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Accountex 2017 came to an end this Friday, September 8th, but the contributions from the event will be part of the lives of accountants for several years. After all, this is the biggest and most important accounting trends event in the world. We, at ContaAzul, were there and, in this article, we will share with you the main highlights of the lectures we gave in Boston, in the United States.
What is Accountex?
It is a complete event on accounting trends. Accountex 2017 was held in the American city of Boston, between the 6th and 8th of September, bringing together in one place conferences with the biggest accounting references in the world, as well as training and a business fair.
One of the most striking aspects of Accountex is the quality of the audience it Buy Email List brings together. As it is an event aimed at presenting and debating the future of accounting , there was no shortage of references on the subject. Accountants, consultants, advisors, controllers, influencers and exponents of innovative technology companies passed by.
And as expected, as an accountant's partner, ContaAzul was heavily represented at Accountex 2017. The team, led by the company's CEO, Vinicius Roveda, closely checked all the lectures and will now share the main information and summarize the highlights of the event. Enjoy!
Why stay tuned to Accountex trends
The North American market shows a marked growth speed and, visibly, is years ahead of the scenario of countries like Brazil. A concrete example is shown in the Accounting Technology Ecosystem study, developed by the organizers of Accountex.
Since the first version of the survey, carried out in 2016, the number of solutions available for accounting, financial consulting and controllership companies, among others, has simply doubled. Today, there are more than 700 softwares, listed in 30 categories.
Such diversity of solutions shows that there is a lot of inspiration and reference. Most of the trends that emerge in more heated markets reach markets like ours after some time. But those who don't wait and run ahead have an advantage, of course.
Examples of this in the past were the growth of online solutions, offered in the cloud — exactly like ContaAzul —, as well as the automation of operational routines. Now, hot topics are virtual currencies (or cryptocurrencies) and their consequences for the accounting and corporate finance universe.
The main highlights of the talks at Accountex 2017
Check out a summary below of the most important events at Accountex 2017. We have compiled relevant information for you about the international market and the trends that will reach your accounting company in the near future. If you wish, you can check out all the talks at this link .
From firefighter to partner
Donny Shimamoto, founder of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC, presented a kind of scale of the accountant's evolution: where he is and where he should be. It is very interesting that you reflect on it, so that you can assess whether or not you need to adjust your strategy. It works like this:
The accountant today is a helper, that is, he acts more like a firefighter. His work focuses heavily on issuing guides, calculating taxes and helping the client's company meet its obligations;
The next step on this scale is the support accountant, that is, who offers support in specific demands, such as tax planning and cash flow analysis;
In the ideal scenario, after being a helper and supporter, the accountant becomes a business partner, that is, a true business partner.
Shimamoto highlighted that the accountant's job is to help people make the best decision. However, the professional still thinks a lot about the short term in the relationship with the client. It does not help you, for example, to dismiss a lower quality supplier, as this will impact your product and affect your results in the long term.
According to the speaker, limiting yourself to capturing data and making reports is being stuck in the accounting comfort zone. That's why he advocates what he calls the helper > supporter > partner maturity model.
New services to be provided
As the accountant evolves in terms of how they position themselves with clients, the tendency is for them to be able to offer new services. Shimamoto also brought excellent contributions in this regard to Accountex 2017.
Have you ever thought, for example, about offering a benchmarking service to customers? The concept, it is worth remembering, refers to comparison with the competition to identify strengths and weaknesses and opportunities for growth.
But how does this apply to the accountant? According to the speaker, accounting benchmarking starts from the analysis of customer information compared to a predetermined group. When identifying the market average, the professional must ask himself how he can help the client make decisions to compete and surpass competitors.
Shimamoto indicates that this can be done, for example, to cut costs or reduce risks, to qualify cash flow management and to pay taxes, among other possibilities.
But how to do it? “Test the hypothesis in a pilot plan,” he recommends. Go after customers who value this and suggest the service. Prioritize those where you think you can make the biggest impact. Also prefer those with whom you have a better relationship, as they can give an honest opinion about the added value.
A more complete accounting professional
The talk by Mathew Heggem, CEO of SUM Innovation, was enriching regarding the need to update accounting professionals. This is a subject that appears frequently here on the blog, which made us happy to reinforce learning as a trend.
For Heggem, more and more, the future of the accountant is also one of fulfilling an educational role. First, he needs to understand the basics before automating tasks in the office, which includes clients, processes, and metrics.
Second, it is important that you are proactive in educating your customers. And the sooner you do that, the better. You have to remember that you are not just talking to them about accounting, but about processes and tools for sales, marketing, purchasing, among others.
Heggem gave an explanation very focused on automating the accountant's work and his relationship with the client. Accounting integration , for him, is already a reality. The next step, then, is to automate routine tasks to save time on processes that are still repeated manually.
And his final message is clear: the more you understand your customer, the more opportunities you will discover to generate value for them.
Accounting company accounting
Accountants like to tell their clients where they are today, what they want for the future and how accounting is the way forward, but they don't like to do the same to themselves. This is what Gary Boomer, CEO of Boomer Consulting, said.
His talk was in the sense of what we usually call “finger in the wound” here in Brazil. “Where are you and where do you want to be in the future?” he asked the accountants.
According to Boomer, at least once a year the accounting company must reflect on its value, its market and its clients to have a vision of the future. He understands that it is necessary to think about the maturity of the accounting office in relation to growth strategies, use of cloud technology , collaboration between the team, value proposition, menu of services and internal processes.
Added to this is the need to have good metrics. It is not enough to measure and analyze the results of the companies you serve if you forget about your own office.
Among the questions Boomer tells accountants to ask themselves are the expected revenue generated per employee and the desired profit expectation.
He was also one of the speakers to advocate a change in focus as a trend, replacing accounting services with consulting services.
Here comes artificial intelligence and blockchain
One of the highlights of the event was the Evolution of the Accounting Technology Ecosystem panel, which brought together some of the biggest names from Accountex 2017 to debate the present and future of the activity.
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發表於 2023-8-31 11:41:16