The intersection point of accounting and technology should be where we use technology to get rid of the repetitive things, leverage our time to focus on the human things and do more for our clients with extra resources and capacity.

Kelly Chard, GrowthMD

A live panel unpacks how accounting tech reshapes advisory, global work, and lifestyles: covering cloud, AI, ethics, niche healthcare, and why some accountants invest in apps. With guests: 

• Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA (Soaring Falcon)
• Kelly Chard (GrowthMD)
• Paul Gardner (fresh accounting)

In this episode, we talk about . . .

• Cloud tools lower barriers for boutique firms; data enables deeper advisory.
• Lifestyle design: remote teams, digital-nomad workflows, and flexible careers.
• Global work: Hong Kong/Singapore complexities—multi-entity, multi-currency, consolidation.
• Specialisation: the healthcare niche delivers powerful benchmarking and insight.
• Founders as investors: why accountants back apps they implement.
• AI: more a shift than a threat; ethics and guardrails remain paramount.
• Practical stack talk: standardising platforms, comms, and change management.

Apps & Tools Mentioned: Xero, Sage, NetSuite, SAP, Expensify, Dext, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Copilot, Excel, WhatsApp, Brieff, Otter.ai

Read more about the event :

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heathersmithau_caanz-accountingandaccountants-activity-7370961397926543360-jr40

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heathersmithau_caanz-accountingandaccountants-caanz-activity-7370773461620867072-i8Gb

Let’s start with you, Kelly

Kelly Chard 14:06
Hi everybody. I’m Kelly chard. I do know a number of people in this room being from Brisbane. I have a small accounting firm about 14 staff called GrowthMD. We’re very heavily niche in the healthcare industry, so we do a lot of accounting, but a lot of advisory work in that space started out about seven years ago. Pretty well so far, I believe I have an inkling that Heather may have invited me on the panel, because I’m also involved in a startup technology company that basically provides data insights and business insights to health practices in Australia. So we just do that. In the last 12 months, signed on as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners data insights partner, and we’re in about just. On behalf of all general practices in Australia now. So I wear a director hat there and help devise any that process, and then that feeds into the work that we do at Earth, MD as well. So really happy to be here and hopefully adding some value with these guys.

Heather Smith 15:16
The reason you are on the panel, in case you forgot, five years ago, we had the exact same panel discussion on the Monday night ahead of Xerocon, and you were one of the panellists. But the conversation has evolved so much, and it’s wonderful to bring.

Introduce yourself, Paul

Paul Gardener 15:45
That’s interesting Covid time as well.

Heather Smith 15:47
No, it was before Covid. It was for just 19, 2019, good call.

Paul Gardener 15:54
Just a little bit before Hong Kong, Singapore, 17. For serious unfortunate circumstances, really, really lucky to be able to have in house counsel roles from the age of 18 went through my turn, 37 years old when I moved to Hong Kong, freshman council was born within a month of arrival in Hong Kong, and the concert was a territory job until I found something. 11 years later, it’s grown into Hong Kong, Singapore, Nepal, a team of 25 people, we focus on accounting for growing up and growing up businesses advisory, which has been such an interesting part, which is anything from financial management, financial control, especially in Asia, where it’s consolidation into company multi currency. There’s a shortage of talent Finance Director and CFO. It also allows the teams to develop within the business as well. So they grow, and they don’t have a need to necessarily leave the business to find another job. And they grow clients. 40% of our clients are both Hong Kong and Singapore. So actually, a lot of what we do is really, really interesting, that we help clients with single point of contact, where we struggle to recruit in Hong Kong a lot of time, has amazing and has left for me around to UK and Australia, post social unrest and Singapore, so many multinational firms to move to Singapore, and it’s just impossible to improve for an SME. So we in 2014 Hong Kong, 2016 Singapore, and established our agency in 2021 in the poll to actually support our regional growth funds.

Heather Smith 17:26
That was, yeah, another 30 seconds ago.

Alex, what about you?

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 17:38
I’m Alex. I’m the founder of sort of welcome, and I would say I am UK-based, but not really. So I set up my practice about 10 years ago. So I’m celebrating 10 years in business. I think the first year I actually came out to New Zealand and did my one and only the last Xerocon.

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 18:04
And actually at that point is when I made all of my international connections. So my goal when I set up my business was because I didn’t want to be at a desk. I didn’t want to be very nine to five. I wanted to literally be a digital nomad, travel the world and build up my client base. And my only thought process around the beginning of time was, how am I going to do that was my approach. And so I recognise that I can only have and work with technology clients because they were the only ones that would understand how digital at the time, and anybody outside of that, just not interested. It was really hard work, and I just didn’t have the patience for it, because I just wanted to kind of grow my business quite fast. And so majority of my clients are international, overseas, and I’ve helped them launch their business in the UK. And I started off with the app partners in the county world. So people that you actually know, I helped them launch in the UK, like 10 years ago, actually before then, because I worked with them prior to me setting up a business. And so again, my goal was to work with these clients. It doesn’t matter where I’m going to face in the world, because time zone shouldn’t matter, as long as I do what they need to do on their hands and feet on the ground. So they say. And so that’s how my story began. So I’m glad to be sharing the recipe with you this evening.

Heather Smith 19:31
So thank you. Thank you so much, Alex.

Now I’d like to jump in and start off by framing the conversation, which is around the intersection of accounting and technology.

What’s the intersection of accounting and technology for you?

Kelly Chard 19:59
Actually. It. I actually think that this will mean different things to different people. Obviously, accounting and technology co exist, and they always have. And you know, as the years have gone by, everything’s merging together more and more for me, I think, and my business, I think the intersection point should be. It’s not always, but it should be where we can use technology to get rid of the things we don’t want to do, the repetitive things, leverage our time to focus on the human things and do more for our clients with extra resources and capacity. That’s what I think it means to me.

Heather Smith 20:39
Excellent. Does anyone else want to add anything to that? It’s up to you.

Paul Gardener 20:43
That’s a quick one. So we were the third zone partner in Hong Kong. We’re probably the first buying zone partners in Asia. This was 11 years ago. We had no bank feeds. So Australian and clients wanting Xero wanting lots of information. There’s no bank fee. There is now, thankfully, but I think that it is that still in Asia, we’re always still quite far behind the rest of the Western world. But when we catch up, we catch up quite fast. I think that part is around the software incomes, but economies in Asia. But it’s still the fact that we need to have something that can help. So I think it’s a part to try and also have teams that can getting rid of repetitive tasks, having allowing people to have time to do things that are more meaningful and useful. One of the things I think that’s very important is when a lot of accounting firms use multiple software. So every client has we use it. When French was born in Asia, we just stuck with one software which was Xero and nothing else. Huge risk taking. We just chose that one software and with a master of one as opposed to a checkable trust. Thank you. So I think that was very important, and that is also now the team, my partner, when he started like we’ve all grown up into more grown up roles within the business as well, as a result of that.

Heather Smith 22:05
Thank you very much for that. Now, Kelly, I’d like to come back to you.

How has technology enabled your lifestyle?

Kelly Chard 22:17
I think it changed the course of my life. So when I started my career 23 years ago or something, I will say my husband, my idea of what a successful career to me as a CIA was going to be, was to be, probably a partner coming to the city every day on the train my suit and showing off to work at a mid tier or larger firm and working on the best clients. And then I had children. Actually already had a child. I had two more children post that, and I worked in some of those firms and realised they weren’t quite as great as I thought they would be, and not all of them, some of them great. So it’s sort of when I thought about owning my own firm and the barriers had been removed. So this is fast forward, you know, 15 years from when I started those barriers to entry and starting growth indeed were so low, and I could suddenly just start this firm and do it how I wanted to do it. And then, because we had all this technology and access to data, I could do things that actually I thought only really big firms with lots of resources could do. So suddenly me being able, in this really small firm that I just started, you know, co working space, being able to provide these great services from, you know, my little SME to our SMEs. So I think technology really shaped that if I had been 10 years earlier, I don’t think I would have done got travelled that same path, and I think my life would look very different. And of course, I have three children that are almost growing up. The youngest is 14 now, so I’ve been able to weave that into my life and give me the flexibility to do the things I want to do with them. And also my husband as well. So he’s in the business as well, and you know, utilising technology has allowed us to recruit people in different time zones, work remotely, go on family trips, you know, all the things that you want to do.

Heather Smith 24:27
I’ve got this very clear image of you at a swim carnival with a computer saying, Yeah, watching the dance swim.

Kelly Chard 24:36
I will say sometimes that has worked against me. So easy to get online, anywhere and everywhere, but still with more pros and cons?

Heather Smith 24:48
How was it? How was it enabled your lifestyle?

Paul Gardener 24:59
I think for us as a nightmare, because one of the things that Asia is, I think it’s a work life balance. In developed countries, there’s a very good work life balance, and the government really enforces that. In Asia, we don’t have that this identity lead is absolutely home. There’s a gate. And I think for us, when we built something. What we didn’t realise is we we don’t have to build a sales team. We don’t have to build a sales channel. Literally, the work just comes to us through recommendations. And there are times where you just wonder, what’s the next big thing? It’s just around the corner. We least expect it. And I think for us, we’re just constantly in the business working. We can never really escape it, but at the same time, Australian cancers take a month off after the end of the financial year. Nick are in the same ship. We’ve just done a long weekend in Penang in May, and on weekend in Bangkok in June, a long weekend in July. After another all of this, we haven’t had like that proper break and switch off time, which is annoying. But at the same time, we also realised that we can just jump on a flight somewhere within hours and hours out of where we need to be. We can still do a little bit of work, but we’re still actively involved in it. And I think as the team have grown and evolved, and we put like an E sock in as well for key people, actually, it’s really interesting. We can then take a foot off the pedal at times, but I think it’s just in Asia, clients are so they make decisions at very short notice, and you’re always responding to clients who have been sitting on a problem for the last three months. We now need to do it, and we need to do it yesterday. And in Asia, that’s just the sort of constant repetition. And I think for a lot of accounting firms, they don’t know how to say, like, we can’t do this. And so even we say, of course, we can do that. And I think that’s where we’re always sort of forever, in a bit, not forever, but we’re in the business, always in the trenches.

Heather Smith 26:52
You got such an interesting lifestyle.

Anything to add, Alex?

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 26:56
So I guess, from my perspective, like my biggest goal, you know, was to travel the world. Like, I think, go to university. My mom didn’t have the funds for us to travel when we were looking to single parents. So like, my ultimate goal was, I’m going to travel the world. No matter how I’m going to do it, I’m just going to do it. So when I set up the business, it was ultimately, like, I just want to be anywhere and being qualified accountant, I thought I could utilise my qualification plus zero to travel to all the countries where they exist again, New Zealand, Australia, everywhere. And having international clients literally meant I could be based anywhere, because time zones didn’t matter. And I set up the all relevant technology, including making sure when people contacted me they didn’t know that I was overseas, so they would just have their normal double tone when they contacted me. When you talk about how difficult is in Asia, well, I found it the opposite, because I lived in Bali during covid, during the second lockdown, it was just like an opportunity. I rented out my property, and I thought, right, I’m leaving. I’m getting out of here. And then I just made it a thing that every winter I’m going to leave the UK and I’m going to travel to whatever side of the world I’m going to be in. So I was in, I think I travelled around Cambodia, Vietnam, and I would say a month here or two months there, just however I feel like for me, that’s just given me the most amazing lifestyle I could ever dream for. So knowing that that was my dream when I was a kid to actually achieving and doing it is something that I feel proud of, and I know that I can help and support other people to do the same as well. So I find it really important to have that work lifestyle balance. So I would literally implement every technology possible to give me the freedom and to so I can go off and do all the things I want to do. So I think that’s really key. And people say to me, you don’t have a family, but I there’s loads of groups out there with families and nomads carrying a lot of kids. So yeah, it is quite important to kind of state that, because I was travelling around with some families as well.

Heather Smith 29:13
So I was in Cambodia, and put up an Instagram I was in Cambodia, and Alex is like, are you in Cambodia? And then two days later, she arrived in Cambodia was literally and I was there on a holiday with friends. But accounting is a global language, and it’s really exciting that we can leverage technology to travel the world. So I’m interested to know how has tech Oh, no, no, you’re seeming to hate on this word, Paul.

How has technology changed the scope of advisory work that you can offer, and what does that look like in your business today?

Paul Gardener 29:52
I think it’s the tournament. I think when we spoke last week, us internally and. Want to take a little step back as well, because quite often, businesses should be changing reviewing systems and processes on a frequent basis. Software should be changed every five years. We see some businesses in Asia, Singapore, Hong Kong, holding companies they use in the same system for 25 years. It’s insane. It’s not service. So we do a lot of project implementation work. We’ve got small businesses, regional businesses, largest popularly, a French family of 50 companies, global architectural firm. There’s 450 employees across 15 countries. Off software, stage, NetSuite, Del Tech, SAP to zero. So a lot of those projects are really interesting. It’s a change manager. Change Management that goes with it in terms of how we have to practice what we preach across the offices. So we’re using Xero. We’re using expense management such as Expensify for the teams, or Dex actually depends on me, but we use decks. But in all also we actually use like Microsoft, so everything we do is by teams, and the communication between the offices. I think sometimes some of the teams are outside out of mind. So there’s 13 of us supporting us in Hong Kong, three in Singapore, seven in Nepal. So the idea is, again, coming regular communication. Updates, WhatsApp, group chats, that’s easier. Team updates, we try to build a tech stack that really helps the team, so we can actually get the most out of it. But we still probably, Excel is still one of our best friends. I know AI is going to come up in a minute, but Excel is still a really good friend. I think even when we’re trying to ask questions, AI is quite limited in Hong Kong, because of Hong Kong and China. So chat G TV is actually illegal. It can’t be used. You can, you can use other softwares that sort of can that people might tap into. But China has sort of illegal or Quinn or to be fair,

Paul Gardener 32:04
We don’t really use much AI within the business, so we use copilot within the business. And that’s probably about it. Chinese restrictions. That’s where you go. Yeah, I know that football can become one. So I got a bigger question a minute on the AI stuff later, I think what we found is trying to use the right systems, play with systems, break systems, see how they work for us, which I think is really important, but I think the communication between the three offices was also equally important. So trying to find the right tech stack and changing it, I think the power of SMEs is really important, because SMEs drive economies, we get the multinational firms SMEs drive economies. 80% people work in SMEs. And actually this ability as SMEs, 20 years ago, used to have to use big, big softwares that were quite expensive, that would hold them back. Now you can build really powerful businesses using account based solutions that really can help businesses get further. And so that’s what we just keep trying to find what works for us.

Heather Smith 33:07
Thank you so much, Paul.

Would you like to discuss the advisory and how technology has changed?

Kelly Chard 33:14
Advisory? Yeah, so going back to what I said before, so I think 10 years ago, I wouldn’t be able to do the advisory work that I do, because I wouldn’t have the data that I do now. So the data available to me and to other people particularly easy for me because I’m in a niche industry. So I can go really deep with data in that particular industry, so we can provide amazing insights using that data that changes people’s businesses, changes their lives. It’s so meaningful. It’s not there’s still the human element, of course, like they’re still having the conversation, they’re still, you know, guiding people how to implement things, being a support to people, but the advisory piece has really changed with all that data and even the delivery. So, you know, using different tools we use brief at the moment. So, you know, just being able to sit down and have a meeting and have the meeting notes sums in a way that is so accounting specific to advisory reports, and that’s going back to your clients, AI generated actions, automatic reminders for your clients. The whole process is, you know, just getting easier to deliver, and I think, easier to incorporate the team as well, when you have some of these tools that are providing some guardrails around how you deliver those services. So, yeah, change it.

Heather Smith 34:44
Thank you.

Do you have anything you want to say to

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 34:48
that? Yeah, I guess it’s just something I mentioned before. I like pitched accountant from my title and also from my business, just purely because the traditional. Accountant in the UK, a lot of people just assumed that I did compliance tax payroll accounts, and I was I would see clients, and this was early days, they would say, Oh, we’ve got this consultant to this. We’ve got this consultant to do that. So why didn’t you approach me? Well, they didn’t know I did that, even though I’ve been doing it for years, even though I thought like I was sharing that information with them, but I wasn’t. So what I’ve done is I’ve turned it around. I now promote the things that I do do, and I don’t promote the compliance work, just purely now, because I work really closely with all my clients. So with my existing clients, I pretty much do majority advisory work. So I work with, closely with software developers. I work closely with other accountants and accountancy firms to help them do the same, to either make them like, take automation or AI, like driven. So essentially, over time and over the years, that has now happened, and I would say, like, 99% of my work is advisory. Just because of that change.

Heather Smith 36:04

That’s really interesting, isn’t it?

Paul Gardener 36:08
It’s the interpretation of the understanding of it. When we, when fresh was born, we sort of created a very flat structure, and somehow, with the team with 25 it still works. But the titles aren’t consultants, Senior Consultant. Something else for some of the team, we’re trying to look at the times where shareholders, so maybe it’s partner, I’m not sure, partner in crime it is. But actually we’re in Asia. Asia is way behind Hong Kong and Singapore, no matter how you look at it. But actually by losing the word accountant. So when Nick was sorry, he’s gone. He’s run away. Nick was not qualified, and we went in to see clients and clients in great Spanish, but we had to meet their finance manager, who was qualified, Hong Kong, CPA. He said, You come in, you’re not wearing a suit. You’re speaking to me in English. You should be speaking to me in Cantonese. I won’t work with you. And actually, that was the finance wasn’t. And actually he was hired six months later, because we actually the founders loved and embraced the core team when they were there, which was ability to communicate in English, dress casually, but not smart, doesn’t have accountant in the title. And at the time, Nick was part Australian. CPA qualified at the time, sorry. And actually qualification is important, but it’s not the be all end or it’s, you know, it’s the culture that you build in your experience. And I think that’s the thing in Asia, just that Hong Kong, Singapore mindset, like you expect something. So with a team of consultants, it doesn’t sound great, but actually, for business owners, they’re very intrigued to say, What’s the difference here? And I think that’s something that has helped us in Asia, because we’ve got rid of accounting from the beginning, yes, using consulting, maybe partners that actually trying to think of because they’re going to harm the company anyway. So then others in the team have an ESOP scheme. So we’re still trying to think of what those titles have even and how clients can actually view them, because Asia is still there, still a bit behind the times, and titles are important. But I agree with the accountant is not something we use, but it’s, yeah, something that stopped her.

Kelly Chard 38:23
I actually, I toyed with changing my LinkedIn profile many times to something much cooler than accountant, and I’ve just gone back to specialist accountant for medical practices. It says what I do that my clients have an element of trust. Yes, I’m your business advisor, but I’m also an accountant, and a really good accountant, so you could go and pay to see that business consultant down the road that has no more formal training, and they might be great, or they might not be, but I’m an accountant, and I’ve got that basis. So

Paul Gardener 38:55
when we spoke last week, a friend in the UK is on the board of a an accounting firm that only specialises in recruitment agencies in the UK, so it’s accounting things in financial control and CFO, my first ever, I couldn’t really understand the specialism, like, how do you make that work? But actually, with time, it’s been really interesting to build specialist skills and specialisms, and you can really build something that’s really, really important. And I think during testing last week, anything in the world of medical that’s really cool. And then on the other side for us, I really like, if you see me on LinkedIn, I’ve had a really wide variety of variety of roles in different industries, different experiences. I love professional services. I love time. I love time building. I love disability. You know, you shouldn’t put any hour. You know, what’s the hours that go into goodwill? What have you I love this intangible type of business. So I really want us to be around creative, professional. Services people in time. Unfortunately, the people that fresh has employed over time actually love other industries, and so we’re very diagnostic. So if someone comes in with a problem, it’s like, do we like the client, this potential crime? Yes. Can we help this problem? Yeah, why not? And even the early days of fresh, like the first seven years we ran the business as a not for profit. Almost my most savings came with me from South London, from selling a house memory ticket. And when fresh was born, it was if it’s if we’re selling something for $1 and it’s costing like, let’s say 85 cents. I’m happy. Small profit, tiny profit. I don’t care. We just need to learn how to get this right. Learn new softwares. If they’re not working, that’s fine. Learn something else. If someone’s team aren’t performing, hire fast, fire faster. And I think what was really important when covid hit, the number of businesses in Asia, had to digitise cricket to catch up with Australia, UK was phenomenal. And to see how revenues jumped, profits jumped as well, and how we built the team across multiple countries was really, really powerful for us. And I think the subsequent years, there’s a truly positive business, but we continue to invest in people in software training development, and I think that was also kind of important. So even for me, I don’t see myself as an accountant, and the team banned me from doing accounting work for clients, so I am actually a snowboard now. Ability to keep building something so specialism agnostic is there’s no way wrong, I guess.

Heather Smith 41:43
But you say you’re agnostic, but you listed, actually, so many specialties there in that. You go for personalities, which is the specialty in itself. You go for countries. You go for kind of the interesting type of work. So speciality doesn’t need to be a category. So what’s really interesting about all three of you is that you’ve all taken it one step further from being a user of technology to being an investor in technology.

What motivated you to take that leap into being a technology investor? Discuss that concept further.

Paul Gardener 42:18
Yeah, sure.

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 42:20
Everyone’s looking at me. Okay, from the early days, I worked with software founders, probably for the last, like 15 years, I knew Xero in the UK, where we had like one or two employees. So I knew Xero before they had add ons. And so I became, like that add on, sort of specialist in the UK, it was like one year was five years. So I needed inside out. The second year was 20 apps, then the third year was like 300 so I just knew apps inside out. And it was something that I was, like, really interested in, because I thought it’s going to make my life so much better and more efficient. And so I spent so much time with App advisors, sort of the apps, getting to know them. But then I started to see them being sold on, and I started to see this whole like, Okay, I’m spending so much time here, and I’m doing it for free, because that’s what I thought I had to do, and I’m not benefiting from this. So I just put stuff to it. The clients that I work with, I because they’re usually startup. When I help them in the UK, I then either invest or I have shares, or people are aware of my investments now, so now they approach me and tell me they’ve got cool product to go. Are you interested? So I’ll check it out, because I understand the industry. I’ll be like, yeah, sure, that sounds good. So that’s kind of my story.

Paul Gardener 43:42
I say white, I say was, which really was much money, and having their score at 17, nothing’s necessarily been easy, but it feels easy sitting here, I came across an HR software in Asia. Since I’m not so I remember the second or third years, 2016 and really interesting, see how terminals can help in Age of clients perfect. And then we were talking about investments. So how much money do I have? Not much. And so they had a certain amount of half of that. As I sort of looked at my sim bank account. I’ve got about half of that. We’ll come back to you. And then I became a shareholder. And then subsequently, over the years, there’s been other small investments, reporting software, probably three softwares within the zero ecosystem. But then also just interesting businesses that come out of Hong Kong and Singapore around sustainability, sort of a real interesting sort of array. It was unintentional, if I’m honest, but I think what was positive for me was to see how something small could help, but at the same time, then have a vested interest to see how, as a team, maybe not me. As a team who can look at software, see how this is going to work, how it’s going to help, potentially, clients. And then also, I think quite often, I said earlier, we see a lot of softwares that will be in Asia, but they’re missing currencies, and so we’re doing a consolidation once, and there’s no NPS weekly, and then you have to go through a very long CRM channels to try and get it installed. And then you can just, oh, I can WhatsApp the founder, any chance of adding it in. And then 30 minutes later, it’s done. And it’s that sort of point where, like, we work in a very sort of dynamic environment, where you’re inter company, multi currency consolidation, very, very complex. And I think when I talk to accounting firms in Australia or the UK, it’s like no one has that same problem that we have. But I then think that has probably helped us see that if there’s something that’s coming there that can help them, potentially, we can, I can contribute somehow. Fantastic.

Kelly Chard 45:57
Yeah, so I actually became well invested in a few startups, but they’re all in mainly the health space. The one I’m most associated with is cubicle, and that was just born out of me talking to people in my network and saying, we can really do this better. And initially I had these wild thoughts that I was going to build something myself. And then, as my kids refer to me, I am a grandma tech user, so just because I don’t understand all the streaming stuff, I think mainly. But I then spoke to people who were saying, look, we’ve we’ve started on this journey. And could you come along with us on the journey? So I can’t claim to have built it or anything like that. It has been really interesting for me. It was my first director position. We sold part of the company to a really big company. So now I’m on a board with these amazing tech gurus, with the CFO of a, you know, international billion dollar company, I still had to go to meetings and Google things they were talking about. I remember the first time they were talking about the pen testing results, like, what’s pen testing? So yeah, I’ve learned a lot, so it’s been super rewarding. You know, there’s also very much a need for women on boards in all spaces. So that’s another thing that’s I feel good doing, and then hopefully I can take into my future as well. But yeah, I think I guess what I would like to share is that when I took that opportunity like I was not a tech person. I was always intrigued and interested about how to use things better in my business or in my career, but I definitely wasn’t a tech person. So I think that sort of, you know, just hopefully instils some confidence in other people that, you know, there is always a journey that can go on in this space, and you don’t have to be the best, but you know, as long as you’re willing to learn and go on that journey, you can sort of add value.

Paul Gardener 48:08
I’ve always a socialism of the courts. And so, you know, if you own a property, you shouldn’t bring several properties. You know, it’s great. Buy properties, make money, etc. And now multiple property is perfect. But I always felt like, you know, when I was leaving the UK sell the house, including nice market, should say, the gentleman, one way ticket than I am in Hong Kong, in the venture sphere, data of 2021, we’ve got our own, obviously in Hong Kong, hugely expensive. That’s okay. I’m sure we appreciate the value one day, but that part for us was right, we’ve got that. But I think actually investing in the business was incredible, because the return on investment isn’t going to be three years or five years when covid came. It was just incredible to see how the business evolved. I think this ability to put small amounts of money into small startups, but actually something small amounts here and there. It’s how did I get here? And if I ever say to me, how did I get here? Well, we flew here, we drove here, how did we get here? It’s just, you’re always sort of just bringing back to ground, which is, I

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 49:25
think it’s not like an overnight

Heather Smith 49:32
process. I think it’s so inspirational what you’re doing in that fact, I was actually surprised me when I sat down. I was like, I had the panel. It’s like, wow, you’ve actually all invested in companies, and that was really exciting to sort of in what that you have done in your business life. So maximum five word answer for this question, do you see AI and AI agents as more of a threat? And I’ll. Opportunity, or simply a shift in how we will work.

Do you see AI and AI agents as more of a threat?

Kelly Chard 50:04
shift in how we’ll work.

Heather Smith 50:13
Fantastic. There we got the word AI in for the conversation, just so we can get the tick, so now we’ll get our ethics market as accountants, ethics and integrity is at the core of a profession.

What guardrails should we be putting in place to ensure AI and technology are used responsibly?

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 50:35
We have the AI act now that’s just come out in the UK.

Heather Smith 50:38
It’s okay.

Paul Gardener 50:41
There’s no very did. It

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 50:51
was 2024 was designed, and then it was actually enforced in 2025 because I just did an AI conference in Dublin. So there’s definitely things that you have to implement. An example that they gave was, you know, you can’t have a toy that’s going to teach kids to do the wrong stuff, basically. So they implement it really fast. But there’s definitely policies that you have to implement into your business to ensure that you’re you are safeguarding and then security is really high on the agenda as well, to make sure that you you’re not putting things in that you don’t want it to escape the system, essentially. But it’s something that I’ve implemented like from the early stages. I think we have to do, even as a nomad, I have to implement high end security, like on every in everything that I do so I don’t get hacked. And so when AI was, you know, was coming out more, I think it was like 2017 2018 so it was essentially something that I just made sure that everything was protected as much as possible.

Kelly Chard 52:01
I actually think that we just do the same things that we’ve been doing. So when we had cloud accounting come in, we had the same questions. When we talk about offshoring work, we have the same questions. So I don’t think it’s a new raft of questions we have to answer. There’s just probably slightly different challenges. And the one thing I do think that is going to become more important for us is as advisors to our clients, when they seek out advice on what tools to use in their business. Because I’m getting that all the time. So I guess it might have come a bit earlier for me, because the AI tools in healthcare have just gone gangbusters, because they’re mainly, you know, they’re based on language, so they’ve got a lot to change, and they’ve got a lot available that they can change. So I’m getting a lot of questions asked to me about different types of scribes, different types of recommendation products for different you know, billing item numbers and things in practice, and the tools available all have pros and cons. So I don’t know exactly that. Haven’t spoken to the CTO of all of them, but I know they have different things about how they anonymize their data, different consent things, where the data is stored, all those sorts of things. So it’s really hard when somebody says to me, what should I use? You know, I’m thinking of going to use that, and they see me as the trusted person to say, Yeah, well, this is great. I want to be sure I’m doing the right thing. So I think that’s a challenge for me, and I think that’s probably going to continue to be one of my biggest challenges.

Paul Gardener 53:40
I think we’ve had like a rudimental AI in, let’s say zero, with bank feeds and bank reconciliation. So there’s always been sort of a basic AI that has helped us in our business, I think now with our fear cities of Hong Kong, Singapore and Nepal, what’s interesting is that we need to ensure what the teams are doing is in close environments, that we’re not throwing data out there and asking ridiculous questions to where we can and chat G to T, whichever like. But I think so therefore we understand environment of copilot as an example the Microsoft I think one of the things is also ensuring how and I think the real positive is that we are still really far behind in nature, which is great, because a lot of countries still use local language or supplier invoices, and so AI cannot read everything, and no matter how hard it tries, it’s actually easier to have a local to read something that is to use an AI, which is for now, which is good, but I think it’s for us, using what we have within the existing tools. So especially with that copilot, if we’re learning how to do something, if we’re trying to do presentations or look at producing something that we’re talking about, and we may, I think I may use some sort of form of AI to ask questions, to see how we can get word something better and better. Game, we have to be very mindful that we’re not going to use business everybody’s name. For example, as I said on a t shirt, you’re not going to pick someone’s name and then just throw it in there so that someone else can pick it up later. So I think, from a part, we still the core leadership team, will have common sense and for everyone else, just please use existing systems are closed that can’t be information.

Heather Smith 55:21
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that. Now we are sitting here between us finishing this and sushi. So as we move towards the end, if you can very, very tightly. They can take away the sushi, if that’s the best thing out of the accounting technology conversation

Share with the audience one takeaway you’d like the audience to take away from this session.

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 55:55
for me. Like, I just think we’re in a position where we’ve got so much art, like our hands, like everything is, there’s a lot of freedom, and we’re not aware of it, or we are, you know, we are very agile, and how we work, especially small firms. We’ve got technology available to us. We’ve got the support available to us. We’ve got an amazing community out there, and it’s that was not there 10 years ago or 15 years ago is there today. So if you don’t know whether people are like accountants, or they’ve got their own business, or they’re looking to set up, you know, as a their own practice, but I’m here as a support, if anybody wants to reach out directly, but I would definitely reach out and use all the things that we’ve got available and not be overwhelmed by it. But I mean, the world is your oyster, so just make the most of it.

Paul Gardener 56:44
A quick question, hands up in a room, hands up. Who works in a big accounting firm? How many work in a small firm? Yours is huge. Council, yours is huge. How many of you work in, I guess, a multinational business, and how many work in a small business? Okay, how many of you think you’re starting your own business? Okay, that’s good. I think

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 57:21
I mean only one for now, until after this session,

Paul Gardener 57:25
I think one of the things I’ve always worried about is someone can do what we’ve done and do it better, and that’s always been something that’s kept me up at night, like someone else can just come into Singapore, Hong Kong, and do what we’re doing and do it better, and probably have a lot more money and do it no one can do it better. Thank you. Thank you. Is that part of what keeps you up and right? So the narrative is systems, processes, how to help businesses. I think it’s always fun. What do we need? What do our clients need now? What are they going to need in a few years time? And so I think part of this is always thinking about the next steps. What should we be thinking about, whilst worrying rightly so I think also with AI, I think in some ways, maybe we should be worried because jobs will change is becoming much harder. I think it’s a good thing, a bad thing, because a lot of younger people who started doing bank reconciliations or accounts, payable like me, if AI is going to do that, a lot of younger people don’t have, in my opinion, that the same ability to learn things by making mistakes and paying their own supplier.

Alex Falcon Huerta FCCA 58:36
You said that, then you went bankrupt and things like that. So I don’t know if you guys use bots or anything called RPA. Anything, but I have that in my firm, and we do minimum bookkeeping, so David does any bankrupt

Paul Gardener 58:50
I think, I think the best accounting is when you know how something works. And I think this is the next generation will not see that, and then we’ll never have to do and I think that’s something that is quite interesting. Yeah, and I think that AI is going to agree with you on that. AI is going to test in jobs, it is going to change the way we think. But if those are things that keep us up at night, that’s great, because I already think of how to adapt and how to think about the next thing, the next steps forward. So I think it’s a part of the things that keep me up at night is AI, but at same time it’s good, because it’s also then, how do we need to help our clients, and what do we need to do? And we’re in that unique part of Asia. We are still quite far behind, which I quite like. But also that’s when you worry about something. It creates opportunities as well.

Heather Smith 59:36
Absolutely. Thank you so much. You go then Kelly,

Kelly Chard 59:46
I’ll be quick, cool. I think that everybody is here, which is great. Remember that you know cloud accounting, which everybody. In the room here might consider so 10 years ago, people are still getting onto cloud accounting now. So I think the key message for me is, I’m the tech novice grandma, as my kids call me, and I’m working on a tech company. I’m curious about stuff. I’m by no means the best of the world at any of that stuff, but I’m keeping up, and I’m trying to do the best I can, and I’m trying not to be scared and listen to all the doom day People tell me I’m not gonna have a dog. So I think the message is you’re here and you’re interested, and that’s probably enough for right now, and you’re on the right path.

Heather Smith 1:00:38
Thank you so much for leaving us with such inspiration there. Kelly, sorry I tripped you up there. Thank you so much for coming along tonight.

Chris, I don’t know if you want to run up here and do some final words, but I will start wrapping. I have specific words about you. Okay, fantastic.

As soon as Xerocon was announced, Chris and I came together to bring together this night, so this afternoon, which is turning into night. So we are so grateful that you, so many of you, turned out, that it sold out weeks ago, that you’ve given us the opportunity, the panel, you were fantastic. Jolene, I couldn’t even address you, because I know that I cry every time you talk, just so emotional about it so and you did such a good talk. I encourage you everyone to connect with our wonderful panellists. I encourage you to go and say hello to Jeremy at the back there and connect with him as well. If this is a topic that is of interest in view and you want to drive it further in the account in at the CA ANZ.

I encourage you to join Chris’s Facebook group, which is the Bata group. I know you can’t change it, but if this is something that’s interest to you, that would be a great group to join. And please, as accountants, let’s lead the conversation around accounting technology, as through our lens of ethics and integrity. Thank you so much. Chris.