Start, Grow, Merge Or Sell Your Accounting Firm

If anyone had sat me down and said this is exactly what you need to do when I started my accounting practice, I probably wouldn’t have wasted so much time trying to figure out what would work and what wouldn’t.

My biggest challenge back in 2010 and was that even if I wanted to ask someone how to run a practice, no one was going to be able to tell me how to run a true 100% cloud only accounting firm.

Because it didn’t exist.

There was not a single accounting firm in Australia or the world that had decided to go all in on running a true cloud accounting firm. So finding a cloud accounting mentor at this stage of my firm wasn’t really an option.

When I started to grow my practice I came across similar challenges, whilst there were a small number of people that were able to talk through the challenges I was facing as a startup. They couldn’t relate to my growing pains impacted by my process and workflows.

They were all still using desktop practice management solutions and desktop accounting providers.

Growing through this pain, being able to adapt and to that extent even build my own digitally connected solutions I knew I needed to be able to scale my practice, I still had no idea of what would happen next.

Once, we got up and running, the question was then where to next? Should we merge? Should we sell? Do we need funding? Who could I turn to for this advice in the accounting industry to get a side by side series of options? I wanted to make the best decision for my firm, my clients and my team.

Fast forwarding to Today…

Earlier this year I sat down with the General Manager of professional services at NAB, Brett Moore, and continued to tell him my story. We talked through the war stories of how I use to work at the 4 Pines Brewing Company during the evenings and work on my accounting clients during the days..

I talked through my decision to make myself redundant at Interactive Accounting so that I could start and build Ignition continuing on with the journey of why I became an accountant in the first place… o help improve the relationship between the accountant or bookkeeper and their client, so that SMBs got better financial data with context, faster. Allowing better decisions to be made and brighter futures to be built.

I wanted to Remove all the friction so that they could focus wholeheartedly on the working relationship and find more ways to add value to their small business clients as the business was running as seamlessly as possible and there was a real source of truth for who your clients are, what they want and what services they consume.

What a ride I’ve been on. Being able to see Interactive Accounting go from 1 person to 15 staff in 4 years and make our way into the top 100 accounting firms in Australia was amazing and it felt truly rewarding.

I’ve now had the opportunity to take another journey with Ignition and on the back of raising our latest round of venture capital last year, I couldn’t be more proud of the work this team is doing to help improve the working relationships firms have with their clients.

Starting in May this year. I’ll be joined by my team as well as the professional services team at NAB to take this story on the road together to try and tackle the notion of starting, growing and selling your accounting practice. We’ll deal with the funding issues at all stages and what scenarios are possible for you to drive the firm the way you want.

NAB are providing all attendees with their new 2018 insights report collated from over 750 accounting firms around Australia.

We’re hosting a panel of real accountants, local to you in every city. You’ll be able to hear the stage they are currently in and how they plan to progress through to the next stage.

We’ve also partnered with a select group of technology partners that we need add immense value to the life of an accounting firm both now and increasingly more in the future.

You’ll find Receipt Bank, Fathom, BGL, Spotlight Reporting and Hubdoc on the road with us this year. Showcasing their solutions, articulating the problem they solve and importantly you’ll get to hear how they impacted the growth and journey of Interactive Accounting and thousands of other firms around Australia.

What’s even better is that these technology solutions will be showcasing what they have coming up in 2018 and specials for EOFY to help you take your firm to that next stage.

Registrations are now open as of Monday the 16th April at 9AM.

Spots are limited so please reserve your place as soon as possible.

My goal in all of this is to let you walk in with questions and walk out with answers, ideas and solutions that can help you through the stage your firm is currently in. At the very least, realise that there are people here for you to network with, learn from and gain help from. The journey to start, grow or sell, doesn’t need to be a lonely one.

I look forward to meeting you in your city.

GP