October brought a back-to-basics theme: measure what matters, fix the leaks, and ship work faster with trustworthy AI and tighter workflows. From realisation rates to portals and doc-ops, these are the pieces from the Accounting Apps Newsletter that kept our readers locked on their screens.

#1 Accounting Firm Realisation Rate: Fix Your $100K Revenue Leak | (MinuteDock Academy)

Are you pricing well but realising poorly? This primer shows how to diagnose write-downs, set expectations, and lift realisation without burning out your team

#2 Growth Mindset & Intentionality: Keys to Practice Success w. Liam Hindle | (Heather Smith Blog) 

Heather’s conversation with Liam Hindle distils practical habits that compound. The mindset shift here is executional: fewer ad-hoc heroics, more repeatable wins on pricing, growth, and team cadence.

#3 Annature Launches ASIC Payments To Streamline Compliance For Firms | (SMBTech News) 

Compliance friction removed. Centralised ASIC/KYC flows mean faster processing, cleaner audit trails, and fewer “swivel-chair” moments across tools.

#4 Flexible points: your 101 guide | (Pay.com.au) 

Stop leaving value on the table. Here’s a clear, finance-led framework to leverage flexible points without breaking policy or cash flow.

#5 AI-Enabled Workflows: Automate Tasks, Visualise in Workboard & Deliver Insights | (XBert Blog)​​

XBert maps AI checks to owners, deadlines and status on a live board. Less chasing, more resolution; governance baked in.

#6 Kiwi Engineering Leaders on Tough Calls and Commercial Decisions for 2026 (On-demand) | (Projectworks Blog)

Unvarnished operating reality: pricing, utilisation, when to walk away. Transferable lessons for services firms trying to protect margin into 2026.

#7 AI Beyond the Hype: Building Trustworthy Accounting Tools | (The Woodard Report) 

Trust beats novelty. Practical guardrails for data quality, explainability, and change management in AI projects

#8 PetLab Co. CFO on Bootstrapped Growth and Early AI Wins | (The CFO) 

Discipline first, AI second. A CFO playbook on cash-efficient scaling, forecasting, and targeted automation.

#9 Accounting Communication: The Future of Client Portals | (UKU Blog) 

Email is the bottleneck. Portals centralise requests, docs, and approvals, so cutting cycle times and context switching becomes the norm.

#10 Five Signs Accountants and Bookkeepers Are Doing Document Management the Hard Way | (SuiteFiles)

If versioning, search, or approvals feel clunky, this checklist flags the root causes and provides quick wins.

Which article resonates with you most?