The Advancetrack team continues to be very busy out in the field: we move on from the Alternative Accountancy Management three-dayer to the Finance, Accounting & Bookkeeping Show.
While my recent trip to India was relatively short, our CTO Ian Gregory stuck around for longer: he spent some quality time with the team looking closely at how we can be more efficient in doing what we do.
There is great technological change going on around us, particularly in terms of AI, so it makes sense that it will be part of our journey going forward. And so Ian spent time looking at how we can continue leveraging new technologies to further drive efficiencies.
We spend a lot of time talking about the personal side of what we do – understanding how our practice clients work and partnering closely with them. However, such close relationships would be impossible without the technology as a foundation. As a business that launched its first cloud platform over 20 years ago, technology is an integral part of our approach. The practices we support will be the first to find out what these changes mean!
Florence to Wyboston Lakes
There is no rest for the wicked, as they say. And so, I continued my travels to Florence for the DFK EMEA Annual & Emerging Leaders Conference… In mitigation, I can’t have been too wicked to have had the delights of such a trip.
Joined by Advancetrack sales director Louise Walpole, it was great to get an understanding of the direction for DFK International’s firms, along with inspirational talks from high-performing entrepreneurs and keynotes speaker Squash Falconer, a record-breaking mountaineer.
It was then back to the UK for Alternative Accountancy Management 2026. Held across three days, we were delighted to be headline sponsor for the event. For those of you that don’t know, it brings together managing partners, leaders and IT heads for the 300 top accountancy practices.
It’s a mixture of plenary session and workshops/round tables, with a focus on management, leadership and IT. I had the honour of sitting on a panel discussing talent, succession and remuneration: what drives behaviours? How do you make your firm efficient while holding onto your best people?
There was also an interesting discussion on who holds responsibility for developing AI in an accounting practice… the conclusion made was that the practice’s leaders must drive the change.
Bring your people on the journey
Ultimately, there is a lot of change impacting our profession and, while it’s hard to divine what it all means, when we do make changes, we communicate these very clearly to our teams – particularly when they’re affected (ideally, they should be helping and involved in driving change).
While I catch my breath, Advancetrack is very much looking forward to seeing you all at the Finance, Accounting & Bookkeeping Show on 11-12 March. I’m on the Building an Agile Firm Culture: Balancing Technology, Teams and Outsourcingpanel from 12.40pm on the Circle Stage, along with a great panel of experts and practice leaders. Hopefully see you there!
Vipul Sheth is founder and MD of Advancetrack Outsourcing
If you’d like to talk to us about driving change in your practice, get in touch by clicking here.
