Ep: 92 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:
Zane Stevens | Thought leader, podcaster, and account business owner helping wineries succeed
Ellen Choi | Co-founder of Aiwyn, bringing practice automation tech to accountants
Eric Gregg | CEO of ClearlyRated, exclusive client experience intel for accounting firms
Eriona Bajrakurtaj | CEO, Major's Accounts, Accounting Leader and Early Tech Adopter
Gary Boomer | Founder/Dot Connector at Boomer Consulting
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 recognizes 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 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 soliciting the views of our experts on what the tech software vendors could do to better serve accountants. What should tech companies do to develop innovative solutions that can help accountants enhance productivity, provide better service to clients and stay ahead of the curve? It's an emotive question with lots of different angles. See if you can spot some clear messages and crucial themes coming out from our accounting influencers. And now we have Zane Stevens, thought leader, podcaster, accounting firm on a helping winer is succeed, where he combines his passion for accounting with the unique challenges of the wine industry to drive success and growth. I think they need to listen more. There's a lot of times where tech providers are making a lot of changes that nobody even asked for. And honestly, a lot of the time, they make no difference to our lives. They'll say they're listening and this is what it does. But I think a lot of the time, they're focusing on the low high line fruits, and we'll just grab those. It's one person said, "Hey, I'd love it to look slightly different." So like, well, that's going to take my developer 30 minutes, and I can roll it out as a big page and everybody will be happy, where they're not really focusing in on like, this is what we need to be more successful. And you can see why it is, right? There's more people coming to the market because the current vendor is on listening. They're not taking the advice of what is actually needed. So those people going, "Well, people are asking for this. We'll just go develop something that handles it." And I think those vendors that listen more will stay in business longer. I mean, there's a couple of vendors which I've spoken to, got no responses, and I will be moving to different technology. If they're not going to listen, I mean, I know I'm a small fry, I'm not a big player in the ocean, but I can't be the only person asking for this stuff. And if you can't make these simple changes, then why should we still use you? And we can move on. There are other people that want to make a difference, and those are the people that we're all going to move towards. So I think all software companies need to start listening better. I'm next is Ellen Choi, co-founder of Awin bringing practice automation technology to accountants, helping them to transform their practices with innovative solutions that save time and improve accuracy. There are a few things that tech and software vendors can do better to be a better partner to accountants. One is enhancing integration, interoperability, just being able to design technology from the grounds of with the assumption that it's going to talk to other parts of the accountants technology stack, having modern APIs, you know, data feeds, whatever may be, just having that entire system thought through very systematically from the very beginning, that's going to help the accounting firms automate and digitize and create the technology stack that they really want to serve, that they want to use. And another, you know, way that technology firms can do a better job is really seamlessly embedding AI, jare AI, LMs, these are all university terms that we hear today, vendors can continue to invest in AI automation, just behind the scenes. Without the accountants, even knowing that they're using AI, they can actually use it by using vendors that make it very friendly for them and tell them the value proposition of what they're doing rather than how, which might be AI. And partnering in the change management, so this is not even related to building out of the technology. What I have seen, what I win have seen, you know, we've seen firms really take to technology successfully when there's a great change management within the firm. So it's really coaching the different personas, you know, some people are more innovation driven and other people need a little bit more handholding as a technology partner. One thing that everyone can do a better job of is sitting down with the management team, the integration team, the implementation team and being able to say, our technology does X, Y and Z, how do we make sure this is a great experience, like an implementation onboarding experience for your team, what does that look like? And being very thoughtful about that, because that's going to dictate the success of the role of the technology, and that's very important for the adoption of the technology as a service provider. Joining the conversation is Eric Gregg, CEO of Clearly Rated, offering exclusive plan experience intelligence for accounting films, helping them to differentiate and excel through superior service. I think we have to build our tools in a way that do not add tasks to an accounting for or you on an accountant's day, we need to make sure that we're solving problems that we're taking action on behalf of the accountants that are utilizing our tools. I think too often, even if it's really important work, what we're doing is we're identifying a lot of things that then the accountant needs to go and do. And there's value in that, but the real value is in making their days more efficient, helping them piece together information that would take them an hour to figure out that they're not going to go find on their own and putting it right in their fingertips so that it can utilize it to really impact that client experience and drive that forward. So that's the, I think the goal as we go to this next level and this next iteration of technology in the accounting space is how do you solve problems? How do you remove steps in the accountant's day, not just making them more aware of the steps that they should be taking on their own? And I think that the real stakes of this game are pretty existential for the software providers and the technology providers that aren't able to do this. The pace of change that we're seeing is so dramatic right now that the vendors that are providing just information today are going to get replaced by the vendors that are activating that information in a positive way for the accountant and the accounting firm tomorrow. And now insights from Mariana Barakata, CEO of Majors Accounts, an accounting leader and early tech adopter at the forefront of incorporating technology into accounting for enhanced efficiency and client service. So the tech vendors, software vendors, if they really want to help the accountants out, it's not just selling them the software and hope that they'll get onto it and train their team and train their clients and start working with tech, they really need to partner with them. So the way that I've worked really well with software is where they not just saw me the product, but they said, okay, this is your client base. This is how we're going to segment things. This is how we're going to get this batch of clients on board. We need to train the team to make sure they're confident. Those relationships have meant that I managed to onboard everybody with the team and clients really quickly. Those that said, obviously the great software, here you go, here's these licenses. I still haven't built those licenses. I need that. The board. One, because we don't have time, we're always biggie. Two, if we don't train our team properly and make sure that they're confident to use the software, it just won't get used. It will just sit there and nothing will happen. So I think that approach makes sure that they strengthen their relationship with us and make sure that we do end up buying a lot more licenses and picking on more clients and putting them on those licenses. The vendors who are not working in this way and have that open dialogue with accountants, they're just going to end up losing, well, it's sharing, losing clients essentially because I have had those apps where I just haven't used them, but it's a shame because if I did have the support, I really could have grown with them. So I think that's the only way really they're going to move forward. We turn now to none other than Gary Boomer, founder and doc connector at Boomer Consulting, a visionary driving the accounting profession forward with innovative strategies and technologies that facilitate growth and efficiency. Listen to the market, it would be the first thing to be specific with that would be focus on integration, workflow, processes, privacy and security. Security and security is much, much greater, much, much greater importance today than many accountants or many software vendors would leave you to believe. 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 influences 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING]
