CONNECT – COLLABORATE – COMMUNICATE – COLLECT
In this extract from a new guide entitled the ‘Connected Accountant’, author and respected writer on the issues facing accountants, Lesley Meall, overviews today's challenges and how the technologies that are creating problems, can also solve them.
All delegates attending a MyFirmsApp presentation in the Digital Change Workshop Theatre at Accountex on Wednesday, 10th May and Thursday, 11th May will receive a copy of this invaluable guide. Over the course of the two days, a full programme of presentations that will be delivered in the App Workshop Theatre next to stand A1120. Topics include MTD with Paul Aplin, OBE, Vice-President ICAEW presenting ‘Where we were, where we are and where we are heading’ and ‘Having your own App - the MTD solution for you and your clients’ presented by Tony Margaritelli, Chairman, ICPA and Daniel Richards, MyFirmsApp. These sessions are set to be popular so reserve your seat now by visiting http://www.myfirmsapp.co.uk/accountex-2017/
BAD NEWS
As the world we live and work in becomes more digitalized, the ways in which accountants and their clients can connect, collaborate, communicate and collect information are being reshaped. This creates uncertainties; but it also creates opportunities.
Technology is disrupting the traditional relationship between firm and client, by enabling non-accountants to become the first port of call for queries on accounts, finance and tax. Clients and prospects already use Google to find answers to questions they would once have asked you.
Technology is also disrupting relationships between firms, clients and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). Making Tax Digital for Business will demand software that enables firms to manage the challenges and opportunities around the massive training and onboarding exercise.
During its long history the accountancy profession has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity to adopt and adapt to changes in business practices, statutory regulations and technology. The flexibility and technical proficiency this demands is part of your professional DNA. However, in the digital age, the speed of change and its fundamental nature can make keeping pace difficult, even for the most well-resourced and tech-savvy firm.
CHALLENGES
• Rapid rate of technology change.
• Increased use of mobile devices; preference for and proliferation of Apps.
• Changing client expectations around accessibility and availability of firms’ services.
• Attrition/disruption caused by traditional and digital threats (such as ‘the Google effect’).
• Specialist software developers using firms as a conduit to clients.
• Finding the right provider for your software solutions.
• Global digitalisation trends among government agencies such as HMRC.
Widespread adoption of mobile devices and a preference for Apps is turning our pocket powerhouses into the gateway for ever more business Apps, information, software and services, but it is also creating practical barriers to access – and islands of data. Recent research found that workers yearn for a simpler, more personalised way to interact; with 62% delaying the completion of tasks that require logging into multiple systems.
Cloud software and services are disrupting traditional business models. Your firm can no longer rely on the drip feed of local businesses or the loyalty of clients. The profession does not yet have its own Uber or Airbnb. Nonetheless, clients (and prospects) can, and do, freely exploit the convenience and ubiquity of Google, to find answers to questions – about accounts, finance and tax – that they would ask your firm, if doing this did not mean more time or effort or cost.
Accountants must counteract ‘the Google effect’, the disintermediation plans of government bodies and the lure of free software. Think ahead. Rather than giving away control of the data associated with cloud bookkeeping and accounting software, your accountancy firm could collaborate with software developers to exploit, leverage and expand on client data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your existing and future services.
GOOD NEWS
“The transformation of the tax system to fit the digital and mobile age presents an unmissable opportunity for accountants. Having the App and giving our clients access to it from mobile devices is really going to help them.” Ian Rodgers, The Profit Key
The technologies that are creating such problems can also solve them. The ubiquity of Internet access, mobile devices and Apps, can enable firms and their clients to work together more simply and productively than ever before. Armed with its own custom App, your firm can strengthen its bond with clients and reduce attrition, by being more proactive, modernising engagement and client services, maintaining your relevance, and differentiating your firm.
Having an icon for your firm’s App immediately visible when clients open their smartphones or tablets, will reinforce your position as the most trusted adviser in various ways. Rather than adding to the complexity and confusion created by proliferating ‘best of breed’ Apps, your firm’s App can simplify and streamline access, by bringing together in one easily accessible place, all of your client’s accounts, finance and tax information, calculations and systems.
Cloud accounting and the add-on communities that have grown up around it mean that accountants now use from five to as many as 40 Apps between their practice and their clients. So how you manage these and the way they talk to each other is important. An App that integrates seamlessly with various other systems, such as the Reckon Virtual Cabinet and Receipt Bank, enables accountants and their clients to more easily share information
SOLUTIONS
• Make firm highly visible on mobile devices.
• Ethically lock-in clients and prospects by making your firms App their primary route to information on accounts, finance and tax.
• Differentiate/modernise/streamline the firm and maintain relevance.
• Improve client services/engagement/retention/marketing.
• Reinforce accountant/bookkeeper as principal trusted business adviser.
• Use reputable suppliers that have been approved by professional bodies such as ICAEW, ICAS and ICPA.
• Position firm (and clients) to collect all data digitally and prepare for compliance and reporting developments such as Making Tax Digital for Business, in the UK.
An App can offer its own tools for use collecting information on income, expenses and mileage. By offering easy access to this, firms can support clients with their transitions to the electronic record keeping and tax filing that Making Tax Digital for Business demands. An App can also provide bespoke icons and links to online accounting packages such as FreeAgent, Kashflow and Xero, to third party services such as Dropbox and Skype. Some also offer a real time blog link.
By exploiting some of the most accessible and powerful emerging technologies, the transition to Making Tax Digital for Business can be made less painful for firms and their clients, while reinforcing the accountant’s role as the most trusted adviser to business.
Consumers and businesses have embraced the ubiquity and utility of mobile – and the services it provides instant and effortless 24/7 access to. Smartphones and tablets have become the most popular way to browse the Internet,3 with Apps an essential part of the experience.
Many firms are already developing new digital capabilities, such as ‘anytime, anywhere, any device access’. More firms will follow, in response to trends in business and to in government, such as the ongoing digital tax initiatives of HMRC.
With the right support, accountancy firms can harness mobile technology to meet the changing needs of clients and regulators, whilst simultaneously building, developing and promoting their firm and its services to clients, business partners and prospects.
1 Accelerate Digital Transformation With Simplified Business Apps; Sapho and Forrester Research; August 2016
2 Accounting Trend Report 2016; Karbon
3The Communications Market Report 2015; Ofcom