After one of the busiest weeks for the accountancy profession, Advancetrack’s Vipul Sheth takes stock.
The three days…
It seems strange starting a blog with a summary. But, in truth, so much has gone on that, looking back on the past three days, it’s more about the feeling you’re left with.
And my feeling is overwhelmingly positive. In truth, with my newly expanded team, I had a blast - and I think they did too.
While driving a business forward isn’t always easy, I feel so pleased that there’s a fantastic group of people who are a part of the organisation and as a circle of friends. There was lots of laughter and joking, despite it being a high-pressure environment (anyone that has had anything to do with events will know how full-on it is).
Secondly – I think the whole Advancetrack team felt the love of the community that we operate in. The number of people in around the accountancy ecosystem, whether practitioners, vendors or industry experts – when I was busy talking to clients or prospects on the stand – tapped me on the shoulder to wave at me and say hello.
I feel we’re respected in the community; we have a standing. Right at the end of day two of Accountex, one of our clients told us of a problem they were having with a software product they use. I went to the vendor (on their own stand) and said: ‘We have a mutual customer with a problem, can you help them?’ Straight away they came over and looked to address the issue with them.
A small practice we work with – just a husband and wife – came to me and said that ‘they have their weekends back because of working with Advancetrack’. They also said that, even though they use our outsourcing service as opposed to dedicated offshore staff, they feel like the people they work with are dedicated to their cause. It was a great end to the show.
Other conversations
I’d say that you don’t build a business (or a practice) purely around external factors – and therefore technology and services are not pills or medicine to merely solve a narrow problem. The best conversations we have – and we had many over the course of the week – was where the practitioners talk about what they want to deliver to clients, and how they view that delivery model.
Clearly, MTD has been, and currently is, a driver for many firms to reconsider their model – but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Firms that say ‘we want to deliver X; we have people in our firm that we want to do a certain type of work, but we need Advancetrack to help us undertake other tasks’ – that has led us to have strategic partnerships with firms that has continued over many years.
In truth, how many practitioners can say their true passion is the processing? Yes, efficiencies help drive delivery and profits, but ultimately you’re looking to provide a great service to your client base… and that’s what we want to help happen. We consider ourselves as ‘non-transactional’ when we discuss our offering and how we work with our practice clients; it’s very much about making a difference to the firm.
A ’multi-track profession’
There have always been firms at different levels when it comes to process, workflows, efficiency and, ultimately, levels of technology engagement.
However, developments in cloud technology, apps and outsourcing, have perhaps created a multi-track profession. For example, some firms have been ‘cloud only’ for many years, and are undergoing the next iteration of the technology they use.
You might have thought that MTD would have moved the dial somewhat for the laggards, but there are still a significant number of firms that have hoped that HMRC would delay MTD again. That delay is not happening. The next few months are going to be pivotal for the profession at the smaller end, I believe.
Vipul Sheth is founder and MD of Advancetrack
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