I’ve got a feeling that Power BI is gonna die within about five to 10 years, and Claude and AI is gonna be the taker of this data, as long as we can get the data security right.

— Tyler Caskey, Partner at TheBeanCounters

Lightly edited for clarity.

AI, Payroll and Accounting Apps: The Biggest Tech Updates from Q2 2026

Every quarter, I enjoy sitting down with Tyler Caskey from The Bean Counters to discuss the latest developments in accounting technology. It is always fascinating because neither of us approaches the conversation from exactly the same perspective. Tyler spends his days implementing technology in businesses and accounting firms, while I spend my time speaking with software vendors, attending industry events, interviewing founders, and watching the broader accounting technology ecosystem evolve. Together we sift through hundreds of announcements to identify the updates that are genuinely worth paying attention to.

One of the biggest themes this quarter continues to be artificial intelligence. AI is no longer being added as a novelty feature. It is becoming deeply embedded into accounting software, payroll systems, reporting platforms and practice management tools. The challenge now is not whether AI exists within an application. The real question is whether it genuinely saves time while maintaining accuracy.

We discussed the AI developments from the major general ledger platforms including Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks. MYOB’s Smart Reconciliation is another example of AI helping accountants process transactions more efficiently while still requiring human review. That review step remains incredibly important. AI can make very good suggestions, but it is still capable of making surprisingly poor assumptions. Tyler and I both agreed that accountants should continue reviewing automated coding, particularly where GST treatment and overseas transactions are involved. Automation should reduce repetitive work, not remove professional judgement.

Xero continues expanding its AI capabilities through JAX, Xero Force and its new integration with Claude. While the technology is exciting, we both found ourselves asking an important question. Is it actually faster than simply working directly inside Xero? At this stage, the answer is often no. That will almost certainly change as these tools mature, but today’s AI assistants still need to demonstrate meaningful productivity improvements before accountants will naturally change their workflows.

Outside the established players, several emerging accounting platforms are worth watching. Digits continues attracting attention in the United States as an AI-native general ledger founded by Xero co-founder Craig Walker. In New Zealand, Prosaic is taking a fresh approach to compliance-focused bookkeeping software. Neither platform is currently serving Australian businesses, but both demonstrate how quickly accounting software is evolving. Competition ultimately benefits everyone, encouraging established vendors to continue improving their products.

Payroll remained another major topic throughout the quarter. With Payday Super now becoming reality, many businesses have been reviewing their payroll systems and processes. Employment Hero, Beam and Tanda all continue developing solutions that simplify compliance while reducing administration. Tanda, in particular, continues to impress Tyler with its handling of complex awards, hospitality payroll and workforce management. It serves as another reminder that specialist software often delivers better outcomes than trying to force one system to suit every business.

Reporting and financial management tools also continue evolving rapidly. Calxa introduced the ability to merge forecasting scenarios while maintaining snapshots for easy rollback. That may sound like a small feature, but anyone who has spent hours building financial forecasts understands how valuable it can be. DataSights also caught Tyler’s attention, particularly its integration with Claude. As AI becomes better at interpreting financial data, we may eventually see traditional reporting tools like Power BI become less central to finance teams. That transition will take time, but it is certainly an area worth watching.

Several smaller specialist applications also deserve recognition. Expert continues expanding its automated compliance checks, helping firms identify issues before they become problems. RecHound simplifies balance sheet reconciliations, while Hello Cashflow offers sophisticated cash flow forecasting for growing businesses. Archer Cards provides an interesting alternative for businesses wanting virtual corporate cards with stronger approval workflows. WorkGuru continues strengthening project management capabilities for businesses managing inventory, projects and job costing. These are the types of focused solutions that quietly solve very specific business problems extremely well.

One conversation that resonated personally was cybersecurity. Earlier this year I lost access to my Gmail account after an incredibly sophisticated phishing attack. Fortunately, through persistence and professional connections, I eventually recovered the account. The experience reminded me that even people who understand technology remain vulnerable. Security is no longer simply about having strong passwords. Passkeys, multi-factor authentication, password managers and backup recovery codes all deserve careful attention. Cybersecurity is becoming just as important as bookkeeping accuracy. <insert podcast blog link>

We also acknowledged the difficult reality of recent redundancies across the accounting technology sector. Companies including GoCardless and Intuit have announced workforce reductions, while discussions continue around restructuring elsewhere in the industry. Behind every announcement are talented people who have contributed enormously to our profession. If you know someone affected, consider recommending them on LinkedIn, sharing opportunities or making introductions. Our accounting technology community has always been remarkably supportive, and moments like these remind us why those professional relationships matter.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this quarter is that accounting technology continues moving at an extraordinary pace. AI is accelerating product development, payroll compliance continues evolving, integrations are becoming deeper, and specialist applications are solving increasingly complex problems. At the same time, the fundamentals have not changed. Accurate data, professional judgement, thoughtful implementation and strong relationships remain at the heart of successful accounting technology adoption.

As always, the purpose of these quarterly updates is not to encourage everyone to adopt every new feature or every new app. Instead, it is about helping accountants, bookkeepers and business owners stay informed, understand what is changing, and identify the innovations that genuinely make their work easier. The technology will continue evolving. Our role is to stay curious, keep learning, and make thoughtful decisions about which tools deserve a place in our businesses and those of our clients.

Apps & Tools Mentioned: 

AI-Generated Transcript

Tech Updates QTR 2 2026

Heather Smith

Hello and welcome. My name is Heather Smith, and this is the podcast for accounting technology enthusiasts, where we share with you features, functionalities, and updates from the second quarter of 2026. We’ll catch you up with what’s been happening in this space and leave you with practical information that you can explore and adopt what’s relevant for you. Today, I’m joined by Tyler Caskey, chartered accountant and partner at The Bean Counters.

He leads big change management pro- projects and has a keen interest in technology. Welcome, Tyler.

How have you been since we last chatted?

Tyler Caskey

Thanks, Heather. Yeah, really good. Uh, we last talked, uh, in person at, uh, the ABE Expo, which was really good. Um, it’s been a really busy three quarters. We’ve got, um, a really large over 100 franchise business on that’s doing some custom inventory and POS builds. Uh, and June was just payroll. We, we did more payroll transitions than I’ve ever done in June.

I think we probably did over 500 sta- uh, maybe more, maybe 600 staff, um, move from one system to another, especially with all the new, um, payday supers coming live. People are really, um, keen to get things going right

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. So many, um, um, different things that we have to, uh, be aware of and be alert of, um, for, for 1st of July. So, uh, that, that sounds quite awesome and quite daunting. Not my favorite category, payroll . But of course, being paid is very, very important.

Tyler Caskey

you wanna get it right as well

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, since we last talked, um, I had my Google email hacked, um, which was quite, um, um, startling for me, ’cause I thought I had all the security in place that I needed, but I didn’t. And I pushed one button and one second and lost everything. Um, and it spent about… I, I, I’ve actually created a podcast episode out of it, which you can go and listen to. I was, um, groomed by this person for four weeks and, uh, didn’t realize it was happening.

Um, and to cut a long story short, went through all the processes to regain control of it. None of them worked. In the end, I went to LinkedIn and I was like, “Who do I know who works at Google?” Found someone I know at, worked at Google, and 90 minutes later I had it recovered. But, just the importance of knowing humans.

The importance of knowing humans, ’cause, um, uh, it, it, it just, even though I won’t use it again, even though I won’t put anything in it, s- losing access to 10, 10 years’ worth of information was a bit scary

Tyler Caskey

Yeah there’s so much data we have in our emails and, like, especially login access. It’s… I’ve, I’ve been working… When I was a CFO, one of our directors got hacked, um, and it’s, it’s a very scary moment

Heather Smith

Uh, yeah, yeah, it was. And I was just like, “What do I do? What do I do?” Anyhow, if people do have Gmail, you can go and listen to the podcast episode, but also, um, every Gmail address has 10 codes associated with it. Make sure you get those. That’s what I didn’t have. Um, and you put those, put those in a secure password management solution or something like that. Um, yeah. Um, the other thing I did was that I went to, uh, Noosa with Dex.

Dex had a small mini conference up there, so that was quite nice, and I did a podcast episode about that. But, um, before we jump into the technology, there was something that I did wanna touch on. Um, we have seen a lot of layoffs, um, in the, um, Australian tech space. Uh, the UK fintech GoCardless, um, has cut 90 roles across the globe. Intuit announced that it was cutting 17% of its workforce.

Uh, there was also a post on Reddit, the reliable source of Reddit, um, that Xero was making redundancies, um, and it seemed to be coming from a staff member there. And, um, I wanted to sort of reach out to the community and sort of say we’re all humans. If you know colleagues in those situations, leave them LinkedIn recommendations, reshare job adverts if you can. Um, and, uh, there’s a lot of great talent out there if you are looking for people. Um, uh,

It is said that Xero was making redundancies. Do you have anything to say about that?

Tyler Caskey

Yeah. The move to profit, especially with private equity and growing businesses, is such a bumpy road. Uh, and the hiring speed when things are booming, I’ve- we’ve all seen tech businesses are h- often hiring too fast, and they’re trying to hit growth targets. I’ve worked in large listed businesses, and quarterly and half-year earnings are, like, really, really important things to hit. If you don’t hit them, you know, we’re talking some people’s compensation goes down by 20%.

So these moves, I always find they’re, they’re certain types of businesses. Um, but also it does happen. Like, you, you try to build a product, you grow, and then all of a sudden, like, your customer base doesn’t keep going at that same market or there’s a material shift. You know, I always think about those businesses that were delivering groceries. Like, there was so much excitement there, and then immediately things… You know, the handbrake gets pulled. But I, I, I resonate with your sentence.

Like, some of the people in those apps, like, they’re fantastic. Like, there’s a lot of, uh, really good accountants, a lot of good finance people, a lot of good marketing people. Um, it’s, it’s a benefit for the world now that they’re out there and looking for other jobs. Um, the one, the one I, I am super interested in is, like, those redundancies, you know, if, if that limits our tech, um, uptime and skills.

You know, like X, when they let go of a whole bunch of people, the product wasn’t performing as well. Xero had some pretty material performance issues over the last kind of five, six months. Um, you know, and those, those backend engineer people, like, I, I want them in my system, you know? I want them, I want that to be a high cost and uptime to be a high, high importance of that business

Heather Smith

Hmm. It’s very interesting ’cause over the years what we’ve seen is people actu- uh, businesses actually buy other businesses just for their development team. And they’re always saying, “We’re losing developers. We’re losing… W- w- we can’t find developers. We can’t find them.” Um, and, a- and then these things happen. So hopefully, hopefully they’ll find, um, uh, other spots within the industry. But I know some people I know who are brilliant who’ve been through this a few times.

But, uh, if I can make any recommenda- uh, uh, LinkedIn recommendations for you, please reach out and let me know. Um, I do actively try and find it, but sometimes, uh, y- we all miss things. Yeah.

Tyler Caskey

And, and it, one of the ones you and I looked at was the Intuit was cutting 17% of staff. Like, that’s a pretty big number. Um, you know, when we look at it globally, um, that- that’s like an American, um, uh, commentary. Like, it doesn’t say there if it’s like America or globally is, is the play, but, uh, um, I’m so interested in what happens with, like, the coding and the backend programming for, for these larger apps, um, you know, as, as AI starts to shrink that workload

Heather Smith

Mm. Well, quite a number of people have reached out to me from Intuit and said that they have been let go, and there’s quite a significant number going. But I also have spoken, um, um, to, uh, representatives of Intuit who’ve said, um, they’re still focused on product at a local level. They will still develop products at a local level. Partners re- um, partners and customers are central to what they do.

And, and we’re gonna touch on it later, they’ve recently announced a partnership with Employment Hero to ensure they meet their payday, um, obligations. So things are still moving. They still have a presence in the APAC region

Tyler Caskey

Yep. Fully agree

Heather Smith

So let’s move on, um, and talk about features and functionalities of, of these, uh, tech solutions. So as I mentioned, um, let’s… I, I like to jump into the main GLs. Um, Intuit, uh.

QuickBooks has announced that partnership with Employment Hero, as I just mentioned. Would you like to take this one?

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, I think this is great. Like, MYOB’s starting to make real moves in banking, and Heather, you and I were, uh, in the MYOB offices earlier this year when they talked about their, um, sole trader, uh, app, and a bank account and a card, and the connection between cards and money and accounting systems is just getting tighter and tighter and tighter.

One of my favorite things at the moment is, like, if someone pays me into my Airwallex account, it’s in my Xero account, like, within an hour or two, so I’m not chasing them for a debtor the next morning ’cause it’s already auto-reconciled. And, like, they’re doing a connection with open banking, which is moving away from classic banking. And even me, I think I connect 30 bank accounts a month for our clients and new clients. I don’t know the difference between classic banking and, and open banking.

Like, I’m sure it’s great, but I’m, I’m still probably seeing about 50% of our bank feeds being done on the big tier ones like NAB Connect and Commerz, and they’re all paper-based. So, the better MYOB, Xero, and QuickBooks can get at pulling data out of the banks, fantastic

Heather Smith

And, and, um, the bank’s giving us good data as well.

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, like just good reliable data. Uh, one of my friends is on ING as a, as a sole trader, and that, that collapses about every six months. It just stops. And yeah, like, it’s just not a reliable source of truth. Like, I really think this is, this has got a developing… You know, across the board it’s getting a C+ in Australia

Heather Smith

Hmm. Has good interest rates and people forget about the reliability thing.

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, unless, unless your balance goes down or you get over, like, 500 grand or 200 grand, and then they just go- you go from, like, 5% down to .5% or something. It’s horrendous. One of my friends got caught out by that

Heather Smith

Oh, goodness, goodness. Um, so the other thing with MYOB is they’ve released, um, Smart Reconciliation, which a, a number of, uh, GLs have done, using AI to auto-match the bank transactions and suggest categories as they come in. Um, so your books are reconciliation-ready. Um, and it’s… They say it’s quite transparent. Um, and I know that I’m doing this within Xero, uh, which has a similar functionality, and you do need to check it, um, because it…

I don’t know where some of the reconciliations in, in, I’m finding in Xero don’t make any sense whatsoever. Um, and they’re, they’re, they’re t- they’re taking memory from something else and, and putting it through. So I found all of my, um, bank charges were allocated to the Fiverr account, which, which was, which is a well-known company, but it was like, “Oh, why on earth did you do that?”

Tyler Caskey

Well, auto reconciliation, auto rules is just an absolute risk. It’s… And we’re, we’re, what we’re actually talking about is not tax fraud, but we’re talking about material tax mistakes over a long period of time. Because if you apply this rule, and you keep applying these rules for $1,000 transactions, $500 transactions, and it, it’s a overseas subscription and it hasn’t got a GST, and MYOB or Xero or QuickBooks assumes that it’s got GST, you’re overclaiming GST.

And you can start talking in thousands really, really fast. What I did like about what MYOB did here, and I went deep into this, and we’ve got a MYOB client at the moment, so I went in and had a look on their file. And it gives you, uh, it does do some auto reconciliations, but it also gives you a ready for reconciliation button. ‘Cause the Xero one is off or on, like auto reconcile and it just does it for you. And then, you know, I had the same thing. I was checking.

I turned it off because it made more mistakes than, like, like, it probably made more mistakes than me before I started accounting. Like, it was just guessing. And it’s a good guess, but it’s not the right guess. And also, it’s not attaching invoices, which I really didn’t like. The MYOB one I think, I think is doing one step better. So it’s doing a better guess and putting these things in a really, this is what we think we’ve done, we’ve matched it, a, you know, do you confirm it?

And I think that confirmation stage is one of the most important ones for accuracy. So really a big fan of what they’re doing here

Heather Smith

Fantastic. Yeah, look, um, really like that about MYB. Would like that feature pulled, pulled back a little bit. Don’t make it too easy, Xero. And I’d also like the Xero screen to, um, have a paper clip to indicate an attachment. ‘Cause as you said, I want an attachment, you want an attachment, we all want an attachment. We wanna know if there’s an attachment there, and we can make that decision. But if there’s not one there, we, we don’t know.

Tyler Caskey

Absolutely.

Heather Smith

Not easy to figure it out.

Tyler Caskey

Apps are notorious for just going, it’s a rule, accept, accept, accept, go, go, go. And like I’m… If, uh, one of the things that bugs me on the Xero app if I’m coding like a transaction, um, and I- it’s a rule, I can’t attach in a transaction, an attachment to a rule. And I’m like, “Ah, now I’ve got to go into the app and actually log in.” Um, but you know, down the track I know, I know this will start to get easier and easier

Heather Smith

Mm-hmm. And I’ve left mine on for people listening in, and I am trying to

Tyler Caskey

Oh.

Heather Smith

hammer away at it, work it through. So, but I do check it, I do check it regularly.

Would you like to take the Xero one?

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, this one’s interesting. So there’s now three functions in Xero with AI. So we’ve got Jax, which I’m constantly testing and using. There’s got, uh, Xero Force or Xero… Yeah, Xero Force, and there’s also Claude. Um, I’ve downloaded Claude, connected it to my Xero. I’ve run a couple reports. It’s not that clean, and also, I think I’m still faster in Xero. But I like what they’ve done. So the connection was pretty easy. Getting, getting Claude connected to my Xero was good. The data is there.

It’s pulling through. It pulled through really easily online. It didn’t pull through very easily on the app. Um, being able to query the data and ask for, like, profit trends and make a graph is pretty good. But, but I’m still twice as fast going into Xero and making an invoice than I am opening Claude and asking it to make an invoice. So, um, I don’t know if I’m really saving any time doing one or the other. And, and for me, maybe if I’m making things on bulk, that would be very important.

Could I make 15 invoices, draft them exactly the same as last year? Something… Or last month. That might be a beneficial task for me.

But on a single occurrence, it takes the best part of three seconds to go Sales, Invoices, New rather than, “Dear Claude, could you please go into the Bean Counters file and open an invoice to Heather Smith and send her a, a $50,000 invoice for consulting fees?” Which I will never send, but, you know, like, that, that’s, that type of speed, I, I’m seeing, I’m not seeing the upside yet. Um, and Xero Force, I’m in the beta trial. I’m trying to get access to it. I want to see what they do there.

Like, it’s really good ’cause Jax, I, I even asked Jax today, “What, what did I spend on subscriptions for last year?” And it just gave me a list without a total, and I was like, “Thanks. That doesn’t help.”

Heather Smith

Uh, it, it, it, we all m- we, we think it’s gonna get there and, and, and we just hope that it, that it will get there. And I completely hear you, um, um, about that the, that it’s not fast. Maybe, maybe it’s fast for the small business owner who doesn’t know how to use the solutions. What… I’m sure people are listening in,

What did you think about the integrity of the data being interrogated by Claude?

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, I’m, I’m super nervous on, on this. ‘Cause you’ve got Claude Personal and you’ve got Claude Business. Claude Business costs, um, you’re connecting… Anytime you’re trialing, you’re connecting Claude Personal, which is open source data. And so therefore it’s attacking financial data and not open source, but it is not as controlled as, as a business subscription So I’m very nervous about it.

Um, there is wild, huge stories about Anthropic working with, in wars, working with a whole bunch of evil empires, um, that I don’t want any financial data around with. So yes, I’m nervous, um, and I’m not putting any of my personal actual business data in there, trials at the moment

Heather Smith

You just connected to the demo file?

Tyler Caskey

Uh, we’ve got, we’ve got Xero dummy files that we use for financial statements. They’re, they’re more than welcome to see Tyler making journal errors in 2022 if they like.

Heather Smith

Yeah Yeah, Excellent. Thank you for that. So let me move on to talk about Easy Business App, which is a smaller, um, um, solution, but one still, um, um, that’s quite popular. They have, um, a, a lot of feature rollouts. They’ve added super payments. They’ve added AI-powered receipt capture by, um, by, via QuickSnap, um, transaction editing, oh, and they’ve added a referral program this quarter. Um, they’re working on payday super updates, so that was April, so they’ve probably got them out by now.

Um, would… They Excellent. And they have a new Easy Bill module with, um, supplier records coming, um, in the next financial year. So, um, definitely a solution to look at, um, i- if, if you want to stay a bit smaller.

Tyler Caskey

It’s a great app. a great app here that like for a sole trader or a small company, Easy Business is amazing. Like, it does a little bit of payroll, there’s a little bit of invoicing. The- its app is beautifully designed. The owners, like, know the finance industry so well, and the pricing’s amazing. Like, you can have four employees for $26 a month, and it’s just so, so clean. Like, it, it’s got nothing that is not intuitive in the app. It doesn’t have a whole bunch of complexity in there.

But I’d say so many sole traders, like, you’re really looking at those MYOB… Is it called MYOB

Heather Smith

Myob Solo, like the drink like Lemon Solo

Tyler Caskey

E versus Easy Business app, they are the two market leaders in this miles. Like, they’re rocking

Heather Smith

Hopefully, um, um, people can hear that, ’cause I know that people are w- worried about pricing and, and the, uh… I’d say the other GLs are looking at the bigger end of the market. So let’s jump in and, and, and, uh, hopefully people get familiar with both of those solutions. So let’s move and talk about Digits. So Digits is currently only available in the US for US-based businesses.

However, I did think it was good to talk about because, um, one of the things is it is being developed, um, by, uh, Craig Walker, who was one of the co-founders of Xero back in the day. and it, it, yeah, and it, it- it- he- he’s, like, co-founder or a CTO or something like that there. Um, and it is a first AI native general ledger for business owners and accountants, one system for automated books, monthly close, bill, pay, invoicing, real-time financials.

So while it’s not available to Australian audiences, as people looking at the GLs, it’s one that, um, it’s really worth watching, and a lot of people in the industry are talking about

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, me too. I’m staying so close to this. It’s, it’s a very nice looking app. Um, it’s a very nice looking product. Uh, it, it’s really a massive challenger to the Xero and, uh, QuickBooks kind of market. I, I hope this sets a bit of the standard about, um, how user interfaces should work, and I think ease of use and ease of setup, ’cause every time I try to do a trial, um, it’s just so simple. Um, and it’s got, uh, connections already with Ignition, Carbon and Reach Reporting, which is just like…

I’m not a huge Reach Reporting fan, I think it’s a bit clunky, but it’s such a, uh, nice, well-integrated system. Um, and like Ignition is just flying in the States. Like, for an Australian app, like, and Carbon is as well, it’s just great to see these Australian businesses really making moves. Well, Carbon’s not Australian, right, but Ignition is, I think, right?

Heather Smith

I don’t know. C- maybe Carbon did start out in Australia. It’s now led, um, out of Chicago, but

Tyler Caskey

Yeah

Heather Smith

I can’t think where it came from. But I know that, um, um, back in the day, Sally and, uh, Wayne Schmidt were working for it, so maybe did, come out of there. yeah, and,

Tyler Caskey

Oh, sorry. You go, you go.

Heather Smith

Um, th- Digits, um, um, the, the- there’s lots of photos of the Xero orange kitchen table and, uh, Craig, uh, uh, Walker was writing the code for Xero. He, like, wr- was writing the first lines of code and, and the fact that he’s over there is really quite interesting

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, agreed. And if anyone gets into a Digits trial or looks on their financial reporting website and you’ve run a MYOB P&L, your eye is gonna twitch. It looks exactly like the MYOB P&L. It’s got 50,000 indents. So if you’ve got sub-account on sub-account on sub-account, it’s just… It brings me back to 2005 when MYOB was the first one to bring out, like, the indented grouped P&L. It’s a really, it’s… Uh, I don’t know who did their UI, but I swear they, like, looked at the MYOB or, uh,

Heather Smith

Wow, that’s really interesting. Mm. And that’s not the first time that something like that would have happened. Um, and, uh, yeah, very interesting.

Tyler Caskey

And their, their pricing’s interesting too, isn’t it? Like, you, you mentioned there before or talked, uh, earlier before with us about their pricing being on value. Like, ’cause they’ve got, and this is American pricings, like 65 up to 250, um, per month. But they’re also… You wrote there something about the pricing being based on value they can put in

Heather Smith

Yeah. It, it, um, the, they flip the pricing model, um, charging only if the platform automates 95% or more of transactions with zero human touch. So you’re only charged if it’s doing 95% of the work. So that’s, that’s interesting

Tyler Caskey

I mean, that’s, that’s a amazing offer, uh, if, if that can actually hold up. We used to try to say when I was in the CFO world, could this system automate, at least start to automate 80 to 90% of our transactions? Um, which meant… Because there’s always weird things. So if that can handle a business with, like, 10 million of revenue, ’cause you always get, like, random invoices left, right, and center. So it’s g- gonna be a very high challenge for them to do that

Heather Smith

Mm, absolutely. Now, I also wanted to mention Pr- Prozaac, I think that’s how we pronounce it, which is only available to New Zealand businesses, but this is headed up by Nick Holdsworth, who used to be head of the Xero ecosystem, and it is an AI native accounting software, um, designed, um, specifically for accountants and bookkeepers managing high volumes of simpler compliance work.

And I think th- I, I think the Australian ecosystem is ripe for a GL to, to, to come in, and I’m looking, I’m looking at Prozaac, I’m looking at Digits, I’m looking at Zoho making leap and, and, and becoming bigger. Um, so I did want to mention that, and, uh, um, I, I need to sort some time out to have a convers- have a interview Nick, see where, see where he is at.

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, and this is, this is a nice looking product. Like, it’s beautifully designed. It’s as clean as it can be, but it’s really focused on that, like, accountant and bookkeeper reviewing information or the bookkeeper speeding through information. Um, but just some of their, like, annual reports are gorgeous. Like, they, they have ditched the old framework, the Xero, uh, QuickBooks, and MYOB framework, and come up with something that I think is just next level.

Like, it just looks like a P&L that a board would want to see rather than a, rather than, uh, something that’s been consistent. Honestly, Heather, you and I have probably been looking at the same P&L formats for… Me, I’m almost 30 years looking at P&L formats now. So it’s, it’s a, not, not much has changed

Heather Smith

Mm. Yeah. No, interesting. Mate, that sounds like some sort of a psychedelic exercise. Rethink the, the, the P&L. So let’s, um, shift to tax and compliance and, uh, take a look at, um, RecHound, which is a, a solution built by Alex Lakota. Um, and they have shipped dark mode out. And interestingly, I’ve been in audiences, and people are so excited when dark mode is introduced into an app

Tyler Caskey

I know. Re- Recount is a really important product. Like, there are a lot of, uh, balance sheet reconciliation, uh, systems for accounting firms. Uh, you know, there’s Cloud Office, there’s, um, um, the Xero one, which was, um… God, I can’t remember who it was produced by right now. Um, but there’s a- there’s, you know, we could probably list five or six. There are very few in the small market for businesses. There’s a new one that’s coming from the Mayday team called Easy Month-End.

That was a New Zealand app they purchased. It’s a very, very nice app. Um, and Recount does the same. So Recount does balance sheet recs for businesses, and it’s very tidy. Alex was a financial accountant or a financial controller in business, and he was just tired of, like, always doing multi-entity books on balance sheets, so he just started building the app. It’s- it needs a little bit of work on UI, but dear Lord, it’s functional, and really, really works, and connects really well with Xero

Heather Smith

And I can, I would like Xero to buy it. So I’ll put my wish out. I would like them to buy it and, uh, and absorb it in so it’s w- so we can have accurate books, because I think, uh, reconciling to the balance sheet is standard, standard practice,

Tyler Caskey

have to. Uh, Heather, I’ll, I’ll be honest, if I’m looking at, if I look at 30 companies a month, less than 10 reconcile their balance sheet on a monthly basis. Um, and we’re talking, you know, we’re talking businesses that we work with from 5 million up to, on average, 100 million. We go well above 100 million, but most of the time that’s our group

Heather Smith

And so you know there’s always, um, um, things to be found if they’re not reconciled the balance sheet So, uh, um, so Reckon, as I said, ship dark mode alongside work paper approvals from the homepage, um, prior period balance comparisons, and their first iteration of automatic transaction matching. Um, the auto-match fa- feature flags potential matches in the background without slowing things down. So take a look at Reckon

Tyler Caskey

I, I agree. It’s a- if you’re a financial controller and, and, or a CFO or a financial accountant and you’re doing Excel balance sheets, check out Recount or check out, um, Easy Month-End. They’re both rockstar products. Um, and just take the pain away out of it. It pulls all the data and then does your balance sheet, uh, numbers that you need to reconcile to it. Um, so the product Easy Month-End does some really nice ones on, um, to-do lists.

It’s got really good flows and to-do lists of who’s got to do what and when. Um, it’s, it’s a very clean, clean app, and it does, um, multi-entity reasonably well. Alex’s system, Recount, is very, very good at multi-entity. Like, it understands, um, like the, the replication process that most balance sheets are really the same. You know, cash, fixed assets, liabilities, equity

Heather Smith

Yeah. So I will, um, need to add Easy Month End to my, uh, blog database. I’ll go in and it.

Tyler Caskey

they’re, in, they’re in my folder

Heather Smith

Um,

Shall we jump to talk about practice management solutions? Would you like to take the first one, which is HoneyBook?

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, indeed. HoneyBook’s, like, a very interesting Canadian product. The reason I flagged this as something I really wanted to talk about is the practice management market in, uh, America, especially North America, is moving so much faster than Australia and New Zealand. And I’m seeing things in this about, like, tap to pay, um, and quick filters, and easier, um, tax information between, um, practice management systems. And if I look, last time when I was in practice, which was 2020, there was no tap to pay.

There was… I might have had that, you know, coming eventually out of my Xero file, but not out of my practice management system. So some of these practice management systems, like HoneyBook, they’re really making massive moves in how automated they’re getting. And I think I saw a- I didn’t think, I saw a, a list of the practice management s- systems in America, and, like, there were well over 20.

And, you know, like, 20 real competitors that have, you know, a percentage of market share, and I think it’s something that’s really good for accountants. They are starting to get a, um, systems to run their workflow, to run their time and billing, and to also take payments that are just integrated and easier. So if you’re out at a client and the client wants to pay, you can pay on Android or iPhone, which is just, this we can do that in Xero now, which is fantastic, but not out of our practice management system.

So it’s been really cool to see that evolution

Heather Smith

No, and, and, and as you said, just getting cashflow is so important, so that is really interesting. It’s also really interesting how you pointed out, uh, how, um, Canada is, is further ahead. And, uh, one thing that I’ve picked up in my travels, I was in Canada twice last year and I just came off an interview with, uh, Ben Richmond who, um, um, heads up Wagepoint, but he used to be the Xero North American, um, oh goodness, probably vice president or managing director.

They’ve got so many big titles in, in, in America. Um, and, um, solutions like from Australia, solutions seem to work very similar across Commonwealth countries and have more challenges in non-Commonwealth countries. So I that was interesting, which, which means that, you know, if we’re looking forward, look to Canada. Canada might be a more logical place to look even though, I don’t know, it’s on the other si- it’s crazy distance away, um, because of that. But I just thought that was really interesting. I don’t know whether you see that as well, but…

uh

Tyler Caskey

I definitely see some interesting things. I’ll tell you one, like, in Canada that blows my mind is their GST or their VAT Have you ever It, it is the most wild system I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s, it’s state-based VAT. There’s different percentages. I’m pretty good at GST. I’ve been working in it every single workday since 2001, and it took me- We’re working with a client that was rolling out Xero and Productive, a time and billing system there.

It took me about a week to, like, study the system and understand what, what and why certain things have or don’t have VAT. So to all the, if there’s any Canadian accountants listening at the moment, like, g- good job and good luck. The rest of the world doesn’t really have to deal with this problem. In Australia, all we have to do is just remember bank fees and water don’t have GST. Everything else is okay

Heather Smith

So I became very good friends with Ryan Lazanis, who people

Tyler Caskey

Oh,

Heather Smith

know about a decade ago, ’cause I had to explain Canadian GST, HST, PST, provincial… Oh, goodness, all those taxes in the Xero For Dummies book that I was writing, and trying to get my head around it all. Um, and he, uh, he came along and he explained it very, very nicely and kindly for him. So we have that weird,

Tyler Caskey

Yeah Ha

Heather Smith

weird connection. But it

Tyler Caskey

work

Heather Smith

sa- uh, it hasn’t changed since then either.

Tyler Caskey

No

Heather Smith

It truly is, and I think, um, as someone… I like to look at things on a global basis. It shows you how complex they are and, and, uh, compared to anyone else, any other business

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, state, state-based systems are really advantageous for the consumer or their finance, uh, people. They are so, um, competitive state to state. Um, like America’s like that with their payroll, and it’s, it’s hard to watch because, you know, it, it doesn’t really help. Like, trying to do a payroll transition in America is… I don’t know if I’ll ever do one again ’cause it’s that hard

Heather Smith

Yeah. Yeah, that’s, it, that’s not good. It’s almost country-based rather than country-based. So now let’s move on and talk about TaxDome. TaxDome, I, a number of people are using that in Australia now these days. So TaxDome has released a kiosk, um, an in-person client experience on tablets that captures signatures, payments, and document scans directly into workflows. So offline activities.

So if you’re in regional areas and you can’t access the internet, you’ve got offline activities can become part of the system of record. Um, very similar to what you see in a doctor’s office. So I did, did want to mention that. I love a good offline kiosk. I love the internet, and I love a good offline kiosk, especially as someone from Queensland

Tyler Caskey

That’s a, I mean, that’s a really big competitor in the market coming in is, you know, like a new practice management system that’s pretty w- pretty nice to use and has got its tax compliance sorted. Like it’s, it’s a big, big move in there. The, the tax lodgment in Australia is pretty good. Like I’ve got a friend… I, I think globally, like w- I’ve helped one friend do his, um, New Zealand tax return.

Like I taught him how to log in and like how to, how to read a P&L and balance sheet, and then his tax accountant did it. But that one’s pretty good. But if you look at like, um, the HRMC and the company’s office in London, it’s miles behind. I’m talking 10 years behind Australia. So it’s quite cool to see more tax competitors come in here. And I do think like our tax system and our tax, the data we’re reporting is good.

Like it’s nowhere near as, like the top of the end is like Germany and France, like they’re just so controlled and so automated but you don’t get the flicks and the innovation. But it’s, it’s great to see another competitor in the tax market

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, so let’s talk about Expert. Um, that’s a solution born out of Coffs Harbor. Um, they’ve added another 25 experts to their system. So these experts, um, um, are sort of, uh, functionality within the solution that will do something. So they span four areas: fraud and payment, payroll, STP phase two, tax, and bookkeeping quality.

That was five areas, wasn’t it?

Tyler Caskey

Dear Lord, yes. Good job, Expert. Like, one of the ones I think they’ve done is you have not finished your data for STP2, which I forgot this morning. We onboarded a new staff member, and I didn’t put their tax file number in. And then the only way I remembered it, because I went and double-checked all my tabs. Now, if I had Expert in my system, it would’ve flagged that as an issue.

Like, the- if you’re a multi-entity company, if you’re a large if you’ve got more than 20 employees, dear Lord, put Expert on your file. It’s just awesome. It puts, like, a CFO brain into a computer system and gets your team to do the work

Heather Smith

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So it now has 95 checks in Australia working automatically, um, 157 checks altogether. Um, and people can now custom create experts, which we have talked about before, and there’s over 1,000 of them. Um, and what they, um, are seeing, um, some of them that are being created, they’re actually building them into the system as standard. So, um, additional value for less effort

Tyler Caskey

And their, their custom creation, I haven’t used it, but I’ve seen it in use, is their, um, uh… It used to be like a workflow where you click the button to make a, an alert. Now you literally type in, uh, “I want to make an alert to tell Tyler to remember to do payroll on a Tuesday.” and it will do that for you. So it’s got, like, native language. Uh, it’s called XI, which is Expert AI. Very clever. And, you know, I think that’s a nice play for them

Heather Smith

Yeah. No, fan- fantastic. And if you ever wanna have an AI conversation, um, go and contact Aaron Whitman who will just blow you a- blow you a- away with, um… I think he s- has something like 90 AI agents working for him at the moment,

Tyler Caskey

He’s, he’s amazing techn- um, technically. I, I’ve had a few beers with him. He, I think he used to be one of the head programmers at Qantas.

Heather Smith

Oh, okay.

Tyler Caskey

he is one of the most talented programmers I’ve ever known or worked with or talked to. I, I understand about 70% of what he says in programming

Heather Smith

He’s very excited. Very good person to have a conversation with, and I’ll agree. But it’s always, always good to be around someone smarter than yourself. They’re the to be in. Um, and, uh, um, a- it now has a smarter way to build customer experts across the data. Oh, and that’s what you just talked about Sorry about

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, it’s cool

Heather Smith

Moving on to reporting. Calxa merge scenarios. So Calxa, the cashflow, um, forecasting solution, um, um, founded by Nick Divine, um, have released a, um, a, a functionality that lets you merge scenarios into budgets with automatic snapshots taken before the merge so you can restore if needed. It’s like Nick knows what we really, really need and what we really, really want. Um, so that would… just would give people such comfort to know they can do it, and then they can pull back.

The update includes conflict detection for formulas, circular references, um, plus a dynamic bank movement report template for building actual versus budget cashflow variance. That sounds phenomenal, Nick. Well done. Well done you and Alexi and the team there

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, It’s a good, it’s a good move, like, by Calcita. The merge scenarios, in my brain, like, I haven’t been able to s- test this one or see it, but that’s kind of might be, might saying, “Oh, I was gonna hire five people here, and I was gonna hire four people here. Let’s bring those together,” right? So instead of having two scenarios, I might have one. And seeing how that looks, I might end up hiring three people in those.

I’d, I’d love to get a, have a play and see how that looks, ’cause that happens all the time. I’ve had a business that had 16 budget scenarios once, and I was happy to not be their financial controller the next year, is the best way to put it

Heather Smith

Keeping your CFO happy.

Tyler Caskey

Yeah

Heather Smith

Awesome. So let’s move to payroll and HR.

Do you wanna take the next one?

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, please. And this one’s really around Beam Payday Super and Employment Hero Hero Force. So everyone as of yesterday needed to be Payday Super compliant, and Beam was the major player of super payments for Employment Hero. And now that’s exactly what, um, QuickBooks has been using as well. Um, they were previously us- using Beam. So now in Employment Hero, you can either use Beam or you can use Employment Hero Hero Force, right?

Which, uh, effectively do the same thing, but Beam is an external business. I think it’s owned by Australian Retirement Trust as their clearing house. Um, very, very highly functioning system, fantastic to set up, easy to use. Does one of the most beautiful error checkings of, um, paying a super batch. So it will say, oh, uh, Heather’s name doesn’t match her name in this super fund, watch out. Or, this member has changed their super fund over this period of time, check it.

Um, but I, what I think this does suggest is Employment Hero is probably might get rid of Beam one day and push everyone onto Hero Force, their own super fund. I think they’re charging a couple cents per transaction on that. Um, but the real win for, for Employment Hero Hero Force customers is you pay the super when you make the wage from the same screen. So you do your wage payment, you email your payslips, you, uh, lodge to the ATO, and then you download your ABA file.

Or if you’re one of those lucky peoples, you pay it through OFX, and then you, uh, also click that button and pay super out of, um, the wage screen. So you’re not, it’s not a future task. Um, Heather, I’ve always seen this as a pretty easy part of finance, but there are a lot of businesses that, um, Payday Super’s a, is a real, it’s a real change for, I think

Heather Smith

It, it is interesting and I, I don’t know whether it’s the technical process or the cashflow, but I do suspect it’s the cashflow, um, which is causing the, the, the, the stress there. Um, and we are so fortunate to have a country, to live in a country, um, that is so, uh, mindful of ensuring people have superannuation, um, um, uh, rolling up for themselves

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, I think, I think it’s great. Like, and I’m glad to see Beam and, and Employment Hero taking lead on this. Like, Tanda uses Beam for its, um, super fun payments. It’s yeah, like I actually, I do wanna talk about Tanda ’cause we just finished 300 people moving to Tanda, and dear Lord, it’s such a good payroll system. Like, it- if you’re a hospitality or a retail or an award business and you employ anyone, uh, of a non-adult age, Tanda is the best system in the world by far.

As soon as someone has a birthday, they get their pay rate increased. It does all the compliance well. It does HR, it does onboarding, it does contracts, it does rosters, and it just is so good at getting payroll right. For, for these hospitality and retail and larger award businesses, there’s, there’s nothing that compares.

Heather Smith

Excellent. Excellent. Good, good Brisbane company and, and they’ve always been the ninjas when it comes to, uh, award, award

Tyler Caskey

And, they’re good people too. Like, they’re great to work Yeah, yeah. They, they really actually care about helping businesses do payroll and rosters better. Like, they, they take feedback. If you’re like, “This shouldn’t be like this,” they’re like, “Okay, we’ll take it and consider it.”

Heather Smith

Yeah. No, absolutely. So they are great people to, um, connect with and, uh, um, they have always been very, um, much part of the community, um, getting involved in the community, which is wonderful to see. So let me, um, just move to time tracking solution and just mention Minute Dock, which was one of the first solutions ever coming out of the Xero ecosystem from, um, Wellington.

Um, and what they’ve done is they’ve added a passkey authentication, so you can sign in with fingerprint, face scans, device pin, or security key instead of just passwords. I know that’s just a simple, um, security update, but as a, as I have been hacked recently, I am excited to see that.

Tyler Caskey

A- absolutely. Passkeys, passkeys cannot come fast enough. I just don’t wanna go through the setup process, ’cause I’ve just set up 50 Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator or Zero Verify. So the more businesses that can get on passkeys, the better, right? stops fraud as well. Sorry

Heather Smith

And, it’s very easy to set up and, and then it just works each time, so very good

Tyler Caskey

What, what happens if you lose your phone though? Like, you know, like are passkeys continuing from computer to computer or phone to phone? That’s the one I’m nervous about

Heather Smith

Mine’s separate, so I have it on the computer or on the phone. So it works on the computer.

Tyler Caskey

Yeah. ’cause I don’t know if it’s like, I don’t know if it’s like hardware based, right? ‘Cause like the, the computer knows my face, right? So like what happens if I get a new laptop, you know? I really wanna… ‘Cause passkeys have only been around for like yess than a, less than a year properly, so. Well, in the app world. So I’m nervous about what happens when my laptop dies or I upgrade.

Heather Smith

Now I’m nervous too. I’m sure someone will contact us and tell us.

Now, Tyler, should we fast-forward to the solutions you wanted to talk about at the end there?

Tyler Caskey

yeah, would love

Heather Smith

We do that?

Tyler Caskey

There’s a couple apps we’ve touched over the last quarter that have been phenomenal, um, to work with. I, I’m gonna start with maybe Archer Cards. Have you, have you heard of Archer

Heather Smith

No, no

Tyler Caskey

So a lot of the virtual debit cards in the market, like Wise, Airwallex, Wheel, they’re all debit cards. Archer Cards are credit cards or charge cards that, um, you do actually have to do a credit application. It’s a proper card like that. But for businesses, especially large ones that want really detailed AP systems, you know, like they may be on Derive AP or they’re on, um, you know, something that, like Trail that needs, you know, approvals, purchases, and receipts that doesn’t have a card thing.

You can add Archer Cards, and it’s just cards, and it’s effectively virtual cards within that Xero kind of mild QuickBooks environment, and they’re gorgeous. Like, they just work. They’re just as easy to roll out as Wise, Airwallex, or Wheel. Um, but really good opportunity for those larger businesses wanting to get off NAB or CBA or whatever

Heather Smith

Hmm, interesting.

And are they born out of Australia, do you know?

Tyler Caskey

I don’t know actually. Um, th- all their sales representatives are here. I think they might be. Um, but they’ve also got like a points play on it, like not a full Qantas points one, but like they’ve got some type of points in there, which is usually the hardest thing for me to get, like an Amex business off a virtual card, uh, onto a virtual card.

Heather Smith

No absolutely right. I’ve just personally set up a, my own Wise card and I, I got them to send me a physical one as well, just in case I need it.

Tyler Caskey

I’m, I’m the same. Like, our Airwallex, we, for our two owners or partners, we both do, um, physical and virtual Airwallex. Just ’cause when we travel, if we’re in a hotel, it’s so good to have a physical card. Like, it’s the… It still bugs me that you walk into a hotel and you get, “Give me your passport, give me your credit card. I’m gonna take a photo of it and leave it behind the desk.” But, um, that’s, you know, that, it does solve that problem of personal cards there.

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

What else would you like to mention on your list there?

Tyler Caskey

Um, the next one I’m gonna do is DataSights, which we’ve talked about quite a lot. Brisbane,

Heather Smith

product

Tyler Caskey

fantastic product. He has made amazing moves over the last quarter, or maybe six months. The integration of Claude into DataSights is the best Claude integration in finance I’ve seen. Um I’ve got a feeling that Power BI is gonna die within about five to 10 years, and Claude and AI is gonna be the, the taker of this data, as long as we can get the data security right. So Kevin’s business has always been a data extractor and data hoster. So, um, on their website you’ll see logos like Yeti, all the coolers.

They extract data, they put it from their, um, inventory files, they put it into, um, Microsoft Azure and then, you know, those businesses can what they like with it. And one of the most important things there is, like, it’s all within that Microsoft kind of environment. Um, you know, Kevin’s business is a, is a, um, Microsoft partner. But n- the pain point for all finance teams was you had to hire, either have Power BI skills or hire a programmer or a, a consultant to get some Power BI reports.

Now with Claude, Lovable and some technology, I’ve seen some CFOs, um, and I hope you- he won’t mind. One of my friends, Damian, has made probably what would’ve taken 80, $90,000 of consulting fees to build in custom apps using DataSights, Claude, and publishing to custom websites, and using, like, Lovable apps. And it’s just phenomenal. Like, the, the way you can use DataSights and Claude together now to produce reporting that looks better than Power BI is some of the coolest things I’ve seen

Heather Smith

Oh, that’s, that’s very exciting. Very exciting.

Why is the word heaps normal there?

Tyler Caskey

Uh, uh, that’s o-one of the, um, one of my favorite beers, and I understand that they’re looking at the Seers technology as well for Yeah, it’s a great place.

Heather Smith

Interesting

Tyler Caskey

ne- the next app I, I’m really interested in is Cadence, which is for, uh, Australian accounting firms using XPM. Um, it’s a new app that’s yet to be released. They’re still in beta, but it does something cool, which is, like, um, overrun tracking. So what I always used to know when I was a partner, Heather, is that, like, 70% of my jobs went really well and, uh, you know, I was… Everything was on time.

20% absolutely died, and then, like, I just lost money on them because I did something wrong or my team did something wrong or my budget was too low or I wasn’t watching it close enough, and then 10% were about in the middle. And that 20% is Cadence is focusing on that. Can we track a budget versus actual? Are we about 60% of the way through the job? So they do this really cool interviewing.

So Heather, if you were one of the, you know, accountants in the business, you’d get a email every Monday morning, “How are you going with this job, this job, and this job? How far through are you?” And if you say 60% but you’re at 90% of the budget, it flags yourself and the partner as well. And it just takes away this pain point of having to have horrible conversations with clients so late, you know, after you’ve doubled the budget

Heather Smith

It sounds like a very light solution

Tyler Caskey

Very light, very single, very targeted. Not that expensive, but there is nothing like it I’ve ever had. And I’ve, I think I’ve run 2,000 accounting jobs in my time. I reckon I, I reckon I might have gone over on 500 of them, right? Like, this is probably, this would stop any of those kind of issues

Heather Smith

Hmm. Okay. Oh, that’s, that sounds like a good solution for people to look into

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, indeed. Um, the other one I’ll talk to, have you heard of Hello Cashflow?

Heather Smith

No, I haven’t.

Tyler Caskey

Um, it’s a, yeah, gr

Heather Smith

Cashflow

Tyler Caskey

it’s a great one. So it’s a Xero cash flow forecasting app, very similar to Float but a lot more detailed. So Float’s really good for startups where you’ve got cash burn and, and cash reserves. Hello Cashflow is much more advanced for existing businesses that does forecasting apps, which is effectively I’ve got wages coming out this day, I’ve got GST coming out this day. I’m a GST quarterly business. I’m payroll tax monthly, et cetera, et cetera.

It’s the only app that would take me away if I’m, if I took another CFO job. only app that would take away Tyler’s favorite cash flow spreadsheet forecast document. It’s really, really nice. It’s a Xero app. I’m pretty sure it’s a QuickBooks app as well. Um, and it’s, it kind of takes away the manual entry of cash flow forecasting, which was probably one of the most, um, risky parts of any kind of CFO job I had

Heather Smith

Excellent. Excellent. Oh, well, that’s always good to know another cash flow solution. What we need is people using them. So, uh, um, but it’s great that there’s another one out there to look at

Tyler Caskey

Indeed. And the last one I’ll mention, I reckon, is Cloud Connect, which we’ve talked through a little bit. It’s, um… I saw a long demo of this, it was a 90-minute demo, uh, a couple weeks ago. It’s targeted at the larger accounting firms in Australia, but I really do think there is a play for, um, you know, many accounting firms in Australia. It’s so well integrated. It’s got fantastic user interface.

Um, it’s just a really reliable, well-designed, um, time and billing, client management, practice management app. It does multi-entity. The one thing I don’t love that it does is it’s kind of like connected to SharePoint and Microsoft, which I think is sometimes a negative for accounting firms ’cause, uh, even in my team, I’m, I’m getting people, um, saving files.

Well, we’re a Microsoft business, so people are saving files six folders deep, um, in certain data transitions and, like, it’s really hard to find. But it’s got, it’s got the basics of a very, very nice app, um, and a nice practice management system coming. Um, and I think it’s a real competitor to that, like, FYI Elite, um, product

Heather Smith

Oh, that’s, that’s very interesting. Thank you for sharing that with us. Now, we’ve got only a few more minutes left, but let’s see if I can just, we can just quickly, um, run through a few of the other ones that we flagged to talk about. Um, pay.com.au, which is the solution that helps you… If you pay through it, you get points, and w- I, I, I’ve seen a demo of the solution. So when you actually go to pay, it is very clear how much you’re getting charged and how many points you’re getting, okay?

So I just wanna highlight that ’cause I see people, um, sh- saying things about it. But, um, that, um, launched its iOS and Android mobile app with instant transaction approvals via push notifications. Okay?

Tyler Caskey

Lovely, lovely move in the market. People love, people with points love pay.com.au without a doubt

Heather Smith

Yeah. P- and people are obsessed with points. P- there is that community of people who are obsessed with points. If we move to invoicing receivables, um, EzyCollect, uh, now offers Apple Pay and Google Pay, um, in its simple paid, um, area, letting customers authenticate with face ID, touch ID, or passcode for invoice payments. Um, and they now also offer early payment discounts and late payment penalties, um, i- i- is in beta

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, like good work, Easy Collect. Like I, I’ve been using them since… Well, I don’t use them now, but I have been working with them since like early 2020. It’s, it’s like just a nice good-to-use system. It’s so well-priced as well, um, when you’re comparing it to the other apps like Stripe and stuff.

It’s, it’s good that they’re getting their technology kind of, um, you know, in that com- highly competitive space ’cause it’s, it’s a pretty nice product, And it’s used widely, especially by accounting firms as

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If we shuffle off to integration news, we’ve actually already mentioned a few integrations, but we’ll mention that Ignition and FYI, um, now have, um, an Ignition

Tyler Caskey

That, that one’s huge. Like, this is for FYI Elite, so this is for businesses doing time and billing in FYI Docs, which is now called FYI Elite or FYI. Um, and this means that the, when you win a job in Ignition and the bill goes out, the bill goes into FYI Elite, the job gets set up in FYI Elite, the client gets s- set up in FYI Elite, and then the bill also goes into Xero Blue.

So that just, that’s kind of like Ignition and XPM and Xero Blue were the magic triangle, now we can add FYI Elite for those larger businesses as well, which is just awesome.

Heather Smith

Fantastic.

Tyler Caskey

really cool

Heather Smith

And if I move to project management and just talk about the new Work Guru, um, mobile upgrades. Um, the mobile app, um, overhaul lets accountants run their entire business from their pocket. Is it accountants or, or, or may- maybe it’s the bookkeeper or maybe it’s the small business owner running it from their pocket. Lead creation, quote sending, project kickoff, and time sheet approvals all, um, within the mobile app. So, um, well done to Tony Harcourt and the team at, uh, Work Guru for the, for that release.

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, I agree. Work Guru is a lovely product. Like, we’ve done a couple installs. It’s very detailed. You can- like, a lot of people don’t know how big that system is. It’s got, if you’re a project management business, if you’ve got inventory, um, if you do any time and billing, Work Guru is phenomenal. It’s got, like, its functions are in the hundreds, not, you know, like I use Xero Projects for our business. Like, you know, it’s, it’s 10, 20 times bigger than Xero Projects

Heather Smith

Yeah, absolutely. And if you are looking for project management or looking to talk to small business owners about project management, Tony Harcourt’s someone you probably need to speak with. He’s, he’s across all of the solutions, and, uh, is always very generous in his knowledge. He doesn’t want to trap you into his solution if you’re not the right fit

Tyler Caskey

Indeed. And I think he used to be the, uh, um, sword-fighting champ of Australia back in the day.

Heather Smith

Oh, really?

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, yeah, yeah

Heather Smith

Okay. Thank you for that piece of, um, trivia. Um, excellent. I

Tyler Caskey

Fence-

Heather Smith

visions of him in my head

Tyler Caskey

I know fencing is the word. Sword fighting, sorry. Jesus, he’s gonna tell me off for that one for sure

Heather Smith

Um, oh, I think I, I’ve just got AI images of him being generated in my head fighting.

What’s next for you, Tyler?

Um, we have a, a, a few of the conferences, um, out, um, there’s not that many in Australia, but

Tyler Caskey

Yeah. After, yeah, after the, um, last month for us, I’m staying as put in Australia as I possibly can. Um, we’ve had probably the busiest two months of our entire year. I’m so happy to be home. I’m not traveling to see clients anymore. We’ve had a Toronto client on. We’ve had a New York project that went live yesterday. Um, and it’s… Our large American and Europe client has finally stopped, so I’m staying in Australia. Um, if there’s any conferences coming up, I will definitely be there.

Um, if the- there’s a Dashboard Insights roadshow coming around, um, very soon in all the major cities, so I’m gonna try to attend one of those

Heather Smith

Yes, that’s the account- Uh, it’s called the Accounting Benchmarking Roadshow, um, and that’s in August I’ve got there. Um, and I’ll put a link to that one. Um,

Are you speaking at the Accounting Benchmarking Roadshow, Tyler?

Tyler Caskey

No, not this time. Not this time. I, I was talking to Ryan, I just didn’t have the time to do two weeks of traveling. He- that guy’s amazing. He runs an accounting firm and, and an app, like a bookkeeping business, and then is on the road for two weeks. He’s, he’s a rock star of an accountant

Heather Smith

Well, I, I, I guess that’s keeping in front of people and, and hearing what they need at where, where they are. Um, but I will put a number of the events on. And I always think, you know, there’s a lot of events in different places such as, um… I think The Gap has one coming up in, um, um, over in New Zealand. There’s some in Adelaide, Sunshine Coast. So there’s always something to be going to if you do need to, um, um, travel. In fact, I don’t have The Gap there. I’ll have to put it on.

Um, there’s always somewhere to go if you do wanna go travel, um, and, and attend an event. Sage Future is happening in Amsterdam, if you need a trip to Amsterdam.

Tyler Caskey

Who, who doesn’t need a trip to Amsterdam? It’s the best city in Europe, I think

Heather Smith

Fantastic. Yeah, well, who doesn’t? And, and that sounds like a, a, a lovely place to go. Tyler, thank you so much again for joining us, sharing your knowledge and insights with us, and I encourage all of our listeners to get in contact with you, um, if they’re interested in, um, anything we’ve said today or, um, um, a, a, a future potential project, um, with those solutions that y- that you work with and, and the businesses that you work with.

Tyler Caskey

Yeah, for sure. I always enjoy these, Heather. Yeah, and if anyone wants to reach out, find me, Tyler Caskey at The Bean Counters on LinkedIn. I’d love a chat, or even if you just wanna, like, bounce around a few tech solutions. Honestly, it’s my passion project is trying to help people find good tech that makes their life a little bit easier

Heather Smith

Fantastic. So thank you everyone for listening. Please subscribe so you don’t miss another episode

Tyler Caskey

Thanks, Heather.

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