Fintech Insider Podcast by 11:FS
00:44:30 · Sarah Kocianski, Alexis Prenn, Christoph Rieche
[00:44:30] S0: So as somebody who spends a lot of time, in and around this ecosystem, what's most exciting to you? What kind of innovations are you seeing, either out there on the exhibit hall or, you know, generally in the airwaves for helping small businesses? [00:44:45] S11: At the end of the day, it's it's about the lifestyle. I mean, for me, the most exciting things are when people say, I took Fridays off. The most exciting things, someone saying, you know what? I I I couldn't... Five years ago, I couldn't have imagined I could have built the business that I have, and I couldn't have done it without Receipt Bank and and Xero. I I couldn't have done it without getting rid of all the paper... Paperwork, which is ultimately what we what we take care of. And so we couldn't have done that. So ultimately, the... All of this is very interesting, and technology on its own is fine, but it's what people choose to do with it. And people do the most extraordinary things. They're not... This is not a, well, do this, get that. It's very much people using their own imagination as to how they wanna live their lives. One one of my favorite receipt bank partners, she likes to go fishing with her husband. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. That's what she likes to do. [00:45:37] S4: Yeah.
00:45:37 · Christoph Rieche, Alexis Prenn, Sarah Kocianski
[00:45:37] S4: Yeah. [00:45:37] S11: That's her thing. That's their thing. And we have enabled, unexpectedly enabled, that by giving her the time And giving her and indeed giving her the flexibility to work from wherever. So the ability to work from Italy. My favorite story is my wife's accountant five, six years ago. Today, is a huge receipt bank advocate. She and her husband now spend the middle week of every month in Italy, in their house in Italy. They might be working. They might not be working. [00:46:10] S0: So... Just... [00:46:12] S11: I met someone who's last night. They they they have a house in in Spain. They like to work in the summer. They go to Spain, and they they can take their work with them, and we enable that. So that's... At the end of the day, we can get excited about capabilities, but at the end of the day, I think it's about the lifestyle choices that people choose to make. That's what the bit that excites me at any rate, Sarah. [00:46:33] S0: Well, absolutely. And then as you're saying, as a small business owner, that's what you want back, your life back, your time back. So what's what's next for Receipt Bank? Is there anything exciting coming down the line? Is there anything you want to give us an insight into? Or is it just a case of bolstering the business you have and and making sure that all your customers have that lifestyle that they want and keeping helping them doing that?
00:46:52 · Alexis Prenn
[00:46:52] S11: It's tempting it's tempting to want to look at new and new shiny things. I think one of the challenges that I I have as a chief executive and indeed as a founder is that we that we continue to to pick up and play with the new things and at the same time continue to polish the old. Because at the end of the day, the the capabilities that people actually use every day, if they can get those better and better and better, we can save a lot of time. And dare I say it, make it just a little bit more effortless, which ultimately is what our goal is. Technology seems to demand you do a lot of work, seems to demand time, seems to demand you spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen. And our challenge is really to find ways so that that becomes just a little bit effortless, and you can start to do a little bit more meaningful things, perhaps genuinely just talking to your clients. There's an eccentric idea. Whoever thought of such a who who thought of such a thing. So, in truth, there are... We define our our future based on translating the productivity that we give to bookkeepers and accountants, into something that we can deliver for small business owners. Internally, we talk about helpfulness, not selling people things, just helpfulness. And you're going to ask me, does that look like? I have absolutely no idea. But our roadmap for the next five years is basically to turn the productivity that we've built for bookkeepers and accountants, many of whom are obviously, here today, into... Translate that into something that they can make, relevant for their clients and their practice.
00:48:21 · Sarah Kocianski, Alexis Prenn, Caroline Plumb, Christoph Rieche, Will Farnell
[00:48:21] S0: Brilliant. Well, you know, as a community, as all businesses here, I'm sure everybody needs a helping hand every now and again. So why not? [00:48:27] S11: Well, I'm not sure it's necessarily a helping hand. It's just part of your everyday... Rather like having your own personal butler to deliver your slippers, to deliver your coffee, to deliver whatever it happens to be that is part of your everyday routine. It's just really catering. It's not to say that you need a helping hand up. It's really a part of your everyday experience. [00:48:48] S0: Your life easier. How to make my make my life easier, and if you [00:48:51] S2: can do [00:48:51] S4: that I think it's very helpful when [00:48:52] S11: I look up on a map and it says, it will take you thirty seven minutes to get those. Like, that was really useful. Yeah. Very helpful. [00:48:59] S0: Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for joining us. [00:49:00] S4: Thank you [00:49:01] S0: so much for giving us your time, and I hope you have a brilliant rest of the day here. [00:49:03] S11: Sarah, thank you very much. Thank [00:49:07] S0: I'm here with Will Farnell, founder of Farnell Clark. How are you today? [00:49:11] S6: I'm very good. Enjoying the conference. [00:49:13] S0: Are you you enjoying ZeroCon? [00:49:14] S6: Absolutely. Some great announcements this morning. [00:49:16] S0: What was your favorite announcement this morning? I didn't get to see anything you see. So...
00:49:16 · Sarah Kocianski, Will Farnell, Caroline Plumb
[00:49:16] S0: What was your favorite announcement this morning? I didn't get to see anything you see. So... [00:49:19] S6: No. I I think the the acquisition of Instafile. So we don't quite know what it means yet. Yep. But the bit that's always been missing for for accountancy firms is is cloud based compliance products for filing accounts and tax. So it's gonna be really interesting see how that becomes part of the the Xero offering. [00:49:38] S0: So all... Automating the compliance reporting? [00:49:41] S6: And it's that challenge of we do all this great stuff on cloud, then generally, we have to revert to desktop to do the final bit in the process. So actually having having that online and integrated with Xero is gonna be really interesting to see where that goes. [00:49:54] S0: Brilliant. And then I I love a bit of regtech, so that's that's kind of my bag. So... And and you're also on stage this afternoon, I understand. Is that coming tomorrow afternoon? What are gonna be [00:50:03] S2: talking about on stage? [00:50:04] S6: So I'm working with Soldo on that, and we're talking about... The topic is why our clients deserve daily bookkeeping and how to deliver it profitably. So it's, as you can tell, a fantastic, fascinating subject. Anything through bookkeeping is obviously gonna blow people's minds, but we're talking about how we can use technology and process and people to deliver that really effectively and really profitably. [00:50:27] S0: So can you give us a quick overview of of who Soldo are and and kind of what they do?
00:50:27 · Sarah Kocianski, Will Farnell
[00:50:27] S0: So can you give us a quick overview of of who Soldo are and and kind of what they do? [00:50:32] S6: Yep. So Soldo are smart expense management, prepaid cards that now has direct integration with Xero through the Open Banking API. So they're up on the on the screen this morning as one of the the first, I think it was six, five or partners to use the new Open Banking API. Interestingly, they're they're the only one that isn't really in the out and out banking space, so that was really good that we were able to do that. And they're announcing some really interesting offerings for the account and channel at the event in terms of really competitive pricing and great technology and tools to help us really... The Talk Tomorrow is about bookkeeping and the bits that we we've historically had missing, are credit card statements and and staff expenses. So what Soldo does is it lets us kind of add those last two pieces to the jigsaw by giving us that data on a daily basis. [00:51:29] S0: So so that's really interesting because I spoke with a couple of people this morning who were saying that the missing piece is credit card expenses. So it sounds like it's gonna be quite quite groundbreaking what they're doing.