and global advisor releasing at HLB International, a pioneer in leveraging technology to enhance global advisory services and firm efficiency. So why could vendors do better server accounts? Stop living off the annuities that drove their profitability for the last 15 to 30 years, seriously. And what do we mean by that is, accountants today don't want delivery of the same technology products. I want to see advancement. I want to see incorporating the latest and greatest technologies into those applications. And you know what? If the legacy vendors can't do it, you know what? Go out and make acquisitions. Look at best debris technology companies and those to enhance your suite, but think about technology for tomorrow. Stop living off those annuities. I don't want to just renew my licenses because I have the technology. I encourage, when I speak at conference around the globe, I encourage all partners and firms, all firms, chartered account and CPAs, embrace the cloud, go 100% to the cloud, choose the latest and greatest technology vendors. And quite frankly, if if a vendor is not in the cloud today, embrace the latest and greatest technologies, I wouldn't use them. I would use, and don't be concerned about small agile startup technologies for a profession. They have a good technology, deploy the technology, and be in a position to better serve your clients. Let's engage now with the thinking of Jody Grunden, partner and virtual CFO practice leader and the CPA and advisors, who's redefining the role of CFO services with a strategic technology driven approach for growing businesses. The tech software is a lot of times with tech software, what they'll do is they will go in with the idea in mind and create what they think the accountant or the advisor needs. And in reality, they need to actually do it the opposite way. They need to have the accountant, the person that's going to provide this service, help them guide the ship. There's many times where you're looking at software, you think, oh, this is the greatest thing in the world. Then you get into it and the average Joe or the average person can't use it or can't use it very well or can't use it from a client because it's so clumsy. It does great on the back end, but not great on the surface. Whereas if the technology would actually reach out to the advisory and focus on the presentation, the quality that the client's going to be presenting to the end user, I think that's going to really help them improve their service and lead in the technology area. So why would vendors not be doing that? A lot of times they get in the way of themselves. They think that they know more than what the actual then user wants or then user has. And it's not really until they have an advisory board or or and they really listen to that advisory board. They really start saying, hey, here's what the accountant is trying to convey to their client. Here's what the client is looking for. And here's what's going to really help if the technology will actually adapt to what that stream, that streamline provides for them. And so, you know, when it comes down to it, I think a lot of times is just simply they've been doing it the same way forever. And they're just not used to having the help that the advisory board really helped them exceed. And then their voice to the bait now is influencer and heavyweight in the accounting world. Joe Woodard, CEO of Woodard and the host of scaling new highs conference dedicated to empowering accounting professionals with education, innovation and community. All right. So they need to be taking advantage of generative AI inside of their product. Like you see the practice management solutions are doing now. Financial analytics solutions, they need to understand that this is an ally, not a threat. They do not have to code every algorithm now, especially not every single contingent variable. They need to be calling to the generative AI and they need to be surfacing up the computations from this AI into what they're providing and dashboards and financial predictive analytics so that they can get there faster. But this is the most important thing they need to be doing is they need to be privatizing and protecting accountants and the clients of accountants within the generative AI. So if you take a solution like digit, digits is one of many that are emerging, where you interact with digits, digits goes off and calls the generative AI solutions like chat GPT, but it tokenizes all of the client data. It uses the computations of the solution, then it through the detoketization process surfaces those back up for you. Complete anonymity for the client, complete privacy for ourselves and our client. But a cost in there, if you've never thought about that before and you're just giving chat GPT specific information about your client, you are disclosing that to not just third parties but to planet Earth. So without the tokenization, you're creating a great disservice. And anybody that steps in to answer your question directly, may the steps in helps protect the privacy of the client. While giving us the full power of the AI, it's going to be really important in the next couple of years. And now a few insightful words from John Fenton, the CEO Sensei, empowering accountants and professionals to amplify their leadership skills and drive significant impact within their organizations and the accounting industry. I think the tech industry, I believe the tech industry and the software vendors really need to listen to the accounting leaders and the accounting firms about what they need and what they're facing. Ease of use and being able to implement all these new technological tools in a way that will help serve their clients better. So in that education process around how can we use these tools more effectively to enhance our business and enhance our lifestyles and have a thriving sustainable business going into the future using these tools. Like a key word for me is simplify. We can simplify how to implement these things, how to adapt them into our practices and implement them. I think they can go a long way to helping the profession. The problem in the past has been, and I think that the, if my own experience is that the vendors in software companies, tech companies, they want to find the newest cool thing to use that can, you know, expand their business, focusing on AI, generative AI, other tools that can help firms. So it's really been sort of an internal focus as opposed to really how can we best serve these accounting firms and help them to be adapted these new technologies to improve their business and really focusing on what the needs are of the CPA firms and the partners. So there you have five great answers to the question. What could the tech and software vendors do better to serve accountants? Each work in dev the week, Monday through Friday, we give you the insights of five top influencers in the accounting world on this critical area of the tech provider, software vendors, and how they serve accountants. That's 25 valuable perspectives, viewpoints, and best thinking every week. And with each fresh week comes a fresh question, and more thoughts from the best accounting leaders and influencers we can find. Thanks for listening to this brand new accounting answers podcast and sharing the show with your friends. If you want to join the conversation, you can plug into our community of influencers at accountinginfluencers.com and check out our virtual speed networking events. These happen every few months for the North American region and the UK Europe region. The great opportunities to raise your profile, build valuable connections, and share your thoughts with influential peers. Until next time, this is your host Rob Brown saying stay informed, stay relevant, and stay connected.
