What we found was that progressive firms, categorised as high-revenue and high-profitability, are not just sifting through trying to find great people. They’re actually investing in their current people, spending more time on compliance training and professional development. In essence, what they’re doing is driving a growth mindset across their business, trying to find ways to lift their current people up and give them the skills they need to navigate the capacity constraints that exist.

– Liam Hindle, GM of Product & Product Marketing at MYOB

Today I’m speaking with Liam Hindle, GM of Product & Product Marketing at MYOB. Liam highlights “intentionality” as a key to the cultural and operational trait that sets progressive accounting firms apart. 

“I think for me, the word that comes to mind is that they’re intentional”.

He elaborated that these firms:

• Don’t improve by accident or as a byproduct.
• Make conscious decisions to invest in their people and operations.
• Regularly review processes and strategies.
• Prioritise professional development and operational efficiency.
• Make strategic use of technology to free up time for high-value work.

Liam emphasised that intentionality helps firms shift from reactive, deadline-driven work to proactive, strategic engagement, unlocking value for both clients and team members.

In this episode, we also talk about . . .

• Focus on MYOB’s vision for accounting practices;
• Key takeaways from the MYOB Accounting Industry Monitor;
• Strategies for handling talent shortages & fostering a growth mindset; 
• AI literacy and upskilling as tools for retention & recruitment;
• Operational tips for improving efficiency through standardisation and automation;
• Importance of strong onboarding and client engagement; 
• Data security and AI risk management in MYOB’s product development;
• Future of accounting tech: Agentic AI and embedded AI in workflows;
• MYOB’s upcoming compliance-focused tools and strategic advisory enablement

03:22 – Liam’s Career Journey
06:05 – Understanding Accountants Through Customer Engagement: Liam’s methods of connecting with practices
08:40 – MYOB Industry Monitor Insights: Why MYOB launched the survey and what they found
12:18 – Growth Mindset & Talent Development: How firms overcome the talent shortage
16:40 – AI & Tech as Talent Magnets: Why younger staff expect AI literacy
20:15 – Tech Investment Trends in Small Practices: Where ROI is strongest
23:05 – Practical AI for Small Firms: Meeting note tools, process documentation
27:30 – Client Engagement Transformation: Strategic advisory beyond compliance
30:10 – The Future Role of Accountants: From compliance to economic enablers
33:08 – Automated Onboarding with MYOB: First impressions matter
35:35 – Balancing Innovation & Security: MYOB’s approach to risk and data hosting
38:10 – The Intentional Culture of Progressive Firms: Operational discipline & professional development
41:00 – What’s Next in Accounting Tech: Agentic AI, embedded workflows, automation
45:20 – MYOB’s Client Accounting Platform: Compliance tools that unlock advisory
49:15 – Grow Clients, Not Just Client Lists: A more sustainable model for practices
52:10 – MYOB’s Vision for Agentic AI: Teaser on what’s coming next

Scroll down for a full transcript

This transcript has been generated and transcribed by AI

Liam, what’s the most innovative way you are using technology or AI in your home?

Liam Hindle
Oh, great question, and thanks for having me, Heather.

The most innovative way that I’m using technology or AI in my home. Well, my wife and I are using it to help sort of bounce parenting ideas around. We’ve spoken a bit about how I’ve got a three-year-old and a five year old, and they’re really sort of, they can be challenging ages for a whole range of different reasons. So that has actually been really helpful for us to, you know, help the little ones navigate the storm of feelings that can come with being a three-year-old. So not sure if that’s the most innovative, but it is probably the most helpful thing that we’re using it for at home.

Heather Smith
Oh, absolutely. Diving into sort of help and philosophies and parenting guidance. It certainly can be quite comforting in that respect. You just keep needing to remind it to disagree with me sometimes.

Yes, it can be a bit sycophantic. And tell you you’re great at everything, which is not the case. So, yeah, agreed.

Absolutely.

Liam, could you share a bit about your career journey with us?

Liam Hindle
Absolutely. I’ve just stepped into the role of GM for product at MYOB and looking after the practice area, so responsible for the full set of tools that accountants and bookkeepers use every day, from compliance through to practice management.

My background is pretty broad, so I’ve worked right across the customer lifecycle in a range of different sectors, you know, from customer-facing roles through to operations, strategy, marketing and now into product leadership. I look at that journey and think that each of those sorts of spaces have given me a different lens that I apply today. So, you know how to customers experience products. How do you actually describe the value and the best ways to make use of those products, and then how to make decisions that can drive like good long-term outcomes for your business and also the customers of your business.

Heather Smith
It is nice when a career kind of moves around, and while different, bring something to the next aspect of your career, and you really feel like, Hey, this is making sense. I started in waitering, in hospitality on the Gold Coast. And I always think it’s actually really good for accountants to do that, because you’re very client facing all the time, just that real experience of just being able to deal with people all the time, which is helpful.

Liam Hindle
Yeah, absolutely.

Heather Smith
So what does the day in the life of a product and marketing…I didn’t say that right, did I?

What does a day in the life of a general manager of product and product marketing look like?

It’s a great role in that it’s really varied. So, no two days look exactly the same. But essentially, for me, there’s kind of three key areas that I try to spread my time around. So the first is customer critically important that in product and product marketing, that we deeply understand our customers, the market they operate in, what drives them, what jobs they need to do, all of the things that that are happening in their space. So I spend as much time as I can connecting with our customers, whether it be at events that they’re running, or, you know, in sort of one to one meetings and just a lot of listening. So for me, that’s sort of one key part.

Also spend a lot of time making sure that our teams understand the strategy and the vision for where we’re trying to get to, and that the work that they’re doing on a day-to-day basis, is connected up to that and helping us sort of move along to get to that end state that you know that that we want to get to. So they’re the first two, and then the third one is like, How can I find ways and spend time in my day, unblocking things for people on my team as well. So you know when they sort of get stuck, or if there’s something that’s complicating their world and stopping them from being able to, you know, drive us forward to where we want to go, you know, leaning into that and trying to help them navigate those challenges.

Heather Smith
I originally met Wayne Schmidt at MYOB and he would have called that: How can I help you?

Liam Hindle
Yeah.

Heather Smith
But I always take that from him when I’m kind of dealing with people, it’s like, okay, how can I help you? Where can we go with this? What can I do for you?

So I probably need to circle back to the question that something that you just said up there about connecting with your clients.

I’m sure people listening in are interested to know if you’re jumping into the partner community Facebook groups?

Liam Hindle
The partner community Facebook groups. It’s probably, I know it’s a space for a lot of my peers at MYOB have been in there. It’s probably not a space that that I’ve spent as much time in, but, yeah, it’s definitely one that, you know, moving into this role as the GM of product that I do need to get a little bit closer into. Because, you know, when we’re listening to customers, that’s just a way that we can sort of, you know, magnify and connect with even more people and start to see the sorts of things that are, you know, really important or maybe frustrating for people on a day to day basis as well.

Heather Smith
I think you potentially have a community sitting elsewhere, but I do think that communities are able to surface sentiment very quickly.

So let’s jump across to the MYOB accounting industry monitor report. So we’re going to explore sort of some of what the findings are, why it’s important to accountants. Can you give us some insights into why MYOB developed this report in the first place?

Liam Hindle
Absolutely. So you know, for us, really important that, you know, we’re able to get a really clear pulse of what’s happening in the broader market and in the sector. And so we worked with a research agency called Kantar Group to survey 370 practices of all shapes and sizes across Australia. Really, the goal for this was, how can we identify the habits of practices that are particularly successful. Practices that are driving revenue growth and profitability. What are the things that they’re doing on a day-to-day basis that are helping them to over index and outperform others in those spaces as well.

Heather Smith
Yeah, yeah. And very much, breaking things down into habits. I did a I spent, I think, a whole year talking about atomic habits and breaking things down into habits. That’s a really nice way, it’s palatable and it’s digestible for people to understand.

Liam Hindle
I’m a big James Clear fan as well. Actually, I went and saw him when he was in Melbourne last year or the year before. Yeah, great book and yeah, good person to listen to.

Heather Smith
And the concepts are so easy to embrace and to understand and to actually talk to someone without sounding pretentious. It’s just like, let’s just break it down like that, and you can talk to your children about it or to your colleagues about it.

Liam, a few years ago, you completed your MBA, and you stated, when I started the MBA, I was told you do it for the people you meet, the certification you get and the knowledge that you gain, but for me, personally, I’d add to that the growth mindset and passion for learning that it has embedded to me. So the industry monitor highlights the same growth mindset as a defining feature of progressive practices?

How do you see your own journey connecting with the findings in this report, and why do you think a growth mindset is so critical for practices today?

Liam Hindle
I shouldn’t be surprised at your research, Heather, yet I still am. I’m impressed and surprised.

Look, I think one of the big themes that came out of the report, and I will connect it back to, you know, growth mindsets is essentially a big theme around people and capability. And so, you know, nearly every practice wants to grow their business. They want to grow their revenue or become more profitable. And growth plans look different from practice to practice. Some of them just want to bring on more clients and just churn through more work. Some of them want to, you know, unlock new revenue streams. But you can’t do that if you’re sort of drowning in your day to day work and you’ve got too many sort of, you know, compliance activities or things that are stopping you from being able to allocate time into it.

In this sector, there’s been a talent shortage for over a decade now. In this survey, we found 71% of firms are still saying, Yep, there’s a talent shortage, and it is impacting my ability to be able to grow my business in the way that I want. And what we found was that progressive firms, who were the ones we categorise as high revenue and high profitability, they’re not just out their sort of sifting through trying to find great people. They’re actually investing in their current people, and they’re spending more time on things like compliance training, more time on professional development. In essence, what they’re doing is driving a growth mindset across their business, and they’re trying to find ways to lift their current people up and give them the skills that they need to be able to navigate the capacity constraints that exist.

Heather Smith
Absolutely. That’s great and so interesting that 71% are still finding it challenging to find talent about what they’re doing about it? Thank you for that.

Keeping on with that conversation around talent. AI literacy is called out as a bit of a talent driver. Do you see upskilling in AI as a way to retain staff and attract the next generation? Look, I think I should also say tech. So, AI and tech in that, do you see that as a way of retaining staff?

Is embracing AI and tech a way of retaining staff and attracting the next generation of accountants?

Liam Hindle
Yeah, I think it is. I think, you know, in general, the next generation coming through are always just a little bit more tech literate than the one before. And the people that are graduating into, you know, out of uni and becoming accountants now are real digital natives. They’ve been using these sorts of tools their entire lives, and they’ve dived so deep into AI.

I don’t have the exact number, but when we did a survey of small business owners, we found that it was something like 90% of Gen Z business owners are using AI day to day in their business, which is huge. And I think, you know, across Australia, we actually do adopt technology fairly quickly. And we’ve got experience working with, you know, software partners in Europe. And like in general, Australians are adopting AI, almost twice the rate of European, you know, business owners and people in accounting as well.

I think it’s an important thing to ensure that you know, if you’re running an accounting practice and you’re wanting to bring on younger people, they are hungry to use and learn and be able to access the new tools that are coming in. And it’s not necessarily meaning you need to jump onto every single new product as they come up. But you know, you do want to make sure that you’ve got access to things like general-purpose AI tools, and that you’re able to give them things that they’re almost certainly using in their personal life on a regular basis.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely no. And I thoroughly agree with that. That’s very interesting that you say that you can see the rate of adoption in Australia is twice the rate of adoption as your European partners, which just goes…I deal a lot globally with people, and it’s just always Australia and New Zealand are very quick at adopting solutions, which is great. I think we just push each other all the time, don’t we? But it’s also perhaps good infrastructure and accessibility to information, to the solutions. So as you’ve talked to the survey suggests progressive practices are investing more in their people. Are you seeing this at scale?

Are you seeing upskilling happening in the small and the micro practices, or is it confined to the top end?

Liam Hindle
Yeah, interesting question. So what we found was that there wasn’t, like, a clear or, you know, a mid-sized firm is doing this better than smaller. It was actually a bit of a spread across size. Where it’s less about the size of the firm and more about the people that are in the decision making areas, deciding, you know, okay, are we going to invest in these sorts of things, and are we going to, you know, have these tools and these personal developer, professional development things be a priority.

I would say that, in general, and don’t have the sort of specific numbers to back this up, but the sort of five to 15 seat accounting practice is putting a real priority on these sorts of things. Now, perhaps they might not have been sort of five years ago. But I think now they sort of see that, you know, important to ensure that, you know, we’re upskilling our people because it’s better for them and the business, and that we’re providing other things, like, you know, good tooling for them to use day to day, things like flexible work, so that they can, you know, navigate their their own sort off-field responsibilities, and also be able to work effectively as well.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely. I will add to that MYOB, along with other accounting technology players in the space are constantly pumping out pretty much free or very, very low cost upskilling roadshows and webinars. So people can sort of connect with MYOB and subscribe and be alerted to those webinars and roadshows that are coming up.

So moving over and to talk about practice operations, the monitor, the publication, the report, shows that progressive firms are prioritising efficiency and continuous improvement, which is good, which is what we would expect them to be.

From your product lens at MYOB, what operational changes are delivering the biggest return on investment? Where do you see them putting the money in that is delivering the most positive impact?

Liam Hindle
Yeah, interesting. I think it’s different from practice to practice. And so there’s probably two things I’d sort of touch on here. So the first thing is that the technology is the enabler of your people and your business processes. So I’m a big believer that you don’t go and choose a piece of technology and then try to build your business around that. You want to make sure that you’ve got a deep understanding of what it is that you’re trying to build or sell, and that you have the right processes built around that.

I think the first thing is, you know, in the report, we found that 81% of firms, or progressive firms, are reviewing their internal processes regularly, and they’re looking at things like, how do I standardise workflows? How do I automate repetitive tasks, and how do I improve communication internally and also with our clients? And so, of course, technology plays an important role in that.

But things like standardising workflows can be as simple as saying, Well, I’ve got five accountants here that are working more or less in the same sort of space with similar clients. They’re all doing things entirely differently. And so, like, let’s sit down as a team and work through how, how are you doing this? How are you doing it, and how can we make sure that we’ve got, like, one way of working that is the most efficient and, yeah, sort of reaping the benefits of that. So automating repetitive tasks and things like that is where technology steps in to play a role. But you don’t even need to, like, dive straight into the tech side. There’re things that you can do internally within your business processes that can deliver a lot of benefits straight away as well.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely. And I always think that accountants, but particularly bookkeepers, are actually really, really good at mapping out processes, and that can be as simple as getting post it notes on a whiteboard, and it’s something they can do for their own practice, but they don’t actually offer it as a service to other practices, because I think they’ve got the mindset that really understands the detailed of processes and mapping it out helps you see, helps you refine it.

We have touched on this, but I’ll ask it in a bit of a different way. For those micro and small practices, listening in, what sort of one or two practical steps they can take to adopt technology without feeling overwhelmed by everything that is, sort of the 1000s of notifications and apps that sort of are available to them.

Yeah, what I’d probably do is I might just share a few things that accountants have told me over the last month. And I think, yeah, a lot of the people that are that I’ve connected with throughout August in particular are in that sort of, you know, small to medium sized accounting practice space. There’s a range of ways that they’re looking to use or that they’ve been implementing AI across their businesses.

Liam Hindle
Some of the like, real simple, low hanging fruit is, you know, are there times where you are explaining the same thing over and over to clients? like, are there particular things that you’re needing to convey to this to nearly every client that you speak to? Some of the more interesting ways that people have been using AI to to help automate or navigate those things is, first of all, using meeting note transcribers. So, you know, fireflies or teams co-pilot or whatever the tool is, there’s a range out there recording meetings and using those note takers within meetings to, first of all, get, you know, really clear notes on the conversation that you’ve had with the client.

But also, like, if you have in that meeting, described the thing that you’re describing, and you did a really good job of it, use the transcript to then create content that you can share with your entire customer base. So you might have a newsletter that you send to your clients, you might have a blog or a website. You can actually take the transcript out, put that into an LLM, like ChatGPT, or Claude, or whatever tool you want to use, and ask it to create, like, Hey, can you create a how-to guide or frequently asked questions and then publish that so that you can actually point your clients to it proactively. You know, if you have the same conversation repeatedly, then you can point it to them, or you can give it to them to read after, because sometimes clients will be having a meeting with an accountant or a bookkeeper and walk away a little bit overwhelmed, because there’s so many things that that they discussed.

I think, you know, using those note takers is the thing which I’ve seen explode this year, like nearly everybody seems to be using them, and it’s well worth it. And I think the other benefit people are going to start to see more of is, you know, 12 months from now, or 12 months from when you first start using these tools, when you go back and you’re able to actually recap the conversation you had a year ago. And, you know, get up to speed really quickly before you have your next conversation with those clients as well.

Note taking, recording information that that can help people. And then probably the other one, which a lot of people have been using it for, going back to sort of standardising processes, is once they have decided, okay, well, internally, we want to do this process in this way, typing that into an LLM, or even speaking it into an LLM, which I think is a really easy way to, you know, just dump the information when you’ve got a stored in your head and asking it to write out a process, write out a step by step guide. Then I can then give it to all the people in my business to use. They’re some of the really common things, and some of the, I think, easier things to get started with that I’ve been hearing over the last month.

Heather Smith
Yeah, excellent. And completely agree with that. It is quite shifting when you do start doing that. And what you described initially was literally how I wrote my books 10 years ago, when I was explaining things over and over again, I just got bored really quickly. So I would write it and sort of that would then turn into a chapter of a book or a YouTube video. And once I’d explained it, once I was like, well, once I’d explained it 100 times, I was like, I don’t want to explain this anymore, so put it up on YouTube and earn money from it and never have to explain it again. Bit of a different way. But anyhow.

Let’s move to talk about client engagement. What we’re hearing is that progressive firms have more time and are interacting with clients more often than the just once annual sit down and they’re interacting with them, with them through more channels and through stronger onboarding processes.

Do you think this is going to change the baseline for what practices are expected to do with clients?

Liam Hindle
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think it will, and I hope it does as well. So let me sort of share, I guess, my one of my key beliefs that I’ve formed about this sector. It actually underpins our product strategy for accountants and bookkeepers at MYOB as well. So I’ve been in the accounting sector for about three years now, so my entire time at MYOB has been focused on this space. I’ve really genuinely fallen in love with it. I think there’s so much like there’s so many authentic people in it, there’s so much great work that gets done today, and so much potential for even more in the future.

I think that accountants and bookkeepers are a productivity unlock for the broader Australian and New Zealand economies. And we know that productivity is a massive issue and challenge in Australia and New Zealand at the moment. And I think one of the challenges we have is that compliance is such a heavy, I don’t want to say burden, because it’s like a key revenue stream, but it is something that really does consume accountants and bookkeepers. You know, data, substantiation, admin, documentation. It takes a lot of capacity.

My belief is that if we can free up the advisor community, accountants and bookkeepers and others that advise small businesses, then we can unleash like a whole wave of productivity across the whole Australian economy. So that’s the thing, which is, you know, my belief, and it’s a really, like, key part of our broader product strategy and vision. Do I think that the role of accountants and the expectations on them will change? Absolutely. I think it’s already changing, and I think it’s a real positive, too.

I think we’re going to see small businesses want more of the advice that can be provided to them. Yes, they can use things like ChatGPT to find like advice that looks good for them now, but the thing which you can really only get from an accountant or bookkeeper is that sort of certification and assurance that this is correct and this is actually the right thing for your individual circumstance, as well. I think what we’ll see is that the role of the accountants and bookkeepers will shift to become even more strategic. This is not a new thing. I think this has been happening for the last decade as well. And what we’re going to see is that more and more people will start to make that shift. So less time, sort of, you know, working on data, and more time working with the data to provide, you know, more advice that can help grow and, you know, improve businesses around Australia as well.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely. Accountants and bookkeepers are the custodians of small business data. They have access to it, they understand it, and they understand trends and movements in it. I actually have a friend who is a multi-award-winning accountant, and she’s actually, excuse me, dropped the name accountant because she said that she felt her clients weren’t asking her the questions that they should be asking her. Because she somewhat felt that the word accountant was limiting their mindset and their perception of her, which is unfortunate and which actually will change over time. But that was sort of an interesting dynamic in that she was finding out they were going to other people, and she’s like, why are you going to them? I could have done that. I knew that I could have done that project with you. You should have come to me. That’s us as accountants and bookkeepers with that technology getting further ahead of where the clients expect us to be, potentially.

Liam Hindle
Yeah, and I think and definitely hope that five years from now, they’ll be able to change their title back to accountant proudly. Then say, you know, well, an accountant isn’t somebody who just runs your books and ensures that you’re compliant as a business, that they’re your partner that helps to, you know, helps you to shape your business strategy, make key decisions and enable your business to thrive, not not just survive and get through the sort of compliance obligations that you have.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s good for us to actually be thinking about that and thinking about the perception of what the word is out there. And so it’s quite shocking for us to have that conversation.

The report also said that 85% of respondents see automated onboarding as improving the client experience. So pitch it to me, what role does MYOB play in helping firms deliver a seamless onboarding experience?

Liam Hindle
Yeah, nice. So within our MYOB practice management product, we have a Client Onboarding module, which essentially allows the accountant or the practice to send information to whoever the client is and allow them to input their information, work through a form, and essentially do a lot of that onboarding, which, you know, in the past, might have been sitting down on a phone and actually having the person like speak through every single thing that they need to share.

That’s something that has delivered a lot of value for practices that have been using that because it is important that your first impression working with clients shows that you know you’re going to be someone that they want to work with. Like, if we go back to how we’re wanting to shift from, you know, being the person who does your compliance work to being the strategic advisor to the business. If you have a first impression that is like, okay, it’s going to, you know, you’re going to be on the phone for an hour and just talk through like details for me to fill out a form for you that’s not necessarily setting you up as being like that, forward looking strategic advisor, so those first impressions can really matter.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely and completely agree with that. Wanting to talk back around sort of the technology aspect again, and we have talked a bit on this. While, as accountants, bookkeepers we’re the custodians of the small business data, security remains a major concern for firms who are considering any form of technology and AI.

How are you balancing innovation and risk management in the product design? How are you balancing innovation with ensuring the security guardrails are in place around the data?

Liam Hindle
Yeah, really important. So you know, we use the best available platforms and tools to ensure that our data is as safe as it can be. So working with AWS, Amazon Web Services, ensuring that we’ve got locally hosted data and that we have all of the best internal processes to protect that data as best we can. We’ve got a large IT security team at MYOB, whose sole focus is, how do we protect all of the information that we are custodians of, all of the information that our customers have as well.

We not only subscribe to but we work with government to actually help shape what responsible use of AI, and, you know, data privacy, all of those sorts of important policies and procedures that that guide businesses around Australia, we play a really key role in helping to work through and, you know, shape what those things should look like as well. So, you know, we can obviously do what we can to keep our house in order, but important for us to also, you know, partner with broader industry and government bodies to make sure that we’ve we’re setting the right frameworks across the entire economy as well.

Can I confirm for listeners that your data is all hosted here in Australia?

Liam Hindle
Yes, it is.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely. And there’s the world is a bit wobbly at the moment. That is important. Sorry for laughing. I shouldn’t laugh, but things are wobbly at the moment, and where data is hosted is important.

Liam Hindle
Yeah, agreed. I’ve heard you describe the world as wobbly, and I like that description because it is. If you get more specific, it get a little bit depressing. So describing it as wobbly, I think we all know what you mean.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely it’s and I think there are challenges in where the data is hosted, and who is governing over the hosting of that which, five years ago wasn’t necessarily concerned, but now is somewhat of a concern. For people listening in, I’d like to remind them, while you’re on your listening device, remember to subscribe to the Accounting Apps Podcast, so you get to hear the next episode. With that, let’s talk about future proofing.

The report positions progressive practices as those that combine growth, profitability, and strategic vision. What do you think separates these firms from the rest of the firms? Why are they the ones who are doing it?

Liam Hindle
I think for me, the word that comes to mind is that they’re intentional. They don’t do these things by accident or as a by-product of some other thing that is a priority in their business. They understand that their most important resource is their people, and so they do what they can to invest in their people, provide them with the things that they need to be successful. That generally involves not just ensuring that they have regular compliance-related skilling sessions, but that they’re also looking at professional development and, you know, finding ways to continue to improve their own skill set.

Same went with, you know, operational discipline and processes in the business which we spoke about before. They’re not just randomly deciding, oh, let’s, you know, standardise this process. They’re sitting down and saying, Well, where are we spending a lot of our time today? How can we free up time so that we can invest that in more strategic things that only an accountant or a bookkeeper can do? So they find where those things are. They find ways to reshape processes and invest in technology as well to, you know, automate the things in there, which, which can free up their time for more revenue generating work. So, yeah, intentionality is probably the key.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely intentionality. I like that. That’s something that you sit down and you have those retreats and the business planning sessions for is that intentionality and constantly build those habits into.

Looking ahead, what excites you about accounting technology over the next three to five years?

Liam Hindle
I won’t make predictions around what AI will do, other than saying that we’ve probably seen a lot of adoption of general purpose AI tools. Tools that aren’t connected deeply into specific workflows, but ones that sit alongside that you can sort of interact with.

I think what we’ll see over the next three to five years, and what I’m excited by is we’re going to see those tools more deeply embedded into workflows and tooling that accountants are using to do their core work. And we’re also going to see more automation of those things. We’re going to see agentic AI play a more, you know, a more prevalent role within a business.

For people who may not be as familiar with agentic AI, the simplest explanation, I think, is essentially your standard AI tools that you might use today, like ChatGPT, are generally a you give it a prompt, it gives you a response, you give it another prompt, you keep going, and you’re kind of doing bit by bit. Agentic AI will be will mean that you’re able to give a task or an end-to-end workflow to an AI, which can then take multiple steps and make decisions on that path as well.

Talk a bit about what you’re excited by in the next sort of 12-18 months

Liam Hindle
For us, that’s very much the practice compliance platform. That’s where we’re really focused on. So I spoke a bit before about our product vision and how we’re wanting to find ways to invest in tools that give time back to accountants and give them the information for them to be able to grow and evolve their role, to be more strategic and to unlock advisory opportunities.

This is our sort of big play in that space so the client accounting module, which has our next generation, financial statements, work papers, the one that we’re delivering through silver fin. It has a really amazing ability for practices to be able to ingest data into it and automate the compliance workflows that might have previously set across the whole range of areas and being a lot slower.

Parameters like revenue, margins, risk indicators, and identify trends across your client base and different industries within them as well. So that for us is really exciting, because, like, the more medium to long term things are like, again, I’m very excited by that as someone who works in technology. But I’m also probably more focused on, what are the things that we’re going to put into people’s hands now and especially over the next 12 months. I think we’ll see some, you know, really exciting things we’re already seeing, like practices, adopting the early versions of these tools and getting a lot out of it. So yeah, that’s what’s got me excited for the next little while.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely. I think listening to what you’re saying, suggesting is going to become available, I think that with accountants and bookkeepers intentionally building their practice, whether that’s for growth or for sustainability, they should consider, and this is something, again, that I frequently say, growing existing clients bigger rather than taking on new clients. I always it, always, unless you’ve got a perfect cookie cutter in place that you can rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, and rinse and repeat. And if that’s your type of business, that’s wonderful. Yes, perfect. But if you don’t, and you’re maybe more bespoke, or you’re maybe there’s a real model in growing clients bigger. I think if you do that, you don’t have the horrendous compliance pressure when those deadlines come around, because you have less clients to actually process through that compliance deadline.

Liam Hindle
I couldn’t agree more, it becomes like a virtuous cycle where, if you’re able to shift so that you’re spending less time battling deadlines and more time partnering with clients to, you know, grow their businesses. What you’ll also do then is, in most cases, provide a lot more job satisfaction for the people working in your business. Become more attractive to people who want to come into the business as well. And like when you’ve when you start to build that, you start to have people come in and raise the bar for you know how you might have done things in business. And yeah, I just think it’s, it’s a really great way to not just add, like, not grow your business by just adding more and more work in but create more fulfilling, strategic work that people really want to do to do as an accountant as well.

Heather Smith
Yeah, absolutely. So I something that I think about, and I see so much pain in the community, groups of people under really big pressure, and this is a way to actually alleviate their pressure and take control of what they’re actually doing. It is one strategic way for them in their practice to adopt.

Is there anything else that people should know that’s coming down the pipeline in the MYOB practice area?

Liam Hindle
Yeah. Look, I think, you know, our focus is very much compliance over the next 12 months, not like we’re obviously, we’re working on a whole range of things, but that’s the space where, you know, we’ve heard loud and clear. That’s where accountants in particular, spend the majority of their time, and not necessarily by choice.

For us, you know, we’re, we’re really investing in that client accounting product, and, you know, bringing that, bringing that to accounting practices around Australia over the next 12 months as well. You know, something you and I spoke about about a year ago, was ensuring that you know when we’re bringing new products to market, that we’re bringing them when they’re ready for the the end user, and not sort of just bringing things out and having people sort of adopt them when they’re still sort of very early. And so like the big focus for us is to be crystal clear as we build the product out, as we build all of the work papers that people need, as we train the AI assistant within client accounting on the Australian regulatory environment.

Once those pieces are built out and we basically match with different practices who are suitable for the product and then release it to them over the next 12 months. So that’s our biggest focus for us, I guess for any accountants listening, yeah, I’d love them to have a conversation with us now about what it looks like. And we can sort of map out, if you’re interested. We can map out when the right time would be to look at it.

Heather Smith
Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that, Liam, so we appreciate that, and I’m sure people will be able to find out, and I’ll put in the show notes how they can get in contact with you. I’m interested in just sort of going back slightly. You did talk about agentic AI.

Do you see agentic AI, and what is possible with it, as a competitor with MYOB? Or are you going to work alongside it? 

Liam Hindle
It’s a good question. So, I think I don’t think I’d view it as a competitor. I’d view it as one of the key parts that we want to be driving. I think agentic AI is something that has immense possibility for, yeah, a whole range of uses. And yeah, like, I think if we were having this conversation a couple of months from now, we’ll be able to sort of share a bit more about exactly some of the spaces that that we’re going to be looking to use it in.

So, yeah, a bit of a teaser for maybe a future conversation. But I think this is something that’s real. You know, you when there’s a new technology like AI, and it’s quite transformational, there’s a lot of like, okay, what’s real? What’s hype? Like, how do you sort of think through the best way to invest in it and then bring it to your partners and customers as well? But yeah, I think this is one that that is real, and I think you’re going to see some really cool things from us in this space.

Heather Smith
Excellent, excellent. Well, we look forward to. Liam, thank you so much for joining us on the Accounting Apps Podcast. I’m sure everyone has really enjoyed listening to what you’ve had to share. To our listeners, I encourage you to keep up to date with modern accounting technology landscape by subscribing to the Accounting Apps Podcast, the Accounting Apps newsletter and join the conversations that are happening. So I’m your host, Heather Smith, and I’m pretty easy to find on all social media platforms, and I look forward to connecting with you. Thank you.