The Accounting Podcast

[00:00:00] Thank you to our sponsor, Digits

David: What if, instead of sending your clients a report as a PDF from QuickBooks, you could invite them to a suite of interactive reports where they can drill down on any number, gain insights, and easily communicate with you about any report, account, total, or even an individual transaction? What if you could do this for free? Stay tuned to hear more from our sponsor, Digits, later in the episode.

[00:00:20] Preview

Blake: I think what is happening is that managers don't know how to manage people who they can't see. They think that talking to people and walking around, and looking over their shoulder is management, and it's not. And that's an illusion. And so, it's exposing the bad managers.

I mean, you know, most managers do not add value in organizations, in my opinion. Like half of them are a waste of space. Think about the managers you've had-

David: I think it's higher. I think it’s higher.

Blake: It’s higher?

David Leary: Coming to you weekly from the OnPay recording studio, this is The Cloud Accounting Podcast.

[00:01:01] Introduction

Blake: Welcome to another episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast. I'm Blake Oliver.

David: And I'm David Leary.

Blake: David, I'm not as well prepared as I would like to be this week.

David: I might say the same. I’m a little under the weather. I think I have a post-conference something going on this- Monday, Tuesday, this week.

Blake: I had something. It wasn't COVID, but it is something.

David: I talked to a couple other attendees. They all had something too. It was- yeah, like a 36-hour flu or something. Right?

Blake: Oh yeah. There was an outbreak. This is going to be a thing now at every conference we go to. It's just the reality we live in, I suppose.

David: The outbreaks to get over. But there was still news that happened.

Blake: Oh yeah. Well, and that's why I feel a little bit bad that I don't know more about what's going on because-

[00:01:43] Elon Musk and ESG

Blake: Elon Musk is in the news again, and it's about ESG. And I've been really wanting to talk about ESG, but I just haven't figured out, how do we bring this into the show? And now, our friend Elon Musk has delivered us.

David: Set the table for us.

Blake: He's laid it on a platter with his tweet. May I read you his tweet?

David: Okay.

Blake: Exxon is rated top 10 best in world for environment, social and governance, ESG, by S&P 500, while Tesla didn't make the list. ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.

That was on May 18th, at 9:09 AM. So, Elon is going after ESG, environmental, social and governance reporting, which is something that's really hot in the accounting profession because the AICPA and thought leaders are all talking about how ESG is the future, and accountants are going to save the world with ESG.

David: I think we had a- five months ago, there was a blog post. So, it was literally written by somebody outside the industry about how accountants are going to save the world with the ESG accounting. And that's crazy that Exxon, the oil company, got that nod, and you're right.

Tesla, not unless which arguably- like, depending on how you- you know, arguably, Tesla might be one of the most important- that the electric car, maybe a Tesla, might be one of the most important things that have been invented in the last hundred years, possibly, arguably, who knows?

We'll see where it all turns out. But like, it's forced all- like, we have an electric car that I think it was in a production this week. We're getting the Ford Mach-E. My wife's getting a new car.

Blake: Oh, you're getting an electric.

David: 100 percent electric. Now, would the Ford Mach-E be even being made- would it even exist if it wasn't for Elon Musk and Tesla?

Blake: I really doubt it. Right? He made the electric car fun and sexy and-

David: Well, he forced them. Like, he forced a hand, right? They have to finally do it.

Blake: Right, right. By making a good electric car that people wanted to have. And well, let's get to the story.

David: The numbers. How did the accounting work in this?

Blake: Well, so, S&P 500, you know, they rate companies on ESG. So, they have an ESG index or something, and then there's funds that will trade- you know, they commit to only invest in ESG companies. And this is not a standard that exists in the government, right? This is not a government standard. ESG is different.

Every ratings agency or group that does ESG has their own methodology. And you might be wondering, like, why did Tesla get kicked off of the list? And it has nothing to do with their environmental record. They have a great environmental record. They produce electric cars that have no emissions. It's because they had this labor issue with discrimination in their factories. That's the S in ESG.

And so, this is one of the things that I don't- personally, I don't get about ESG ratings, which is, how can you combine environmental and social and governance into a single rating? And that is how you get a situation where ExxonMobil can get a good ESG rating and Tesla gets kicked off of the list.

David: And isn't it weighted by the credits? You can kind of buy your way out. Like, what do they call it? Greenwashing. Right? It's all greenwashed.

Blake: Right. Well, and that's the criticism of ESG reporting, is that it's been co-opted large corporations to look good. And that's how you have like oil and gas companies on this list. Like the Russian gas company, the Gazprom or something, has been on the ESG lists. You know, I mean-

David: So, it’s what I'm thinking in our space, right? So now, the Big Four are going to get audits of the clients that they're also have tax engagements with. Right? And audit engagements, it's not even the ESG audit. They’re not going to actually find any- they're not going to call out their clients for being shitty to the environment.

I don't know. Like, it's just- this is just another- accountants are going to be able to make money on this, but it probably doesn't actually help society at all, this whole ESG thing. I don’t know.

Blake: Well, that's the open question is, will the SEC getting into it actually make things better, and by standardizing it as possible? So, in March, the SEC came out-

David: You mean like just another standards board. Like, we really need this.

Blake: Yeah, just so, the way the SEC has responsibility for generally accepted accounting principles and delegates that to FASB, they're going to do the same thing for ESG or they're proposing to. So, there's a draft out that lays out what exactly companies have to disclose, what they have to report on, and when they're going to have to do it.

There's like three different stages of ESG reporting, and-

David: Then it's crazy because people are just going to vote with their dollars eventually, right?

Blake: What do you mean?

David: Like, they're going to buy a bunch of electric cars. They're going to buy solar panels. They're going to buy water heaters that are instant water heaters and not gas powered. Right? Like, there's- people are eventually- the market will reward the companies that do this on their own.

You don't- do you need rankings in accounting for- do you need another government agency? Now, it's probably good for accountants, but do you need this other industry? The market will solve this.

Blake: I mean, maybe. I guess the idea with ESG is you give investors information about environmental impact in addition to financial impact or profits or whatever, and then they can make more informed-

David: Yeah, yeah. I get the spirit of it, you're disclosing the damage you’re causing to the earth. I get it.

Blake: But that only works if the information that ends up getting reported is meaningful and useful, and isn't just manipulated. So, what is the SEC proposing? They're proposing that there's three scopes or three different types of information that are going to be reported, and scope one is direct.

This one seems like the most obvious, although I still- I don't know, I did some Googling and I couldn't find a definition for how this is calculated, but scope one is you have to report on the direct greenhouse gas emissions that your company creates. So, if you're ExxonMobil and you create this product, in the process of making, you know, gasoline, let's say, you have emissions that you create, and you have to report on that.

And that's quantifiable. And that, I can actually see as being kind of a useful piece of information. And accountants could audit this. We could figure that out, right? So, if you're an airline, when you fly people around, how much greenhouse gases do you emit in the course of a year? And you could see- you could compare companies.

Like, some companies are going to have little, some companies are going to have more. But here's the thing- that doesn't encompass all of the company's impact, because let's say you have a company that is- produces no greenhouse gas emissions, but uses a ton of electricity, like, I don't know, a blockchain company. So, that's where scope two comes in, which is indirect.

So, you have to then quantify the greenhouse gas emissions of all the electricity and energy you purchase. And then I start to wonder, how is that going to be possible? So, let's say I mine Bitcoin and I buy electricity to mine Bitcoin. I have to figure out the greenhouse gas emissions of the utility that produces the electricity that I buy. How would I know that information? Right?

David: Yeah.

Blake: And then it goes even one step further. There's going to be scope three reporting, which is additional indirect greenhouse gas emissions from all upstream and downstream companies in the value chain. So, somehow, I’m going to have to figure out, not just the electricity I purchase, but also, the business travel that my employees did, and the greenhouse gas emissions of that.

And the greenhouse gas associated with all the goods and services I am buying, and my leased assets, and my employee commuting and the transportation distribution of all of my goods, and the use of my products that I sell. Like, does that create waste? What happens to the waste of the products that I create? Like, do you see how the scope-

David: This whole thing feels like, let's get on the books because the next step will be, we'll give a tax break for this. This is actually probably being created by corporations to work this into, then it'll be another thing they could get a tax break for. Right?

And the compliance to calculate this, be in compliance to get this tax break is going to be so prohibitively impossible to do, only the richest, biggest companies are going to be able- like an Exxon, will ever be able to take advantage of this. This whole thing is being set up to keep competition down.

Blake: I don't know. Maybe that's possible. I guess the problem I have with this is just that the scope is so broad when you get into indirect greenhouse gas emissions, that it just seems completely impossible. I mean, it would be like asking financial reporting to report on the upstream and downstream financial impact of all of the goods I purchase and sell as part of my business. Like, I don’t-

David: Well, let’s talk about just the podcast. I have electricity coming through Tucson Electric. You are getting your electricity from whoever up in Phoenix, right?

Blake: Yup. Yeah, the APS.

David: APS. We’re running-

Blake: No, my electricity is mostly generated by a nuclear plant. Where's your electricity generated from?

David: We’re using- maybe coal. I don't know. That’s just an example.

Blake: Right. But hey, are we quantifying the impact of the nuclear waste storage that we are going to have to do someday? I mean, you know-

David: But then it’s not- but this was a complication. ‘Cause then, we're running with Zencaster, which for all I know, runs on an Amazon server, right? Like, yeah.

Blake: Yeah. How would we possibly calculate the impact-

David: Just for this little show? What we’re recording right now.

Blake: -for The Cloud Accounting Podcast? Yeah. Like, there's no-

David: If I have a solar tube, lighting me up right now, I don’t have a light bulb on, do I get credit for that?

Blake: So, here's the problem. This data is only useful if it's comparable. If you can compare one company to another and actually look at their emissions and say, this company on net-

David: You mean like standardized financial reports that are so reliable-

Blake: Yes.

David: -and we can compare companies back-to-back, and that accurately prices their stocks? Is this what we're trying to do again?

Blake: And here's my criticism of all this ESG stuff, is that we don't even accurately do EPS right now. Right? Because GAAP accounting hasn't changed in a hundred years. It's still built for the industrial era. And so, it can't properly calculate the earnings of subscription-based businesses, of businesses that are based on intangible assets. So, like-

David: And if you have good ESG, they're just going to roll that into Goodwill, probably. It’ll just be more Good- balance sheets.

Blake: Just more Goodwill on balance sheets, just like- yeah. So, I think, you know, I don't want to tie myself to Elon musk. And I think the listeners of our show will know that I don't always agree with him, but I think he's got a really good point here with ESG, that it is- it's so phony.

And I have a hard time seeing how this could ever be properly regulated the way- I mean, I see- I could see direct. You can calculate the environmental emissions of your company directly. That could be done. But all the indirect stuff it's asking accountants and analysts to do calculations on information that they don't have, and can't possibly obtain.

And it'll just be a big mess and it won't be useful to anyone. It's just gonna create a lot of costs. It'll create a lot of work for the Big Four, which is probably why they're pushing it so heavily, but it's not going to be great for investors. It'll just create more confusion. So, anyway, that's my take on it.

David: Take on it.

Blake: And that's my opinion.

[00:13:30] Thank you to our sponsor, Canopy

David Leary: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by Canopy. Accounting practice management software should bring together all your firm's mission-critical functions in one place; client management, document management, workflow, time and billing and , to keep your team organized. Canopy knows that not all firms are on the same practice management journey or timeline.

So, Canopy let you build your practice management platform as you need it. You start with client management as your foundation, then you choose the modules that your firm needs. And since nobody likes paying for modules they don't use, they offer modular pricing as well. Canopy integrates with QuickBooks Online, Xero, FreshBooks, CRMs, form builders, spreadsheets, calendars, email, and Zapier.

They have a mobile app, centralized file management, fillable PDFs, a client portal, task management, and the list goes on and on. For either integration with the IRS, you can easily retrieve all your clients’ transcripts, notices and child tax care credit payments without leaving Canopy. To try Canopy free for 30 days, head over to cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/canopy.

That is cloudaccountingpodcast.com promo/canopy.

[00:14:38] Some hiring news and methods

David: Should we talk a little bit about hiring?

Blake: Yeah.

David: So, one thing I thought was interesting, you know, ‘cause obviously, everybody- you got to get to people younger, right? Help them out. So, KPMG has an- their audit department, they’re going to have a CPA program to pay new hires to study. So, when they hire you, you get two months at 40 hours a week to go study and they're going to pay you during this time.

Blake: They’re going to pay you to study for your CPA exam.

David: But like, hasn't this just always been done by all the big firms for the longest time? Or am I correct- incorrect in this assumption?

Blake: Not really. I mean, you were just expected to do it in your spare time, which would often be the off season, the non-busy season. But now, the busy season seems to go on forever, I guess this is necessary. They have to actually set aside the time for you to do it.

David: Time to get that done. Okay. Got it. And so then, they're going to work on this with a third-party review course- they didn’t say which one, and you know, they're committed to that. But the other article I saw about hiring, which I think is really eye opening, and it ties into our space.

Like, the AICPA are trying to get people to learn accounting maybe in high school. Right? They're kind of on board some of these things we talked about. So, I don't know if you saw this about Walmart's hiring.

Blake: Yeah. Yeah. So, Walmart can’t retain enough store managers. Is that what you're talking about?

David: That’s exactly it. So, what they've done is they've started recruiting as early as high school and college, to start recruiting people into becoming a career path with Walmart. Store managers have an average annual salary of $210,000.

Blake: It's not an easy job.

David: I’m sure it’s not.

Blake: That's the other counterpart. You get paid highly, but it's-

David: I mean, it’s not like being a partner at a firm, maybe. I don't know, but-

Blake: I mean, think- well, given the amount of people you have to manage, you know? Like, there's a lot of workers at a Walmart, right? You're responsible for these little-

David: But you’d kind of- and maybe at a firm or- super competitive, maybe at a Walmart, you're the big fish, right?

Blake: Right, right.

David: But even that we're talking about is this follows up an announcement a month ago, where Walmart, they're launching their fleet development program and they've lifted the starting pay for their truck drivers to $110,000 a year. So, we're here in this industry where the wages are not going up.

Blake: Yeah. Starting salaries of auditors are like $50,000, $60,000.

David: Or the IRS. The IRS needs to fill all these positions. They're going to pay people $27,000 a year or that you could drive a truck for Walmart for a $110,000 a year.

Blake: Yeah.

David: So, the numbers are just crazy. And obviously, they're doing this because competing with Amazon. Right? But I just thought those numbers were shocking. I mean, that's-

Blake: Well, this is the-

David: Obviously, everything’s a headache, right? You work for a startup, it's a headache. You work- like, every company is a headache, but $210,000 is not bad.

Blake: We have a huge demographic shift that's going on, and it was just accelerated by the pandemic. But this has been coming. I've been talking about this for years, the shortage of professionals. And Walmart store managers are true professionals. Like, you have to be educated, intelligent. It's not just a job-

David: Yeah. A Walmart store is a serious business. That’s a monster business.

Blake: Yeah, it’s a serious- yeah, yeah. So, just like with accounting, we've got 75 percent of CPAs eligible to retire in a few years. You know, it's the same problem with these experienced managers. A lot of them are retiring, and they haven't been replaced. And we still have economic growth happening. So, you can't just keep it static. And that's part of the problem.

[00:18:10] Remote work

Blake: We can talk about some more remote work stories. I'm a big fan of remote work as you know, David.

David: I have an article on that. Can I chip in?

Blake: Okay, well, let's do this. So, the story I saw was Apple. Apple is having to soften its stance on remote work. They were trying to increase the number of days in the office to three, and they lost a key executive as a result of that policy. One of Apple's highest, most valuable employees working on artificial intelligence, actually machine learning, his name's Ian Goodfellow.

He's the former director of machine learning. He left the company and wrote an email about it internally, that got leaked, saying that the remote work policy or the end of the remote work policy was the reason he was leaving, and he went to work for Alphabet, which is Google's parent company.

And so now, Apple has scaled back. It shows just how much of a challenge getting people back in the office is. People have lots of options. Especially if you have a skill that's in real demand, like you can just say, “No, I'm not going to go back.” And that's what we're seeing in accounting.

David: And I think San Francisco or the Bay Area is having a COBID up flare. Like, it's interesting that some of the places that were the most locked down are now having this after-the-fact COVID up flares a little bit. And I think that's a little bit of it too. How do you bring people at the office if maybe there's a little uprising- no, uprising’s not the right word, but an increase in COVID cases?

Blake: Well, yeah. And COVID now is endemic, right?

David: Yeah, it's just around.

Blake: So, we’re gonna- yeah. So, yeah, let's not forget that there were a lot of problems with the office before COVID. We just lived with it, right? Like getting sick constantly, that was reality for most of us. I would get sick at least once a year. It was mostly due to the office. And then later, once I had a kid, it was because of- they bring this stuff home from day care.

David: And as soon as your kid goes to daycare, you have a two-year period where you're sick every three weeks. Like you just can't get past that.

Blake: Yeah. But like, you know, that was reality and we just kind of all got used to it. And also, just the- you know, the waste of time of driving into the office and the time you waste, just getting distracted by office birthday parties and random people walking by and talking to you.

And you know, there's just still so many people who don't believe the data, and the data says people work more when they work from home. And I feel like there's people at Apple who, you know, don't believe that. Or it's just, you know, you're an executive and for you, as an executive, you like it when everybody's there ‘cause you can just go talk to them. It's less effort for you.

So, you don't have any of the negative externalities of commuting because you're rich, and you can afford to live close to the office. And in the case of Apple, probably like fly a helicopter and land in the middle of that spaceship building to get to work, right?

David: So, I saw an article that the headline caught me first, like 43 percent of remote workers miss water cooler chats with coworkers.

Blake: They miss those?

David: And when I saw that headline, I was actually thinking, like, remember I made a comment maybe two episodes ago that like, people actually don't want to go to meetings and see their coworkers. Like, they don't even want to be in Zoom meetings. Like that's one advantage of being at home. Right?

But this tells me, you know, 57 percent of workers don't want to have water cooler chats with coworkers. Right? But- so this was a survey conducted by UGov and then otter.ai. Otter.ai is like an add-on to Zoom that transcribes everything you say during your meeting. And they interviewed 2,000 remote workers in the U.S. and the UK to find out about remote working.

So, this is just going to be like me puking stats, because that's the kind of this article was. So, if we want to pause and discuss on one of them, if not, I'll just kind of puke this out.

Blake: Yeah, just puke them at me, David.

David: Puke them here.

Blake: Just vomit all over- vomit numbers at me.

David: Just all over the place. So, 40 percent, they believe that- they've been working at home full-time and they believe they'll continue to do so indefinitely.

Blake: This is UK workers?

David: UK and U.S., 2000. It didn't say exactly which- you know, what their percentage was.

Blake: Professionals, I take it? Okay.

David: 36 percent were also fully remote, but think they'll return fuller part-time in the future to the office. 24 percent are hybrid and 20 percent of the home workers say they never want to return to the office. So, one fifth, right? One out of every five people says they never want to go back to the office. And then about 14 percent say they will when it's safe to do so.

And then about 45 percent- so, this is almost half- say they want a hybrid working environment. That's probably like, you know, you start there on a bell curve. It makes sense. Like maybe hybrid’s the right approach here. A couple other things, 42 percent say they have experienced Zoom fatigue, which I'm actually surprised it's only 42 percent.

Blake: Yeah.

David: Maybe the other 60 just turn off Zoom and never even turn it on. So, they don't experience it, they just skip the meetings entirely. There's some tips- and this is where Otter- you know, these are self-serving statistics, but to improve virtual meetings, more than half say they should always have agendas.

Half the people think the meetings should have agendas. 35 percent believe they should only have to attend relative sections of meetings. So, sometimes, there's a meeting that's an hour and everybody's giving their updates, maybe you only show up for your 10 minutes. That's an interesting one.

33 percent, so, one third just argue all meeting should be shorter, which scares me because that means two out of three people think meetings are perfect length, which is kind of surprising. And then 26 percent say meeting notes should always be shared, which is like, obviously, this is Otter’s game, right?

But that's actually not good as a business model. If only one out of every four people think they should share the meeting notes, why would your organization implement a tool like Otter AI, if nobody's going to ever actually read the notes? And these are the real statistics. And this is why there's a drive to get back in the office. Right?

So, this is some of the naughty things you might do during a virtual meeting. 31 percent admitting having a private conversation with friends in virtual meetings. Right? So, obviously, you're using Slack or having a back channel conversation while so-and-so is presenting. 30 percent have worn pajamas, 23 percent have shopped online.

I think I maybe have done that once. 15 percent have played computer games. This is why they want to have people back in. 9 percent have drunk alcohol or have been drunk during remote meetings. This is why people want people back in the office. Numbers like that scare probably, management.

[00:24:19] More numbers about remote work

Blake: Okay. Here's another set of numbers for you. It’ll put some of this in perspective. So, this is from Robert Half, the staffing agency. They surveyed 2,400 professionals in the U.S. 41 percent of respondents say they are more burned out now more than a year ago. Now, why are they more burned out?

It's because if they can set their own schedule, 70 percent are working more hours than before the pandemic. So, employers are worried that people aren't focusing and aren't working, but actually, they're working more. And as a result, they're more burned out than they used to be.

David: Well, I think if you go back a year ago, there's even less people working now. So, it's almost like-

Blake: Right. There’s more work.

David: -more people burn out, more people are dropping out of the workforce. Like, it's faster and faster.

Blake: And they're not dropping out of the workforce. That's an interesting takeaway that I discovered recently. They're not dropping out of the workforce. They are actually- a lot of people are just becoming self-employed and setting their own terms.

David: You had said, yeah, those numbers.

Blake: So, basically, people are figuring out, “Hey, if I don't want to adhere to your schedule or get overworked by you, I can just go be a contractor and I can set my own hours, and you know, I can make a decent living.” A good chunk of people are doing that now.

Yeah. More than three quarters of professionals said they have the ability to set their own schedule. But among those respondents, 70 percent are working more hours than they were before the pandemic. Three quarters of employees overall, are putting in 40 or more hours per week.

[00:25:45] Most managers are useless

Blake: So, this is a myth, that people work less when they work at home when you can't see them. I think what is happening is that managers don't know how to manage people who they can't see. They think that talking to people and walking around, and looking over their shoulder is management, and it's not. And that's an illusion. And so, it's exposing the bad managers.

David: You can't- I mean, it's not like an office space where he just stands up [INAUDIBLE].

Blake: Yeah. I mean, you know, most managers do not add value in organizations, in my opinion. Like, half of them are a waste of space.

David: I'm not going to answer this question.

Blake: Well, no. Think about the managers you've had.

David: I think it’s higher. I think it’s higher.

Blake: How- it's higher? Yeah. How many managers have you had that actually made you a better employee, rather than just dragging you down?

David: I mean, yeah. I feel like not so much that on a career wise. I mean, I've had like- I've been lucky enough in my career, I had some decent managers.

Blake: Yeah.

David: But I think in general, when it comes to the production cycle, whatever you're making, and you have- whatever you're producing, I always feel like there's way more managers involved in the process that shouldn't be there, and they're not contributing anything to whatever you're making, right?

Blake: Yeah.

David: Because really, you’re at work to make something and produce something.

Blake: Yeah. My least favorite stage in the startup life cycle is when you get this whole layer of managers who don't do anything other than manage. Because you'll have like two producers and like five people telling them what to do, you know?

David: Yeah.

Blake: And actually, the work-from-home environment’s sort of pointing that out. And I think we're going to end up with fewer managers in the future, especially when it comes to professionals. Like, you know?

David: The best thing is like- this is one thing that's wrong with SaaS versus desktop days, right? I remembered Intuit, right? When push came to shove, eventually those CDs gotta be pressed. If you miss your- the factory space, there's a 48-hour window to go get your CDs made in the olden days.

And what’d happen is that last week to get the product out the door, the bugs, the fixes, decisions that need made, the managers that didn't have the actual experience to contribute almost had to step back and get out of the way, or that product wasn't getting out the door. And it was always like, “Great.” Like, the amount of work that would get done in like a two-week period to get QuickBooks out the door was amazing because all the management was gone.

They're out of the way. ‘Cause they could- ‘cause they were slowing down- they’d slow down the process, but they would start up again, like, “Oh, now it's the next QuickBooks version,” and then it would be slow for the whole year. And then the last two weeks, like, it would just be the doers pumping it out and getting it to the finish line.

But I think with SaaS, there's no more deadlines. So, it just kind of flails around. Like, there's no deadlines to get things out the door.

Blake: Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. They'd stepped away and then you got more work done.

[00:28:27] Thank you to our sponsor, Digits

David: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by Digits. Digits is building an accounting tool so powerful that you'll think they're from the future. Using Digits is easy. You just connect it to QuickBooks, and about 24 hours later, all your data will be fully analyzed, allowing you to use all the Digits tools.

Digits Reports can generate all your client's monthly reports all at the same time with just one click. And these reports aren't your typical boring, static PDF reports. They're beautiful, interactive and alive with the latest data. Digits Search, you can use to quickly find and navigate directly to transactions inside of QuickBooks Online.

And Digits’ newest offering, Digits Boosts will automatically notify you about miscategorized transactions, messy vendor data, and any personal identifying information that you may want to keep private. You can then correct the data and push the changes back to QuickBooks Online without leaving Digits. To learn more about Digits and to sign up for free, head over to cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/digits.

That is cloudaccountingpodcast.com promo/digits.

Digits - finance from the future.

[00:29:32] Catherine's Deloitte experience

Blake: Can I do a listener mail?

David: Perfect.

Blake: Catherine said, “I just discovered your podcast and it's such a refreshingly frank take on my own experience that I'm floored. I started at Deloitte, January, 1999, a week out of grad school. I took that job because in the interview, I was told about the awesome training program and how I would shadow an auditor.

Oh, you don't do accruals for a year. I got there all excited and thrilled to finally be out of school and in my first real job. This training was me and two other hires in a conference room with our laptops and the manual for the audit program. My first assignment that I was so excited to finally get to was absolutely awful.

I was given a box of Workpapers and told to organize it. Organize it how? By color? I had never seen live audit work papers before. I had no idea what I was doing. My second assignment, I showed up and was told, “Look, no offense, but I'm really pissed off that they sent a first year when I told them specifically, I don't have time to do any babysitting.

Just sit over here, study for the CPA exam and don't bother anyone.” I literally read [INAUDIBLE] in full on that job. All 800 pages of it. I passed the CPA exam when I was still in grad school, so I had nothing to do. After that, I transferred to tax because I thought that if they were not going to train me, I can at least go on the IRS website and pull instructions, and teach myself taxes in a way you just can't do in audit.

As for budgets, I was one of those dumb, honest kids who put her real time on the time sheet. And it was a problem. It was even more obvious in tax, how awful time sheets were. I’d be given a shoe box return, unopened envelopes, nothing organized. And that would be a one-hour budget. FFS, it takes longer than an hour to do my own taxes, and the kind of people who have Deloitte do their personal return have a lot more going on than I do, financially.

The way I saw it, you have a return that is a good solid 16-hour return. Takes you 16 hours, so you put 10 on your time sheet to look good. The next poor sucker gets a 10-or-less hour budget. It takes them 16 hours and they put eight on their time sheet to look good, so on and so forth until some clueless first year shows up and accidentally tells the truth.

I have my own firm now. I price by the job or form, depending. I just started doing tax resolution work. And after making about $2 an hour for not realizing how involved it would get, I'm having to bill that by the hour. But at least, it's an actual hour and not a Deloitte hour.

David: A Deloitte hour.

Blake: A Deloitte hour. So, thank you, Catherine, for that note. That is really interesting to hear your story there. Amazing. So, David, you told this story about KPMG is now paying people to study for the CPA exam, right?

David: Yeah.

Blake: It sounds like that's just formalizing something that has been done informally. It was like, “Here, you don't know anything, just go sit and study for the exam.”

David: I guess maybe that's why I thought this existed before. Right? Like people were like, “Oh,” they're buying the study guides. I just study or whatever. It could be the reason why.

Blake: The thing that Catherine said about the time sheets is funny, right? Where it's people constantly under shoot the budget to look good. And then every year, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it's absurd, like an hour to do a 16-hour return.

David: Yeah. I don't know where I was once, in some journey in my career. And I remember somebody told somebody else, “We can't have any all-star, like you can't blow this on the time sheet.” Like, you got- don't do the work too fast, kind of a play, right?

Blake: Yeah, yeah.

David: Like- ‘cause it's going to ruin it for the rest of us. If you do the work faster and put it on the time sheet, it ruins it for all of us. Right?

Blake: Mm-hmm.

David: That kind of- that mindset. I don’t know.

[00:33:00] IRS - GAO released a new report

Blake: You wanted to talk about the IRS, right?

David: IRS. So, the GAO, so, the government accountability office had a report come out this week. And there's kind of three- this turned into like three different news articles. There's still a lot to do with it. One of them is like, we beat this drum to death, you know, audit rates decreased for the wealthiest.

Blake: I saw this story.

David: And it's really crazy. So, like, wealthiest taxpayers, those with incomes of 5 million or more, they're most likely to be audited. So, this is a decade-long report, but their audits rates have now dropped by 86 percent. So, there's still- you're still highly likely- if you're over $5 million- to be audited, but it's a lot less than it was a decade ago.

Blake: Right. But let's talk about what the overall audit rate is. Did you see that stat?

David: Read that.

Blake: So, the- from tax years 2010 to 2019, audit rates of individual tax returns decreased for all income levels. On average, the audit rate for these returns decreased from 0.9 percent, 0.25 percent. That's all income tax returns. You have-

David: So, that's-

Blake: -one quarter of 1 percent chance of being audited. And it’s down from-

David: So, that's one out of 4,000 returns in?

Blake: One out of 400.

David: One out of 400. Oh yeah.

Blake: Yeah, one in 400. Now, that's all income levels. And if you're poor, you actually have a greater chance of being audited because those- as we've discussed, those audits can be automated. So, you know, let's take a look at those rates.

Yeah. If you claim the earned income tax credit, you had a 0.77 percent chance of being audited. And if you had an income of under $25,000, you had a 0.4 percent chance of being audited.

David: So, if you take out all the lowest tax payer audits, which is kind of high number, pull those out-

Blake: Yeah.

David: -the odds of you actually getting audited is crazy low. It's probably lower than that one in 400. It's probably one in a thousand.

Blake: It's 0.17 percent of those with incomes between 200,000 and 500,000. So, you know, it's just- this is the problem. Audit rates are this low. When they're lower than 1 percent, I think it becomes really difficult to be ethical as a tax preparer because are saying to themselves, “I'm not going to get audited. Let's just do some of this fun stuff.”

David: And you see these stories all the time, people are asking their accountants to do stuff. Then TikTok’s planting seeds in people's heads of things they could do.

Blake: Right. Like we, as a profession, we need a strong IRS to enforce the rules that we are tasked with upholding. Our ethical obligation. If there is, it would be- like, if there's no law enforcement, you're going to have more crime. Right? It's just, I don't know how-

David: No, I get it, right? Because like, Airbnb is, just for example, like some- Airbnb does not send out a record of your sales or your rentals, unless you break $20,000. So, the way that's interpreted by my non-accounting friends is like, “Oh, if they don't send it out, you don't have to put this on your taxes. You don't have to report it.” Right?

Blake: Yeah. Well, and the chance of you getting audited is extremely low. It's, let's say it's one in 400, and then if you get audited, are they actually going to like, dig into your bank statements and find that?

David: And then you could be like, renegotiate that.

Blake: Probably smaller chance, right?

David: Right? You could pay a penalty. It might be- the gamble is kind of there now. It's worth the gamble. Unless they make penalties insane.

Blake: Right. Right. Exactly. Because the IRS doesn't have the resources to really go after you in tax court. So, you can just do an offer and compromise, and settle it and be done with it, probably for less than your original tax liability, even. So, it's all this game. Right? And it's not good for the country and it's not good for our profession.

David: Another part of the report that I liked that came out is the- they want the IRS- they’re recommending- but this is going to take laws and Acts of Congress- but they want the IRS to collect more demographic data. Because- we've talked about this in the past- arguably, tax code is racist. Tax code determines social policy, is a reflection of social policies or vice versa. Right?

But they don't have any real data to prove a lot of this. Like, for all we know, a certain demographic of our population besides poor people may be getting audited more. And they don't really have that kind of data. And it's important to do that because we just can't analyze how our tax system is impacting society.

Yeah. It's funny. It's going and tying back. ESG is going to figure out impact, but we can't figure out the impact of our own tax system on society.

[00:37:49] The federal government's budget deficit shrunk $1.57 trillion

Blake: I got one bit of good news on taxes. The federal government's budget deficit has shrunk by 1.57 trillion so far this fiscal year, and that's due to record receipts from a strong economy, and a slow down in spending as the pandemic era programs fade. The deficit was only $360 billion for the seven months from October through April, 2022, according to Treasury Department data. So, there's some good news, less of a deficit.

David: The other thing that came out of this report, like this report was monstrous. Apparently, I guess, Blake- and I'm trying to- they don't say how this happens, but essentially, this is the use case I'm thinking of.

You know, we’re both on some dating site and you're thinking of going on a date with me, but you happen to work at the IRS. You just go pull up my return and check things out before we date. So, this report exposed that the IRS had 1,700 investigations of unauthorized access of tax data by employees.

Blake: 1,700?

David: Yes.

Blake: Wow.

David: For the decade between 2012 – 2021. Now-

Blake: Oh. Okay, so, that's like what? A couple hundred- 100 or 200 a year.

David: Yeah. Now, the good thing is, is they found that 82 percent of unauthorized access violations resulted in an employee either being suspended, resigning, or removal. So, it feels like the IRS is on top of this when it happens, right?

Blake: Yeah. Except when like the wealthiest Americans’ tax returns get leaked to the press.

David: Yes. They talked about that. They never before seen records showing Bezos, Elon Musk, Warren Buffets [CROSSTALK]-

Blake: Or Trump’s returns, right?

David: -gets leaked, exactly. But it’s- you know, I'm trying to think of like, why other than like the dating thing, or maybe you're in a divorce situation and you want to make sure the income your ex-spouse might be claiming, you could go pull up the return.

So, I could see how it's easily abused, but I think in the grand scheme, if you think about the number of returns over a decade, and the number of IRS employees, I don't know if this is worth raising the fuss over. Until it's your tax return that gets released publicly, and then obviously, then it's a problem.

[00:39:56] Another stablecoin loses its value to the dollar

Blake: So, another stablecoin has lost its peg to the dollar. This is following TerraUSD’s, spectacular collapse.

David: Can we call these kind of stablecoins now?

Blake: Unstablecoins.

David: Unstable, that's even worse.

Blake: And it is. Another algorithmic stablecoin, meaning that it wasn't actually backed by U.S. dollars, it was backed by other cryptocurrencies in some sort of mechanism to then try to keep the price at a dollar. And these are inherently unstable. They can fail, they can go into what's called a death spiral. And that has also happened. It looks like with DEI, which is now trading at 57 cents on the dollar. And remember, this is something that's supposed to always maintain its peg to the U.S. dollar at one.

And it's kind of amazing to me that it hasn't like completely collapsed. Like, you would think these things would go down immediately, but I guess they're still trying to prop it up.

David: Well, my $11 is now worth $6 and 82 cents. So, I don't know. I mean, thank God I didn't put a lot of money in.

Blake: Yeah.

David: The crypto bros, they would have led me astray.

Blake: So, the thing that's really hurting crypto right now, just from like a theoretical standpoint is- you know, the idea was always that- or one of the core ideas behind crypto was that it would be a hedge against inflation. And that has not happened at all.

As the stock market has tanked, crypto has also tanked, which indicates that it's being used as a speculative asset, not as a hedge asset, like gold. And so, that's kind of been- I think that's been- what's the word for this? We've been disabused of this notion. Maybe we've been abused of it for too long.

And we already know like, the main problem with, you know, the other promise of Bitcoin was it would replace money as a means of transacting. And that hasn't happened either. It's more expensive, it's less convenient. You can see what happened in- was it El Salvador that adopted crypto and Bitcoin, and like businesses aren't using it. People aren't spending it. It's not convenient.

There's a lot of work that needs to be done to actually make crypto better than Fiat currency, in terms of transacting. And nobody's figured that out yet. And until they do, it's really just going to be speculative asset.

[00:42:16] Thank you to our sponsor, Synder

David: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by Synder. Tax season is over, which means you can focus on growing your business, rather than hustling to handle the clients you've already got. But how do you add new clients when you're already so busy? That's easy, with Synder. With Synder, you can automate mundane tasks like reconciliation and categorization, and instead, spend more time on strategy.

Thanks to Synder’s new e-commerce insights, you become a trusted advisor to your clients, not just the data entry clerk, give them important tools to know their numbers and make the right decisions to grow their business. Over 2,000 CPAs are already future-proofing their business with Synder as their secret solution. Ready to join them? To book your free demo, head over to cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/synder.

That is cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/synder.

[00:43:08] Block has their first investor day in 5 years

David: Should we jump into app news?

Blake: Let's do it. Where do you want to start?

David: Really high level, Square or Block. I guess Block’s now Block.

Blake: Bock, block?

David: Block. Just Block. They had their investor day. And it's their first investor day in five years. Really, the big quotes here, which are interesting. So, this is one quote from their CFO, and this is Amrita Ahuja, told CNBC in a phone interview, “Calling Block a payments companies like calling Amazon a bookseller.”

And then the other one is from CEO and Co-founder, Jack Dorsey who also, you know, started Twitter. He kicked off his presentation with a keynote about how Block and Bitcoin's role going forward. And he said, “It's difficult to fit a company like blocked into a single category,” you know, ‘cause you know, they own the thing with the music and they're just everywhere.

But I think for- as this moves forward, and it becomes a big ecosystem play, if they start keeping people close in the ecosystem, like the money never comes out, like how does that impact accounting and bookkeeping and this type of stuff? Right? Like, they could make it hard to get the data out. It just all lives in the Square ecosystem.

Maybe they don’t want you to [INAUDIBLE]. And then now, it's all in there. And I think you saw this with Shopify and their bank account, because if you have deposits coming straight in the bank account, it gets grayer what the deposit amount is, right? It's, I don't know.

So, that's out there, but I don't think there was other- outside of those two quotes, just that it's much bigger than, you know, Square now or Block, sorry.

[00:44:51] What's harder to learn, accounting or tech?

Blake: Here's a thought. Is it easier to train accountants on tech or technologists on accounting?

David: Since I do feel like sometimes it's hard to train bookkeepers and accountants on accounting, I don't know. Like, that already exists. Like maybe it's extra hard to teach a technologist about accounting.

Blake: So, Accounting Today has a series where they go out and they interview thought leaders, folks who know stuff- not me- in the profession and ask them questions. And this was one of the questions they posed. Is it easier to take somebody who's good at technology and teach them how to do accounting?

Or is it easier to take somebody who's good at accounting and teach them how to do technology? And I have to say, I think it would actually be easier to take somebody who is really good with tech and teach them how to do bookkeeping, or teach them how to do accounting, but especially the bookkeeping thing.

Because a lot of accountants don't even learn how to do bookkeeping properly. And that's what I have-

David: My interns, the accounting twins, like, until they came and I showed them QuickBooks and my bookkeeping, they did not get any bookkeeping experience.

Blake: As accounting graduates.

David: And seeing they just graduated with accounting degrees. Yeah.

Blake: Yeah. So, it's all theory, right? And in theory, you know, it's not that useful, especially when the theory is old. Right? But like, you don't have to listen to me, let's hear what the thought leaders have to say. So, Gary-

David: And these thought leaders are accounting professional thought leaders?

Blake: Well, you can make your own judgment.

David: Oh, this is a game.

Blake: L. Gary Boomer, visionary and strategist of Boomer Consulting says it is easier to train technologists on accounting procedures than the other way around. At least, when it comes to audit. He said it came down to a mindset difference, namely that those with tech backgrounds can approach accounting tasks with fresh eyes, versus thinking strictly in terms of procedures.

Auditors, he said, want to use technology, but their reports would still be following procedures that he said don't really add much value. When asked why they did this, he said the auditor would reply that it was required. And when pressed on exactly who requires these steps, they reveal it's more of a personal preference.

I think that is a very insightful comment, that accountants often think based on procedure, because that's how we're taught. We're taught, this is how you do it, not necessarily why we do it. I think that's a big problem. And that's what makes it hard for accountants to adopt technology. Because people who like technology are constantly searching for new ways to do things or questioning the way we did it in the past.

And that's like the opposite of how accountants are taught in traditional accounting programs. We’re just taught to do what's been done always.

David: Because you have to compare it to the prior period, in the prior period and the-

Blake: Yeah. Yeah. And this is how most accounting standards are issued, is it's rules-based, it's not principles-based. Back in the day, accounting standards used to be very principles-based when they first were developed in like the late 1800s, and early 1900s. And then we got the SEC, and the SEC had trouble coming up with standardization based on principles.

And so, they just eventually got more and more rules-based. Now, you end up with revenue recognition rule books that are like 600 pages long and there's no room for adjustment.

David: I mean, I think the technologists, it's- there's some advantage in coming in green, but this other thing is, I always think it also makes them very blind to the fact that it's much harder than they think it's going to be. And it's not that they're cocky.

Blake: Yeah.

David: They just underestimate the difficulty. Like, accountants and bookkeepers that- there's a lot of smart people in this industry. And you could say, yes, it's a motivation, I like to do things the old way, but there's a lot of brain power. And there might be a reason some things don't exist yet.

Blake: So, somebody who agrees with Gary Boomer is Jim Bork, partner and managing director of the Advisory Service Practice at top 100 firm with him who employs both, at least in the realm of analytics, he said it is easier. It really is, to train data scientists on accounting than accountants on technology.

While both work with information, they take very different approaches to how it's processed. The data scientist's mind doesn't work the same way as accountants. That data scientists can tell me what's buried in the data, all the stories hidden in the data. My accountant can tell me the 30,000 foot view of the data and what the differences were every year, he said.

And the example he gives is how difficult it is to train accountants on data extraction technology, such as how to strip a PDF of data without getting page after page of headers and footers. Is that really that hard though?

David: That's interesting because like, he might be reinforcing his argument because I think his Twitter account, like he's implemented time technology on it. And if you think- if you tag him in a Twitter post, he automatically, automatically just retweets it out to his followers. So, you can exploit this. I think I've done it before.

I was like, “Hey, check out the new episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast.” And he just tweets it at- like, he has some- so, it's an implementation of technology. Like it could be exploited by #accountant, if you want, you know? Like, totally could be exploited.

Blake: Now, David, there are some folks who think that it's easier to train accountants. And one of those people is none other than Joe Woodard.

David: Oh yeah.

Blake: Who runs the conference, Scaling New Heights. He says, “At the end of the day, no matter how much technology there is, ultimately, we are talking about accounting. Something that people go to school for years to learn. Non-accountants can do accounting tasks with the right technology,” noting that one does not have to be an accountant use Quicken, but this does not mean they can necessarily do it well.

In a world where quality accounting work determines the success of an accounting firm, this is important. Woodard compared it to an amateur shopping for power tools at Home Depot. “You can hurt yourself with some of the stuff in there. So, maybe just because you can get it just because you can use it, doesn't mean you're an expert. I can buy a chainsaw at Home Depot, but that does not mean I can cut down a tree. Or even if I can cut one down, I don't know the right way to do it.”

David: Yeah, but I think the- this question, I think Joe's missing the point. Because the technologist is going to be the person building- an engineer who's designing the chainsaw.

Blake: Yeah.

David: Chances are that engineer, to build the chainsaw, had to research how it interacts in cutting trees. He had to learn some stuff about things you cut with chainsaws. I think it's different than just buying a tool. Like, I don't know.

Blake: Roman Captcha comes down on the side of accountants, easier to train accountants on technology.

David: And these are like big- this is the big wig opinions. Like of course, they didn't come to you, Blake. Like these guys are a whole different level.

Blake: These people- yeah, exactly. This is another level up. And then also, let's see, Geni Whitehouse. Oh, she- Geni Whitehouse said, “Rather than thinking of who's an accountant and who's a technologist, it's better to simply think of who has an analytics background, as both have certain blind spots that make it dangerous to rely entirely on one or the other.” So, she split the difference.

David: Amen Amen. It doesn't have to be so black and white.

Blake: Technologists, she said, can be trained on accounting concepts, but not as well as accountants. Accountants, conversely can certainly be trained to use technology, but won’t ever be specialized programmers. That’s why we need each other, right?

We need to collaborate and work together. You need the accountants and you need the technologists. I think part of the problem is that like, the people who are firms, like the old partners, are not technologists, and do not understand them, in many cases. At least that's how I felt working in a firm, you know?

I went and got my CPA. I did my accounting stuff, but like, my heart is in technology. That's my expertise. That's what I love doing. Right? And it just always frustrated me trying to talk to somebody who's like pure accountant.

[00:52:32] Reckon is selling their practice management software to UK-based access group

David: So, what else do we have here? I have some news from down under.

Blake: Okay. What's going on in Australia?

David: So, Reckon, which is Australians’ only-

Blake: Australia's QuickBooks, right?

David: Yeah. They're the accounting software company that's listed on the ASX. So, they’re Australia's only because Xero's probably what- in the New Zealand Stock Exchange, I imagine? I don't know.

Blake: Yeah. Xero’s I think on- yeah, New Zealand. I don't know about Australia. I think both, right? I don’t know.

David: So, Reckon kind of is a little bit more like Sage, where they own lots of different things. They've agreed to sell their accountants practice management group to the UK’s- UK-based access group for $100 million. So, basically, Reckon’s- you may have heard of it, APS practice management software and Reckon Elite for smaller firms, they're going to sell that and wrap it up.

And Access Group is going to take that over and they're going to work together on a smooth transition. So, that's some app news from them.

[00:53:30] CaseWare rebrands

David: CaseWare, speaking of like big firms-type software, so CaseWare rebranded. And I don't remember what their old logo looks like, but this new one’s pretty clean.

It's nice if you- I don't know if you go to caseware.com. It's clean. So, I'm assuming this is the rebrand. If not, you're- it's good enough. Don't rebrand. It looks nice. Don't rebrand, it’s actually [CROSSTALK].

Blake: Yeah, it’s just different. It’s different. It looks good. Looks really good.

David: I’m assuming- yeah, it looks fancy, assuming that's the rebrand. But part of that, they're launching new branding as the cloud-based business intelligence tool, and believe it or not, they called this tool Sherlock.

Blake: Sherlock?

David: It consolidates data across multiple engagements so that we can analyze and deliver insights on ways to be more efficient and grow faster. And they have many new products and updates that are planned the next three to five years.

[00:54:22] Lockstep adding a new product offering called "inbox"

David: I think we've talked about lockstep before.

Blake: Yes.

David: So, they’re an AR app. So, they announced that they are now adding a new product offering, which is called their Inbox. So, basically, this is gonna allow you to- and your firm and your team- hook up all your email addresses into one unified inbox.

I think there's some ability to do texting communications with your clients. So, it's interesting. I'm trying to understand like where Lockstep is headed here ‘cause they have AR automation software, right? So, this is your billing software, or your invoicing software so you can get paid from customers or whoever it might be.

They have an API, which it's hard to really tell, but it feels like they're offering an API to developers. So, like on the Locks- the receivable side, obviously, they built up some expertise to sync with a bunch of accounting systems. And their API can't really tell, but it feels like they're offering the ability for other developers to use their API to talk to accounting software.

It's not really- it's a little gray. And now, they have this inbox thing. Now, what's interesting is they're kind of rolling this together as one big product offering. And if I like rewind, I know that Live Plan created a product called Outbox or out something. Out- and I think they've killed it now, but a way to have a unified inbox for accounts.

So, they tried to launch a separate product and a separate brand. It was called Outpost. It was called Outpost. And it's similar. I think we've talked about apps. There's an app out there called Front, where you have a unified inbox for your team and you can assign who's assigning emails or talking to them. I think Zen-

Blake: Yeah. So, what this- Zendesk- what this looks like to me is a support inbox, a ticketing system, but specifically, designed for accounting activity, accounting teams. So, you're doing accounts receivable, you're doing collections, and it'll sync your accounting stuff into the support system.

So, maybe- I don't know. I haven't seen exactly how it works, but I like the idea of being able to like create tickets for outstanding receivables, and then just follow up with customers via email. Do they do text? You said text.

David: I feel like the pressure- they mentioned text.

Blake: That would be really cool.

David: Actually, I have it here. I can read the-

Blake: Yeah.

David: So, you can monitor your accounting KPIs and identify the best activity for customers or vendors.

Blake: With actionable reports. So, like following up on past due accounts. Right?

David: And I think it falls through because you have accounting emails, phone numbers, and to-dos. You have a one-click email that's integrated with your accountign software. So, you don't have to leave your workflow to go write an email, I guess, 360-degree view-

Blake: I like this idea.

David: It's very fluffy, but it really makes- really, what I think is like, what's the next step? Like first, is it an inbox? And then are they getting into the firm practice management game? Like, it's hard to see where they're headed here.

Blake: Yeah. It looks to me like it would be a good option for a good thing to consider for corporate accounting teams, as a way to manage all this communication in a centralized place. It's a support system, support inbox for accountants. And that's neat, thing.

David: And then the other interesting thing about this, as you say that, I could have my team on Slack in my corporation, but in a way, you probably want the accounting conversations siloed out from the rest of the company's conversations, possibly.

Blake: Yeah. Well, and you want to be able to connect with external parties too, right? A lot of this is communication with vendors and customers. So, email in corporate life is the way you do it. So, you got to have a system that can put all that in one place. I always said like, if I were starting an accounting practice again from scratch, the first thing I would put in place is some sort of support desk software.

David: Yeah

Blake: Some way where instead of my staff communicating all through their individual inboxes, we just have one email address for clients, clients@xyzfirm.com or something. And that is where we communicate with them. And then the ticketing system, make sure that we're responding to them in a timely manner.

David: And you could assign it to different teammates, who's responding, and when, yeah.

Blake: And you can create rules to automatically assign a client's emails to the person who is their account manager, stuff like that.

David: And the other thing on this I saw the- they want to be the LinkedIn of accounting, which I thought was kind of weird.

Blake: Yeah, I saw that.

David: But the way they're trying to do this is- because they want- they're going to give this away for free. So, I think they're trying to get people- like, LinkedIn in a way, at first, it was just like connecting and messaging people, right? And so, I think they're trying to get people into their ecosystem by offering this free inbox.

And if you're using this inbox to manage your communications with your customers and employees, you probably are going to buy other Lockstep stuff in the future. So, I see where their play is on that, versus like if you used Front or somebody else's, they're not going to upsell you on other accounting tools. So, I kind of see where they're going with this, but.

[00:59:05] Wrap up and where to reach Blake and David

Blake: Well, David, that's all the time we have today. If people want to get in touch with you, where should they do that?

David: I’m on all the socials, just @DavidLeary. And [INAUDIBLE] wrote a review. We haven't had a review in a while.

Blake: Oh yeah, we appreciate those. How can they do that?

David: On Apple podcasts. You could just go to the reviews, but you've got to scroll apparently to the bottom of the page. And since we have a lot of reviews, you got to do all the swiping up on your iPhone.

Blake: Nice.

David: And then you find the button that says, Leave a Review, and you can leave us a review there. Or you can go to Podchaser.com and leave a review there if you're not an Apple user.

Blake: We really appreciate that. Write us a review. We will read it on the air. You can also get in touch with me. I'm @BlakeTOliver, Blake@BlakeOliver.com. Shoot me an email with any of your thoughts about what we've talked on the show- talked about on the show, or stories you think we've missed. We love getting voicemails. You could use Voice Memo to record your voice. We'll listen.

We might even play it on the air. And David, I'm going to see you- not next week, but the following. We're going to have to catch up because I'm going away for memorial day.

David: Oh. And then after that, though, we have AICPA Engage.

Blake: Yup.

David: And then quickly, after that, we have Scaling New Heights. So, we got two conferences in June we'll see everybody at. Scaling New Heights is- to some extent, is getting very exciting. I know we talked about QuickBooks pulled out, but since then, I think eight or nine accounting platforms are now showing up to sponsor Scaling New Heights.

Blake: It's great. Yeah.

David: It’s going to be crazy Wild West. It'll be fun, I think.

Blake: No, I love this, and it's giving space. Yeah. Like when you remove- when you have the vacuum like that, all these other solutions can fill in and hopefully, we'll see some new stuff that we've never seen before. I'm excited.

David: And maybe new faces. ‘Cause like honestly, I came from the QuickBooks world, you came from the Xero world. Scaling New Heights has always traditionally been QuickBooks people, but now the- and now the Xero- obviously, there's gonna be Xero people there ‘cause that- Xero sponsoring has been announced for a while.

But now, all these other ones that we've known, Acumatica, like, all these people we've never- they’re not in our circles might start going to this conference. It'll be interesting where it goes. So, I'm looking forward to that.

Time for the classifieds.

[01:01:14] Future Firm

David: If you're looking to quickly grow a scalable, systematic, seven-figure accounting firm without having to work 50 plus hours per week, check out Ryan Lazanis’ online coaching membership, Future Firm Accelerate. Designed around Ryan's experience taking his cloud firm from scratch to sale, so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

You'll get online learning and topics that help you automate and systemize all aspects of your firm. You'll get coaching when you need help with implementation, and you'll also join a collaborative community of hundreds of other forward-thinking firm owners. For more details, head over to www.futurefirmaccelerate.com.

[01:01:49] Get W9

David: Tired of clients not remembering to get W-9s? getW9 automates and streamlines the collection and storage of W-9s. getW9 has a QBO integration and they have a partner program that pays 25 percent commissions. getW9 plans start at only $19 a year. Visit getW9.tax today to get started.

That is getw9.tax.

[01:02:14] Advisors For Change

David: Are you looking for a dream job in cloud accounting? We have the job for you. Advisors for Change delivers cloud accounting systems to small and medium nonprofit organizations. Join our team of friendly and collaborative nonprofit accounting professionals while working from home. Our systems associate will join our experienced systems manager to implement and support cloud accounting systems such as QBO, bill.com, Divvy, [INAUDIBLE] and others.

To learn more, head to our website at advisorsforchange.com/join-our-team. That's advisorsforchange.com/join-our-team. You’ll find a link to the full position description on indeed.

[01:02:50] The Ambitious Bookkeeper

David: Are you ready to take your life and bookkeeping business to the next level? Are you aspiring to start your own bookkeeping business? Then hop on over to the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast where you'll find encouragement, support tools, resources, practical strategies, and actual tips on starting, growing, and running a successful bookkeeping firm.

Plus, listen to guest expert interviews that will help you elevate your business and enhance your life. Go to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and subscribe now.

That's ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast.

[01:03:20] Oh My Fraud: A True Crime Podcast for Accountants

Blake: Hey, podcast listeners, it's Blake, and I wanted to let you know about a new show I'm working on with CPA/comedian, Greg Kyte, and blogger/former CPA, Caleb Newquist. It's called Oh My Fraud, and it's a podcast all about financial crimes. That's right, a true crime podcast for accountants, by accountants.

Caleb and Greg are going to come together every couple of weeks to unpack their favorite frauds, and explore the circumstances, psychology, and interpersonal dynamics involved. They also fully indulge in victim blaming the defrauded widows, orphans, infirm, and feebleminded - because who can resist?

If you fancy yourself a trusted advisor, or prefer your true crime with spreadsheets instead of corpses, listen to this show to learn what to watch out for, and to keep your clients, your firm, and even yourself, safe. To subscribe, go to ohmyfraud.com, or search "Oh My Fraud" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[01:04:18] How to advertise in these classifieds

David: Want to get the word out about your newsletter, webinar, party, Facebook group, podcast, e-book, job posting, or that fancy Excel macro you just created? Why not let the listeners of The Cloud Accounting Podcast know by running a classified ad? Hit the show notes for the link to get more info.