Ep: 91 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:
Des O'Neill | Chief Delivery Officer at ProfitPro, helping accountants build better businesses
Diane Yetter | The Original Sales Tax Nerd who loves sharing knowledge
Martin Bissett | Advisor to CEOs of 6-9 Figure Accounting & Fintech Organisations
Ed Kless | MetaConsultant/Iconoclast who believes that entrepreneurs continue the work of creation
Elaine Godley | Inspiring dynamic accountants to optimise personal, team and business wellbeing
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. All this week we're asking our accountant experts and influencers, what should the tech industry and accounting software vendors be doing to better serve the needs of accountants, more than any other question this has elicited to the most emotions. Technology has planned an increasingly crucial role in the accounting profession, so how is the tech industry meeting the evolving demands of accountants? Let's see what our experts think. And now here is Des O'Neill, Chief Delivery Officer of Profit Pro, helping accountants build better businesses through strategic advice and tools designed to enhance profitability and efficiency. Heck, software vendors could do what every successful business does, focus on the customer, and focus deeply on the customer, and what does the customer want a need, and as the world evolves and as the world changes, well, how can the software companies build products that better serve the needs of their accounting customers? I happened to be in Amazon, in Dublin, in the AWS office recently, and it was just listening to how they innovate products and what they do. It's this customer-centric focus. And it's not just the software and the vendors that need to do it. The accountants themselves, it's to continually ask the question, like the most successful business in the world, they all ask the same question, how can I better serve my customers? And there's one of my favourite books of all time, a book called Simplify by Richard Koch, and he talks about price simplification, he talks about then how can you proposition simplifying? You know, how can we make our products easier to use? That's the question that the software vendors, how can they eliminate everything except what's really essential? How can we make things intuitive and easier? How can we make it faster? And this is what accountants need to ask themselves about their own claims as well. How can we become more useful? How can we improve the quality? How can we add new capabilities? How can we add more value? And so I think everybody, the software vendors, the accountants, anybody who's serving a customer, there's a single pathway to success and that single pathway to success is dedicate ourselves to excellence through customer service and continually focus on the customer, the customer, the customer, the customer, how can I solve the problems that they have? How can I give them what they want and need? Let's get the thoughts of Diane Yetter, the original sales tax nerd who loves sharing their extensive knowledge on sales tax with professionals and businesses demystifying complex regulations. Well, I run into this a lot with the particularly the sales tax software vendors. So I will talk about it from that perspective. And that is a lot of these software vendors rely on the accountants to bring them their customer base. But they also compete with the consultants with the accountants. They need to stop doing that. When you talk to them, when you talk to leadership at these firms, they say, we are a software company. We are not a consulting company. We do not want to do consulting services. But that isn't understood all the way down through through their ranks. And and what they really need to do is, is they need to make sure they have proper messaging to their entire team all the way down, that they are not going to compete, that they will make sure that they honor when a lead comes in from someone that is going to be doing the consulting work, the implementation work, that they respect that. And they are not going to go out and attempt to undersell the advisor. If they continue to do that, they are going to use their pipeline of opportunities because these consultants are going to get very, very frustrated with that. There's a special treat now as we tune into the thoughts of Martin Bissett, my co-founder of the Accounting Influences Roundtable, advisor to CEOs of six to nine figure accounting and fintech organizations providing unparalleled guidance and strategy to elevate firms and fintechs to new heights buckle up because Martin always speaks his mind. We'll understand the nature of the relationship they have with accountants. Accounting is a relationship business. And the vendor is looking to sell, there's a sense of what is a transactional business. So buy my stuff, we'll onboard you and then we'll do some customer service afterwards. Okay. And that's what it does into realize is that accounting professionals have got that person knocking on the door in 40 different t-shirts. You know, and those brands are there going, buy my stuff, buy my software, buy my software. I think you should use my software. It doesn't integrate with that other software, by the way. So from the accounting point of view, who only ever use software that is critical to the work, the delivery of the compliance work, they often don't understand what the proposition is. They often have to go through a decision by committee to make a buying decision because there's often a part board that have to say yes. They often don't know exactly how this is going to work into their flow anyway. And so many accountants, as we know, are guilty of buying software and never using it. And therefore churn for vendors is fine. So I would ask the vendors to understand the accounting profession that they are selling to because I keep meeting vendors who have got no knowledge of accounting have never really met the method accountant, nor much about the profession, why they behave the way they do, why the billing model is the way it is, why the business model is the way it is. And as a result, they use the same sales technique on the accountant as they would use on any other industry vertical. And am I saying your accountants are different? Yeah, I kind of am. So I think we used need to get some profession specific knowledge on how to build a relationship with an accountant and therefore have far more related realistic expectations of them as to their buying behaviors. Coming up now is the legend ed plus meta consultant iconoclast who believes that entrepreneurs continue the work of creation challenging the status quo and inspiring innovation within the profession. I think what they need to do with the tax, the tax software folks need to do is help guide in the transformation of those that they serve, of the accountants that they serve. I think the software folks in this area get it, they know where this is going. In fact, they're the ones building in the AI tools and all of this stuff. But they need to help their accountant, their partners in accounting make the transition. They're going to have to become to some degree small business consultants to help those accountants make the transition to the next model. So they're going to have to look outside of their coding to be able to sell their wares by helping people with business model stuff. And that's going to be a bit of a challenge because they don't necessarily have experience with that. So they're going to have to look outside of their furloughs. But if they don't, if they don't help the accountants make the transition, it's just not going to happen. The next four you hear will be Elaine Godley inspiring dynamic accountants to optimize personal team and business wellbeing, focusing on the holistic success of accounting professionals. They could understand them more. We've got a lot of salespeople in the tech field and sales jargon and accountants don't speak the same language. It's like Japanese and you know something it just doesn't work. So I think understanding their behavior patterns, the way the accountants speak, think, etc. I think a lot of work needs to be done in that area. 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 debt of 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 providers, 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] (gentle music)
