Accounting AI Software Startup

[tominv]

All, hope you are doing great!

Co-founder of a startup aiming at supporting accountants with client interactions and data management leveraging AI. Still in the early days, we're keen to understand the key pain points accountants face daily around this topic - to build a solution around it for you.

We're dedicated to this project and would love to talk with anyone interested in this area. Looking forward to potentially being of help!

Have a great day!
Tom

 

[fisicx]

Why do accountants need AI to run the payroll or do annual account?

I give my accountant all the documents, he does the CH thing and tells me how much to give HMRC. How will AI make this any simpler?

 

[GLAbusiness]

Reads a bit like you have a solution looking for a problem

 

[tominv]

Why do accountants need AI to run the payroll or do annual account?

I give my accountant all the documents, he does the CH thing and tells me how much to give HMRC. How will AI make this any simpler?

We are trying to look at supporting accountants with client interactions / allowing them to focus on the work more than running the payroll or doing annual account. The goal is to save them time/improve client satisfaction.

 

[tominv]

Reads a bit like you have a solution looking for a problem

Not yet fully developed - that's why we try to engage with accountants to build something that solves a real problem. Happy to discuss it!

 

[fisicx]

We are trying to look at supporting accountants with client interactions / allowing them to focus on the work more than running the payroll or doing annual account. The goal is to save them time/improve client satisfaction.

That doesn’t really make any sense.

Their work is running the payroll. They already have tools that helps them to do this.

 

[tominv]

That doesn’t really make any sense.

Their work is running the payroll. They already have tools that helps them to do this.

Agree with you, that's why we don't want to help them to run the payroll. Our goal is to simplify accountant/client interaction. Not only for payroll, but for all other services that an accountant can propose.

 

[fisicx]

Suppose a document is missing. The accountant emails the client and the client sends the missing document.

How could this be any simpler? How could AI make this interaction any better?

Did you do any market research before creating this startup?

 

[Mark T Jones]

KISS - keep it short and sweet! (Or other versions)

Simply, and in plain English why will an accountant benefit from using you?

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

All, hope you are doing great!

Co-founder of a startup aiming at supporting accountants with client interactions and data management leveraging AI. Still in early days, we're keen to understand the key paint points accountants face daily around this topic - to basically build a solution around it for you.

We're dedicated to this project, and would love to talk with anyone interested in this area. Looking forward to potentially being of help!

Have a great day!
Tom

What accountants are you aiming to support?

For example a partner in a large practice will face very different daily issues to a sole practitioner.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

@tominv can you be more specific on where this will help accountant?

 

[tominv]

Thanks all for the interest/feedback - to give more context, We are targeting owners/managers within accounting firms (10+ FTEs). Our team consists of a tech person (ex-Google) and a business person (with audit/IB experience). we started 4 months ago, and built an early MVP around:

• Automating the extraction of key client interaction information (complaints, follows up needed ect) and metrics (response time..) from client emails.
• Providing tools to assist accounting firm leaders in evaluating client profitability by comparing the effort invested with the payment received from clients.

As I mentioned, it's still early days, and we're looking to identify & learn about opportunities on how we can help out the most. While our initial target users are managers & owners, in the long-term our product will become increasingly useful to individual contributors and significantly move the needle on productivity.

 

[fisicx]

Can you give an example of such an email and the output from your tool?

If I email you to ask when my annual accounts will be drafted how will the AI respond?

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

What/who drove you to develop this service?

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Thanks all for the interest/feedback - to give more context, We are targeting owners/managers within accounting firms (10+ FTEs). Our team consists of a tech person (ex-Google) and a business person (with audit/IB experience). we started 4 months ago, and built an early MVP around:

• Automating the extraction of key client interaction information (complaints, follows up needed ect) and metrics (response time..) from client emails.
• Providing tools to assist accounting firm leaders in evaluating client profitability by comparing the effort invested with the payment received from clients.

As I mentioned, it's still early days, and we're looking to identify & learn about opportunities on how we can help out the most. While our initial target users are managers & owners, in the long-term our product will become increasingly useful to individual contributors and significantly move the needle on productivity.

It's a shame the first client information you are focusing on is complaints. If I was trying to sell a new product to accountants to aid client interactions that really would not be my first thought.

Genuinely interested - you say you want to provide tools to aid evaluating profit looking at effort invested v fee income. How will your software offer more than what is currently availiable?

 

[tominv]

Thanks for the feedback all - Through discussions with owners/partners, complaints is one of the information they care about, but we don't only focus on this and provide other important information. Regarding client profitability, many firms we have talked to, are moving away from timesheets because no one likes to do them, and it takes up time that could be spent doing client work, so we are currently exploring ways to calculate that effort with interactions volume.

Would love to get your general thoughts/views on what we are building (we can show you), as we want to build something useful for accountants. We both left our jobs to focus on this, so genuinely want to help here! If you're available, let's have a quick chat to discuss further

 

[fisicx]

If you upgrade to business member you can get a website review.

I did take a look at your website and it seems to be broken.

The timesheet thing might be an issue as you will need to cope with many different formats and applications. Just look at the huge number of apps you can download.

Last time I did contract work they had an online thing. Took less than a minute each day to complete.

 

[IanSuth]

if i was looking in this space i would be looking at a company like Tax On Demand who are using it to continually assess whether clients could be more efficiently managing their tax affairs.

It has Simon Guest at the top who previously set up and ran Nomisma (cloud accounting) and Acorah TaxCalc after he had left Iris (which was Transaction technology when he started there in 93 as a junior salesman and have time&fees products)

Do you have that kind of expertise on board to give you clout in the marketplace - accountants are by nature conservative and they won't jump to something unless it both obviously saves them money (or allows them to make more) and they can see others they trust have used it/front it

 

[MyAccountantOnline]

Thanks for the feedback all - Through discussions with owners/partners, complaints is one of the information they care about, but we don't only focus on this and provide other important information. Regarding client profitability, many firms we have talked to, are moving away from timesheets because no one likes to do them, and it takes up time that could be spent doing client work, so we are currently exploring ways to calculate that effort with interactions volume.

Would love to get your general thoughts/views on what we are building (we can show you), as we want to build something useful for accountants. We both left our jobs to focus on this, so genuinely want to help here! If you're available, let's have a quick chat to discuss further

I'm not for one moment suggesting accountants dont care about complaints, but I really dont think the accountants you are targeting get too many of them, and was genuinely surprised if you are seeking to enable accountants to use information that seemed to be your primary focus. You made no mention of for example obtaining and using tax return information, information for accounts etc.

I think you'll find alot of firms moved away from timesheets many years ago.

I'm no longer your target market so your software isnt going to be of interest to me personally but I do wish you well.

You may find you get a lot more feedback from a forum which is used solely by accountants. I've not used it for a few years now but have a look at AccountingWeb.

 

[WaveJumper]

I think that a pretty good call from @MyAccountantOnline above maybe your targeting the wrong audience. From my own perspective using software like Xero for instance gives me all the possible data I want with a few clicks, it also has AI which can take care of tasks already, so my son tells me, saves him employing a bookkeeper by all accounts.