The season to be jolly (and at conferences)

As the 2023 conference season kicks off in earnest, Vipul Sheth gauges the delegate (and software company) temperature after the cooling off of MTD.

It’s that time of year: when we ponder whether we’ll get a ‘proper’ summer, and the major accounting conferences begin.

First-off, it was wonderful celebrating 20 years of AdvanceTrack. This year, our conference was held in the magnificent British Museum (where we’ll be heading for 2024 too). 

Xero’s Jamie Eddy spoke of a three-pronged set of challenges and opportunities that practices must understand and leverage, namely: your reputation; managing your talent; and, therefore, your capacity to undertake work.

Our newly-appointed sales director Dermot Hamblin covered a range of topics, from how to manage change in your practice, through to new developments in the world of business and accounting technology.

Brian Coventry from Cloudcapcha spoke about the importance of differentiating your practice from others, and why capturing data from your clients allows you to offer a unique service.

I rounded off the event by reiterating that accountants have a great opportunity to make a difference to their clients – which means moving beyond the commoditised compliance services that all firms offer.

Accountex London

It was, by all accounts, a record-breaking show – certainly in terms of attendees. Of the show itself – the big players put in a lot of effort into their stands and presentations. In fact, there were presentations across 13 stands for the whole of the two days. 

While there was an element of a post-MTD lull, in that there were few big product announcements, it was noticeable how busy the aforementioned stages were. People were hungry for information. And this information wasn’t specifically ‘post-MTD’; instead, there was a range of strategic and operationally-themed sessions.

I was delighted to serve as a panellist on the ‘Are outsourcing and offshoring the solutions to the recruitment crisis?’ session. 

Ironically, some of the outsourcing session covered MTD’s impact on changing the way practices work with their clients, particularly around the increasing amount of bookkeeping that firms’ clients require. Advocate practitioners on the panel spoke of being unable to manage their workload with outsourcing support.

Vipul Sheth is MD and founder of AdvanceTrack Outsourcing

If you’d like to find out more about the pricing models for outsourcing and offshoring, please click here. Feel free to get in touch to speak to Vipul and the team. We’d love to help your practice develop and grow.

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