AI is Not Gonna Take Your Job, but a Bookkeeper Using AI Will

Speaker A: I love the saying that AI is not going to take your job, but a bookkeeper using AI will.

Speaker B: Welcome back to the new F Word podcast where we talk finances in business. I'm your host, Colin Hewitt, founder and CEO at Float. We're so glad to be back for season three. And this season we've got some great guests that are going to bring a ton of value. We'll be diving further into how fractional CFOs add value and what financial clarity actually looks like and what systems and apps are leading the way. New guests, sharper conversations. Let's get into it. Hey, Joe, it's good to see you. How are you doing?

Speaker A: I'm good. How are you?

Speaker B: I'm well. I hear you're in sunny Newcastle today.

Speaker A: Yeah, it is really sunny. I've actually got a bit sunburnt from, uh, sitting outside of the hotel. When we had a couple of meetings this morning, we thought we'd enjoy the sunshine. Now. I've just realized I got a bit burnt, but didn't think about bringing my suntan lotion to Newcastle.

Speaker B: If I'm on honest, it does, yeah. Even in Edinburgh. It's actually really nice today. We've known each other for a long time, so it's great to have you on the podcast. I think it'd be good for people who don't know you just to give a little bit of background as to what you're doing now with you had Joe Wood Virtual FD and then you moved into Six Figure Bookkeeper and hey, Monica as well. So why don't you give us a little bit of the timeline of that.

Speaker A: I started Jowood Virtue FD in April of 2019 is my final bookkeeping practice. And I say final because I'd had a bit of a bumpy ride of building bookkeeping practices and trying to make them successful around having free children and family and lacking those business skills that I needed to run a business. I think sometimes when we get out accountancy and bookkeeping qualifications, we forget that we're actually in business. We talk about being in practice and we forget that we need those other skills. So in 2020, I met with Zoe Whitman and we started the Six Figure Bookkeeper, which was a community to talk about all things business, not the tec technical. There's loads of places where accountants and bookkeepers can chew the cud about the technical things that we love to talk about. But Zoe and I wanted to start talking and having the conversation about how do you build a brand, how do you market yourself, how do you have sales conversations. How do you price all of the things that I've had to learn the hard way. I also said at the time that in my community I was going to be building this practice in front of everybody, showing them what I was doing, but I was also going to get it to six figures because I didn't know another person running a six figure bookkeeping practice. It's not all about the money. And um, we have people that say, can you only be here in this community if you want to earn six figures? It's not about that, it's about what aspiration looks like for you. It may be working two days a week, it may be having all of the school holidays off and building a team or software that supports you. So, so we did that when we actually started, I think I had 60 people in the Facebook group and this weekend we have 28,000. So it has been growing steadily.

Speaker B: That's amazing. So there's 28,000 bookkeepers, bookkeepers and accountants.

Speaker A: I mean we talk to bookkeepers, but everything we teach is relevant for both. It's relevant for business really because we don't talk about the technical and fractional

Speaker B: CFOs, I presume as well. You know, that's very relevant.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Anybody that is in this business supporting businesses in their finances and it does, it doesn't matter really. You know, we've got payroll bureaus in there and people that VAT specialists or specialize in just cis anything like this is all about the business side. So I sold my practice, got it to multi six figures and sold it in August 2023 because running both of the businesses was pulling on my time. But also the main reason was that I wanted to show other bookkeepers that bookkeeping practices could be sold and make money. Because again, sometimes if you don't have somebody that you can see do it themselves, you have to become that person. So I did that. I did sell my husband and my sister at the same time and they're still very happy working in the practice and still there supporting our clients. So that's been a really successful exit. Zoe and I continue to build six figure and support people and making their bookkeeping practices run, um, more profitably and give them more time and flexibility. And then we have this recurring theme in our community. It's really hard to get work experience if you don't already have some experience. You've got your qualifications but you've never actually had a client. So firstly, how do you get a job? And um, if you can't get a job. How would you start a practice yourself? It's all this chicken and egg situation. So we decided to start thinking about how would we solve this problem if you don't have people in offices and mentors. And to be fair, our ambassadors have been amazing mentors to our community, but there's so many of them and everyone's got to run their own businesses. So we thought about how can we leverage software and AI. Now we are tech founders and um, we launched heymonica. So heymonica is a AI coach and you are in the platform given clients that are also AI and you get the opportunity to work with them. You've won the client. You get a description, a video from the client about who they are, what they do and then you work through a scenario to get to a specific point which is maybe a completed trial balance, a self assessment tax return, a VAT return. We've got some like AML scenarios and we're building the scenarios as we speak and it's been good fun. So we launched in February. We're building and full time job outside of the full time job.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure. Um, so you're still running the six figure bookkeeper and hey Monica at the same time?

Speaker A: Yes, that's it.

Speaker B: The thing that we both very aware of is that it feels like bookkeeper for getting that financial advice. The books are often the thing that if that's not done correctly then it makes it so much harder for everything else, um, to be built on. And still amazes me how many people

Speaker A: don't see that they're running their businesses blind.

Speaker B: And I think that the great thing about what you guys do is just help people to almost see themselves as more than just doing the books. But actually once you've got that, then what else can you do on top of it? So it really is the foundational, I think of like we see this fractional CFO kind of revolution happening where there's more and more people going into that as a role, more of those people becoming accessible. But are the bookkeepers commenting much on that? Like I've had a fractional CFO come in and they haven't really understood this or like how do you see those two rules working, the FD rule and the bookkeeper working together? Do you think they should be one or do you think they can be separate?

Speaker A: I think there are so many different personalities and different types of businesses and all around trying to build and design a business that works for you is about the services that you want to offer. So for me My bookkeeping practice focused very heavily on daily and weekly bookkeeping, but I wasn't doing that. My job was to be that fractional CFO and have the conversations about what that bookkeeping was showing and what the numbers were saying. And I was very comfortable to do that. But I knew that I had to focus on the bookkeeping first. So I think everybody should play to their strengths. But I do think that good bookkeepers have the ability to step into that role, but definitely be very well supported by a fractional cfo. And there should be an amazing and like a, uh, compliance accountant, a year end compliance accountant. There should be multiple touch points. It's not about one person doing everything. I had a management accountant in my team. I had a payroll accountant, I have a compliance accountant. You know, I want everyone to have their special and they're where they're going to add the most value because I think that is what really helps a small business because you've got to get rid of the ego and realize you don't know it all.

Speaker B: And um, did you niche into any sort of sector when you were doing your FD or did you kind of just. Were you very general? How did that work?

Speaker A: I niched into hair and beauty salons. I felt very aligned with them because I think they have a similar kind of wrap to what bookkeepers have had. Being seen as less than their peers. We've always. Well, I'd always felt can't speak for everybody, but I do hear the same that bookkeepers sometimes feel that they're not as good and as respected and as paid as well as accountants. And it was part of mine and Zoe's mission to like raise the bar for bookkeepers. And when I started having conversations with other potential clients and salon owners and they were talking about how they were being spoken to by their accountants and how they felt stupid and they didn't understand what they were doing and they had fear around the numbers. I was like, I really want to help you out here. And I feel like they really great business owners but they weren't being educated or trusted with the information. So I felt like a real passion to help that industry. I picked that as well in 2019 and we all know what happened in 2020. So all of my clients were closed for a very long period of time, but I was able to really help them. And they all came out the other. I think there's only one that's sold, but everyone else is still running. So I'm really, really happy and proud of that now. It didn't mean that they were the only clients I had, but they were who I was marketing to. That's who I was speaking to, that's who I was hanging around with. When I went to events, I was going to those salon industry events. Um, but I did have other sound engineers and gas engineers and like different types of clients. I had one really cool client that used to like do he used to make massive games for teams of people. I very much was niching into the owners and the personalities and knowing whether we were going to get on and if I could really help them. But yes, when I was marketing it was definitely to those salon owners.

Speaker B: I mean that makes such so much sense in that you're picking up like shared collective wisdom of high good salons operate. So you're building that extra experience uh, rather than got one tech company that I don't. But I haven't done that before. I haven't seen, you know, I've got experience in like raising a series A or that kind of thing versus in the sal. You know, in that area you've become the expert and you know actually can add increasing value as you pick up new clients. Is it worth explaining? Because I think again we see the potential for bookkeepers and like you say accountants and the fractional CFOs to work together. What do you see as uh, tech stack that enables that uh, to be possible? Like what, how did you make technology work for you in that way?

Speaker A: So I think we need to think that technology and software can actually be a uh, true resource. But if you're going to take on an apprentice, they're going to need time, effort, attention, managing and I don't think people do that enough with the software that they bring in. So I think you need really great data capture something with a great app. But also with my salons, they were on their phones all the time. They weren't opening up laptop. There was a desktop computer downstairs in the basement along with the tumble dryer. But they weren't sitting at a desk every day, they were on their phone. So you've got to meet your clients where they're at and if you're working with builders and things like that, how are they going to be utilizing and capturing and simple things like do you just need to give them a plastic wallet that goes in the door of their van? How are you going to capture this? So you need a really great data, uh, capture tool that is going to analyze the data, pull it all out and then get, I mean we. I've always used Xero. Love Xero as a cloud accounting software package. There's multiple data capture out there, but I think that relies on your budget and what other things you want it to do. Some focus more on payments, so taking it through from invoice and getting things paid, and others are, uh, more on accuracy and automation and getting into the software. Then you obviously need to be making sure that your bank is up to date. But not just that. This is where you need a good bookkeeper account. It's not about just the bank balance. It's about the accruals and the prepayments and the depreciation and the journals and uh, making sure that your data in your accounting software is accurate. Because this is the starting point. Now the beauty with working with a bookkeeper, um, is that they can start recognizing patterns. They can start. I say to them all the time, I'm sure when you're doing that bank rec, you're seeing things and you're thinking, oh, that's strange, they've paid that late this time. I wonder why that is. Or that's a bit more expensive than usual. And they tend to keep all this stuff internally. But if they started to have a chat about this stuff, that's where it turns into an interesting conversation where they could be saving money. We have some amazing stories where bookkeepers have, uh, saved companies tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds just by picking up something and having a conversation with the business owner. Otherwise it just goes unnoticed. We're there in the detail doing things like direct debit review, like compliance. Accountant might think that that's beneath them. At the end of the year they haven't got time to do that. They just need to get the records right. But we have the time and ability to do that real deep dive and say, do you know you're paying for, I know like three of these subscriptions. They all kind of do the similar thing. So we can help save money, make sure we're capturing the costs correctly and then the information is there, ready and accurate. It's not the level of you can do a quick like tax calculation, you can figure out where the VAT is at that time. You can look at what's the payroll costs going to be, which is all great for cash flow. Obviously bookkeepers can definitely follow through doing the cash flow forecast. But then a cfo, maybe at a fractional CFO might come in and have just. It's really about confidence to hold the business owner accountable to what they want to do with this business. It's not really about the technical knowledge, it's just sitting down and asking the right questions and you don't even have to know the right answers. So I would argue that bookkeepers have that capability, but they may choose not to do it and that's absolutely fine. And then there may be a fractional CFO that doesn't want to make sure that the balance sheet is 100% correct before they report on things. They might want to get a bookkeeper or someone to support them. So again, I think it's about staying in your zone. Where is your zone of genius? I used to have my team prepare the cash flow and I'd go in and I'd still see things that they hadn't seen. And I enjoyed that. That was like teamwork. And then I'd be asking the questions to get the answers. I didn't know what they were going to be spending their money on or I didn't know they'd been doing interviews for a new member of staff. I had to ask those questions so then we could build the forecast out together. But it's nothing to do with how to do ratio or anything like that. I didn't have to learn this at, uh, college. I just have to know how to ask questions.

Speaker B: So you got your data capture and you got your cash flow and your Xero. What else are you using these days?

Speaker A: What are you finding everyday life? Is ChatGPT making sure that I am using that as another asset in my business? We were doing something in our community this week where we got really clear on that ideal client avatar. And then we were talking about the pain points that we'd heard them talk about. And then we asked ChatGPT to act as a marketing executive. And knowing our ideal client avatar. What are those pain points so we can use them in hooks so that we can use them in our marketing. So again, leveraging software to work for us, not becoming our voice, teaching it, uh, who we're talking to. So AI is obviously very important. I love things like Grammarly. I think that's underrated. I did go to grammar school. I got an A in English. But when I'm writing fast and I love that kind of, how can I speed up and then suggest, oh, why don't you write it like this? I'm like, oh, that sounds so much better. So, uh, I am not afraid of utilizing tools. Fathom is like something I used to management reports. I really liked, um, the management reports and I used to create a management report and then video myself talking through the management report so I could Send it as a loom on WhatsApp to my clients because then they'd actually watch it. I think there are lots of tools out there that can help you with things like mileage, depending on the business. Are they traveling? Lots. How can you get this working? Things like that you use day to day. I was just talking to Zoe. I've got the train up here from Newcastle and I've just. Zoe's been using it and I started using seaprog. Bid on your first class. That's the kind of what we need to be talking to our, the business owners like sharing that knowledge about the things that we're using. And that's the beauty of being at community. We can hear about things before they're happening. I've seen a lot of tools recently talking. I think there's one add some that does balance sheet reconciliation and then kind of provide you with those like uh, working papers, but on a monthly basis. And for me, teaching my bookkeepers how to get those accounts like just spot on and having third party evidence every single month just would make me so happy. I think this is my auditing background comes through. You know, that's why maybe my bookkeeping was maybe a bit different to other people, but I was so focused on getting everything accurate. But it really does help when you're looking to the future. When you don't have a crystal ball. You've got to past helps you to look forward and if that past is wrong then you're gonna completely misjudge it.

Speaker B: What about practice management? Do you use any of the like the Carbons or the Engager? Yeah, Engager, yeah.

Speaker A: Um, I was actually using Zero practice manager when I sold but I sold to the owner of Engager so funny enough, they've moved over to Engager. My husband uses that and he likes that. I think practice management is an interesting one. We've just been working with Taxdome. They're from America and they are doing amazingly over there and they've started to get some practices over here and we're helping them to get their brand out. And what we've seen there, their name is wrong for what they do. I think that's what me and Zoe was like. Oh, we'd have never looked at Taxdome because we don't do tax. But actually it's a practice management system. They've got like 10,000 practices in across the world and the functionality there is amazing. So I think you need to have some kind of practice management, you need to have some kind of overview, a quick analysis of where a job's at. What needs my attention? How are we doing with the latest VAT returns? All of those things. And zero Practice manager is having a real uplift at the moment. So that's exciting because I think we all want to have a source of truth and not have to move around too much. I don't know about you, but I have a million tabs open most of the time, so it's nice to be able to have something under one roof. But, uh, also, I do believe that everyone needs to be the best at what they are. And sometimes when a product tries to be everything to everyone, then it loses

Speaker B: some of that in terms of, hey, Monica, like, what's the end goal for that? Have you guys got a plan for. Is it just exit strategy, or do you feel like it's an experiment or. You'll see where it goes.

Speaker A: I feel like we're on the Apprentice

Speaker B: at the moment and, um, there's no right idea.

Speaker A: It's really good fun. And there's a couple of things that have surprised me. Firstly, when the first time someone said, oh, so you're now a tech founder, I was like, what? No. And they're like, well, you've released tech, but that's not what I am. And then being at the beginning of a business in that unknown space and not having all the answers, I think is great for me to feel that again, because I think when you're supporting a community and we've been running this for five years now, it feels more comfortable. I know what I'm doing. We have, uh, systems and processes and we know how this machine runs. So being thrown into something completely new. Zoe said the other day, let's start going live in our meetings and let's just, like, build in public. And I'm like, what? I don't even know what I'm talking about half the time. And we say some silly things and it's hilarious. I think people are quite, especially with what we're teaching is what the product does. It helps people with their confidence around something that's new. So I think it kind of helps us to get in tune with our customers. We definitely have seen that this is an issue in our industry and felt that nobody else was going to deal with it. And also I think we needed to be there to prove the concept that actually it's needed, it's wanted, and people will pay for it because we can all have great ideas and think about a solution. And then that could be tumbleweed. And no one wants to actually put Money where their mouth is. So I think we will continue doing that. Our issue at the moment, if we're really honest, is that we have the audience. We can sell mostly quicker than we can build because we're bootstrapping it. We're not looking for any investment. We are building as we sell. But we want to do a good job. And then one day we will exit. When somebody that has the correct ethos, mindset, the skills and a big development team can say, we can do this quicker, faster, support more people, that will be it. We are trying to prove that this is so valuable and so needed. We had someone come up to us at Countex, like, she was crying, she was like, you do not realize what you're doing for me. And we're like, it's still like so early days. I think that's hard, putting something out into the world that's not perfect yet. And I think software is completely different. Beast. When you're putting out a course or a podcast, people can break it. Whereas if you say something and do something, people can't really break that. They can have an opinion, but it's a very different kettle of fish. And it's good to be on that learning journey again.

Speaker B: 100%. Well, obviously that resonates in terms of we've been building float for 13 years now. And it's like, I look back to some of the early sketches and think there's still some stuff we haven't released yet that we know we want to release or stuff we want to do better and there will always be more to do. It's never. I used to think, I wish I could just pause the clock for six months and then build all stuff and then release it and actually it doesn't work like that. It's. There's always more and the world is moving on at the same time.

Speaker A: What would we do? We'd be bored otherwise.

Speaker B: I think it's really good. And in terms of that person who came up to you, what was the impact? Was it confidence? Was it that? Was it when. Just confidence in her abilities as a bookkeeper.

Speaker A: I think it was opportunity to try out her skill set in a safe space and to complete a scenario and whatever her percentage was, you know, you're working towards getting things CPD accredited so that people can build up a portfolio and say, like, these are the different scenarios I've worked on. But I think it's just, you know, when you want to pass an exam and you've got like mock exams, you know, if you never had Mock exams. You be really like, oh my goodness, how am I going to do this? So. And I remember getting my first clients and thinking, well, I'll just do my mum's books or do my neighbor's books and trying to find these safe people that if I messed it up, they would still love me. So to be able to have this environment, to just try this out, because not everybody's got a network around them of entrepreneurs that want to give them a set of books and tax returns and VAT returns. Not everyone has that. So that is such a big jump of confidence to go from. I've got this exam. We know it's like school, school doesn't prepare you. This is why apprenticeships are like doing amazing. I've got three kids and two of them have gone into apprenticeships because you need to try real life examples. And in a world where lots of people are working from home and work doesn't work, we find for a lot of women it's not working around, they end up starting businesses. But who's going to mentor you there without costing you a fortune?

Speaker B: No, absolutely. I was speaking to Laura Linden on the podcast, I don't know if you knew her, feisty fd and she was saying something similar where just, you know, it's almost like there's something where maybe men are a bit more able to blag the language and there's something about finance is a language and the more confidence you get in it, it's like going to another country and you speak it fluently. But she felt that that's what she was kind of doing with a lot of female owned businesses and just empowering them to understand the langu finance similar to what you're saying. Just it's a confidence thing. And also I don't come from a finance background either, so I get it, you know, like there's lots of terms out there that you can be speaking to and feel like, oh, am I stupid? I don't know why this doesn't make sense to me or what's the balance sheet balancing or what's the trial balance do or all the language, it's just, it's kind of, it makes sense but it's just putting it together in a way that I think once you have that ah, confidence to come to the table. Yeah, I can see it makes a huge difference.

Speaker A: You're so right. It is about confidence. I said this to Zoe that we talked about the seat frog thing and I got myself a first class ticket and I upgraded, it was 27 quid, right? It's not hundreds of thousands of pounds. It was 27 quid to get my upgrade. And I was the only female passenger in the first two carriages of first class. And I said to Zoe, I'm sorry that this is like, we don't feel like we deserve a seat at the table. I said it to my friends, even in my friendship group. I was like, oh, here I am with my little Rogan, Josh Curry and a glass a drink. And, you know, I'm on first and they say, you're so bougie. I'm like, it was 27 pound, girls. It's there for you as well. But why do we not see it? And that is a female thing. I'm, um, not blaming Guy. This is an internal thing. We don't think we can sit and have a conversation with a business owner because we believe they are somehow better than us. Us. We shouldn't be talking to people in asking them about their finances, because who do we think we are? That's what is internally going on and that's what we're trying to solve. So I think bookkeepers may not have every answer to every financial question out there. And. But, uh, if they were to just start asking questions and holding the business owners accountable to what they wanted. It's not your job to do the sales campaigns and, uh, launch the next product. You just never say, how many are you thinking of selling? Okay, we'll come back next week and see how you're doing. That's a confidence thing, it's not a knowledge thing.

Speaker B: Yes. The stuff that's, you know, I'm learning. Do you feel like something Laura said as well, which was often men and women have different attitudes to risk. She notices when she's working with female businesses. So there's just almost like. I don't know why that is, but says she's noticed the stereotype, but that tends to be. Do you mean. Have you seen that as well?

Speaker A: 100%. I've had three children and I remember a time that my dad said to me, come up to London. I've got this event going on. And I was like, I can't get on a train. I'm feeding a baby. Like, nature is like, if I go, I'm literally. It's like, I've removed the fridge from my house. How is my baby gonna eat? That is what's going on maternally with us. And so then when, like, Zoe's here today, but we came up a day late because it was sports day on, and she's like it's a non negotiable. I'm not, not leaving. Our hormones are different and our body is being run on a completely different system. And it doesn't mean it's good or bad risk. You know, even between me and Zoe, Zoe's more risk averse than I am. Everybody's different and it's all okay. And it all has like, having an empathetic finance director who understands the family situation and wants you to like, be there. So let's build a business that means that you could be more, that's a great asset. But also having someone that's like, let's take a risk and see what happens, that's great. So, you know, I think we need. I don't think there's right or wrong. I just think I wish that women didn't see what they have as a negative and um, reduce their confidence about it. I think they should go into it and be more. It's funny actually talk about this. I had a coach once and when I started, like to build the business, I kept doing things and feeling like stepping into my masculine energy rather than feeling that I could. So there was one opportunity. I was asked to speak at the icb and I remember I bought like a waistcoat and trousers and I was, yeah, I'm gonna kill it on stage. And she said, why did you choose to wear that? And I was like, that's really interesting. I don't know. And then she was like, what would happen if you step more into your feminine. What would happen? And like, oh, I don't know. And I think me and Zoe have been experimenting. I'm trying, like, because it is something you just grown up with. You see, women with money and power in the Disney films are the evil stepmothers. That's what we've been brought, uh, up with. So you don't see the nice fairy princesses, they're scrubbing the floors. So I think this is like undoing years of Disney trauma and trying to think that we can. I'm not saying we can have it all, but I'm saying we don't have to to become something. And actually what we do have is actually really valuable to another business owner. They can get their like, risk energy from someone else and that's fine.

Speaker B: I think that makes so much sense. I'm sure, like you say that this is going to impact just the confidence of people to be empowered in like, yeah. Realizing that everybody can have a helpful voice. And whether it's in just highlighting something in the numbers or Noticing saying yeah, this is what I notice when I look at your business and you might get a different perspective from somebody else. But actually yeah, who's to say that it's only to come from one person?

Speaker A: Absolutely. I think and this is the beauty of the mid sized business that doesn't need to have an in house full time person. Actually I think this is a beautiful place to be where you can pull on different M people for part time resource that working with other businesses as well because they're bringing to you a knowledge of having conversations with other business owners. So I don't think it needs to be that you need this full time in house team before you can start thinking about having a finance director. Like this is the beauty of having subcontracted expertise in your business.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And um, I guess in terms of where do you see there's been a bit of chat about bookkeeping becoming automated out through AI and I think there's already some. When there's some tools on the market like is it Genesis or I don't know if you've seen that one. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker A: As a bookkeeper that does her own bookkeeping with software and using automation, I'm still needed to have the view and the understanding and I think our role will change of course, but for the positive. Do you remember when the computer came in, people used to think like they won't need our brains anymore, we just need to adapt. I love the saying that AI is not going to take your job but a bookkeeper using AI will. So I'm hoping that it will make people have more flexible, profitable businesses but they need to embrace it and think okay, where is this going to add value? What areas of my business can I automate and streamline and make a better client experience? I think if you're focusing always on the outcomes of the client but if you want to hide away and you have been spending your time writing out in a ledger book, that job's gone, it's not going to be there anymore. Also we've got to remember we've got this big gap between AI automation and streamlining everything. And then we have HMRC that we have to go on the phone to and have a conversation and unpick um, things there. There's such a range and our clients are uh, they need support. I had someone that was like oh my goodness, I've been sent a check. How am I going to deal with this? So there was still people. I mean I think think we did a thing that there's only like 40% of people have bank feeds connected and there's still such a massive way to go. Uh, there was a conversation at the Xero stand accountex and this person came over and said, can Xero help me? I've got 500 VAT return clients. They're all on spreadsheet. I think we are in an echo chamber, Colin. And we believe that the robots are coming but there are a lot of people that haven't realized that cloud accounting's here. And I think we'll just keep. There'll mostly be just a bigger and bigger and bigger gap between those people. And then there'll be the people that think, well if this is so easy, I'll do it myself. And then realise that actually they're not set up to do MTD quarterly returns and final submissions themselves. And then they'll get massive. I had it with a client of mine the other day. He accidentally thought he was due like 28 grand. He was an ex client of mine, he'd uh, never had that working with me. Funny enough he thought he was quids in. Joe was doing it all wrong. I need to pay this money back. I'm like, yeah. And he was like, it's all right, I'm not asking you to do it. I was like, well, I'm not doing it anyway. But I did think it was a lot easier than what it is.

Speaker B: I totally agree. I think we always say it's like the advent of the washing machine. It didn't mean that. We certainly just hanging out, going on holiday now that uh, something's doing our laundry for us. It's like hopefully bank rec becomes easier and easier. But I think you're right. Just the ability then to jump into the next thing, have a look at your cash flow or here's a management report and actually get into some of those more. Let me connect you with this other person that I work with who's an incredible fractional CFO for this, for fundraising or for modeling like a three year plan.

Speaker A: You said exactly that, Colin. See bookkeepers stepping into the massive gap that's being missed by bank managers. They've gone and there's no one filled that gap. We love people. We're listening, we are understanding, we want to help. Help. We'll just become those amazing business advocates and like connect people with other people. Say this person can help you. That's how I think our role will evolve. But by looking at the numbers, we'll see what they need and then holding them accountable because you know, I don't know, people are still in therapy, people are still having need coaches and accountability all the time. We can do that because we have the right skill set for that.

Speaker B: We're living in a different age now with people like yourself, like being able to build software companies without any external financing. You know, that whenever we started, it was all about, you know, where you're raising your angel round and then your seed round and then your venture capital. And it was very much like, you can't even compete unless you have external funding. Whereas now so many businesses are able to get off the ground without. And they're not even thinking. They're thinking more like you guys, which is like, let's bootstrap this and do it with less people because we've got more resources available to us. So I think that's a big change. But the opportunity, opportunity to save businesses money. Look where you're paying extra for subscriptions or look what you could be getting if you moved into this bank account. You could be getting 4% interest on this money and, uh, that's worth a huge amount. Or repaying a loan early. Or there's just so many ways that somebody can come in with a sort of different perspective and add a huge amount of value.

Speaker A: Absolutely. It's a bit like that gap that we have, like, uh, when we leave school and we don't have that financial education. And then you have to learn along the way by going to a mortgage broker and find out about, you know, life insurance and things like that. A bookkeeper can really help with that. Financial education for business. I think we underestimate the knowledge we have and we assume everyone has that knowledge. But I know by speaking with business owners, the conversation I heard about Richard Branson not understanding the difference between gross and net after he was a billionaire. I just wish someone would explain. It's kind of given me permission to say I can have this conversation more openly. And actually when you do, people love it it. And if they know it, they're like, oh, yeah, I get that. But they don't think, oh, my goodness, you're so condescending. Oh, yeah, I know that. Let's carry on.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's an exciting time and I think so. Maybe final question. Um, we get a lot of fractional CFOs that come to us and if they are looking, if they're listening to this and going, like, I wish I had a bookkeeper. We go into businesses and the bookkeeper has been there for a long time and they're not tech savvy, they're doing things a certain way and I can't get them to kind of move into this new world. If people are looking for bookkeepers, where would you point them? Do you point them to six figure bookkeeper community or is there other place? Because there's a bit of a shortage. I've heard of bookkeepers at the moment.

Speaker A: No, there's not a shortage. There's a lack of good working opportunities but for like subcontracted bookkeepers. So on our website we have a uh, section for Find a Bookkeeper and we have a group called Find a Bookkeeper UK as well. But on our website you can find some of our listed bookkeepers and I think it's a case of realising what it is that you want to achieve and being really clear. What we speak to bookkeepers about is like knowing what software you want to work with, knowing where you want to take the records to. Some of our bookkeepers just get to bank rec and stop and don't do any of the months end stuff. M that might work for someone that's fractional cfo because they might be like oh okay, I want to do all those adjustments. I don't want you touching that. Having that open conversation and like really setting out those where a job starts and where a job finishes. I think this is, I see it in like networking communities where they might have have a bookkeeper and an accountant and a management accountant all in the same room is about okay, where do you sit? What do you do? Because actually all of you could do everything most probably to like a good degree of accuracy and get by where does your job finish and someone else's start. But I think if bookkeeping, the detail, the repetitiveness is not for you as a fractional cfo, like it wasn't for me. I've done a couple of decades of doing that. I wanted to get move out then find someone that's going to do it for you but then maybe come up with the list together. Like what is this month end checklist? What am uh, I expecting? What, where am I passing on the baton? What's the aim of the game? And then if you have someone in the team that's not doing that, then that's down to the CFO to go and speak to the business owner and say what are your goals? I need to be reporting on those goals and helping you with some KPIs. It's not going to work in this way. They're another way of doing this. But they don't know what they don't know they're not trying to cause you more mayhem, they just don't realize there's another way.

Speaker B: Great. Great points. Thanks so much. It's been so great to chat and really wish you all the best with heymonica and all the things that you're doing to empower that whole next generation is really, really exciting. So thank you.

Speaker A: Thank you, Colin. It's been lovely to catch up again and I, uh, can't wait to see what you do with Float next.

Speaker B: Thanks Joe, thanks for tuning in to another episode of the New F Word. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember, expert financial advice shouldn't be limited to those with just big budgets. You can access the same level of advice for a fraction of the costs thanks to this fractional revolution. I believe that every growing business needs to know how much a game changer this can be. So if you loved the episode, please consider subscribing to the show. It'll help us keep doing what we're passionate about. And feel free to share this episode with others who might find it useful. Finally, we'd love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn. See you in the next one.