Accountech.Live 2019 – Our wrap up

Accountech.Live promises to be “the non-vendor specific tech conference of the year”, aimed to provide accountants and their clients with access to app vendors, speakers and round table discussions to help grow, nurture or expedite speed of growth. This year they were expecting in excess of 3,400 attendees registered and over 50 app vendors. In addition to the app vendors, there was a plethora of content for the attendees to fill their CPD hours. With all these app vendors and speakers, it was inevitable that there would be information paralysis for the attendees, this is where Clarity Street came to the rescue!  ​

Introducing Clarity Streets Guided Tours 

This year Clarity Street tried something a bit different and ran a Guided Tour on the first day. We aimed to ensure an ROI on the time and money that was given up to attend the free event and we wanted to make sure those who attended our tour, were not “sold to” or just given the standard sales pitch that every other attendee received. We selected a handful of vendors, BGL, Practice Ignition, AccountKit and ChangeGPS and ensured that the tour guests were able to gather insights into these apps that they wouldn’t normally receive. Some guests were already using a few of the vendors while others were just starting out on their cloud journey. We made sure both ends of the spectrum were catered for and received feedback that our tour was enlightening and engaging.  Along with visiting vendors we also mapped out what we thought were the must attend speaking or round table discussion events for the day, these included: 

• MyGov & RAM what it means for you and your clients 
• Round table talks (various topics) 
• How to thrive in an ever-changing world 
• Unified client view and other strategic trends in practice management 
• Drag your practice out of the 80’s and modernise workflow 
• War stories from the front line: How cyber attacks hit firms in 2019 

We had a great time on tour and look forward to making these a regular occurrence at future Accounting Conferences.  

​In addition to the guided tour, our key takeaways from the event are below:  

1. Where was Xero?? Do they know something the other major players don’t? Attendance felt lower than last year but will only be confirmed when actual attendance numbers are released by Terrapinn. 
2. MyGov ID and RAM are coming and accountants need to act sooner rather than later to enable this for their practices. 
3. MYOB and HandiSoft need to sort their sh!t out and their sales teams need to get on the same page with clear messaging when talking to potential customers. Our experience with both vendors were that if you asked one representative about their cloud strategy and then asked another, you would get two different responses and a very defensive stance! 
4. App vendors seemed to be talking more with other vendors than prospective customers at times, however this could be because their potential customers were drawn into the speaking events. We spoke to a few vendors who confirmed that they were considering if an ROI was actually achievable on the event, considering the cost of the vendor stalls, team wages to (wo)man the stands and travel. 
5. Speakers and round tables were A+ and for the most part vendors who hosted speaking slots were not selling...too much... 
6. Is there enough room in the calendar and budgets of accountants and app vendors for two Terrapinn events in a year or should AccounTech.Live and Australian Business Expo merge into one and alternate years and states? 
7. Will a trend emerge for app vendors to start hosting their own roadshows, either solo or with select other vendors, rather than attending big events? 

 
The quality of the speakers and the round tables were the highlights and the attendees should have received ROI just on attending those slots alone - yes MyGov ID and RAM are coming and Auskey IS being retired! Vendors on the other hand may be reconsidering if the event is for them, especially the smaller more niched vendors who may not have had a lot of exposure for the cost.