Welcome Will | Why I Left Big Tech to Build an Accounting Practice

A new chapter kicks off in the Tech Edition of All Aussie Accounting Adventures as Amy welcomes Will to the co host hot seat. And yes, we get straight into the juicy bits, because what’s an accounting podcast without a little talk about risk, reward, and leaving a comfy Big Tech job to start your own firm?

Will shares the winding path from Sydney cadet accountant to becoming Xero’s very first Australian finance hire and got a front row seat to how fast tech companies really move. Along the way he picked up a few lessons about how accounting works differently across the world and why the humble bookkeeping and tax workflow still runs the show.

Eventually the corporate life lost its shine and Will made the leap many accountants dream about but quietly avoid. He opened his own lean, client first practice built on trust, clear pricing and the brave art of saying “no thanks” to the wrong clients. We chat about why accountants love to undercharge, why winning about 40 percent of proposals is actually a healthy sign, and how doing great work for one trade can spark a referral chain that keeps the phone ringing.

Of course, this is the Tech Edition, so we also lift the bonnet on the tools. No shiny object syndrome here. Will shares his tech stack, with trusty spreadsheets still doing a fair bit of the heavy lifting. It’s scrappy, practical and very real.

If you’re dreaming about starting a practice, rethinking your pricing, or building a firm that works for your life instead of running it, this episode is packed with stories, lessons and a few laughs along the way.

So grab your headphones, accountant adventurer. The journey just got a new co pilot.

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Transcript

New Co-Host And Show Vibe

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey Will.

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hey Amy.

SPEAKER_04 0:03

This is a bit exciting.

SPEAKER_02 0:05

I'm excited. I'm glad I'm glad that you said so.

SPEAKER_04 0:07

Well, you're you're my new podcast co-host. This is a bit exciting.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

I know. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the invitation. It's good to be here. Uh apologies to everyone for the first day jitters and anything that I do that isn't on probe podcast hosting capability.

SPEAKER_04 0:25

Well, you've you've had the brief, you understand what the criteria is, which is just talk, don't be a douche, and let's that'll be hard. And let's just bring some really awesome techie content to our listeners. Let's rip into it.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Let's chat into it in accounting.

SPEAKER_04 0:58

Yes. I am very excited by this. I'm just more also excited. I'm like, yay, I've got a new friend to play with. Not that I didn't like my old friend. I'm just sad that he left. Rest in peace, Jack. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

You're always welcome back, Jack.

SPEAKER_04 1:10

Yes, you're always welcome back, Jack. You definitely are.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Skew all the Titanic men.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

Very funny, very funny. Um, all right, well, because you know, this is, I feel like you're, you know, it's obviously your first official podcast episode. I know we did an intro one with um the Mum and Dad podcast being Allie and Andrew.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Mum and Dad.

SPEAKER_04 1:30

Well, that's what Jack and I used to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Let's say granddad.

SPEAKER_04 1:34

It's just it's ironic, really, because I think Andrew is actually technically the youngest out of all of us. So anyway, it it got a bit weird after a while. So I think we need to stop calling it that or referring to them as that. But the Ally and Andrew one, we did the we did the Valentine's episode, which was lots of fun. Yep. So you're not completely green to the whole podcasting situation, which is great.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

I'm uh what's next up? Amber. I'm not completely green, I'm Amber. I want to get to like piping red hot with you. Over this season, we're gonna just be like knocking it out of the park every episode. Juicy stories and whatever else. Let's I don't even know what that looks like, but let's go there, Amy.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

Yeah, I feel like we are going to go down some serious rabbit holes in our um podcasting episode journey, but we'll try and keep it on point.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Apologies in advance.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

Yes, apologies in advance, exactly. But it'll be good, some great listening. I feel like you're gonna everybody the audience is gonna get some really good stuff out of this. They'll get something.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I don't know if it's all gonna be good, but they'll get something.

Will’s Origin Story In Accounting

SPEAKER_04 2:28

True, true. All right, so uh my first question, because this is probably gonna be a bit of a this episode is gonna be a bit more of an interview style, I feel like, for you, Will. I'll take that. And then um I'm just gonna basically nail you on a few things, which is who is Will? Who am I? Who are you? Give me give me your background, your your partial life story, bit of a career. Like what's led you to this?

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Yep, I'll focus on the 10% good bits and 95% boring bits. Uh I'm I'm an accountant. I grew up in Sydney. I um jumped into accounting straight out of high school, did one of those undergraduate cadet ship things. Two days before my 18th birthday, I started. 7th of Feb 2007. Um I had a crack at all the big four interviews, they came to my school and gave us leaflets and all of that and said, okay, come and be an accountant, get paid$26,000 a year. Um and it'll be Do you think they still do that actually?

SPEAKER_04 3:25

Do you think the big four still do that to high schools?

SPEAKER_02 3:27

I I don't think they go to high schools anymore. I think they still do the career fair stuff, don't they?

SPEAKER_04 3:31

No, I feel like they need to. That's another topic that we can unpack, but goddamn, I feel like, if not the big four, I feel like any of the local accountants out there go to your local high school and see if you can wrangle a cadet.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

So this is exactly what happened. The big four all came in, and then I went and submitted my CV and then went for interviews. I think two of them got shut down pretty early on there. Because I just I had no idea what I was doing. I had no benchmark or reference point. It's not like there was another accountant in the family or anything like that. Um so I just I was just going in completely blind and I probably uh completely bombed my first couple of interviews. But someone who was a parent of a kid that went to my school was a partner in a three-partner accounting firm in Sydney. And that firm sent a couple of people, a couple of graduates, to come and present to our grade 12 class and basically pitch the idea. So we had the big four, and then we had a smaller three-partner firm for which one of the partners had a kid at the school. So that was the connection there. And when I bombed out at the the the big four, I basically just went straight to that smaller firm, put in an application, got the phone call, showed up, and got the job. Um, and so that was all done and dusted. So yeah, I'm incredibly grateful that that firm showed up to my high school and got in front of me, and it was two people that had been through the kinetic program, and they pitched us. They pitched us hard and it worked. So go to your high school, everyone.

SPEAKER_04 4:57

I agree. Because I know Andrew's doing some work with C-A-A-N-Z, I think. I I that I could be wrong with who they're like one of the governing bodies, um, in relation to trying to get, you know, universities and that kind of stuff, like you know, the younger generation, like let's try and get accountants into um public practice, etc. But in my opinion, I think that's too late. I think it needs to be year 10, like it needs to be year 10, year 11. Like when they're choosing their, you know, their far their last two years of like VC eat ball in Victoria, but you know, the last two years of school in terms of what their subjects are, I feel like they need to go then and there.

High School Pathways And Cadetships

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Yeah, I agree. And it's like that's when super impressionable, everyone's open, and you can get people right when they're at that like formative stage of what the hell am I gonna do next. Yeah. I don't know, when I when I was at school, I was everyone was just obsessed about um getting the high score possible and what university course you're gonna go and get into. But what I think I really appreciate, I've always been uh learn uh by doing rather than getting drawn into the theory, which I feel like a lot of people are. So when I saw two people that had walked in the walked the journey themselves and come and actually make it relatable and possible and just kind of created the pathway of like this is all you have to do to follow in this, go down this pathway and get yourself into this type of environment, and here's what you can expect to get out of it. Um I bought into it and it's been great. I've like I've been a browser counter for what's that almost 20 years now, 19 years. Um so yeah, did the cadet chip, um, got the university degree part-time, and then I uh spent a bit of time trying to pursue a professional psychic career um over in Europe, didn't succeed at that, and then came back and got a couple of years. But that's pretty cool. It was cool, um, apart from all the constant rejection. Like I was going to clubs, knocking on the doors, doing one-week trials here and there. Um, had an agent driving around, started in Romania, went to Belgium, went to France, pinballing around from week to week, going to clubs. Um so it was a good learning experience. So went over there.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

Taught you how to be a human being and have conversations.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

It does, and like a lot of resilience. You just you just gotta be okay with getting the door closed on you and putting yourself out, putting yourself out there and getting rejected. Um it's just part of the journey, and then you get better and better every single time. Um came back to Australia, then um did a couple of corporate finance, commercial finance, industry finance type roles, um, went in as like financial accountants, management accountants, and then kind of took a couple of finance manager jobs, uh, worked at Woolworth, Lion Nathan, who do a lot of beer and wine, and FMCG. Yep. Uh and then at a um marketing agency, Ogilvy. So kind of got exposed to agency professional services models, got exposed to FMCG, and got exposed to retail, um supermarket retail. And that was kind of really good experience, got some plenty of ERP experience, um, and then some good like large accounting team type experience. And then from there, uh found my way, saw a job ad at Zero. And I was living in Sydney, and Zero had just sort of started to come through in Australia a little bit more, and they were hiring for their first finance person in Australia. Saw the job ad down in Melbourne, figured out who the recruiter was and just harassed him.

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Uh just his name. But that's that resilience, that's that tenacity that you were just.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

I was not gonna cop no. And I just I went after it, and so uh harassed him, got on the phone, um, got in there. They very kindly flew me down to Melbourne for for an interview, which was great. Um, picked me up at the airport in uh in one of those like limousine taxi things where there's a shop of the driver holding your name on a placard.

SPEAKER_04 8:36

Always wanted to be like I've traveled a lot and I've never had someone stand at the airport with my name on a placard. I want that everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 8:44

One time. And uh thank you, Zero, for that. And you know what? I put my best foot forward and I was unsuccessful. Um, they offered the job to someone else. Okay. I don't know who that person is, but apparently that person turned it down because then a couple of weeks later they turn around and offered it to me as the second choice. So good, so bad. So whoever that person is, thank you so much. So I was I was the first finance hire in Australia, um, part of betting down like a lot of the I mean, there was an existing team in New Zealand because Zero's a New Zealand company. Uh, I was on the NZNZX at that time, but part of the move to the A to the ASX, the dual listing, part of getting into Zero's first RD grant, um, part of working through transfer pricing when the OECD first came through with its initial um first round of OECD policies, uh, transfer pricing policies. So did some really interesting tax work. Yeah. Um, and then also got exposure to the high growth environment that Zero went on here in Australia. That led to me being sent over to the US to be part of helping to launch Zero over in the US. Um, and then as part of that, we then also launched in Canada, and Zero was kind enough to let me go up and um wave my arms around on stage and do some events in front of the accounting community in in Canada, Toronto, Calgary, and and Vancouver. Uh, and was part of building a remote.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

Can I just ask, did they let you do that in America? They no, no, I was I was um my role is Well, I feel like that's why they haven't been as successful in the America market, is because comparatively speaking to Canada, because I know they've been more successful in Canada, is because they let you wave your arms around in Canada. But see, if they had have done that in America, maybe, just maybe, that's that's where they went wrong, Will.

Football Trials, Rejection, Resilience

SPEAKER_02 10:26

I feel like that's definitely You said it, not me. No, um totally what I learned very quickly is like Commonwealth countries in the US just operate very differently. So the bookkeeping accounting tax prep workflow is just very different. Um there seems to be a consistent theme for how Commonwealth countries do it versus how um the the US does it. Yeah, so anyway, not to go down a rabbit hole of of why zero is more successful in Commonwealth countries versus perhaps not as much in the US. Um, but yeah, got like part of building a great team in Canada. Um we had a team of between 30 and 40, zero acquired HubDoc at that point in time, so got exposure to that, uh, which is great.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

You've been around that long. I've been around a while. Don't don't bring me an arrival.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Anyway, and then COVID, uh, and then so we we left Canada. We had a a six-month-old our first, and so we decided to come back um to this part of the world. My wife's a Kiwi, so we we spent COVID in New Zealand, and then um Zero just knocked on the door and asked me to come and run the Australian business because there was a bunch of changes at that point in time. Some senior leaders had left, new CEO came in, um, and I was one of the people that had had, I guess, that pretty decent stint of experience, but global perspective, and had run the Canadian market before, so I think they just they kind of trusted me to run the the Australian market. Rightly or wrongly. No, I'm joking, I'm joking, right? I'm joking. Wrongly. But it was but honestly, the the Australian team, like in I don't know, like everyone's obviously gonna be familiar with Xero from a software perspective, but from a business perspective, like the the team that Xero has in a s had in Australia, has in Australia, and the way that the accounting community and Xero kind of came together for that, like the the 10 glory years of cloud accounting software adoption here in Australia. Um, you know, it's like a really exciting good business to be part of and team to be part of. So I was lucky to to do that for a couple of years. And then that brought us to I don't know, a couple of years ago, and then decided to go out and do my own thing. The uh the window of opportunity of how to go and run a business and build a business. I just thought now's a good time. I've got to do it.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Oh yeah. I know, crazy. So before we unpack why the hell you decided to come back into public practice, which I'm excited about, but don't get me wrong, like I said that slightly negatively, but I'm actually like thoroughly excited by the fact that you have come back into public practice. Me too. Um let's go and get let's go and hear from our wonderful sponsors because we love them. Without them, we wouldn't be able to bring you this wonderful amount of content. Thank you. Thanks. Not technically being an accountant myself. I have been around long enough though to hear about all of the really annoying things sometimes people just have to do. And there being a little kit out there called Count Kit, which solved so many of those little annoying.

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Absolutely. Now count kit is the fact that it's designed by built by counts is because they take the point of order to solve the real world headaches. So account kit as a platform is the central part that is designed as a platform.

SPEAKER_04 13:58

Not to mention it also integrates seamlessly for something people. Um it is so awesome that we have all next and switching.

Corporate Roles And Xero Years

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Yeah, some of the more complicated workers, but it's easy to get some staff members. So get rid of white zero files again.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

So give it three. Especially in Australia, freak up. Everybody goes, oh my god, we should do some text planning towards the planet video. But it shouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

It is being able to very quickly set the stuff like this. Absolutely want to start competition white. Forward inside, in the tackle spitness, have the advisory platform specifically designed.

SPEAKER_04 15:31

Which is exactly what that speaker does. It helps you on that. It provides repetition. Um it also, what does that find it? It does 20% distance benchmark, um, which helps with that advisory framework.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

It doesn't give us the framework, it gives us the benchmark so that's done. So if you look at the advisory services and eventually elevate to get out of this service, you want to supply stuff. Let's see.

SPEAKER_04 16:35

Spotlighting how to remove updates numbers and deep visual story time.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Spotlight does have the customization. I'm not surprised. Um it is uh very well, it is quite like a popular body and it has been for a very long time. So rock solid and has been rocked all the way through the town.

Canada Launch, US Lessons, Growth

SPEAKER_04 17:34

So if you're not using spotlight reporting, get on it. So you decided to go back into public practice for your sins. Now, I personally believe that, and this is slightly controversial, so sorry to anybody who doesn't agree with me on this one, but hey, whatever. Um, I personally believe that every public practice accountant should have to have some commercial experience with like external to just staying in public practice, because I genuinely feel like all of the accountants I've ever come across that have had some sort of commercial you know experience in their careers are absolutely freaking killing it from a public practice perspective now because they look at things in a completely different way, they value their time, their effort, they understand the commercial realities of actually doing business. And I'm not saying that traditional public practice accountants don't have that, but I do feel like that there is the ability to separate things, like there's an emotional detachment in a positive way, which allows you guys to have some clearer boundaries in place so that you can you know really run your business as well. And forgive me if anybody really disagrees with that. You can hit me up next time you see me in public, you know, in person. You can debate and or literally hit me, whichever way. I'm joking, I'm joking. But like I'm I am thoroughly excited because I know that you and your business partner have you know have both had you know, both been in the commercial world, you both had public practice experience, gone out in commercial, and then you've come back. And the stuff that you guys are doing, I'm like, I just want every accountant out there to have that because too often I hear of not fabulous stories, like you know, like disenchanted accountants that are out there. Whereas you at the moment, and I get it, you've been back in practice for just over a year, you are like a kid in a candy store at the moment in this whole regard.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

I'm not jaded yet, as someone as someone pointed out last week. I am, I am a kid in a candy store, I love it, I missed it. I and I agree with you, Amy. I think commercial experience or I guess multidisciplinary experience is really important, and it very positively impacts your ability to take your accounting career wherever you want to take it, but take it further than you otherwise might be able to. I'm not convinced that it's it has to be commercial finance experience. Sure. I originally had that that view as well, and I was actually challenged um by someone who said that what they they thought about it too, and what they experienced was it's accountants that have technically figured out how to do it, but that have had exposure to small businesses in one way, shape, or form, whether it's they grew up in a family that was primarily based around a small business, or they did a stint at trying to at a at a company or in a business themselves, or they may have actually tried to start their own business early on and had that entrepreneurial streak. Um it's that where you where you get exposure to what happens behind the balance sheet and PL of a business in real life is what's like very informative experience that helps you understand how to join the dots and understand what to go, yeah, like what's more important than just the technical side of accounting and how you actually build rapport and a connection with those business owners through our work once we are on the tools in public practice and doing all of the compliance work.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

But then that but that then also leads to the ability to also charge accordingly as well. Like I feel like thinking commercially, charging commercially, which therefore means that you know one of the hardest things that the in public practice is uh component of the accounting industry is dealing with is obviously finding and retaining good quality team members because they can get paid a lot more. But why are they getting paid a lot more? It's because they're working for companies that can understand the commercial realities of the value of the services that they provide. Whereas I I don't think a lot of accountants necessarily charge accordingly because for the most part, you're all just too damn nice and you want to help businesses, which is wonderful and I love that, but you're also not charities.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

I know, it's but it's so hard. Like we've been doing this for 12 months. And I was reading a post on Facebook the other day where someone had said they've just started their own practice and they were pursuing the strategy of undercharging to win the work. And I was like, I get it. And a lot of people feel like they need to undercharge just to win the work and win the relationship. And you prove your value over time and then you step up the engagement over the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

Only if you do do that though, because if because so many of them fall into the trap they never actually get stuck. You get stuck. You never actually do step up. Yep. You fall into the trap of continuously undercharging.

Returning Home And Leading Australia

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yep. I um and it's yeah, it's it can become really costly as well for where you can take your business from there as well. So look, I'll be honest, we've completely messed up our pricing. We started low, we then went high. We won a couple of high ones, we won a couple of low ones, we've overserviced a ton of relationships, we've underserviced and overcharged others, but they're like really happy to continue to pay, and you're like, oh my god, like how do you get the balance right? Um, but yeah, my view is over time the accounting profession kind of it's like a pyramid, you just you've got the the long tail at the at the bottom of core compliance work and people that just don't value what we do in the accounting profession. But what we've got to do is to move the market and change that perception is to find the people that do value the the value that is actually delivered through our services and rally around that. And then how do you get that small cohort of of clients of ours to then start to shift the narrative through their networks as well? So I'm a big fan of the referral network. Um, but in saying that we've had to like scrap around for our first couple of hundred clients, just like everyone does when they first go out and build a firm. Um, but what happens 12 months later, once you do do a good job, whether we priced it appropriately and commercially for the value that's been delivered, we've undercharged and we've overcharged. But what we're noticing is just by focusing on the quality of the output and having that growth mindset of looking for referrals, we're now getting a referral network coming through to us where people are like, Hey, you did Joe Bloggs's plumbing business. Um, we run a cabinet joinery business, um, and we work closely with them, and they said that we should speak speak to you guys about getting our our accounts done. And then you kind of built that first layer of trust. And then from there, then it really comes down to your my view is like your ability to commercially have that conversation around what kind of value you're gonna deliver and stand your ground on it. Yeah. And just be once you've got the base of clients that you know is gonna allow you to continue to pay to bit pay the bills regardless. Once you're at that point, then you really have to figure out how do you stand your ground and uh exude confidence and conviction when you're pitching an engagement or pricing with a client. My view is it's healthy to lose more than 50% of the pitches and engagements that you put out there. We aim for about 40%, we just want a 40% success rate.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Um if we're down at like 25, 30%, we'd probably go, we're doing something wrong here. Yeah. But our view is we kind of want to go to the top of the client pyramid as quickly as possible. And that means that we're gonna command a pretty strong price for the value that we're delivering. We have to follow through on that value, otherwise, our whole practice falls down because we're not gonna get the referrals. But we're very comfortable now that we can pay our bills to say no or to price ourselves at a level where it just might not meet the expectations or the budget of what that where that client sits. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

And I think that's where it comes down to is uh I think the experience and the exposure that you've had in so many different roles prior to coming back into public practice and doing your own thing has actually taught you the value of yourself. My time straight your time, yourself, and that's what I personally believe is a major kick-up between the differences in terms of your experience. Yep. Had you have comparatively speaking, had you have stayed just in public practice for your career.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Yeah, it would be hard to get perspective and I guess confidence and conviction to then value your time so that you know how you want to come across and pitch yourself and present yourself. And I I change my pitch to a new client every time. I'm always tweaking it, there's always nuance to it. It's not the same script that comes out every time. Yeah, and it's usually a different process. Like some people come in over a text message, some people come in from a website phone call inquiry, some people walk past our office, open the door, and knock uh ring the doorbell, and we answer like there's just so many different entry points. Um, but I think what we try and do is we always try and establish a foundation of trust with the individual, um, and then we're not afraid to just ask the qualifying, disqualifying questions so that fairly both parties understand what it's going to take to arrive at a mutual agreement around what value is going to be delivered here. Um sometimes we fall into the mistake of like, all right, well, let's just price it here, but we're not, we haven't taken clients on the journey of why things are getting priced at a certain level. And then there's a little bit of bill shock, I guess, when we do that, and then people just drop off and go to you never hear from them again. And it's a bad experience because they'll go around and they'll say, Um, I spoke to Tim and Will and they priced me here, and it just was way over what I was expecting, and they're a super premium, premiumly priced shop. Um, and we don't want that as well. We want people to go, oh, okay, I see the value here, but that maybe just doesn't fit with what we need right now, so we'll go somewhere else. Yeah. Um, so yeah, we're always thinking about okay, what's the what's the best first impression and what's the lasting impression that we have with every single client, whether it's a successful engagement or not.

SPEAKER_04 27:20

Um, so what the hell prompted you to get back into public practice?

SPEAKER_02 27:24

It's I've always wanted to do it, and I've known, but I've honestly been afraid because it's the thing that I know that I've wanted to do the most.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

And I've like, and if I fail at this, then what?

Starting A Firm And Sponsor Break

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Yeah, and it's just that fear of oh, what if it's this like uh grass is always greener on the other side and I'm not actually I'm not gonna be good at it. And I for what 15 years I've found reasons and excuses to keep it as plan B when it always has been plan A. Um and as a result of that, sure, I had a a great plan plan A or plan B and did other things, which is awesome. But yeah, it just got like just got to the point where I I tried a couple of other things to keep that plan B path going, and then it just got closer and closer, like walking up to the edge of the cliff where you know the cliff's there, and you're about to you're gonna have to at some point, you're gonna run out of room for how many more steps you can take. And I was just standing at the very edge, and it was like, well, you know what? The only thing left to do is to just take the leap and just do it. Um, and my business partner Tim, similar position, like we tried a bunch of things, we worked at zero together, uh, we knew we wanted to run a business together, and it just it just narrowed in very quickly on build a practice. Yeah, just we've got all the insight, all the experience, we've got a great network, and we love the idea of of being in practice. Like, what are we afraid of? Just how bad can it be? And it wasn't like literally what's what's the worst that could happen?

SPEAKER_04 28:53

But also, what's the worst that could happen? Go and get a job. I mean, it doesn't work, go and get a job and be employed. Do you know what I mean? Like there's that is not the and that's still not the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing could let's not go down that path. Anyway, it's point is if it's not successful, you know that you've got experience and you can go back to you know being an accountant somewhere else, basically. Yep. There are many practices that would take you on, just in case.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

And I've been shut down and rejected multiple times throughout my career in different pathways. I do now, I didn't like 20 years ago, but now I do, and yeah, but it it's still like there's so many things that I wouldn't be afraid to do, or I wouldn't be like, I'm not afraid to put myself out there cold calling, door knocking, trying to win new business. The thing that I've found the hardest was allowing myself to be vulnerable that this might not work out, and but it's I held it so dearly, and I really wanted it to work out, so it was really interesting kind of like confronting that and working through that. But now I'm kind of on the other side of it, which has been great. But yeah, I just had all this built-up fear of what if this doesn't work out, and I guess it was my own self-worth. Um, but now that I'm through that, I was like, yeah, just back yourself in. If you if you really love something and you've got the core skill set and capabilities, then you will find ways to learn, improve, get better, um, and that will lead you to opportunities and pathways that you otherwise would have had no idea were um were possible for for you.

SPEAKER_04 30:23

Agreed, agreed. Um so given that you did start a business about 12 or so months ago, and we are the tech edition, let's talk tech for a moment. Let's.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Um This is gonna be a short conversation for that. 12 months in, our tech stack is not fully formed.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

And that's actually what I wanted to talk to you about, which is you know, how did you go like because both you and Tim have come from very much a tech background. Like I knew Tim back when he was working at Zero in the I think it was still Workflow Max days then. It hadn't even been transitioned to Zero Practice Manager, or it was very close on the cusp of that. Um, so you guys have both had a very strong tech background. Um, you've even tried to build tech together, and you know, I mean, sorry, not tried, you did succeed at just people didn't like it. People people didn't necessarily adopt it the way that you had hoped. Um I loved it.

SPEAKER_02 31:19

I thought the tech was amazing, by the way, but yeah, I I get it.

Why Commercial Experience Matters

SPEAKER_04 31:22

Like yeah, anyway, so you've got you've both got a tech background, which is good. So you start your own practice, there's lots of opportunities. I mean, like, you know, Clary Street's got the app stack, which a lot of people know of, and that kind of thing, and no, you don't need all of them, but as a brand new fledgling business, but also two guys that have a pretty strong tech background. What did you think about, I guess, from you when you were planning it? Was there like this is what we want versus this is what we need? And then also, what do we have? What did we start with? What do we got now? What's on the horizon from a tech stack perspective? Because I'm interested to know there's lots of people out there that are thinking about starting. And my opinion is I have lots of conversations with accounting practice where I'm like, I know you want all of this, but right now you don't actually need it all. Yeah, you can you can start here and then you can gently build up, gradually build up to where you need to go. So I have the I I do that consulting all the time for clients, so it's it's fun. Where are you though?

SPEAKER_02 32:21

We are so early on the journey, and we are completely okay with that. I think from day before we won our first client, we were like paralyzed about oh, what's our workflow? What's the automation? How are we going to streamline all of these activities? And then we just started winning clients started doing the work. And actually, I don't mind some of the manual intervention having to do a couple of extra clicks here and there and moving things around not as efficiently as we otherwise could make it, because we that taught you learn, and that's what taught us where we wanted to save time and um and how we could certain look for opportunities to to do things more efficiently and perhaps even deliver a better outcome from a client deliverable perspective. But our view was how do we perfect this, and then very quickly it went to how can we make this functional, practical, and meet us for where we are today, and from there then start to pick off the I guess the parts of the workflow that we wanted to double down on and make sure that we got right, and that's where we're looking to slot in certain apps and things like that. We've tested a few. We tried to not do Zero Practice Manager because we were like, we'll just use the tax product, but we'll try and not use job management. We'll use Excel spreadsheets for job management to get started. Um, and then we looked at some other workflow tools, so but then we ended up turning around being like, oh, let's just use Zero Practice Manager because it's good enough for right now. So uh, and then in in the future, at least we'll have a record in the database of all of our jobs so that we can migrate them across to something uh practice management platform and we eventually choose the one that we really want, if it even exists. But our view is uh and my view is now that you can very comfortably go out and build a book of say million dollars worth of fees and run it on the leanest tech stack that can be so inefficient. Yep. Uh and you can have duplication, you can have um lots of single points of it.

SPEAKER_04 34:17

I would say half a mil if I'm being like I feel like you think it's a mil, I reckon it's half a mil. Successfully depends on how you want to scale and what pace you want to scale.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

True. Well, there's two of us there's Tim and there's me. Yes, 500 each, yeah. You you can you can do it. And then once you go beyond that point, you start having a couple of team members, um, then it starts to get a little bit more complicated. And I see the value in nailing your text, not nailing your tech stack, but taking it to the next level to make sure that things do not get too out of control as you're trying to scale and bring on more volume. But to start with, yeah, like it's pretty good e-signing, somewhere to prepare and send engagements from, make sure that you're invoicing and you if you're doing so what are you using?

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Give me give me your tech stack.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

Our tech stack is so we use I'll work from compliance backwards. Oh no, I'll work from the engagement. So we do we use MacBooks and G Suite. Yeah. So we use Google Docs to prepare our engagement letters. Yep. And then we send all of our invoice, uh, we send those engagements through Anateur for e-signing. Yep. And then we collect payment and invoice, both recurring invoices as well as one-off invoices, uh, through zero. We have gone down the path of like ignition, we've gone down the path of um some other um uh billing billing platforms, but we right now are comfortable with just zero and repeating invoices, and then when clients actually then you um use the tick the consent for repeating payments through zero's repeating invoices, it basically works like a recurring billing engine anyway. Cool. So that's fine. Um because we do a lot of monthly uh monthly recurring engagements with clients. So that's good, and then zero tax, zero practice manager. So we use zero tax, we use zero practice manager, we just use Google Sheets or Excel for our work papers. We've got out we've built our own sort of work paper automation um workbook, and that works just fine. Um we've got, yeah, I said Anachar.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yep.

Pricing, Value, And Saying No

SPEAKER_02 36:13

We we actually use ASIC directly for all our corporate compliance stuff, which is crazy. Don't do that. It's so buddy and it lags out. Just terrible.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

There's a couple of really good platforms that we could mention. You know, like I don't know. We're gonna BGL. Yeah, just just just go go to the wonderful people at BGA and get yourself sorted in that report.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

We just like, I don't know, this is maybe part of our how how um how can we keep it scrappy and delay tech implementation until the last I get that the last resort. Um but we're we're past that point now. We've got way too many um entities on there.

SPEAKER_04 36:48

We do I get your point around the how long can we m keep it lean and scrappy for, but equally I would say at some point, don't keep it too lean for too long.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Yeah, we've made that mistake. We're making that mistake right now. Yeah, we should have moved to BGL months ago. Yeah. Um so I take your point. I agree with it. It's definitely a um on reflection. We should have done something, implemented some tech earlier on. But again, we were fearful of overdoing it and then having to rip stuff out and spending too much time, and we could have just been out pitching for new business and doing valuable stuff for clients. So it's a balance, but I would say we've gone too hard the other way and left some things a little too late. Um, but that's almost it. Like, what am I? Oh, we don't use we use um just Google Drive for store client storing client information um and document management. So we're fine to just save something manually from our email inbox, index it properly, save it in the right client folder in the client drive. Um, so we are like doing a lot of manually saving and uploading and moving things around to keep our document management um in good condition. But I know there's a lot of automation that we can do with platforms like FYI and things like that. Nope, not if you want to stay with Google. Uh no, not if you want to stay with Google. So we're also right now we're looking at like, do we need to change? Should we change to Microsoft?

SPEAKER_04 38:03

Oh, we can unpack that one at a later stage.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

But like, yeah, I agree with you. You can go$500,000 of fees per revenue generating partner in an accounting firm um without a very sophisticated tech stack.

SPEAKER_04 38:17

I agree, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, what is next on your tech stack? Do you think? Apart from BGL, because yeah, it's alright, we'll be knocking on their door soon for you guys. Yeah, yeah. Is there anything else?

SPEAKER_02 38:30

What's next?

SPEAKER_04 38:31

Well, there's that whole AML tranched to AML CTF tranched to that.

SPEAKER_02 38:36

Um I'm so green on what that's coming up in July, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 38:40

It has to be uh 31st of March, I think you have. I mean, yes, it's sorry, yes, it's July, but 31st of March you can then start registering, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah. So we that's gonna be the immediate one because that's a core component of the case.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

And this is sorry, just for anybody listening from overseas, this is very much an Australia thing because the likes of the UK, NZ, you guys are all over it, you've had this for years. All of a sudden the Australian accountants are all going, ah, what do we do with this?

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Yeah, and but there's gonna be tech providers that come through and doing some automation.

SPEAKER_04 39:06

And there are, and because we are the techie podcast show, I think that uh people should be looking at the likes of BGL and what they are building. And the other thing that they should be looking at is another little cool product that we have recently seen called Nelvo, N-E-L-V, which I just want to remind everybody that it's more than just KYC. Do you know what I mean? Like it's more than just like the ID checks and the ID verifications. There's so much more. That part is easy. Correct, that's the easy bit, but it's so much more than that. So anyway, we could I feel like we're going to end up having a whole episode on that at some point very soon, but they would be my first two picks.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

So I'm happy to test them and and feedback and let you know what we end up going with, if it's helpful. Yeah, it's very helpful. But also, yeah, keen to be challenged and for people to let us know what else is out there and what you're doing. But it's that's probably the next core compliance one. Uh, and then for us, we do need to make a we do need to make a call on whether we stick with Google Switch Open Microsoft.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

So I'm gonna have that conversation with you offline, and then we're gonna come back in a couple of months when you've made the change because you know you have to, and you can have a whinge about how much you hate it, like I do too.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yay! I'm just gonna send a passive aggressive um LinkedIn message to um to who's the Microsoft CEO, what's his name? Sunda Sunda I forget his name, but I'm gonna send my passive aggressive uh LinkedIn message, and then I'll get that off my chest, and then I'll be good to move. Yeah, great. I just I like I don't know, Microsoft. I just feel like they they're great, powerhouse tech company, but there's just so many things in their 365 suite that they miss the mark on that Google gets right, and I just wish that Microsoft could be a faster follower in some respects. But they think drag the chain. I'm with you.

SPEAKER_04 40:41

Um, all right, final question because we do need to wrap up is why do the podcast?

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Oh, because I I think it's healthy for me to learn from you, Amy, so that I selfishly can actually go and build a better practice.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

Oh, God bless you, Will.

Building Referrals And Fit

SPEAKER_02 41:06

But I I don't know, part of me just gets a kick out of feeling comfortable sharing all the failures and mistakes that we make along the way. And if I can help other people in the accounting profession start a firm themselves and avoid making a couple of mistakes and do it uh a better version of whatever we've come up with between Tim and I, um, I would love to see that. I would love to see the next generation of firm owners and accounting talent coming through and just nailing it, getting a ton of value out of AI adoption, what they're doing around AI agents and how people are doing it safely and securely to build uh fantastic firms. Like I saw 20 20 years ago I started in accounting, and then I've seen a lot of firms pop up and do really well from a cloud adoption and tooling perspective. That was one significant migration event. And I feel like the same thing is going to happen all over again now with AI tooling. Um, and so people that are the early adopters that are figuring it all out will be sharing in forums like this, and people that are participating and listening and observing will get ideas and then go and be fast followers and implement it and get even better outcomes. So um just being part of the the journey and feeling comfortable to just let people know hey, this has worked for us, this has not worked for us, and asking you some questions around what you think we should be doing and what people should be doing, and just engaging in that debate so that we can just knowledge share and um take more successful steps together that ultimately um all boats rise uh lift in a rising tide. So yeah, yeah, how can we just support each other to get there? Because there's so much opportunity for people to build accounting firms and do very well. We certainly don't have to be cutting cutting each other off at the knees to win clients. There's so much work out there. I'm with you. Um, just keen to to help the profession be as efficient and effective as we possibly can and shift that narrative of what people maybe hold as the accountant the stereotype of the accountant, which I think is flat wrong, but we're part partly to blame for that. So over the next 10, 20 years, how can we shift that?

SPEAKER_04 43:11

How can we make it better? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Indeed.

SPEAKER_04 43:13

And that's I guess that's the same for me. Like I'm this is now season six from the podcast. Um, and the reason why I continue doing it is because this industry has literally helped build my career. And my and my gratitude for that is huge. And I'm like, how can I give back in some way, shape, or form to help the industry be better?

SPEAKER_02 43:32

You're welcome, by the way, on behalf of all accountants. Thank you, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 43:36

Thank you, Will, appreciate it. But genuinely, like it's like, how can I help the industry to be better? So collectively, exactly what you just said, collectively, we can all be better together. So yeah, that's why I continue to do it as well. And I just I love talking crap about this topic.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

It's great. Uh yeah, make sense. Well, thank you for your service, Amy. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_04 43:54

And well, thank you for coming back into public practice again.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

It's very exciting to have you here. Thanks for encouraging us.

SPEAKER_02 43:59

Like It's great to be back. I missed it. I wish I'd been here longer. But I'm gonna make the most of it from here on out.

SPEAKER_04 44:06

Yay. Awesome. Thank you so much. Being too been great to chat with you today, Will. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Yay! See you Will. Bye. See you again. See everyone.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Hey, hey team, it's Allie from All Aussie Accounting Adventures. Thanks for joining us for this tech edition and joining Amy and Will. We hope you've picked up a few great insights and ideas. If you'd like to keep following the adventure, make sure you check out our website and find us all across the socials. We are everywhere, you know us. Just search All Aussie Accounting Adventures. Whether it's conferences, the website, the podcast, social media, there's always something happening with us, so make sure to follow. And don't forget to share the episode with your accounting mates. We love that stuff. So thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next adventure.