Ep: 45 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:

Arun Mehra | CEO of Samera Global, helping accountants build a global firm

Ashley Leeds | 15 minute guy teaching LinkedIn in 15 Minutes a Day

Becky Glover | Award winning Finance Director, board member and business leader

Ben Richmond | Chartered accountant and U.S. country manager at Xero

Blake Oliver | Founder of Earmark, where accountants earn CPE for podcasts

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 accountant, isn't just about

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I'm your host, Rob brown, and

I've interviewed 111 accounting

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experts, leaders, advisors, vendors,

and influencers in the last few

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months and collected for you the

very best and latest thinking on

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what works and what is coming up.

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And this week, they show 10 to 15

minutes gets you the low down on

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what matters today in the rapidly

evolving accounting landscape.

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And the professional is shed

in its traditional image of

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number crunching, embracing a

bold new future data technology,

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strategic guidance, reign Supreme.

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I've asked the same five questions

throughout covering the next

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generation of accountants.

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The proactive advice they need to be

given the drivers have changed the

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role of tech and software vendors

post the best predictions for the

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next few years, let's get started and

hear what our experts have to say.

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We've been focusing all

this week on the question.

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What could the tech software vendors

do better to serve accountants?

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The answers you hear covered?

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The vendor accountant relationship and the

needs of accountants that are not being

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addressed by current accounting software.

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How could this software be more

user-friendly and intuitive for

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accountants and their clients?

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How is AI playing its part in the

evolution of the accounting role,

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all these aspects and more come out.

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As we check out the answers

of our resident experts.

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Chairman the thoughts?

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No.

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Is I ruined Mira CEO of Samira global,

dedicated to Albin accountants build

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and scale their films on a global scale.

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With strategic advice and insights

into international markets.

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Arun Mehra: Yeah, that's a difficult one.

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I think we're, we're thrown so much

tech us over the last few years, every

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week, there's a new bit of tech and a

new provider of something or another.

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And hands off.

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I'm guilty of kind of being one of

those people who are guinea pig.

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We all try the new thing and then

realize, Oh my God, what am I doing?

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I'm just creating more

headaches for myself.

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So I think the tech vendors

have to ease the information

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out and a more managed manner.

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I think at the same time.

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They have to, communicate the

benefits of their software.

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So what I mean by that, like, I know

certain software providers, they're

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always evolving their technology, but

half the things I'm not even aware about.

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So they need to be doing more

training to, to their accountants.

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It's all well and good

watching a YouTube video, but.

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That's all well and good, but there's,

there's not enough input and we don't

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really, I know in my firm, I'm sure

we're only using like 30 percent of

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the power of the software that's there.

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So I think they need

to do that much better.

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because a lot of the software is all

comparable now, and I think their

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challenge will be, they've spent all

these development costs and they obviously

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want to charge for this on a monthly fee,

but there are always other vendors out

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there who are going to undercut them.

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So.

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I think the real benefit, the

ones that will succeed will be the

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ones that train their clients, i.

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e.

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ourselves, train the accountants much,

much better, and they provide that as

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part of their whole package, and it's,

just makes them, stands them out in

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a different, amongst everyone else.

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I think that's, the real difference.

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Next we welcome.

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Ashley leads known as the 15

minute guy teaching professionals.

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How to leverage LinkedIn effectively

in just 15 minutes a day to grow their

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network and business opportunities.

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Ashley Leeds: This is a great question.

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It's all about education.

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It's all about showing the

masses of what can be achieved.

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I think the thing is with accountants,

um, I can say this because I've been

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working with them for over 16 years.

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They know what they know,

they like what they like, and

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it's very difficult to change.

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out of out of the habit that you've got

into because your practice is working.

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But if we don't change, we're

going to become dinosaurs.

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We've got to move with the times.

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We've got to adopt all these things.

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And I think because we're in the position

of seeing what's going on, we're seeing

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the cream, we're seeing the technology.

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Lovers move faster and do things.

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And I think it's, down to, us and

the vendors and everybody else in

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the industry to start educating and

helping them, giving them some guidance,

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pointing them in the right direction

and just, you know, helping them.

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And I think the software vendors

need to be talking a lot more to

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each other and opening up their APIs

so that we can make things just.

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Move together and start thinking

of coming up with communities.

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there's some great software vendors out

there that have got a lovely community

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and people are going into Facebook groups

and, and talking to the, the owners, the

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developers of the software to actually

say, look, this is where we want it to go.

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And all these different ideas are coming

up, you know, in this big think tank

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that years ago that never happened.

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And I worked for a software

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And, We just did what we thought we

weren't listening to our customers and

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today the opportunities are great for

those software vendors to actually open up

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and let people tell them what they want.

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And the benefit of all of this means that

we're going to have accountants doing

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better things, getting better clients,

getting staff to come and work for them

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because they're working in an environment

that is exciting and cutting edge.

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And it just makes it

a little bit more fun.

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And at the end of the day, the clients are

going to be served an awful lot better.

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And I don't think accountants are

going to be hating December anymore

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or January for that matter, because

they're going to have the team and the.

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The success that all of the

software is going to give them

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Next we hear the perspective of

Becky Glover and a woodwind and

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finance director, board member, and

business leader, renowned for her

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strategic financial leadership and

commitment to driving business success.

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Becky Glover: Yeah, so something

that really gets to me is

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technology can do a lot of data.

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So it's a lot of data, it's

all stored in one place.

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Yes, that's amazing.

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What I really want, and it's

coming but it's not there yet,

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is more beautiful visualizations.

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Because a lot of the things that

accountants do, yes, it's data,

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it's collecting it, But then it's

having to translate that data to

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the CEO, for example, and say,

this is what I'm seeing now.

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This is what's happened, and this

is where I think we're going to go.

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So these are the projections.

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But if we can do that with beautiful

graphs, or it might be any kind

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of visualization, it makes things

a lot easier for people that

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aren't financially trained to see.

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So I think that's something that

tech really needs to work on is

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just a push of a button or a drag

and a drop, something really easy.

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So you can manipulate that data

and make it beautiful for lots of

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different people to view it in.

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I think it's a, it's a big problem

because a lot of the technologies

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are like, you know, we're plug and

play just put us in and then all

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of your problems will be solved.

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And it seems like there's

a lot of softwares that

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seemingly do the same thing.

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So why should I pick

this one over this one?

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and I think there's a lot of training

for accountants for the debits and the

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credits and the IFRSs, but there's

very minimal training that comes with

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here's how to use your new software.

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So yeah, and I think that does roll

into again, if you're talking about

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technology, AI, automation, those

sort of bigger picture stuff, we're

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not having enough training on how

to use them and how to prompt them.

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So again, if we can get better

training there, it will make the

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outputs hell of a lot better.

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Next please welcome Ben Richmond, a

chartered accountant and us country

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manager at zero, where he leads

initiatives to empower small businesses

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and accountants with innovative

cloud-based accounting software.

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Ben Richmond: Yeah, this is a

great question for me, obviously,

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coming from my position at Xero.

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Um, but it's one I take very seriously.

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Look, and I've been critical of ourselves,

and I've been critical of others as well.

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You've got to meet.

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Accountants and bookkeepers and

small business where they are today.

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So as the technology's gotten

faster, it feels like every vendor,

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and we at Xero being guilty of this

as well, we're trying to portray

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ourselves as the most innovative.

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We're trying to paint the, the next,

the next future thing, you know,

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and we've got to take it back to.

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Let's make sure we help them put

wheels on their suitcase before

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we put them on the plane to Mars.

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because we're often scaring them,

you know, like driving change

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through fear is not the right way.

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And so what I really encourage

people for the vendors to do,

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including us, take a step back.

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Realize what's needed at the time.

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Realize, you know, be consultative

with your partners, be strategic and

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excite them with what those imminent

possibilities are, break it down to how

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they're going to do it and you show them

what's further down the line, but bring

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that back to like where they're at today

and how you take them on that journey.

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And I think the other thing is

to remember, like we love growth

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and lots of people love growth.

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But not every accountant or

bookkeeper you're working with

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is going to be growth obsessed.

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So what's important to them is a timeout

with their family, being able to work

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from the beach for the long weekend.

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And actually technology

is going to enable that.

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And so I think us really understanding

what's important to them, what are

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they trying to drive and bringing what

you can do in alongside that journey.

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So show them the way, don't scare them and

excite them versus driving through fear.

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Diving into the conversation now is Blake

Oliver, founder of EMR, where accounted

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10 CPE for listening to podcasts.

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Blended education with entertainment

to support the accounting

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professions, continuous learning.

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Blake Oliver: So when it comes to

vendors in the accounting space,

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the biggest challenge is just lack

of integration, interoperability.

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It's really hard to connect apps and

to automate the flow of data when.

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You have when you don't even have APIs,

when you don't have a way to move the data

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around, AI is going to help with that.

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I think we're going to get

more and more of these macro

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type tools inside of windows.

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third party add ons that will be

able to move the mouse and click

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around and type on the keyboard.

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We've called this robotic

process automation.

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It's only been available to enterprises,

big companies for a long time.

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And I think AI is going to help

bring that to more and more

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small and mid sized businesses.

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but.

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We really still need vendors to build

connections at the very least, build

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a connection to Zapier or some similar

API tool so that we can then connect

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whatever your app does to thousands

of other apps that we may be using.

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that's the biggest barrier,

especially in the world of tax.

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It just shocks me how.

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Old school these apps are, and how

there's no way to connect, say my

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proposal management software to my

tax software to say, create a new

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engagement or to get that data out of

the previous year into something where I

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can populate a client organizer online.

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Like this is, this is

really basic and it just.

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It's kind of a shame, honestly, that

the vendors have been so complacent in

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that space that they haven't done it.

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So, I, I really encourage them to do

that because I think those that do will

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have a huge advantage in the future.

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and vendors that don't make this change,

I think will be at risk of disruption.

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And this is something that we've seen.

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Over the decades, uh, since

the computer revolution is that

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companies get really complacent.

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Uh, just look at Google, for

instance, Google's an amazing company.

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80 percent of their revenue or more

is still from traditional search.

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And that is all being disrupted by AI.

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And now they are playing catch

up because they got complacent.

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They, they owned the market, and the same

thing could happen to these other vendors

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in the accounting space, just because

you've got most of the market for tax

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prep now doesn't mean that in five years

you will, because some disruption could

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come along, and AI could enable a startup

to create a very sophisticated tax prep

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program that would have taken hundreds

of millions of dollars to do before.

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So those barriers are coming down and,

and these vendors need to wake up.

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Microphone (TONOR TC30 Audio Device)-2:

So they have five grand

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answer to the question.

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What could the tech and software vendors

do better to serve accountants each

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work in depth that week, Monday through

Friday, we give you the insights of five

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top influencers in the accounting world.

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On this critical area of the

tech providers, software vendors

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and how they serve accountants.

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That's 25 valuable perspectives,

viewpoints and best thinking every week.

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And with each fresh week comes a

fresh question and more thoughts

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from the best accounting leaders

and influences we can find.

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Thanks for listening to this brand

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And sharing the show with your friends.

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If you want to join the conversation,

you can plug into our community of

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implementers@accountinginfluencers.com

and check out our virtual

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These happen every few months

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The great opportunities to raise your

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share your thoughts with influential

peers until next time, this is your host.

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Rob brown, saying stay informed,

stay relevant and stay connected.