Accountech.Live & Clarity Street's preferred "App Stack"

Accountech.Live is the new and revamped ATSA with some fresh new ideas and the batten being passed from Smithink to National Media, who have done a terrific job with Australian Business Expo (ABE). Clarity Street focused on two tracks during the event, the round table discussion groups and the apps live track being the most relevant.

First impressions were that Accounttech.Live wasn’t as impressive as ABE. It didn’t seem to have as much foot traffic as its sister event, perhaps the venue was larger or accountants are getting a bit over all the tech conferences???
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Our key takeaways from the event are:

1. Accountants are now really starting to take control and think about their tech stacks which is fantastic!
2. Cybercrime is real and if you are not prepared you will find yourself waking up one day with a skull and crossbones on your computer screen and a not so pleasant notification, to write to all of your clients about the data breach you have just incurred!
3. Round tables are AWESOME to meet and collaborate and gain or share knowledge with peers across all disciplines.
4. It is clear that there are many different options out there from a software perspective for Accountants and Bookkeepers to adopt, not only for their internal operation, but for their clients too. This can lead to overwhelm and poor or no decisions being made.
5. Cloud integrators are your friend not enemy, they will help accounting and bookkeeping firms achieve a deeper level of trust and value with their clients.
6. People and processes are just as important, or if not more important as the technology you adopt.
7. Receipt Bank are still keeping up their massive exposure and free giveaways strategy to compete with the HubDoc Xero acquisition.
8. CPA were the only professional body and ANZ the only major bank, represented at the event which was very disappointing.
9. It is clear that data is everything and if you are not capturing it, you are not measuring it.
10. You can run an accounting firm from a boat on the Murray River with wifi from an NBN line running to a shipping container on the riverbank.

With all of the software vendors that were on stand at Accountech.Live, this presents a perfect segway to our blog last week “Secrets of the Cloud Integrator”. During the webinar we hosted with Practice Protect in that blog, Clarity Street’s preferred “App Stack” is mentioned. It’s what we believe is the best of breed (at the moment*) in the industry, taking into account cost, integration, functionality, use-ability and the client lifecycle. There’s certainly many options out there, and this still has pros and cons to contend with, but without further adieu, here it is below:

We’re just going to leave this here for you all to think about. There’s a bit to explain in it, so next week, we’ll go into much greater detail and explain the workflow.

If you’re itching to know more in the meantime though, get in touch!

*Software is always changing and with it, our opinions will too when there are better or different solutions available to the industry!