Podcasts about spotlight reporting

My co-host Tyler Caskey Partner at The BeanCounters and I presented a taster of our quarterly Accounting Tech update podcast at the popular Accounting & Business Expo in Sydney.  In this episode, we talk about . . . Big Software Moves: Xero retires classic invoicing and introduces drag/drop bill uploads; QuickBooks enhances Projects and Work area; MYOB adds new reminders; Easy Business adds ABA payroll. ERP & Practice App Upgrades: NetSuite introduces AI-powered “Text Enhanced,” while XonBoard simplifies Xero onboarding—praised as “worth its weight in gold.” Insights & Oversight Tools: Fathom launches Portfolio for client-wide metrics; Dext refreshes its dashboard; Spotlight Reporting pushes ESG advisory via Sustain. Standout Tools & Features: Modano's online budgeting praised, Translucent adds 6 tracking categories & Deferred Revenue App, Karbon expands KPI reporting and integrates Chrome extension. Ecosystem Growth: Sharesight adds Drawdown Risk and improved cost reporting; Fergus integrates with Xero for builders; Workshop Software boosts mobile bookings; EZRentout enhances order pipelines. Contact details: Tyler Caskey : https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylercaskey/  The Bean Counters : https://www.thebeancounters.com.au/   Heather Smith: https://www.linkedin.com/in/HeatherSmithAU/  Accounting Apps newsletter: http://HeatherSmithAU.COM Accounting Apps Mastermind: https://www.facebook.com/groups/XeroMasterMind  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/ANISEConsulting 

In this episode, Brian Davis, owner of One Stop CPA, discusses how technology has transformed the way his CPA firm operates and interacts with clients. Brian highlights the importance of using technology to provide a top-notch, virtual client experience. He shares insights on tools that have enhanced client engagement and streamlined his firms' operations. What you'll learn from this episode: Examples of ways to use technology to enhance a client's experience How remote work and serving clients virtually has worked for his firm The benefits of offering subscription model billing The importance of investing in client education as you introduce new tools and processes AICPA resources Tech stack wars in 2024 | Reimagining Your Tax Practice — With the amount of technology products out in the market, how do they perform in reality? Hear from Jason Staats on the latest products available for practice management and more on this archived Reimagining Your Tax Practice session. Transitioning to a tax-focused CPA financial planner | Reimagining Your Tax Practice — Tax return compliance is continuing to become more of a commodity. Your clients see you as their trusted adviser and ask about a range of topics that affect their financial well-being. In this Reimagining Your Tax Practice archived session, learn more about practitioners who offer financial planning services and how that has impacted their practices. Transforming Your Business Model…Technology — The Private Companies Practice Section (PCPS) is developing tools around technology designed to help firms not only identify elements of their current business model that may be holding them back but also offering solutions to help them adapt in this changing environment. Transcript April Walker: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the AICPA Tax Section Odyssey podcast, where we offer thought leadership on all things tax, facing the profession. I'm April Walker, Lead Manager for the Tax section, and I'm today with Brian Davis. Brian is the CEO of One Stop CPA, which is a firm that focuses on tax, tax planning, and advisory. We're going to hear more about that. Brian, let's start off with telling me a little bit about your firm and how you got started and what you think, are your distinguishing characteristics. Brian Davis: Definitely. Well, excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Definitely, so my firm is One Stop CPA. It's a traditional small firm. We do compliance. I'm a CPA. We do tax compliance, tax planning, we do accounting services. It's a team of five, including myself, some onshore, some offshore. And the thing that I think distinguishes our product in our service that we deliver to our clients is how we deliver it. We use technology and pair it with insights. We pair it with traditional advisory things that we're giving the clients, and we try to give them that feel as if they're getting in person, top-notch experience because all of the clients that we work with are all virtual. So that gives us the ability to work with a remote team. It gives us the ability to deliver the clients nationwide. I think it's a little, I think it's definitely helped me grow business, get me a little bit more work-life balance, all the above. April Walker: All positive things. So for those who are listening, I mean, I think COVID taught us a lot of things - that we don't always have to be in person, although it's lovely to be in person. I love being next to people. But we don't have to be in person with our staff, with our clients. Maybe talk a little bit about that, how you still get that really great relationship with your clients and your staff, even being remote. Brian Davis: Sure, yeah. Definitely. COVID changed a lot within my firm. I went out on my own in 2017. This was pre-COVID. I went out for a lot of the reasons that are popular now, but back then it was not as popular as it's becoming. The commute to work, having to meet in person just to get a tax return signed, mailing off things. All these different things, I saw them as, these are not the values that customers appreciate. They're looking for me to help them do so many other things, save them, strategize on how to lower their tax bill, how to help them grow their business, how to go for an exit one day. I want to sell this, we can have that on a phone call. I could actually deliver even better results to you. I just started to think, before COVID, it was a little bit tougher to sell clients on this service. It was a lot of teaching. You have to tell your client, hey, well, you have to e-sign your returns, so go to your email. And it's like, I'm not used to this. This is not how we do things with our last accountant. After COVID, of course, that exploded. A lot of clients would reach out to us and say, yeah, if you could get this done for us remotely, that'd be great. So from there, I also switched over to the subscription model around  March 2020. When we made that switch because it's hey, well, we want to serve you guys, and we want to give you all the things that you now need to do remotely. So technology is a big part of that. The way you educate your clients, the way they feel. Because you're losing a little bit of the touch when they're not in person. I can't offer you a drink when you come to the office, but there's even things now where you could send a client a gift card. Here's a five dollar Starbucks gift card, so we could out grab a coffee. There's all these cool little ways where you can just make that customer feel so good, even though we're doing it all the time. April Walker: We're going to talk a little bit about while we're here together, talk about technology. So maybe talk a little bit about where you see those biggest friction points with your clients and how you think technology or how you've explored technology helping some of those friction points. Brian Davis: Definitely. I made all the mistakes when I started my firm. I would do compliance-only work. I would do tax prep only, and I would have different segments of clients that I would deal with in different ways. Well, this person likes to sign in person. This person likes to drop off a package in the mail. When you look into this technology, when we look at things as a firm, it's always well, these clients wouldn't adopt it. These clients wouldn't like it. I wouldn't be able to attract these style of clients. But when you meet a client, and you say, hey, this is our portal. This is how we do business. Take a good look at it, give them a free trial, maybe if you're seriously considering them, and then try to do a test. Did you see this message that I just sent you there? Here's a template. Did you get it? Cool. So that's how we communicate. Believe it or not, nowadays, more and more people, no matter their level of skill and technology, if you could simplify it for them, they appreciate that. Whenever I'm looking at new technology, I'm looking for, I love the new features and how I could make all this money using it and save time. But it's also, will the client feel a disconnect or will they feel like I'm throwing them into the tech dark hole? You could lose a good client because they don't feel that personal touch. Even though we're investing in different technologies and moving to greater things that help us on the back end, we also want to at the same time, if not even more important, when you're making sales, when you're delivering, you want to make them feel comfortable with your tools. If your tool is so hard for them to navigate, it's going to create that for them. April Walker: That's right. What are some exciting things that you have implemented lately around technology? Brian Davis: Definitely. Well, I'll highlight two of my favorites. They know that they're my favorites. TaxDome is my client portal that I use. Before TaxDome, I was doing the spreadsheet and notepad method of workflow management, which is not the right way. April Walker: Maybe in Excel spreadsheets. Brian Davis: Excel spreadsheets. Before that and then implementing TaxDome, it helped me map out how I want to grow the team, how I see myself. Like, which task within this job that we're doing, do I want to, one day off load to somebody, so that I could free up more time for myself to do sales, do client services, help people do like advisory one on one because that's where the value is to the client. They don't care if you're in the back turning out bookkeeping and entering in numbers on your 10 key. They want to know the results, and it's the client experience. So TaxDome is great because when I started it, I was slow to implement. I would pick a few clients, test out on myself. I'm a client, too. I would test out my firm's tax return process and say, Hey, what went smoothly? What can we tweak and make better before we go live with this with everyone? But the feedback I would get from clients is this is so great. I love how easy that was. It's on the app. I can download an app. Everybody knows how to download an app. April Walker: Most everybody, yeah. Brian Davis: Most people. If you're going to work with us, you got to be able to e-sign your return. That's one of the things TaxDome makes. I was getting the feedback that clients really like the experience, and I like the back office side of it, which there are other options out there. I just know that doing TaxDome, clients loved it. Another one is spotlight reporting. A lot of clients are used to seeing their QuickBooks reports black and white, ledger. What's more fun than watching that with the client and just going through a list of fixed assets? Here's your security department. They don't want to see that. You got to make these numbers kind of come alive for the clients have a discussion. Spotlight Reporting connects directly to your QuickBooks file, your Zero files, and you can create your own advisory dashboards. A lot of clients I have will ask, well, how I'm I on pace compared to last year? I would say, well, let me run that report on QuickBooks. Let me do the prior year comparison. Now, I have a custom bar chart, and it shows month by month, how you're doing this year, how you're doing versus last year. Another one that I made was a EBITA monitor. It looks like an EKG machine. When I'm showing doctors, hey, this is your EBITA monitor, I say, this is like a heart rate monitor. When you're having these conversations, it's better to have a nice report that you can get them to collaborate with you because there's nothing more boring than reading a report and everybody's just staring at you, and that comes across. Spotlight's another one. When I show people the reports, it's like, this is great. It really answers my questions, and now we could move forward to the future planning conversation where I could make the big bucks with advisory. April Walker: Sure. I want to talk about advisory. Let's lean into advisory. Did you start doing advisory right away, or how did you implement that and what have you seen, the changes and maybe the client satisfaction? I don't want to lead the witness. Brian Davis: Like I said, I made all the mistakes when I started our firm. I was doing advisory, but I wasn't charging for it. I was doing tax compliance. I was charging by the form. This is your form. You need some bookkeeping write-up work. But clients would reach out. Hey, we have some questions surrounding the tax, not necessarily doing the tax return. We have some year-round support questions. We want to go buy a car. What's the best way to do it. I got to come up with a way where I could not just be quick with them in five seconds, get them off the phone. No, I want to actually help you walk through this process. Clients would rely on us for those things. It's not just for the compliance. That's part of why I branded my company one stop, because I want them to feel like it's not just that we're coming to do your tax return and bill you by the form. We're adding that other piece, the advisory, to take advantage of different things. That's under the umbrella of your subscription. Now taking on clients, that's part of the package. You have to sign up for some piece of the advisory and the taxes will come along with it, but you can't do this tax prep. The advisory journey, it's been a journey for me, for sure. It's still, always working on ways to make it better. But things like TaxDome puts them at ease with the compliance part. All your stuff's there. You get audited. You have your forms and your backup. We saved it in a portal. If you want to look at some reporting, we can, support an advisory conversation with these nice cool. People like pretty colors. It's the colors and the pictures. April Walker: Hundred percent that's what I like, too. On that, with this subscription advisory and learning how to charge for that, how has that evolved? Where are you now now with that? Because I feel like that a lot of firms that I talked to just cannot figure it out- cannot figure out value pricing, cannot get away from time and billing, you know, everyone has a different answer, and there's not one right thing. Brian Davis: I mean, the subscription model, of course, it has its little pieces where you, it has to make sense for what you're offering. Just because you subscribe doesn't mean I'm going to go back and do your five years of catch up filings and year to date books. There's also those one time services. Usually when we meet a new client, there's going to be some advisory diagnostic assessment fee. That's just we try to be as upfront about the pricing that we're going to charge them going forward, so we can see do even want to take this client on for this one time service. It's been a journey to get there. As you get more revenue, you can make these decisions. April Walker: A little more picky. Brian Davis: You could be a little bit more picky, but that's been the journey. The price I advertise and go for now is probably 10X what I was thinking in the beginning. Because I was going off of what I think the customers are ready to pay. But if I explain it to them, so you can't just go straight into the pricing conversation. I heard it from the conference before one of the speakers, it's malpractice to just price without a diagnosis. That's one of the medical rules, the medical oaths. We have to diagnose what you're looking for, to put you in the right package. But I do the three tiers of package thing, but the way I do it is I show the big package, the good one. First all the cool features. Sounds great, right? Well, these are the other options, but once I've showed you this one, you're sold. I showed you all the tech that comes with it, and now I start to piece away some of the reporting. Hey, you can't get those cool pretty colors, you want to have that. April Walker: You get the simple quickbooks report. Brian Davis: How can I give you support for those big questions? If you're going through, when I got my start, I got lucky. I got a couple of clients that were in the medical profession that were doing deals where they were getting ready to sell their practices. I got a first hand experience of what a private equity investor would come in and say, Here's our due diligence questions. I said, "Well, you know, half of these are financial statements." I could pull those out. But there's some other things they're asking you that the customer wasn't even tracking. It's these cool reports bring that alive. It shows them, okay? We can support you in more than just getting your taxes and having the financials for the bank and the IRS. We have it so that you can make better decisions and if you're going to add or remove shareholders, this supports that, as well. That's part of the part of the pricing well, as far as pricing, it's all based on what we're including so you got to have your packages premade and a lot goes into that. But one thing I would do is try to not my prices and packages have one name. The name explains  what [it is]. Advanced, starter and small. And there's limited seats on small. We're probably already booked. That's how you propose it to the clients. So you are either going to get one of the two. I'm not going to give them all the options. I'm going to recommend one and if they decide they want the smaller one, well, hey, we'll take them on maybe, and you could grow into the big package. But a lot of times, what I'm seeing, is sometimes I meet with good clients and go through this process, the intake proposal, the discovery assessment, and they realize, no, you don't get this advanced. You're not going to get the results you're asking me for. April Walker: What they really need. Brian Davis: Because it's not a solution that everybody explains and a lot of times when I meet clients, they don't have this. All virtual -  nobody's using the same tech stack as me. It's a little bit of training and education that you're doing. So what I do like about some of these software vendors now, they're working with us accountants to help us sell in. Here's how you can grow your advisory practice and just the idea of it. Well, being that we're talking to just smaller firms, smaller firm practitioners and owners, we undervalue how agile we are. We can implement something, and that could be the start of something great. It's just, you got to do it one software tool at a time, one employee at a time, one customer. April Walker: That brings up another thought I had is, is there a magic time to add a new software or do you not limit that? Brian Davis: I mean, you got to keep an open mind so you're definitely not going to you don't want to keep moving your clients from portal to portal software to software that's a big no no because then they'll look at you like, am I an on the job training client or you know what you're doing. You know, would you move me from this one to this one? Definitely demoing the like I said, if you're doing your own taxes, test your firm out. You could do your own and say, Hey, how do I feel as a customer, or pick a couple of friends or those friend clients and say, Hey, I'm going to send you down this pipeline. How did you feel about the experience? Then I mean, we're small firms. We can implement. Like that spotlight reporting is something I implemented. Immediately, I started to see that customers were reacting well to it, so I put it in my offer in a way. Hey, well, my new customers get this. My old customers, well, I'm trying to tell them hey, this is where we're going. Maybe we'll keep you for this year, but we'll have this conversation and revisit. Hopefully your business grows and you need this. You can't you're not a one even though I have the name one stop CPA, we're not one size fits all. That's the thing you have to educate. It's a lot of proposals and presentations. That's why I like to use YouTube and Loom. They help with I don't have to do a presentation to everyone and lose my voice. I could make a nice intro. Give you the presentation that applies to yours, what I'm trying to talk to you about. Then I jump in on the back end of I mean, big companies do it. April Walker: Absolutely. I'm sure we're going to talk about it a decent amount. We're just getting started at this conference today, but AI. What's your take on it? How are you using it? How has it made your life better or your firm's life better? Brian Davis: Oh, it's made my life better, everything. I mean, we learn how to do recipes on there, everything. You could almost use it for anything outside of that. April Walker: Absolutely. Brian Davis: But AI, I mean, it's great and you have to know it's just like another tool. You have to know how it applies to your firm and how you're using it. Of course, we have to be careful with security and making sure you're not uploading personal data. What I talked about in the session is think about who the customer is. If you're on a free version of ChatGPT, you're the customer. They're using your input to build the model. But if you pay for the workspace, the app it costs a little bit more money, you can control those settings, and now you can get even more advanced with, endless opportunities. I mean, I have when I'm doing video deliveries that, now sometimes I'll do a tax return and I'll send you a Loom video that will kind of answer the questions I know you're going to have so that that way, when you look at it, you're not hey, I got questions, and I'm busy because I'm at digital CPA. Let me show the video, send it to you. I have a script writer that will help me write the script. There's so much different ways you can play around. I mean, I feel like AI is just getting better and better, so I can't say that I'm an expert on it because it's who it is. It's it's such an early stage but it's great. I'm definitely impressed with it. I try to do as much improvement as I can because it's kind of an assistant. We used to go to Google, research different articles, different people's opinions on tax. Now, you could kind of use it as a research assistant. April Walker: To get you started, at least. Brian Davis: Hey, I'm researching these tax things and I have these questions. This is the idea that I want to present to the client. How would you approach that? Of course, I'm not going to just forward that, but it's definitely better to have that with you kind of just to help you out. I see it as another team member. It's like another team member. April Walker: Yeah, we use Copilot. Brian Davis: Well, one way that I'll be using it now, and I got to give a shout out to Automation Town, it's a community that I'm part of with Chad Davis. One thing I even expressed him, I said, well, the Zoom AI summary after I have my discovery call, Zoom gives a pretty decent, recap of the meeting. But I can't just forward that to the client because there's sometimes there's little, I want to put all that. It's kind of look at it before you send anything to a client. Before I start running off tasks to people, I want to put a little bit of, that would be me, something I would go and manually do. I said, well, he kind of laid out a way where you can combine Zoom's AI summary that comes to you by email with a zappier integration that can create a new Google document with action plan, potential action task for the team, a potential agenda recap that you can send to the client. Then pair that with you tell it stuff about your firm. Well, hey, we talked about this, we want offer this afterwards, and now it already knows what you mean. It can get very customized. You just got to play around with it. It's so cool. There's so many different ways people are using it, and you don't have to be any kind of super tech-forward. You can play around with it. April Walker: I think that's right. I mean, just keep in mind the security aspects, and don't put personal information in there, and then just have fun. Brian Davis: Yeah, get those settings right where you're not uploading your life to the cloud. You know, it's analyzing everything, but, once you're in there, I mean, it's helped me design chat messages that I send to clients just enhancing, hey, I want to come across this way because when we're accounting, you wouldn't even want to see some of the emails I used to send to people just to summarize our meeting. April Walker: Oh my gosh I know. Brian Davis: You got to be an accountant to read this but you know, you could say, hey, read this so it's easier to digest. It's great that you could do those. It's pairing it with our knowledge. As accountants, we got so much that we're good at. Now there's these tools that help us out. April Walker: Brian, we've had a great conversation today. I love it. I don't know if you have listened to our podcast before. It's called Tax Section Odyssey. On it, I like to think about taking an Odyssey together, journey together towards a better profession. We'll pip it a little bit to do you have any dreams outside of the world of tax that you have a bucket list or any travel you've got planned that's still there. Brian Davis: No, well, I definitely want to start traveling in the future. Again, before COVID, that was the one thing when I went out on my own, I got to start traveling. That's why I was hooked on, okay, I got to make this firm work because then I could keep doing these trips. My son, he's 11 months now, so when he's starting to walk, he's starting to stumble so when he starts walking, we want to  spend the summer in a different country and those things. I'd love to do that. April Walker: My daughter had a passport before she was two, so do it. Brian Davis: Right. Exactly. Definitely looking forward to some travel, and just building the firm that can run smooth. I don't plan on selling my firm anytime. I do enjoy being an accountant. I kind of lost that love when I was at the firms and having trouble breaking through to the partners - hey, we should do this, there's some tools that we could use to save me time. We have to document every 15 minutes that we're doing. Now that I got out on my own, I saw that there's a better way that you could actually run an amazing firm. I know that there's a shortage of accountants that are trying that are getting into it because it's  seen as this heavy, burdensome job and there's definitely ways you could break through. In the future, you know, just being a part of that, whether it means helping accountants that are kind of coming up in my shoes. I talked to a lot of my friends and fellow CPAs that just  may have met me on a Zoom or something or met me on a community chat or something, and they're just, you know, looking for these tips to help them get out on their own. What is the tech stack you use? What should I maybe start off with?. Maybe some kind of coaching thing where I'm just helping out profession a little bit. That's something like an Odyssey. April Walker: I love that. That's great. On an Odyssey. Brian, thank you so much for joining me today. I enjoyed it. Brian Davis: This is great. Thanks for having me. April Walker: Of course. Again, this is April Walker from the AICPA Tax section. This community is your go to source for technical guidance and resources design, especially for CPA tax practitioners like you in mind. This is a podcast from AICPA and CIMA together as the Association of International certified Professional Accountants. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts, and we encourage you to follow us so you don't miss an episode. If you already follow us, thank you so much, and please feel free to share with a like-minded friend. Thanks again for listening. Keep your finger on the pulse of the dynamic and evolving tax landscape with insights from tax thought leaders in the AICPA Tax Section. The Tax Section Odyssey podcast includes a digest of tax developments, trending issues and practice management tips that you need to be aware of to elevate your professional development and your firm practices. This resource is part of the robust tax resource library available from the AICPA Tax Section. The Tax Section is your go-to home base for staying up to date on the latest tax developments and providing the edge you need for upskilling your professional development. If you're not already a member, consider joining this prestigious community of your tax peers. You'll get free CPE, access to rich technical content such as our Annual Tax Compliance Kit, a weekly member newsletter and a digital subscription to The Tax Adviser.

For people with kidney failure, hemodialysis is a life saving treatment. On average, people can live for 5 to 10 years on dialysis, but many have lived 20 to 30 years. Hemodialysis also comes with some distressing symptoms like muscle cramps, itching, and fatigue. Doctor Jennifer Flythe and Precious McCowan, a dialysis patient and kidney advocate, are here to talk about a new study that aims to better monitor and help manage the symptoms of hemodialysis. Dr. Jenny Flythe, MD -is a nephrologist and clinical investigator at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Kidney Center, Associate Professor and Vice Chief of Nephrology and Hypertension at the UNC School of Medicine, and Director of Dialysis Services at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, NC. She conducts patient-oriented qualitative, epidemiologic, and prospective research aimed at improving outcomes and experiences among individuals with kidney disease. Precious McCowan, BS, MS, ESRD- At the age of nine, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes; living with this condition for over 25 years progress my kidney failure.  By the age of twenty-seven, I was placed on in-center hemodialysis. In 2010 I received both a kidney and pancreas transplant; unfortunately, I had to return to dialysis and insulin shortly after transplantation.  In 2019 I received my second kidney transplant. Before my second kidney transplantation, I did dialysis for nine years. I have served as a Facility Patient Representative (FPR) for my dialysis facility throughout this challenging yet rewarding journey. I heartily work to advance patient health engagement and renal education to better care while on dialysis. Acquiring the passion for assisting those affected by End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) promoted my affiliation with the ESRD Medical Review Board (MRB) and the ESRD Patient Advisory Council (PAC) of Texas. Also, I am a member of the Kidney Patient Advisory Council; as an advocate partnering with ESRD caregivers and medical professionals to effectively meet the needs of those living with kidney disease.   Do you have comments, questions, or suggestions? Email us at NKFpodcast@kidney.org. Also, make sure to rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome to the Accounting Influencers Podcast, going live every Monday to 150 countries and 30,000 accounting practitioners, fintech specialists and influencers in the accountancy, CPA and bookkeeping space.In this episode of the Accounting Influencers Podcast, Rob Brown has the the privilege of hosting Richard Francis, the visionary Founder and CEO of Spotlight Reporting. As a global business intelligence software company dedicated to serving accounting firms and CFOs, Spotlight Reporting has been at the forefront of transforming the accounting profession. Richard takes us on a journey through his personal and professional evolution, from his early days in accounting to the pivotal moment when he saw the need for revolutionary reporting, forecasting, and consolidation tools.Richard's passion for driving change in the accounting landscape shines through as he discusses Spotlight Reporting's mission: to empower accountants and CFOs to provide meaningful, value-added services. He emphasizes the importance of advisory services, a topic often overshadowed by compliance, and shares his vision of accountants as catalysts for profound change in their clients' lives.The conversation delves into the recent survey conducted by Spotlight Reporting, revealing fascinating insights into accountants' readiness to embrace transformation and the shift towards more advisory-focused services. Richard's intellectually curious nature and commitment to innovation shine through as he explores the evolving role of technology, artificial intelligence, and the changing dynamics of hiring in the accounting profession.This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the future of accounting and the incredible opportunities it offers in a rapidly changing world. Join us as we embark on a journey of discovery, uncovering the exciting prospects that lie ahead for accountants and CFOs alike.YoutubeYou can watch this episode and more on our YouTube Channelhttps://www.youtube.com/@accountinginfluencers Guest BioRichard Francis is the visionary founder and CEO behind Spotlight Reporting, a global business intelligence software company catering to the needs of accounting firms and CFOs. Since its inception in 2011, Spotlight Reporting has grown to include over 50 dedicated professionals spread across Australia, the UK, Canada, the US, and New Zealand. Today, it proudly serves as the trusted tool for over 2,000 forward-thinking firms, impacting over 100,000 businesses each month. Notably, Spotlight Reporting has garnered numerous prestigious awards, solidifying its position as a multi-award winner in the industry.Before his remarkable journey with Spotlight Reporting, Richard served as a General Manager at Xero from 2012 to 2014. His expertise in software development led to the successful acquisition of his own software business in 2012. Prior to venturing into the tech world, Richard began his career as a Chartered Accountant, honing his skills at a prominent firm. He later embarked on a transformative journey to the UK, where he spent four enriching years.Upon returning to New Zealand in 2001, Richard and his wife, Julie, embarked on an entrepreneurial path, establishing a 'boutique' advisory practice. This endeavor focused on delivering Virtual CFO and strategic services, further enriching Richard's extensive and diversified background in the accounting and software industries.Season 4 Sponsors & Links◣━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━◢If you like the show, we'd truly appreciate a review on whatever platform you listen. We'd love to get to know you!Main show website. For access to every single show with full shownotes:...

In this episode, we chat with Miki Szikszai.  Miki has served as CEO of Snapper Services since 2009. You'll know Snapper as the ticketing provider for Wellington - it also serves off-shore customers by white-labeling its apps and is launching a transport network performance analytics service in the next few weeks. He's been an active director on the Board of NZ-based SaaS companies including the original board of Vend, Chair of StarNow before its sale to Backstage, and is currently an active director at Spotlight Reporting and the chair of vWork. We chat about Miki's story from being a New Zealander made with imported ingredients. (His mother was photographed as one of a few Polish refugee children arriving in Wellington on board the ship General Randall.) From his career having to empathetically educate New Zealanders about major technology changes, to how to have an amazing grad program, to being an effective CEO and independent director. We really enjoyed this chat with Miki and hope you do also. Please follow and subscribe to our podcast wherever you consume podcasts. 

In this episode, Melinda Emerson chats with Kathy Svetina, a part-time CFO for small businesses. They discuss the realities of running a million-dollar business, the role of a fractional CFO, and the importance of financial planning. They also delve into tax planning, strategies for business growth, securing bank financing, and tools like Spotlight Reporting and Fathom. The value of traditional marketing and essential advice for businesses nearing a million in revenue are also explored.

Spotlight Reporting is 1 of 25 businesses that has made NBR Radar's 2018 list of businesses likely to be a significant contributor to New Zealand's future business and economic success. Listen to the full interview with Richard Francis to hear about the origins of Spotlight and his plans for the company's future.

If you're always doing the same things that you've always done, why do you expect the results to be different? In this episode, we interview Richard Francis, the CEO of Spotlight Reporting, a chartered accountant, and a trusted advisor with over twenty years of advisory experience. During this discussion, Richard shares how he has used […]

If you’re always doing the same things that you’ve always done, why do you expect the results to be different? In this episode, we interview Richard Francis, the CEO of Spotlight Reporting, a chartered accountant, and a trusted advisor with over twenty years of advisory experience. During this discussion, Richard shares how he has used his belief system to give him confidence to take risks and never stop learning. He also lets us in on his secret passion outside of work as well!

In this podcast Chris Hooper the CEO of Accodex shares insights with hosts Richard Francis (CEO of Spotlight Reporting) and MC Carter (Director and Founder of Practice Paradox) on the future of accounting, and the democratisation of business intelligence. Once only accessible to big businesses with bottomless pockets, the group explores how advancements in cloud accounting has made BI accessible for accountants to empower small business clients to succeed. The group also discusses where the mind set of newly emerging accountants is headed, along with a series of innovative ways to market advisory services to your clients. There's plenty of gems here to discover so enjoy the podcast!

On this special episode of Delta Dispatches, Simone and Jacques sit down with two members of the collaborative journalism project “The Drowning Coast." First up, John Schwartz, Science Reporter for the New York Times joins the program to talk with Jacques & Simone about the reporting that went into this project as well as what other areas are facing environmental challenges other than Louisiana. In the second half the show, Mark Schleifstein, Enivironmenta reorter from the Times-Picayune stops by to talk with Simone & Jacques about the local feedback from the “The Drowning Cast”, Mayor Kerner, what’s next for Times-Picayune Coastal Desk and more!

In this episode, Darren Glanville of Spotlight Reporting shares insights on how firms should price, position, sell and deliver business advisory services.

Today on episode 39 of the Cloud Stories podcast I’m talking with the Richard Francis who’s the founder of Spotlight Reporting. His company have recently released a whitepaper called The Perfect Advisory Relationship. In today’s show I talk with him about this paper and how advisors and business owners can benefit from monthly advisory meetings. Spotlight Reporting provides award-winning reporting, forecasting, consolidation and dashboard reporting tools to progressive accountants, franchises, NFP's and business owners. Our cloud tools allow for integrated data-sets (Xero, QBO, Vend, Google Analytics etc) and exceptional, customisable reports for better decision-making and governance. For people listening overseas they have offices in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia. So you should definitely be able to find someone to help on board you with this solution. In this episode I talk to Richard about: What Spotlight Reporting does for advisors and business owners Delivering services and attitudes to help transform accounting firms The Perfect Advisory Relationship whitepaper How to run an Advisory / Spotlight Reporting session with clients Blake Oliver gives away Spotlight Reporting dashboard free to all clients – and this in turn generates work for him. Overview of a monthly advisory meeting Establishing understanding and centre yourself on client goals Setting a monthly agenda Ask lots of questions at the start of the meeting Advice over a coffee Richard works through a typical small business example Use a whiteboard to deconstruct and visualise the business model Review pricing and charging for value vs hourly rate Systems and technology reviews Trend and margin analysis, benchmarking Agree on outcome and follow up with action points, including a system that follows up the action points Keep timesheets to monitor budgets   Today’s episode is sponsored by Spotlight Reporting. Resources mentioned in this interview The Perfect Advisory Relationship whitepaper Spotlight Reporting Receipt Bank Deputy Xero Trello MinuteDock Connect with Richard Francis Richard@SpotlightReporting.com http://www.spotlightreporting.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/spotlight-reporting-limited http://www.facebook.com/SpotlightReporting https://twitter.com/spotlightrep Thanks for listening! What’s been your biggest learning from today’s episode? Share in the comments below. Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe on iTunes and if you love Cloud Stories the Podcast please take a minute to leave a review. Some of the listeners might know Jason Forbes who’s the Spotlight Reporting Director of Sales here in Australia. I know Jason from my days as a MYOB Trainer back in early 2000. Then Jason became my first Xero account manager. And now he is at Spotlight Reporting – helping advisors and business owners understand their numbers and use them to meet their business goals. P.S. Loved this episode? You’re going to love hearing from David New who is now the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Spotlight Reporting. In episode 25 David talks about building teams and growing businesses in superfast time.

Today on the Cloud Stories podcast I’m talking with Bernadette Schwerdt. Bernadette is the author of Secrets of Online Entrepreneurs: How Australia's Online Mavericks, Innovators and Disruptors Built Their Businesses ... And How You Can Too. Bernadette and I are both authors with Wiley Publishing. We publish books with real pages! Every month Wiley sends authors a newsletter about what other authors are doing and I when I read Bernadette had written a book on the topic of successful entrepreneurs – I thought it would be of interest to listeners of this podcast. So I approached her and she kindly agreed. We then played calendar games for a few months and finally I’m excited to share with you that she’s on the show! What I learnt from my conversation with Bernadette is that you don’t need a team of expert in what your business does e.g. if you sell wine you don’t need a sommelier, what you need is a hacker and a hustler.  I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot. In episode 11 of Cloud Stories I spoke with Tejaswi Raghurama at Pipemonk and his job title was Growth Hacker. I need to speak with someone and explore the growth hacker phenomena. Bernadette also shared that she learnt through her interviews that businesses needed to operate quickly and on a bootstring. If they were to fail they needed to fail forward.  Failing forward essentially means you turn your mistakes into stepping stones that move you forward. I hope that hearing about how other successful entrepreneurs have succeeded may help you in your own business. Bernadette is the director of The Australian School of Copywriting, an online training company specialising in the science and art of content marketing. She is the author of the best-selling manual “Writing for Profit” and of the new book “Secrets of Online Entrepreneurs” by Wiley Publishing. She is a columnist with the magazine Inside Small Business, an Ambassador Blogger for Australia Post, a lecturer in marketing and communications at leading universities around Australia and is in demand as a speaker on leadership, entrepreneurship and marketing. When she’s not working in marketing, she moonlights as an actor and appears regularly on TV in iconic shows such as Neighbours, Winners and Losers, Jack Irish and others. In fact I was watching Jack Irish the other night and a lawyer appeared who sounded exactly like Bernadette and I checked the credits and it was her! Jack Irish is a great Australian drama on the ABC at the moment – if you have the chance to watch it. Bernadette’s business The Australian School of Copywriting was formed in 2001, and has trained thousands of students in the art of copywriting. Specialising in providing real-world, practical techniques, students learn how copywriting can not only benefit their small business, but how it can become a main source of income. Here’s an extract from Secrets of Online Entrepreneurs – that I read during the podcast: Morris’s top 10 trends to watch: Lawyers/accountants/service industry Statutory paperwork and routine regulatory forms will all be completed digitally by 2025, leaving service providers to earn their fees, by selling their wisdom, intuition and feelings. As the sea of data rises and possibilities exponentially grow, we will be crying out for wise people to make sense and purpose out of all of it for us. We’ll be searching for experts who can let us know – in advance of use even knowing we need to know it – what to do about it or with it. That’s tomorrow’s service industry’s goldmine. That’s all about understanding and accessing accurate timely big data interpret it, analyse it and communicate it. That’s one of the reasons I invited Geni Whitehouse to be a guest on the show – episode 36 of Cloud Stories – to speak about the importance of communicating in everyday language that small business people understand. Today’s episode is kindly sponsored by Spotlight Reporting. I wanted to share with you a conversation I had during the week. I was speaking with a bookkeeper who had many freelance professionals from the same industry all on Xero. I explained to her that she could use the Spotlight Multi product and she could suck in all of the Xero organisations, and doing that she could rank them, visualise them, benchmark and consolidate them. Breaking that down, she could see the comparisons between revenue earned against cost of sales whether they were in line with the other business and potentially whether there were exceptions that needed further investigation. Using a tool like Spotlight Multi can help you sell your wisdom, your intuition and your feelings. You can graphically look at something and quickly see exceptions that can lead you to understand and react to trends in the business. This in turns improves your ability to manage the business.   Laugh like a drain   In this episode I talk to Bernadette about: Mad Men television series What is copywriting E-books vs books with real pages Importance of all employees to have an online presence which incorporates what they want to be known for How to develop high quality content and re-purpose it across platforms When an online business needs a copywriter How should a business engage a copywriter 7 steps to create a successful online business: purpose, people, planning, profit, positioning, profile, promotion Critical to understand the actual business you are in How Malcolm Turnbull made his millions – it may surprise you! The two people every online business needs is a hacker and a hustler Don’t be obsessed with perfection Fast and quick, think fast and fail forward  Resources mentioned in this interview https://www.shoesofprey.com/ http://au.whogivesacrap.org/  Connect with Bernadette Schwerdt Info@copyschool.com copyschool.com bernadetteschwerdt.com.au     Connect with Heather Smith Click here to sign up to my newsletter http://bit.ly/SignUp4Newsletter Listen to my podcast : http://cloud-stories.com/  Read my latest blog post : http://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/blog/ Visit my website : www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com  Book time with me heathersmithau.gettimely.com/book   Subscribe to my YouTube channel : https://www.YouTube.com/ANISEConsulting Follow me on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/HeatherSmithAU Join my FaceBook page : https://www.facebook.com/HeatherSmithAU  Connect with me on LinkedIn : http://www.linkedin.com/in/HeatherSmithAU Add me to your circle on Google + https://plus.google.com/+HeatherSmithAU/posts       

Today on the Cloud Stories podcast I’m talking with the Lisa Martin owner and manager at GoFi8ure. The business offers one-on-one or one-to-many training at your doorstep or in-house. The tagline is ‘get training and become a Xero Hero’. You'll recall I interviewed Lisa in episode 20 of Cloud Stories. In that episode we explored her Xero journey. I asked her to come back on the show - so we could discuss how a business could offer Xero training. Lisa and I both have a gazillion years of Xero training experience between us. We are passionate about delivering high quality training and helping people who want to DIY Bookkeeping. We have a candid discussion about all aspects of offering Xero training. You'll hear about what works and what doesn't work for us, and how we can bring real world experience into Xero training. I personally think what’s great about the interview – is we do things differently – so you get to hear different options – and perhaps decide what’s best for you in your business. If you've ever thought of offering Xero training as an additional service in your business - then you must listen to this episode.  Please note - we're independent of Xero - and all opinions (and we have a lot of them) are our own. In this episode I talk to Lisa about: Why we offer Xero training Qualities of a good trainer – what to look for in a good trainer Importance of communication, plain English and common sense skills Difficulties of introductory training Find out where students are at prior to training Icebreakers to use before running a training session Understanding what the student hopes to get out of training Asking open ended questions The importance of monitoring other people presenting – and understanding how people learn How to improve your training skills How to structure training classes How to use Xero as a training platform What contents covered in a Xero training class Online vs In person vs Classroom Training How to make a room conducive to training Business tools used to help run training classes How to promote Xero training classes Always ask students for a testimonial and ask them to tell their own colleagues about the training they had with you Thoughts around what Xero’s stipulations should be around Xero trainers. Please note - we're independent of Xero Surveys and feedback following training courses Education empowers Don’t be afraid that you’ll train you out of a client for you – Lisa Martin Today’s episode is sponsored by Spotlight Reporting. One of the tools that you can use within Spotlight Reporting is Spotlight Forecasting. Spotlight Forecasting enables you to look ahead with clarity. You can find out more information by visiting http://www.spotlightreporting.com/future. It includes a budget creator, a three-way forecasting tool and a scenario builder. It seamlessly integrates with Xero so you can have it up and running very fast.  Please visit the show sponsors. At the end of the show I call-out to Phil Burnell who left a 5 star review for Spotlight Reporting at the Xero community. He says about Spotlight Reporting “Great reporting tool that provides a high quality range of additional reporting that really will make a difference to any business that uses it!”   Resources mentioned in this interview Xero Spotlight Reporting Connect with Lisa Martin   https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisamartingofi8ure https://twitter.com/GoFi8ure http://www.gofi8ure.co.nz/xero-training-centre http://www.sayitlikeitis.co.nz/ xero@gofi8ure.co.nz   Thanks for listening! What’s been your biggest learning from today’s episode? Share in the comments below.   Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe on iTunes and if you love Cloud Stories the Podcast please take a minute to leave a review.   P.S. Loved this episode? You’re going to love hearing about Lisa’s Xero journey on episode 20.

In this episode Blake Oliver and I discuss his recommended apps for accountants and bookkeepers. I loved this episode!  Connect with @BlakeTOliver & @HeatherSmithAU on twitter and let us know if you agree. Or visit http://www.blakeoliver.com/ and http://cloud-stories.com/ sign up to our newsletters. This episode was kindly sponsored by Spotlight Reporting.  Spotlight Reporting has a suite of four solutions: Spotlight Reporting creates useful, attractive performance reports quickly and efficiently. Ideal for organisations that need deeper insight and analysis Spotlight Dashboard is the one page reporting dashboard that focuses on what really matters. With drag-and-drop functionality, Dashboard is super-fast and easy to use. Spotlight Forecasting is an 'all-in-one' forecasting tool which brings together budget creation, full 3-way forecasting and scenario building capability. Forecast the future with confidence. Spotlight Multi is an online tool designed specifically for multi-entity organisations. Better, faster and more useful reporting should also encourage improved decision making and governance. Please support our sponsor and visit http://www.spotlightreporting.com/ to find out more about Spotlight Reporting Or if you are a Xero advisor join the https://www.facebook.com/groups/XeroMasterMind/ group and continue the discussion. Blake Oliver is the Director of Technology & Marketing at HPC Accounting & Tax   "I love technology, accounting, and productivity. I guess that's why nothing makes me happier than helping a client realize a big boost in efficiency after setting up a new cloud accounting integration." ~ Blake Oliver Heather Smith can help your Xerocentric business deliver powerful, engaging and educational content, through guest blog posts, educational instructions, video creation, podcasts, and social media blasts. She hosts the #1 independent XeroCentric podcast Cloud Stories, authored Xero for Dummies, produces easy to follow videos on her YouTube channel and hosts the Xero Mastermind Meetup and Xero Mastermind Facebook group. As a chartered certified accountant, certified practising accountant and Xero certified advisor she has the knowledge, expertise and credibility to talk about your business solution to the Xero community.

Aired: 5/9/2015 7 PM::