Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:33:37 · Sarah Kocianski, Jonathan Bareham, Gary Turner
[00:33:37] S0: So, you know, what's what's next for you guys? What are you what are you looking, you know, looking to the future? What's what's next on on for the for rate? [00:33:46] S8: I I think for us, it is continuing to drive kind of client first. So we've done a really big project this year on kind of rebuilding how we onboard clients, making sure they're they're much more informed in the process of what happens. And I think that's that's key to us for everything we're doing now. It's just kind of reimagining all the different processes we have at the moment and how can we keep the client better and informed so they've got a a better experience there and more engaged in what we're doing. And and in that, we want to start delivering kind of more events, live videos, stuff like that, that just drives an experience and an engagement with them because the technology now is automating so much of the day to day stuff. It's it's gotta... We've gotta change that experience for [00:34:26] S1: our clients. [00:34:27] S0: Do you think the technology, as you said earlier, you know, do you think it's opening up a a gap, as you said, for human engagement? You know, you you now have more time to spend with your clients. Clients. Do you think there's other opportunities you can take advantage of now you have that time? Is there some... Is there anything you can build on there now now you've got some time back yourselves?
00:34:27 · Sarah Kocianski, Jonathan Bareham, Sian Kelly
[00:34:27] S0: Do you think the technology, as you said earlier, you know, do you think it's opening up a a gap, as you said, for human engagement? You know, you you now have more time to spend with your clients. Clients. Do you think there's other opportunities you can take advantage of now you have that time? Is there some... Is there anything you can build on there now now you've got some time back yourselves? [00:34:43] S8: Yeah. Absolutely. I think it is that. It's about reimagining the process. How can we get clients more engaged and involved? Kind of talk a lot about wanting to be educators, not just advisors. So, we want to advise people, want to answer their questions, we want to help them realize their goals, but we also want to impart a bit of knowledge actually so they can do some of that themselves. Obviously, not wanting to cut into our margins too much, but obviously, the more successful our clients are, the more successful we are. And so I think giving away bits of knowledge, bits of insight, and helping them to grow and do things better, it actually helps us. The more efficient they are, the more efficient we can be, and it's kind of a circle then. [00:35:22] S0: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for giving us your time. Thank you so much for joining us, and I hope you have a great rest of the day. [00:35:27] S8: Thank you. Thank you. [00:35:32] S0: I'm Sarah Krashansky, and I'm here with Sean Kelly. We are here at ZeroCon eighteen. How are you today, Sean? [00:35:37] S9: I'm good. Thank you. Enjoying it so far.
00:35:37 · Sian Kelly, Sarah Kocianski, Caroline Plumb
[00:35:37] S9: I'm good. Thank you. Enjoying it so far. [00:35:39] S0: Mhmm. It's still quite early, but there's a [00:35:41] S2: lot more of the [00:35:41] S0: day to go. [00:35:42] S9: So can you start off by telling [00:35:43] S0: us we haven't had you in the podcast before. So can you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and why you're here at Xerox Day? [00:35:49] S9: Yep. Sure. So I'm Shyam Kelly. We're a firm of accountants based in Sutton Coalfield. The firm is called Inform Accounting. This is our... Oh, how many zero cons have there been now? Fifth or six. [00:36:02] S2: We've been to all of them. You get [00:36:04] S0: a loyalty card at this point. Right? [00:36:05] S9: Yeah. Should get a discount. Should I? Where's my discount so I can bring the whole team instead of a few of them? Yeah. So we come to zero con every year. It's great for engagement of the staff and learning about all the new sort of releases, updates, any news they've got going on, and it's a great opportunity to go around and meet all the app marketplace. [00:36:25] S0: So we were just talking a little bit about some exciting things that are happening here at Xero. Yeah. One of the announcements is that Starlink has just announced a bank feed with Yeah. With Xero. You said that's particularly exciting for some of your clients. Can you explain why that might be?
00:36:25 · Sarah Kocianski, Sian Kelly
[00:36:25] S0: So we were just talking a little bit about some exciting things that are happening here at Xero. Yeah. One of the announcements is that Starlink has just announced a bank feed with Yeah. With Xero. You said that's particularly exciting for some of your clients. Can you explain why that might be? [00:36:36] S9: Yeah. Getting bank accounts open for clients is a complete nightmare. The traditional high street banks can take weeks and weeks. Mean, I the direct feeds are amazing when you can get them. It... They are getting an awful lot better in Xero, quicker, less sort of compliance and hoops to jump through to get them set up in the first place. But something like Starling having a direct bank feed is really exciting news. And I was actually looking at this because I needed to open a second bank account, I was having a look at Revolut and Starling and things. And they're so quick to open. So for clients and small businesses who just want to get going and are happy, you still got the issue of bit of nervousness about online banks and stuff. But for the clients who are happy with all that, it's it's really, really good. [00:37:18] S0: Yeah. So so what do you... So what are the biggest pain points that you see for small businesses that sort of you're hoping to solve? Because you said you like being here and seeing all the exhibitors and different kind of solutions. What what are some of the pain points or biggest pain points that your clients have?
00:37:18 · Sarah Kocianski, Sian Kelly, Caroline Plumb
[00:37:18] S0: Yeah. So so what do you... So what are the biggest pain points that you see for small businesses that sort of you're hoping to solve? Because you said you like being here and seeing all the exhibitors and different kind of solutions. What what are some of the pain points or biggest pain points that your clients have? [00:37:31] S9: Yeah. It's it's autumn... Automating stuff, really, getting data to us. So there's lots and lots of ways to get data. There's lots of products. From very early on, we adopted Xero. It was... I think I put my first client onto Xero. We adopted Receipt Bank at the same time. Receipt Bank takes away the pain of getting all the paper to us. You've got Hubdoc come on board with Xero now. That's really exciting. But there's problems with things like, I don't know, credit card statements. They don't seem to be part of what the banks give you as a bank We're looking for something where we can automate collecting the credit card data. It's an opportunity for the staff to come. We've highlighted a few of the things we want them to look for before we've left the office, and they've got to scout and go around all the upstands now and see if we can find a solution for [00:38:17] S2: a few of the
00:38:17 · Caroline Plumb, Sarah Kocianski, Sian Kelly, David M. Brear
[00:38:17] S2: a few of the [00:38:17] S0: things we're having issues with. Yeah. So there's one the big the big questions we're asking people today, and I'm I'm hoping that nobody's gonna say no when I ask this question, but, you know, how important is it to your clients that Xero starts building out that portfolio of financial services that can be accessed through Xero? So the more the more things... [00:38:32] S9: I think it it just makes it easier. Because, I mean, one one of the things I was thinking when... On one of the first presentations, it got me sort of drifting, daydreaming on a subject. And one of the issues we still have even with the lending is that they look into Xero, take all the information, which fabulous. We haven't got to send loads of reports, but then you still have to send maybe three months bank statements as a PDF as well. Now to me, if you've got a live bank feed going into Xero, your bank statements are all there. Why can't we get to the point of actually that is good enough for the lenders that that's the bank statement? And if you've got all this open banking and it's these live feeds, that should be the right data. Yeah. So why can't the credit cards feed straight in as well? And Yeah. You know, there's an awful lot more to do there that can make things even slicker. So we're getting there. [00:39:21] S10: Yeah. So there's more [00:39:22] S0: to be done. [00:39:23] S9: Yeah. Yeah.