The Accounting Podcast

Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

Blake Oliver: [00:00:10] Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. I'm Blake Oliver, I'm.

David Leary: [00:00:13] David Leary.

Blake Oliver: [00:00:14] And our special guest today is Yusuf West, co-founder and CEO at Relay. Yusuf, welcome to the show.

Yoseph West: [00:00:20] Thank you. It's great to be here.

David Leary: [00:00:22] Yeah, I think we should just jump in. It's gonna be a quick interview. So, Yusuf, I know in the past you were at you were at Hubdoc. But weren't you at an app before that as well?

Yoseph West: [00:00:31] Yeah, I was also at Wave, which at the time was Wave accounting and that became Wave apps. It was like.

David Leary: [00:00:37] You've been in accounting then for a while.

Yoseph West: [00:00:40] For quite, quite some time. I think if you asked 16 year old Yusuf, would he have been working in accounting software? Uh, for most of his career? I don't I don't think his answer would be absolutely yes. I don't think that would have been the answer.

Blake Oliver: [00:00:53] Oh, I want to know, Yusuf, what was 16 year old Yusuf dreaming of doing with his life?

Yoseph West: [00:00:57] I mean, he was like any, any good son of a Persian mother thinking of becoming a lawyer. Like there are two jobs, there's doctors and lawyers. And that was that was the path. Uh, thankfully that didn't happen. But, um, you know.

David Leary: [00:01:10] So on that journey, I'm assuming you decided you fell in love with accountants because you didn't leave the industry, right? Is there a single moment? Was it kind of over time? Was it a slow burn where it's just.

Yoseph West: [00:01:23] Yeah, it was it was a it was a slow burn. Um, I think, you know, my, my experience at Wave was, was very eye opening, right. Like we were, uh, selling to, like, micro small business centers, typically like solopreneurs, freelancers. And I think getting a feel for how critical that piece of software was, like just accounting software was to these small business owners. And at the time, we thought, you know, being in that ecosystem at that company, um, we thought everyone was in the cloud. And so I left there and then joined Hubdoc in early 2014, and I was like, Holy crap, uh, no one's on the cloud. Actually, we're really early. And so I think, you know, what stood out to me over the years is like how invested Accountants and bookkeepers are in their clients like that. That is the number one thing. They really care. And for them, like software is part of the solution, but it only matters in the context of like actually helping small business. Um, and that to me is always like deeply resonated.

Blake Oliver: [00:02:19] So your parents have come around to accounting as a career path. I it sounds like, I.

Yoseph West: [00:02:24] Mean, I, I think, uh, my brother's favorite game to, to play at family dinners is what does Yousef do? And then both my parents are slightly embarrassed, uh, because they're still trying to figure it out. I mean, this is this is the life that we live.

David Leary: [00:02:38] Well, at least you don't have to explain. You're a podcaster, right? That's the real difficulty.

Blake Oliver: [00:02:44] Well, one of the things I love about your past, Yousef, is that the the two most recent companies, right? Relay and Hubdoc, uh, have been very accountant focused and building products for accountants, not just as, like this side channel that we see, but actually really working with accountants to build the products. And and for those who don't know, Relay Relay is a modern online app based bank. That's how I like to describe it. And money management platform with Bill pay and all that. And, and the great thing as an accountant for me is I can have all of my entities, whether they're mine or my clients, all on a single dashboard and manage access in one place, which is like a game changer for banking because we're all used to having separate logins. With multifactor. That doesn't work right, and trying to get access is like a huge pain. So I just want to say thank you for building that accountant dashboard, because David and I use Relay to manage all of our businesses. And now that it's quite a few of them, it's it's so much better than the old way.

Yoseph West: [00:03:49] That's awesome. Yeah, 100%. Uh, would it be helpful if I got in to kind of some of the background on, like, how how we ended up building this?

Blake Oliver: [00:03:57] Yeah. That's that's a great place to start is like, because most businesses, most software companies don't start with accountants as the, the primary channel or customer. Like why did why did you decide to do that with Relay?

Yoseph West: [00:04:10] Yeah. I think, um, you know, through through my career journey like at, at Wave and then at Hubdoc, it was just very obvious that the pain point small business owners had and the pain point accounts and bookkeepers were trying to solve for small business was around like kind of this idea of real time financials. I think we've all been around the industry long enough where we've heard those words again and again, and I, I don't know that, you know, at least even today, like whether anyone's actually fully delivered on that, on that promise. Um, and I think the, the opportunity that we started to see, like when I, when I was at Hubdoc, you know, we would do like bank statement fetching. We were global strategic partners with Intuit and Xero and bank fees would break all the time. It's still like an issue that people face. Um, and it was just fundamentally like the core challenge that accountants and bookkeepers had was like access to financial information, right? Can I have one portal to, like, log into all my accounts? Can I have bank feeds that work and don't send across duplicate transactions? Can I access the statements on time? Can I see check deposit information? Right.

Yoseph West: [00:05:09] And this was the challenge that they had. And so you know, when you're when you're starting something, you know, similar to to what you guys are doing with earmark and like podcasting and CPE, right. When you understand kind of a core pain point of an audience really deeply, you can then kind of figure out, okay, how do you actually go and solve it? How do you do it meaningfully? Um, and from our perspective, we're like, okay, you know, we could try and build like middleware between the bank and the accounting system or like try and do that. And it's like the banks don't care. No. Like that's, that's just not going to work like they've tried. We all have tried. Right. Um, it's getting better slowly, but we're not quite there. And so the our view was like, what if we started and solve this from like a foundational level? What if we were the bank. Right. And could we actually deliver a financial visibility for these small business owners? Could we help accountants, bookkeepers get access to the information they need when they need it? Um, and can we, you know, one day deliver on this promise of, like, real time financials?

Blake Oliver: [00:06:04] I love that because it's so ambitious. I don't think a lot of people think, let's solve the problem of banking by becoming the bank. Uh, it's highly regulated. That must be a struggle to work in an industry that is so highly regulated, but then also be trying to modernize it at the same time.

Yoseph West: [00:06:22] It's it has it's it comes with challenges and considerations. Certainly. Um, when we when we started Relay, you know, we started with a customer in mind and we're like, okay, what is the ideal experience for small business owners, for accountants and bookkeepers? And our view was the more we could control across kind of the spectrum of tooling and the layers and the banking. And like all of this stuff, the better the experience we could deliver. And so we're like, okay, what would be the ideal state? Ignore budget, ignore capital, everything. We're like, oh, it would be that we are actually like the bank, right. And so, you know, in our context, we're actually like a technology partner to the bank. You know, from a customer's perspective, we are the banking experience. But that was the first question we wanted to go answer. And we're like, we know the answer is like there's too much regulatory red tape. It's going to cost too much money. It's slow to market all this stuff. But we actually went and learned, you know, that it would take four years that we had to raise $50 million in the capital, just had to sit there. We had to hire a bunch of banking execs, actually go be the bank and like, apply for a banking license. It would just be a total kind of not waste of time, but not a good use of time. And so then we worked our way down to like, how do we actually get to market as quickly as possible, deliver value for customers, learn. And so we've been able to find fantastic like a fantastic banking partner in thread. And that's how we're able to offer, you know, these FDIC insured checking accounts and built, built the product we've built.

Blake Oliver: [00:07:41] And, uh, one of those really cool features is the not just $250,000 in FDIC insurance, but now it's up to 2.5 million. Is that right? Exactly. And that was all a response to the SVB collapse. So now our clients can have up to $2.5 million in Relay accounts. And, and be rest assured that their money is backed by federal insurance.

Yoseph West: [00:08:05] Exactly 100%. Yeah.

Blake Oliver: [00:08:07] So thinking back on, you know, your time advising accounting practices at Hubdoc Wave now Relay, do you have any best practices for accounting firm runners owners leaders for how to incorporate technology into their practices? I mean obviously.

Yoseph West: [00:08:25] Use.

Blake Oliver: [00:08:26] Relay app, obviously use Relay. Yes. Yeah. Well, hey, um, I one of the things I do like is, is that, um, you know, Relay now has bill pay. Right built in. And so that's, that's a way to compress the number of apps that you use in your firm. Because app overwhelm is of course, one of those big challenges we all deal with. Right?

Yoseph West: [00:08:49] Uh, 100%. Um, I think at Hubdoc we called it app fatigue. Uh, like that was the. Yeah. Like I think that's a very real thing. Um, I think when you're when you're considering your new applications and new software and like how to leverage it in your, in your software stack, I think there's, there's just a fundamental exercise in like kind of mapping out your workflow. Right. And what are the pain points when do you introduce it. And I think the thing we've seen an evolution on with accounting practices and bookkeeping practices is folks feeling a little bit more comfortable. And I'm going to use this word like selling to their clients. Right. And because I remember initially when we started selling Hubdoc into into the community, people were like, oh, like, I don't know how to feel about like a partner program where I get money like, I'm not this is not what I do. And now I think we've kind of evolved where we actually think about like, hey, what does a discovery call look like? Right? How do I really understand my small business owner like my prospective clients pain points? And then how do I use that to sell the software stack and technology platforms that I leverage to deliver the value of, like, financial visibility? Right. Um, and so, you know, in that, in that context, um. As long as you deeply understand the customer's pain points. And I think there's a lot of opportunities to consolidate because that's that's the motion that we're now in, right?

David Leary: [00:10:11] It's interesting as you take on a client instead of being like, hey, we're gonna put you on these 25 apps. Let's just start with replacing your old bank with a bank that's technology based, that's gonna solve this checklist of use cases, sharing passwords, um, opening accounts without having to go down to the branch, better bank feeds and just solve that for a client before you even try to put them on other apps, and you're going to make their life and your life better just by doing that one thing.

Yoseph West: [00:10:35] The firms that we see that have the most success with Relay, and those that have left 50% of their clients, uh, leveraging our platform, and they're saving 3 to 5 hours per month per client. Right. Like it's very material to their their like gross margin. Um, they're starting the conversation in the discovery and it deeply. And the feedback we get from them, we're like hey like what's that. What's that like? Um, the feedback that we get is that it actually differentiates them compared to other accounting and bookkeeping practices because they're like, oh, this person really gets what my pain points are, what I care about. Because like for the small business owner, they're not logging into their accounting software to see how they're doing financially. Right. They're logging in to, to Relay or their bank account. You know, the bank balance is like the number one feature, uh, of every bank, right? Like that is the thing you're logging in and you're like, how am I doing? And so, you know, actually speaking their language is what I think matters, matters the most in that in that context.

Blake Oliver: [00:11:34] What I love about that is that you are looking at how clients behave, and you are meeting them where they are. It's nice to change behavior, but we have been trying to do this in accounting for. Decades and it doesn't work. Clients still log in to their bank and that's how they think about their finances. They look at their bank balance. And so if they're going to do that, you know, let's let's let 80% of our clients who are going to do that do that. And we can work with the other ten, 20% on, you know, more advanced accounting and forecasting and budgeting and all that. But really, like, that's what the clients need. And I think it's something that we struggle as accountants to do, is put ourselves in our client's shoes and solve for that immediate problem. Um, I did that myself, right? Trying to teach my clients how to read balance sheets and income statements when most of them they really they really just need to understand cash flow. And that's why Relay's in such a good spot, right? Because you're right there where the cash is in and out. And being able to add all those individual bank accounts at no extra cost. Now my clients can manage their their money in a way that's intuitive to them without it costing them a fortune. And so.

Yoseph West: [00:12:52] Um, that that's.

Blake Oliver: [00:12:53] I think it's very thoughtful.

Yoseph West: [00:12:55] Yeah. Like, I think that, um, people underestimate for small business owners how much just having separate checking accounts and having like a purpose for each account. Here's my tax account, here's my payroll account. Here's my account for my, you know, uh, inventory, whatever it is for them. That's their version of accounting. Right, which is, I think, something that we should all just like, acknowledge and accept that if you kind of combine the the strength of actually having like a strong like accounting platform, like a Intuit QuickBooks Online or Xero, combined with where the small business owner shows up, right, and structure the account in a way that actually allows them to stay on top of the money. I think you deliver increasingly more value, and you get all these efficiencies on the back end, um, for, for your practice, or at least this is what.

David Leary: [00:13:42] We see, because you're enabled enabling small businesses to have good business practices because you've eliminated all the hassle. If I'm a growing business now, I have payroll. I'd have to go to the branch to set up a new bank account for payroll. And the accountant can just help me do that in Relay in two seconds. And now I have a good business practice of having a separate payroll account.

Blake Oliver: [00:14:01] And sometimes that bank would charge people 10 or $20 a month just for the privilege of having another account number. Right. And then that would discourage the business owner from doing that. So it's, uh, it's a breath of fresh air for sure. Yusef, I want to talk about the new Relay Partner program, because I understand that Relay has redesigned the partner program along these lines to make it, you know, work better for accountants. Um, how does it, you know, tell us about it. Like, how does it compare to the partner programs we are used to in the accounting community?

Yoseph West: [00:14:37] Yeah. So let's let's definitely talk about the new partner program. I think we should talk about kind of like there's a number of initiatives that we're watching as part of this. And for us this is like a huge it's not just like a double down. It's like a triple down on the accounting community and the bookkeeping community. Um, we want, you know, when we look at like our past partner program or like partner programs, kind of generally an ecosystem, I think there are a lot of high quality programs. I think the opportunity and the bar that we want to set is not only how do we, like reward our partners that are working with us and making sure they're feeling the love and the incentives are strong and like all of that, we'll get into those details. But also how do we help them grow their business? Right. We're in this with them, and we want them to be really successful because if they're really successful with Relay, we're really successful, right. And, you know, we kind of want to grow the pie, um, in that context. So the partner program we talked to like 50 accounting and bookkeeping firms, uh, just get their feedback on like we actually had an existing partner program. I don't think a lot of people know that, uh, because, candidly, it wasn't very good. Uh, I don't think we were kind of at the level, like, part of setting the bar is like, hey, we feel a little guilty of not being, like, as good as we could have been. Um, I.

David Leary: [00:15:47] Assumed Relay because it was targeting accountants like that just. Is the accountants program like, it's. This is the like we're built in. We built a bank for you. What more do you want? Accountants. Like I thought that was the the platform. Yeah.

Yoseph West: [00:15:58] I mean, that was kind of the spiel. Uh, unfortunately, that was that was the spiel. And so now now what? We're what we're rolling out, um, is, is kind of a whole new, like, revamped program. So, uh, there's gonna be four tiers, like bronze, silver, gold, platinum, kind of what you're used to in that context. Um, and so, uh, accountants and bookkeepers will actually earn between $50 and $200, like a one time like cash reward per approved client. And then you get more perks like revenue share bonuses when clients hit certain, like, funding tiers. We also have like a new accountant bookkeeper directory that will help drive business to your practice. And as part of our partner program, you'll actually get listed there. And then we have for those folks that are silver tier and above, uh, you actually get access to like ambassador sponsorships. So we're going to help fund kind of you if you go to a local community small business event, uh, we'll actually help fund that, you know, exercise and, uh, talking to small business owners.

Blake Oliver: [00:16:55] I love the idea of a directory for accountants and bookkeepers that love support Relay, because I, I get the impression that you're at a point like, or your product or Relay is often set up at the time the business is incorporated, the business is set up. So these are business owners who are looking for accountants and bookkeepers a lot of the time. And if their accountant down the street doesn't know what Relay is. They should be able to find somebody who does.

Yoseph West: [00:17:24] Uh, 100%, I think, you know, from from us starting in the accounting and bookkeeping community. I remember I was talking to another like at partner in the ecosystem, and I talked to them about the volume of businesses that sign up for Relay every month. And they're like, Holy crap, do you do that just through the accounting channel? Uh, and the answer is no, right. We have a huge business outside of the accounting and bookkeeping channel. Um, and like this, this ecosystem community and 62% of the thousands, thousands of small business owners that are signed for Relay every single month actually are looking. They don't have an accountant or bookkeeper. And the number one thing we hear all the time is like, hey, could you recommend an accountant or a bookkeeper? And so this directory kind of solves for that. And then as part of kind of the sign up process, like as we go live with this directory sometime later in Q1. So we're, you know, we're talking at the end of January here. Um, you know, as we go live with it, we'll actually allow small business owners, as they sign up to actually opt in to say, hey, could you recommend someone amazing, right? And if we're just able to send 2 to 3 clients a month, let's say, to a firm, I think that's pretty meaningful. And so, you know, that's that's kind of the promise that that we're hoping to be able to deliver on.

Blake Oliver: [00:18:37] I built most of my practice as an early adopter of Xero, so I can attest to how well these directories work, especially at the beginning. So if anyone's listening and they want to grow their practice and they want to do it on Relay, get on that directory. When it's new because, uh, you know, people are slow to get on these directories, and it's great when you're the only one in the West Coast, as was the case for me. So it's a great dude. Great.

Yoseph West: [00:19:08] Uh, I remember, I remember when we spoke the first time. Uh, this must have been like 2014. And you were. You were running your practice, and. Yeah, you were like, top of the list of the zero directory. I think that's how we we had reached out to you.

Blake Oliver: [00:19:21] I was one of two bookkeepers, and it was in the in all of North America or all of the United States, and it was because I had taken the time to do a certification, and nobody else could be bothered to do it. So it doesn't like it doesn't have to take a lot right to grow your practice. You just got to be have a little initiative, I suppose.

David Leary: [00:19:39] So that's a good question. You mentioned certification, but, uh, you said, do I have to get certified to become a Relay accountant or join the partner program? Is there some sort of testing and training?

Yoseph West: [00:19:48] Um, we do have a Relay certification. It's all online. It was actually recorded by, you know, this wonderful fellow on the call with us, uh, Blake. Uh, and, um, and, uh, it's it's actually a really like it's a great program and we've received a ton of, uh, very positive feedback on it.

Blake Oliver: [00:20:06] Yeah. What I love about it is it's not just about the product. Um, your team developed a curriculum that's about how to incorporate Relay into your entire bookkeeping accounting practice, which you know and where to use it and when. Like, these are important questions that a lot of times technology companies just don't answer. Right. They'll help you with how do I click here to do this? But how do I incorporate this into my service offering is another level. Yeah. Um, you mentioned some financial bonuses. I don't want to skip past that. I love the idea of one time signups. Tell us more about the bonuses that we get for signing up clients. Yeah.

Yoseph West: [00:20:44] So it's, uh, you as you kind of move up the tiers in terms of volume of clients, you're, you're referring to Relay, you start at kind of like $50, and then you work your way up to $200 per approved client. Um, so if you're sending like, you know, 3 to 5, you could be making, you know, almost $1,000 a month just off, you know, suggesting something that is actually super useful for your clients.

Blake Oliver: [00:21:08] You mentioned a profit share too, I think.

Yoseph West: [00:21:10] Yeah. And then then there's revenue share on top of that. So it's like a recurring, uh, rev share and then bonuses. So if you get your clients to move across, say like, you know, $10,000 or $100,000 or whatever it is, we actually like incentivize that because the more they've adopted the product, the more valuable kind of the businesses are to us. So therefore, we want to reward our partners. Um, as part of that one thing, I actually did want to just make sure I covered on the accountant directory. Um, it's not just like your typical directory, it is actually going to rank on Google. So if someone's searching like bookkeeper in Ohio, um, yes. Yeah. People are going to come through and like actually be able to like find you there. So to the point of like getting there early, Blake, like that is even more of a reason, uh, to take action as soon as it goes live.

Blake Oliver: [00:21:57] That's great. And then, you know, as people get as people do more searches with AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, I believe that these directories are going to become even more important because we're going to have these AIS ingesting like Relays directory and then giving answers. And a site like Relay, which gets a lot of traffic, is probably going to be prioritized, just as with SEO search results. And so if somebody says, I'm in, I'm in Antwerp, Ohio, and I need an accountant and you are the closest Relay bookkeeper there, you'll you'll get you'll be the response that happens. So, um, it's important to do your own website, but you also need to be elsewhere on the web in order to get prioritized 100%. So that's a great feature. Yeah.

David Leary: [00:22:43] I'd love to find out from both of you. And I know what mine is. Um, what's your favorite feature of Relay that maybe isn't very obvious to to to everybody. That's a feature.

Blake Oliver: [00:22:54] Oh, that's a good one. I just posted about this, um, on Twitter, and I'm actually going to have to go to my like, profile to remember what it was. What about you, David? You obviously have one in mind.

David Leary: [00:23:06] For me, it's. It's the instant transfers, uh, from multiple Relay accounts or multiple business entities. That was what I said.

Blake Oliver: [00:23:14] That was that was mine.

David Leary: [00:23:15] Because we didn't say it. Because a lot of times I do bookkeeping maybe just once a week. And in the old world, if I did a business to business transfer, it takes three more days for it to get to the other business and show up in the bank feed. And I'm just like always behind. But if I do all my transferring between businesses and entities the same day, I instantly go over to QuickBooks. I refresh the bank, feed the it's there, I'm all caught up. It's really a game changer to be able to move money instantly. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I can't even do it on a Saturday. I think I'm doing instant transfers on a Saturday, which is.

Blake Oliver: [00:23:47] Yeah, this. I didn't expect this like so David and I like I mentioned earlier, we have a bunch of different entities that all are interrelated, right. This is what happens when you become entrepreneurs. You end up having like six LLCs in a Delaware C Corp and all that. Right? And since we have them on Relay when we make ACH payments, it's it's bypassing the traditional ACH and it's just going straight into our accounts instantaneously when we make payments from one to the other. Like, that's so cool. Yousef. Like it just from a bookkeeping perspective. It's so cool to like, make the transfer or make the payment. It instantly shows up in the other account, and then it also instantly shows up in the accounting file, because the bank feeds are instant or within like an hour.

Yoseph West: [00:24:29] Um, building on that, uh, one consideration that, you know, if you're using a third party payment processor to like, pay your bills, right. And versus using, you know, it probably takes you 5 to 7 business days to actually pay a bill. And for small business owners, that's like a huge amount of time in terms of cash flow. And with Relay. Yes, you know, book, you know, transfers between entities that are on Relay are instant, whether it's like the ones that you own or you're sending it to to someone else who also uses Relay. And so that's really compelling. But even if you know you're not, you're sending a payment to Chase. You know, your your vendor uses Chase. Um, that can arrive same day or next day, right? As opposed to it taking 5 to 7 business days. And that is like a huge win for small business owners because it helps them with their cash flow.

Blake Oliver: [00:25:15] And you don't charge extra for it. That's amazing too.

Yoseph West: [00:25:20] Yeah, yeah. Um, my. Okay, I'm going to. I'm going to cheat a little. Sorry, David. Uh, if this is definitely a feature that you would think of as a feature that is coming very soon. Uh, um, we we're just about to launch, like, receipt capture. Um, so as you are out in the world, you, you know, take a client out for coffee or dinner or whatever it is, uh, and use your Relay card. We send you an SMS text, ask you, you know, here's a link. Upload a picture of the receipt and automatically attaches to the transaction. It's all there, all in one place. Um, accounting integration coming soon. Uh, but I love that experience. Um, and not having to, like, open up a third party app. I can actually do this inside of my bank account is, like, really compelling.

Blake Oliver: [00:26:02] It's another example of how you're solving for app fatigue. So there's there's bill pay now in Relay. So for all of my like 80% of my clients that I had when I had my firm, I could have used Relay which is great because now I've got banking and bill pay together with approvals. That's the really important part, approvals. And now you're solving for the expense management side of things with receipt capture. Like that's going to be three apps basically that I can combine. And one now for my clients. And for most firms where like managing more than like half a dozen is untenable. Um, like this is like so helpful. Um, I've been beta testing the receipt capture two. And I have to say, I really love where the team's going with it.

Speaker4: [00:26:46] Yeah. Awesome.

David Leary: [00:26:48] So the cost effectiveness really, because if especially if you're doing a fixed fee with your clients, you can take a whole app out of your app stack. Now to scan receipts and just say start using this instead. Keep your billing the same price, and you've just now made more margin on that client by getting rid of a whole $30 a month app. Right?

Blake Oliver: [00:27:05] Well, and the way I like to think about it is it's not you might still have that expense management or receipt management app for clients that have a ton of volume or specialized use cases or whatnot. But for most clients that just need the basic right, 80% of them that's going to do the job. And so now getting clients on board, it's not I have to just to get a simple client on board. I don't have to set up five different apps necessarily, which I think is going to really help firms scale better.

Speaker4: [00:27:34] I present.

Blake Oliver: [00:27:36] Use, if anything else that we should talk about before we go. What about, um, what about the community? You know, you've always been really great at at connecting with the community. You show up to conferences, you're at the booth talking to accountants, which a lot of founders, CEOs. At a certain point, they stop going and hanging out at the booth at an accounting conference. So, um, I've always loved that about you. You really want to talk to us? What plans does Relay have for the accounting community going forward?

Yoseph West: [00:28:09] I think, you know, when we when we think of the accounting community, in the bookkeeping community, this is like where we started, right? Um, the people that I call at the beginning of Relay were the people that I worked with at Hubdoc. Right. Like these are accounting and bookkeeping firms. Um, and I'd be like, hey, will you try this thing? Right. Um, and so, you know, forever this community will have like, a near and dear place in, in my heart. And so, you know, this partner program, the directory, the ambassador program. Um, you'll just see us showing up even more, uh, in this in, in the community, in the ecosystem. Um, and we just really want to help you grow alongside us. Like, that's really what we care about. Um, because together, we can actually deliver on this promise of, like, real time financials and helping small business owners with cash flow. So that's that's where we are. And there's a lot of really cool functionality coming. Uh, receipt captures one. Checkbooks we actually have, like, checkbooks, like people are using them. It's really cool. You have like automated approvals, manual reviews if you want it either. We're the first digital bank to actually do this. Um, uh, so anyways, there's a ton of stuff coming that we're really excited about that we're working with the accounting community, bookkeeping community to deliver.

Blake Oliver: [00:29:21] So exciting. For those who have not yet signed up for Relay, where should they go?

Yoseph West: [00:29:27] Um, so go to Relay Philly.com. I think we'll have a link, uh, in the show notes, uh, specifically for our partner program for the accountant directory. I think eventually when it when it's live later this quarter. Um, yeah. Thank you. Or shoot me an email. Yousef at Relay Afi.com. Um, I always love to chat.

Blake Oliver: [00:29:46] We'll have the link in the show notes. Please do click that link and go join the partner program. It's totally free to join the program, right?

Yoseph West: [00:29:55] Yousef 100% free.

Blake Oliver: [00:29:57] Love that. And like you said, he's very accessible. So if you have thoughts about Relay, if you have suggestions, he actually wants to hear from you. Yeah. Which is uh, is really nice.

Yoseph West: [00:30:09] Please. Like there there are many cases where we've had, you know, long standing Relay customers that run into a hiccup of some sort. Shoot me an email on a Saturday, I will text them minutes later, we will solve the problem. Um, and that's that's really what we're here to do.

David Leary: [00:30:24] I've stopped texting you when I had a problem early on. I remember early on I just texted you about a problem, but I stopped doing that. So.

Blake Oliver: [00:30:32] Yousef, thanks for joining the show. Great to have you and hope to see you around soon.

Yoseph West: [00:30:35] Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.

David Leary: [00:30:38] Congratulations.