More Than 'Just an Accountant' ft. Lauren Harvey

Speaker A: Hey everyone. Welcome to the new F Word podcast. It's great to have Lauren Harvey from Fullstop on today. Lauren and I have been connected for years now, it feels like. So it's great to get her on. We have followed her journey and I'm sure you're going to love her story and we're going to get into some of how that journey came to be and things that she's learned along the way. So, Lauren, welcome. It's great to have you. And um, yeah, looking forward to getting into it.

Speaker B: Always great to chat. Colin. Yeah, I know, um, anybody who may have heard us speak before or not would know that we're longtime partners afloat and yeah, great to always share what you guys have been up to. And this new podcast is a great way of going forward with that.

Speaker A: Why don't we just jump in? Tell us about. You've kind of been in and around the world of cloud accounting. Like you've been very involved in Xero. You've done a lot in, in the last five years in this space. You've been up for awards. You know, you've definitely done something quite different. It'd just be great to hear, like, what's been your approach? How did you end up here? What were you doing? I think you said earlier to me, 14 years ago, like, what was the kind of situation that brought you to this point?

Speaker B: Yeah, for those who don't know me, I never started out to be an accountant. I did a level business studies at school, loved business. Never realized that accountancy was part of how to help businesses. Fast forward. My degree, which wasn't in accounting, it was in artificial intelligence. I worked for Peugeot Motor Company and um, installed systems for them. And it became, I was like, I'll do any system integration apart from the finance ones because I don't have A level maths and I don't really do maths. And then, and then I got, got involved in the finance and the accounting with all these dealerships across the country and realized actually that's that business love that. I'd had, uh, at A level business studies and I still to this day really think that if you can get accounting information in its right form, it's the language of helping businesses be successful. So beyond that, then I studied. I, uh, trained to be a chartered management accountant with the Crown Estate and I was the estate accountant for Windsor Great Park. So that was super interesting. Starting to run sort of semi different businesses together. I then qualified and moved into pharma and set up European operations for an American pharma company which was super interesting all around Europe and with all those different backgrounds, I was like, I can do this. I can take my knowledge from one industry and my finance knowledge and my accountant knowledge and help those other businesses. Me and my husband also were looking to um, relocate and it allowed us, it was the birth of cloud accounting. So it allowed us to set up and have clients around the country and start to look to before at the beginning was very much provide fractional services that even though the word didn't really exist then to a uh, variety of businesses who couldn't afford that full, especially for SMEs and still to this day who can't afford that full time or even truly fractional piece. But what services can you provide, still give them insight as a, as a management accountant. The thing that astound, you know, shocked me the most when I started to have these conversations and this hasn't changed particularly as much as I would have hoped it would have over that period is the amount of people who still only know their position financially for submission to hmrc, the tax authorities here in the uk. So uh, that is pretty much the time between then and now has been rolling with the punches of the adoption or the lack of adoption of the cloud and how our partners themselves have had to use their resources to go with that. I'm um, particularly at the end that edge of the industry that would love to see more adoption so that as alongside our tech partners can move faster. There's never been a dull moment really. You know, we went through Covid together, Colin, you know, both floats and Full Stop during COVID started to provide more fractional services in terms of the cash flow support that you guys um, with your team and our team did every, we did Cash Flow Fridays together and really that was the start of us going from we would allow compliance as an entry point into working with Full Stop up until the pandemic post that we lead with a base advisory position to start off with and that these are SMEs. So you know the word on the street, and I've heard it even in some of the people you've had on with these podcasts, is that you can't provide a true and fractional service to micro businesses. That's something that we're working really hard to see what we can do around that space.

Speaker A: Yeah. Do you think like, is there just an element of people just they're just looking and they come in looking for give me the minimum package. I just want to spend the least amount of money. I'm not interested in finances. I just want to get my taxes done instead of jail. You know, what's your. What's the best price you can give me? Do you get. You still get a lot of that or are people more curious you still,

Speaker B: you still get that? I mean we've, we've written brochures and our website, you, uh, know. But also it's not, it's beyond website these days, isn't it? It's all these other things that you put out and uh, us giving this. A lot of people still don't know that you can get that from your outsourced accountant. You know, I think the fractional world is doing a great job about us. For more whether accountants, you know, there's this jump from accountants to fractional people. I think accountants, we need to do a better job at getting that word across of what we can do. So back to your question. Do people come still asking for base price? I think it had particularly on compliance and certain end of. Because there's this muddied line. People do come and still buy on price for sure. Especially at the moment with cost of living crisis and all the rest of it. And I think particularly when the word I was actually holding on to when you were asking that question was trust, it's really hard to go, yeah, I want you to be that fractional person for me and all that, uh, that entails when I don't know you. And therefore there's no trust. So I think the interesting with our move from compliance entry to advisory entry over the last few years, it's actually really. It's harder to build that pipeline of people because in the past when we've go to an advisory cell, they have known us. So they're like, yeah, that was really good. We get that. So, uh, that's, you know, that's certainly something we're looking at at the moment and is. And as an industry, you know, I'm speaking for myself as well. Like I'm not a marketing. I'm um, not amazing at marketing. It's not been my strong point. You know, it's all those different hats you have to wear in business and I especially at the edge when you're trying to evolve something that isn't particularly well known. I wouldn't even say it's marketing. What we've just now started to call it is community. It's building up that community better, uh, to build that trust.

Speaker A: I think the, the thing about marketing is often, you know, it's the same with Sales like it gets a bad rap sometimes and it feels like it's just pushing yourself onto people that don't want to know. And actually, you know, I'm trying to reframe it in my head is like, like you say, marketing is just building trust. And it is, it's about finding ways to consistently tell your message in a way that is heard above the noise. And it is like, it is hard, but I think you guys have done a good job of that in terms of, you know, there is something about Full Stop as a brand that seems different. You know, like the shop front and the, the way you've done the office and it just, you know, and what you've done and how you've been vocal, it, it does, you know, it is kind of different. It does punch above the noise I

Speaker B: think as well if, you know. And uh, sometimes our quiet periods or when everyone has those quiet periods is because we all, what we do put out, when we put out, we try for it always to be authentic as well. Back to the community piece, rather the marketing piece then. And um, particularly around this fractional word and the F word piece, you know, there's education and community building that needs to still happen around how accountants can help there for sure.

Speaker A: You know, I, I don't want to, I'm not going to name any names, but we put out. My, my wife is actually a bookkeeper. Um, we put out a quote or we asked a firm just to get some ideas of like what it would cost to just do the end of year. We weren't looking for any kind of advisory at that point. And we basically got back from, you know, somebody who was in a company that is out there as a decent firm or you know, they've won awards, et cetera. And they came back with a proposal which was using proposal software. And I just thought this is actually really bad. Like it, uh, just, just because you sent me a proposal in piece of software that you know, sends a PDF and says all the things that you're going to do contractually. There's no, there's no sense of like why you, what makes you. That was coming out from this proposal. And I think it's just like, it's amazing how many people I presume, don't understand that you still got to build like in the beginning. There's no sense of why, why should we do this? Even some of the services, like the names against the different things like the line items, doesn't make any sense. And why do we have to do that? Why is this, you know, I think

Speaker B: there's a few things here, isn't there? You know back to us being us buying services as ah, selling services. I think it's, we're living in this time, you know, don't want to put the AI word out there again. I feel like I'm playing the AI bingo thing already. But we have to remember when we're selling a human service and when we're selling a tech enabled service or when we're selling a tech service and um, you know that that proposal piece really is the initial trust builder, isn't it? John Gaunt is just about to launch or is launching his new software around proposals and all the rest of it. I'm already firmly in bed with Ignition because we get all our uh, payments taken from them. But whatever, whatever camp you're in, it's just always not over using uh, tech to its best of its purpose, making sure it's fit for purpose and knowing where you need to remain human on top of that. And I think as accountants, not to talk bad of our kind as well but I think sometimes when we go and buy a piece of software we expect it to be out of the box. You know it provides sort of the whole workflow and the whole process around but really that comes back to your stamp on your service. I've spent so much time over the last couple of years defining our full stop processes and that's everything that goes on top to make it fit for purpose for our clients and balancing that human aspect with the cost effective aspect of SMEs not paying a full fractional fee.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know it's funny because one of the things, you know I still have an agency so I knew a little bit about what it feels like to be in that world when you have somebody coming to you as a client and you're thinking like are we going to take them on and send the proposal? And you know our proposals were probably could have been a lot better and it's always this sense of you know, you could be doing more. But I recently got one from an agency and the proposal came with a video in loom and it was just the person talking it through and like you know so I could, I had the PDF but I could also just see it on the screen. He was talking through it why we're doing this, this is the option, this is what we think about this. You know, probably took him 10 minutes to do that presentation record toward that. But it was so helpful just because you know it's so Easy just to kind of get the proposal and skip down to the price. And then, you know, the rest of it just feels like templated bump that you just add in for the sake of it, which.

Speaker B: Which it clearly did to you on that one. You got through. Right. And, and I think, you know, there's a, There's a thing here about the whole taking that lesson from that and applying it to the fractional world that we're talking about as well. You know, the team here. Uh, sometimes it's really hard to get hold of a client. Things happen, especially in SMEs, and either to talk through what's changed on their report this month or in the piece where we're trying to finalize books and there's some loose ends that don't quite make sense. Video has been brilliant for that, you know, in the past. We'd be like, oh, well, let's, let's reschedule or whatever. And actually, it's back to using, thinking out. It's not even thinking outside the box, is it? Because it exists, but it's just drawing all those strands together for a better client. Ah, experience.

Speaker A: Yeah. I love it. And I love how, you know, that's sort of taking on this principle of asynchronous communication where it's like, I don't need to jump on a zoom call. I don't want to jump on a zoom call with everybody every time. But it's actually, I'm starting to do this more my friends, where instead of just sending them a text, I'll record a voice message. It's like a stream of consciousness. And sometimes I'm getting some back that are, you know, five, 10 minutes long. But I'll put it on when I'm in the car or when I'm, um, at the gym. And it's really nice to just listen to another person's, like, voice. It's a different way of doing communication. But I wouldn't schedule a phone call in the same. At the same. In the same way, like, that feels like a bigger deal. So I think there's ways to sort of take those things that are changing in our society and bring that into how we relate to, you know, our clients. And, you know, just getting a voicemail saying, or, you know, a message in WhatsApp saying, hey, just gone over your, your accounts or a loom video. Here's a few things I just wanted to draw your attention to. You know, let me know if there's anything concerning and, you know, jump back in.

Speaker B: Yeah. And. And I Think I try, you know, we try not to work all evenings and if anything, you know, I think actually we have to be good. You have to remember where to draw the line. Because if anything, over the last few years, particularly Covid times, you know, some of the times me and you were jumping on things, it was crazy hours that we were working, trying to keep these things going. And I hope that as people we're getting better at that, getting that balance a bit better than we've had it. But on the same hand, people, for whatever reason sometimes do have to work crazy hours and particularly if they're busy running their SMEs that we're dealing with accounts for them still, they know it. The people we're lucky enough to work with, they know it's important, but they often still don't do it in the usual business hours. I, uh, don't think that's new. I think that's, that's something that businesses have done, but hopefully in the way we're working with our clients now, it not that horrible bashing away at spreadsheets, reconciling in Xero type thing. It's actually proactively looking, listening to a video and hearing insights of what can be better for next month.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I've got a couple of questions. So obviously in terms of fractional, this move to fractional ah, work and there's becoming more sort of fractional CFOs and fractional FDs, they're popping up. And sometimes accounting firms get a bit annoyed about. Certainly if I'm posting something saying there's a big difference in an accountant and a fractional cfo and we've seen the difference of that in our own business. What does that annoy you? Does that feel like, are you thinking kind of, how are you thinking about it? Starting from. I would say you've always had that kind of advisory like bent, uh, and you wanted to do that as kind of primary thing. But does it feel like are you sort of shifting more towards that or are you separating them out? Or does it just feel like it's a whole package and you can't really separate them?

Speaker B: Uh, bearing in mind this is where I started, I've never worked in a practice. I know how to run a finance department or a fractional finance department way better than being that external person. So if anything, I've always struggled with the externality, if that even is a word of accountancy and how disjointed it is. But in a world that I entered, that's what practice Accounting was known as. So people used to come to us and want that service and I was building the book so quite openly we would take that on and it was, but it was really hard not to do that application of the numbers and just try and stop. And I think for there's a bubble of us, which I often call the zero bubble that I think probably for that reason have potentially over serviced, not communicated all the value that we've bought and therefore it's not as well known that there are people delivering this as accountants and I think, yeah, as accountants for fractional finance managers. Fractional FDs, I just like the fractional word at the moment. Um, fractional finance department. I think, you know, accountants are doing more now due to the tech availability and all the rest of it. But I think it comes back to, to communicating, as you said in that proposal, not the line items of what we're doing, but what actually, because some people, these people we do it with, selling this to, often don't know what's involved in a finance department. They didn't get into business to run a finance department or to look at a proposal for a finance department. They want to know what you're going to the end like with anything you're buying. You really want to know what, how it's going to help them rather than that they're buying all these line items, arguably. And you know, so no, I think I, I And back to answer your true question of is it frustrating? I think, I think we've actually got to take it on the chin personally and be like, look, these people have come out of a need that's there, that's what when people come up with business ideas, we have to remember it's often because of that and the more noise there is around this and that this is possible. It was the same with cloud accounting. You know, it was really hard back in the day to show all these things that you could do and try and con. You know, there was a lot of convincing I had to do with people in the early days about having accounts in the cloud. But the more people who got on that bandwagon, the easier it became to get that story out and build that community of trust around it.

Speaker A: I think it's like the challenge that I see for the profession is, you know, it's, it's kind of like so many people have spoken to me since I've started writing more about, you know, how you can build a proper finance department in your, you know, like a team. So you're starting with a Good bookkeeper. Then you're having, you know, somebody who's maybe doing finance ops to sort of make sure everything's tidy and, like, your tech's all working together. And then you've got an accountant doing your taxes and you've got to finance. And ideally, you've got somebody who's taking that fractional finance director hat or fractional CFO hat on. So there's like almost four roles and, uh, maybe. Maybe even more as you get bigger. But sometimes the challenge is that if you've been used to having. If you've had an accountant who just is unlike, I. I imagine it's not unfair to say 90% of firms out there are reactionary, so they're not. You're not going to hear from them unless you go out, go to them with a problem, like, we're thinking of doing this, or, hey, got a question for you on that. Like, they're not coming to you saying, hey, how's it going? What can we do? You know, notice this in your numbers. Like, that's not really the traditional service. And so many people feel like the economy was the first person we hired and we thought they would, like, help us with our numbers. And actually all they're doing is our taxes at the end of the year. So then, you know, they're sort of thinking, well, what's. Is it just, I'm making bad choices with accountants and there's some really good ones out there, or is it just, oh, I think I've been expecting them to do something that they're not really set up to do from a. From a model point of business, model point of view. So that's the thing where I can see, like, you just. You get lumped in with the same brush. And actually, you know, another analogy might be you've got, you know, you're used to NHS dental and, you know, our dentist is just forcing everybody to move to private. So I think it'll be a totally different service. Like, right now, Ardennes is not phoning us up saying, hey, it's time for your appointment. You know, it's like, good luck if you can get one and a year in advance on the nhs, but when we go private with them, it'll be, you know, two appointments a year and X service and Y service, and it's a very different off, but it's going to cost more. So, like, do you know what I mean? Does that resonate?

Speaker B: Yeah. 100. I think it's. There's a bit of chicken and egg here. Uh, there's the wider, uh, education piece to know that the right accountant can do these things. So in our monthly service of what we provide as our base service over the course of the year, some of these repeat monthly, quarterly, annually, but there's 14 different processes and they've got thousands of tasks underneath them. It's really complicated when you try, as you say, when you're trying to do all these different things, people just assume the word accountant and think it is all encompassing. But because they don't know this world, they don't know what all encompassing is. If you really want to do an all rounded finance department service for businesses, there's a lot involved and I think that's what we've got to do. Better to get across that actually people want to sleep soundly at night. They often come to you or accountants in general as a distressed purchase because they've been let down, as you've been saying, that these expectations on some level haven't been met. And uh, I think what I've come down to, it's not through anyone's side doing it right or wrong. I think it's sheer overwhelm of what it can encompass just from the number of taxes. You know, even when somebody goes from a sole trader to a limited company, you're going from one tax arguably to four taxes overnight. We've just had that with somebody recently and she was like, oh, my finances used to be easy. I was coming to you to do the. And I'm like, but we can't solve it. You know, you've got this added layer of complexity before you can even start getting to the niceness. And I think it's even when you look at people's tech maps or process maps, they can be huge, like massive. And you lose people, you lose people with finance things as well, don't you? I, uh, like I, uh, joke with some of our clients, even our most engaged clients, there's so much you need to try and get through to them in your time together. And you know, 30 minutes, if you're lucky, they could start to glaze over and you're like, just bear with me. We've got to get through these items to get to the Gucci because you've got to sleep soundly and have that space and know everything's taken care of before you can start doing the good stuff with the numbers.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and yeah, the good stuff is it is, can be really interesting. Like, you know, like, let's work on X, Y, Z to increase profits or to you Know increase cash or whatever it is. Yeah, on that. Lauren, I saw something today on LinkedIn actually somebody posted this thing and it kind of annoyed me a little bit. The uh post was like cash is a lag. Cash M flow is a lag metric. Maybe the most lagging metric I think it said. And I was like yeah, I kind of see where you're getting at. Obviously the cash is, it's not gonna, it's not a, certainly not a lead metric. But actually for me I was thinking well but the forecast, it is a useful, you know that, that, that for me that's the thing that I can see into the future. So it's not really a metric. I mean it's, it's interesting.

Speaker B: It's really, it's really hard because it joins up uh, around the back. Playing with my analogy there. So what, oh what the team and all use of float right is we call it the red flag. It's almost like when people are using float daily it's like they're in red flag zone which is they're probably fighting for their life a bit much. Whether that's inflicted or non inflicted. Those people who uh, it's become their lifeline, right? Where float there's, there's using float or cash flow management as a lifeline versus using it as a first case barometer. And I think me and you have touched on this before. So we have a couple uh, and we could always do better but we have clients who are in special measures who are in float every day. That in itself is useful but it's not the way out of whatever situation they find themselves in. There's also just through my love of floating cash flow management if I'm playing around with an initial idea and I don't want to go into full on budgeting mode or three way forecast or whatever. I've mentioned this I'm sure to you before I will go into float and play it out in a scenario and that maybe because I'm a numbers person that is almost like my first sounding board whether I'm going to go with that idea or not. Am I prepared to take that financial risk by add in that cost or reduction of client or whatever into play. And so that's what I mean by the meeting around the back. It's almost the last thing you want, you know that red flag, those measurements, you know the red flag measures that we call them versus the first thing that you look at. And I think that comes back to enabling the tech to do the stuff a lot of people I know in the past are like, well, I would never do what you're on about, Lauren, with the scenario plan in there, because it would take me too long to set the scenario up and all the rest of it. And that is what I love about the way we've got Float working for Full Stop is that I constantly have it refreshing. I love it sort of projecting out, uh, to the end of time, which I know isn't what it's intended for, but I can then see the negative or positive improvement by the tweaking those little bits. And to me, that's what business often is when you're working in an area like us. It's the tweaking of things.

Speaker A: We find. It's almost like we're in this kind of weird mix of, you know, what is it? Is it. Direct forecasting is indirect forecasting. You know, it's obviously this. It feels like it's kind of a blend. Because our goal ultimately with float is to help people understand, like, what's my cast position today? What is it tomorrow? What is the end of the month? You know, end of two or three months. Realistically, when you're kind of getting. You're starting to get into sort of projection like. And guesswork. But there's still use, like you say, of seeing out, you know, taking that and not just having to jump into a different package to see the next. The next two years if things continued the way we were going. So it is. It's kind of like, I think. But then it's. Some people would see that as a totally different thing, like fpa. And it's like, you know, like you said, it takes a long time to do and it's a big piece of work. But actually when you're running it on an everyday basis, like, you can actually see the impact of the short term and the long term at the same time.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know that. That enhanced. I know this isn't about float, but that enhancement M that you guys have had recently about putting out numbers till the end of time, that is great. You know, we know it's not right what cash flow man, you know, and I'm. What we say with our clients now is that float helps us with cash flow management. It's that bit that often people don't get round to. So it isn't the management of cash in. In the first instance is what we try and get most clients to do and that they'll always be. I would say in all our clients, there's always some sort of sticky point where float is that, or cash flow management is that comfort blanket for that period of time, that bit that gets them over that hump. But once you've gone through the beauty of setting that, then it's there. You've got that process in place, and it's there behind the scenes. Going forward.

Speaker A: For us, it's interesting because we kind of went through this real. This is. I'm not trying to make this about us, but, you know, we went through this process of realizing that we're not actually going to sell very well to. We can't sell to accountants. We can't educate people who, um, are, you know, when they've got a certain. They're not doing something. If you don't have a problem, it's really hard to educate the market. You know, like you say you get people coming to you when their. Their hair's on fire, when they're like, in distress. You know, we are not getting a lot of accountants coming to us with their hair on fire going, I have to do a cash flow for my client because they're just not. It's not something they. They get involved in. And on, uh, like I'd say again, I'm speaking of the 90%, not the 10 in.

Speaker B: This is the times we live in. Collie. Like, what we've touched, um, on today is that we haven't traditionally, I say, as accountants, had to do that, but it's looking either outside the box or on the peripheries of what you're currently doing and going, where am I listening? Do I want to listen to what my client's issue really is and how I can help them with that time? And back to your proposal thing. I think sometimes we've moved as an industry a lot from m, you know, hourly billing, monthly billing, uh, sorry, hourly billing to a fee per month. You know, there's been all that sort of change over the last few years, but is it still fit for the words the world's changed again, and is it still fit for purpose going forward in the sorts of relationships that we need to have in, uh, this changing times, asking honest questions, Is it what we want to do? You know, for sure, compliance isn't dead, but is it the best experience? And are you about delivering client experience for whoever your target client is?

Speaker A: Uh, on that, I'm just curious. Like, you know, as a software, one of the things we move, when we move from agency into software, we realize, like, we have to build relationships with our customers and we have to ask questions. So, you know, that's why, you know, we've, we've tried to build, like, relationships where we. We go out and say, tell us if this is terrible, like, what are you trying to do? Why is this useful? You know, we've. We've had a lot to learn. Like, the biggest mistake I made with Float at the beginning was trying to, like, believing that all our customers would be like me and they'd want to do. They'd all be doing cash flow forecasting every day and then going, oh, people just literally don't. Don't do this. So, like, how do you bring that learning into full stop? How do you. Like, uh, I. I know you have some sort of intuition based on your experience in the past, but do you sit down with customers? Do you send out surveys? Like, how do you get that learning into your business? About, like, are we. Is what we're doing working for you?

Speaker B: I think we could do better. You know, like, if we were, as you say, we've been lucky enough to win some awards over the last few years, but I know certain other awards, uh, built on asking for and, you know, more constant client surveys and all the rest of it, and that's an area we could do better. Um, and I think it's not through me being lazy or not wanting to do it. I just always really want to do it in a meaningful way. You know, these people's time is really. They're time poor and, um, they don't like their finances. It's not what. Mostly they don't get into business to do this. They got into business to do whatever they were wanting to do. So adding to. They're adding to their list, if you like, of things to do by saying, okay, tell us what you love and what you don't love about us and your finances feels like it's sort of poking a bear a bit. So I'm still really trying to find the right way to get that. And I think our, uh, way at the moment has been. And, you know, as I mentioned, those Cash Flow Fridays that we. We've done together since or we were doing in Pandemic is back to what you were saying about those messages. Having real conversations and building that into our service is, rightly or wrongly, it's probably not the most efficient, but it's definitely the most human. And it's making sure as a team that we're all always up in our communication skills and taking on board what's happening.

Speaker A: No, it's tough. And I think, again, I just think, gosh, you know, I think back to. Even when I have my agency. You know, we, uh, at one point we decided to switch accountants once we moved from our agency to the product. And it was just, I remember thinking, you know, we were paying. I knew we were paying, like, we weren't paying very much, but just thinking, if our, if our accountant had come to us and said, hey, you know, how can we do better for you? Would you, you know, we could give you a higher level of service if on charge this price. And this is what, this is what, what you would get for it, and it would be so valuable for you in this way. I think I might have gone for it. But at the end of the day, once you start that, uh, once that diet comes into your head and you just think, well, if they're not asking me there, maybe that they don't really care, so I'm just gonna, you know, and then, you know that the next company is out there going, flashy brochure, you know, here's all the things we can do for you. You know, and now I sort of look at that skeptically and go, yeah, that's never gonna happen. But, you know, it's like a menu of things that you could get if you, if you decide to ask for it at some point, but it's not like going to be offered by default, but that's by the buy. I think the thing is that, you know, it's easy. It's. It's kind of. There's a point in the relationship where you just decide, yeah, I think I'm going to try something different. And if that had, if they'd been asking for feedback that maybe we could have, you know, we would have stayed with them.

Speaker B: And I think that's what's happening in this world of an evolving service as well, is being honest about this is what we're trying to do for the best of our clients and their businesses, having that community, building that trust around it, because that can't happen overnight. And, um, conversation. Yeah. And then it is hard when you then go, how do you price on that? And all these things are, uh, not an exact science as much as a flashy list would try and tell you otherwise. But if you're doing that as your marketing, business development, all the rest of it wrapped into one, then hopefully it's time well spent.

Speaker A: Brilliant. Well, look, well, final question. You know, what's. What's next for you at, uh, full stop, like, where you, where do you see things going? How do you want to, like, what's the dream? Do you feel like it's growing. Do you want to stay where you are? What are you thinking?

Speaker B: These last couple of years for us has been about a period of looking how we resource the team, what the team are doing, how they interact, those conversations, building that in and developing our product around that. So we've been pretty stable over these last couple of years building all those things out. We have some interesting niches that have sort of developed over the last couple of years. As you said, we used to have a shop front so we've been in the commerce space. So we have a certain set of e commerce clients and just like we work with float, we work with um, other apps like A2X and that type of thing. Really developing how, you know, cash flow management with yourselves but also E commerce automation with the likes of them can really add certain things. So there's going to be more of that. We also have another random but arguably relates. There's quite a lot of detail in E commerce accounting and another area that we've got a niche in is where there's also a lot of detail around arts, uh, charity report accounts. And so we've done a few finance departments and they definitely we do fractional work for them and that's a really rewarding piece that we do. So there's more around that but that's less with partners, that's more us uh, doing our own development of how we can bring real benefit there and then core full stop. Which is all really what everyone's seen a full stop today is keep evolving those 14 processes and really try to answer that space of how fractional can you be truly for an SME M M?

Speaker A: That sounds great. And how's your role evolving, Lauren? Do you feel like, are you still like working till midnight every night finishing off accounts or is it, you know, are, you know, I'm m more managing the team or thinking about, you know, the direction of where you're going. Like how do you, how do you see your role evolving? How's it been evolving?

Speaker B: Yeah, so uh, before Christmas I had a bit of a cancer scare. So bad, a bit of a health scare recently and the team have been brilliant. We have team based in the UK and in India and as I say it's really been testing those processes and it's been allowing me to continue to develop some of those other things that we've said providing this fractional service to arts organisations and building the process and the steps, but also actually that higher level service, truly fractional and how that can fit in we've had some of the team off on maternity and seeing how that works. Uh, so we've had some real differences in the team over the last year and it's really. Yeah, it's really exciting to see how my role has been able to evolve and it's needed to evolve over that time. Yeah, I touch wood, I'm gonna jinx it. But like, I, I love what accounts do, but I glad I don't have to prepare them on a day in, day out basis anymore. But what I love is being able to bring that efficiency to it and asking those questions and evolving that process of making sure if we're doing this, how can we make it efficient and effective but also useful. So, yeah, that's luckily how I spend most of my time. And people. People's never is always an issue, is always an interesting one of. Especially when they've got so many demands on their time themselves.

Speaker A: I love it. Well, I think you're doing a fantastic job. You know, it feels, it feels like it's a company that just, you know, like people want to work with people. Right. And I think you've done a great job of being like, being that sort of person that, you know, it's easy to connect with and. Yeah. So the awards are obviously testament to, um, that I'm really looking forward to seeing where Full Stop goes next.

Speaker B: Thanks, Colin. And same to you at Float. Yeah, thanks for, uh, being a great partner.

Speaker A: Thanks, Lauren.