Members of our newly rearranged managerial team took part in an interview with XU magazine all about the future of AccountancyManager. Here’s how it went:

JB – James Byrne – Chair 

JR – James Reilly – Product Lead

KM – Kevin McCallum –  CEO 

XU: We were excited to hear the news of AccountancyManager’s leadership team expanding! The appointment of Kevin McCallum as the new CEO is especially exciting and we’re sure our readers would love to learn more about him. 

JB: It is an exciting time as this appointment demonstrates our commitment to developing the business and our ambition to continue growing.  

XU: Tell us a little about your background – where were you before AM?

KM: I spent the last 11 years at FreeAgent, in the role of Chief Commercial Officer. In that time I was responsible for a number of different aspects of the business including setting up and managing the team supporting accountants using the FreeAgent platform, as well as the relationship with NatWest both sides of their acquisition of FreeAgent in 2018. I first moved into the technology space in 2001 when I joined Pegasus Software having worked in business banking with Bank of Scotland for a few years. 

XU: What experiences do you think will help in your new position as CEO? Continue reading...

You discover a piece of software, excitedly tell your team and clients about it – and within a week everyone’s using it and thanking you for excellent foresight…if only. Find out how AM users have risen to the challenge of digital transformation and won.

You can sell the benefits of using certain technology to your staff and clients until the cows come home. Successful tech adoption ultimately comes down to establishing new daily habits. If you’ve ever tried to get kids to clean their teeth or tried to reduce your coffee intake, you’ll know that’s easier said than done.

Treat tech adoption like its own project

If you leave your team or clients to adopt software into their routine without providing the ‘big picture’, a clear plan and guidance, you’re setting yourself up to fail. Of course, you want to avoid the risk of paying for a software you’re not using. But there are other risks too: people using the software to different degrees, resulting in inconsistent processes. Or finding that the software isn’t actually fit for your purposes and you waste time and money figuring that out. 

If you brief people at a high-level (as you would with a new project), provide any training or support the need to track adoption, you build a clear picture of where and how your software – and adoption – is succeeding and failing. Continue reading...

You might be surprised to hear that accountancy and bookkeeping are well ahead of many other industries in terms of technology adoption. So, as a pioneer of the digital age (yes, you), you’re among the first to experience the benefits – and the barriers – of things like automation. One of the biggest concerns, of course, is technology replacing the personal touch.

James Byrne, AccountancyManager’s CEO, is a big fan of both tech and humans. He is a former accountant and now heads up a software company, so has insight from both worlds.

Once upon a time, a young accountant wanted more billable hours…

In his late teens, James joined his father’s accounting firm. Once he’d taken on a number of his own clients, James became increasingly frustrated with inefficiencies across the business.

Being accountants, we’re always thinking about increasing billable time and reducing non billable time. That’s why I built AccountancyManager.”

“I didn’t have time to do much beyond onboarding, invoicing or dealing with admin. I wanted to expand the firm, have more billable hours and actually talk to clients. And, if at all possible, see my young children too!”

Building AccountancyManager within a busy practice

James recruited the help of a developer, Alex Hawke. “Alex actually sat inside the practice with me. As problems arose, he’d build a solution. It’s probably why we’ve had the success that we’ve had because AM very much works in the way that an accountant would expect it to.” Continue reading...

James Byrne, co-founder and CEO of AccountancyManager, started off as an accountant. He created AM to make his life easier – only to arguably make life more complicated by running a software company. AM has grown to 26 people and over 5,000 active users in four years. So what’s his secret? Spoiler alert, it’s all about people.

James Byrne launched AccountancyManager in 2017 at Accountex. In fact, he and his co-founder Alex Hawke actually took suggestions from the first day of the exhibition and built them overnight. Presenting a new and improved version the next day. This groundbreaking technique of simply listening – and responding – has served James, and AccountancyManager, rather well. 

James shares his tips for running a successful business, from the perspective of a practicing accountant – and half of the brains behind the UK’s most-loved practice management software.

1) Grow your client base with client testimonials 

In the mid-2010s, James was working in a busy firm in the middle of Warwick. Before AM – or either of his young children – were on the horizon. He simply wanted more clients. Little did his colleagues know, their portfolios were about to expand somewhat too. James quadrupled his firm’s client base and turnover in three years. 

Doing it the ‘Google way’

“If I’m looking for anything online, whether it’s a washing machine or a professional service, I always look at the rating on Google,” begins James. “So one of the things I started to do is, every time we sent out an email with the accounts attached, we’d ask for a testimonial.” Continue reading...

Back in February, we boldly announced our 2021 roadmap. Turns out, we had no reason to be nervous. So far this year our development team has smashed out: three big integrations, white-labelling for Client Portals and a few smaller – yet pretty useful – features. 

Every Wednesday at AM we have a company Zoom meeting. Josh, our head of development, spends the first few minutes counting off his ever-expanding team. At 2021’s six-month mark, we take a look at the features Josh, Tom, Mike, Charlie, Ed, Martin, Nav, Luke, Samir and Alex have released so far. 

Shout-outs also go to Rachel and her support team for channeling user feedback and completing quality assurance checks. (All the while keeping the helpdesk’s satisfaction rating firmly between 97-99%.) James – our new Business Analyst and Joshua our full-time QA Test Analyst. And of course, AM users, for their ongoing insights and feature requests. 

SAGE – joining our Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent integrations

We’re pleased to announce that yet another integration between AM and an accounting software powerhouse – is now live. Sage says: ‘Sage Business Cloud Accounting helps accountants manage their clients’ bookkeeping with an intuitive, easy-to-use solution, on the cloud.’ 

Sync client details between Sage and AccountancyManager – in both directions

If you or your client makes a change to their details in their Sage Business Cloud Accounting account, these changes will be reflected in the client’s file and portal on AccountancyManager.  Continue reading...

Last year, we highlighted each of AccountancyManager’s main features in a series of ‘Spotlight’ articles. This year, we hand over the sanitised microphone to the people that use these features, day in, day out. Introducing AM Uncovered, your guide to the best bits of AM, by our users. First up, managing tasks and workflow through your practice.

The Task List in AccountancyManager automatically generates based on your clients’ accounting dates in Companies House. Each person in your team can have their own list and choose to order it however they like. Tasks can be assigned to the right people and you can change the progress status to re-prioritise the task and notify others.

…But these are all features. What about the benefits? How does this impact your working day, week, life? Your business is different – every business is – so we asked AM users from all kinds of practices how AM’s Task List works for them.

This is everything I was looking for, complete automation, fetching data from Companies House, creating jobs automatically…”

– Zia Tahir, Spherical Accountants

Caveat: Look out for even better task management – coming soon

In February we released our 2021 roadmap. One item in particular caught the eye of Harry Walker – owner of Harry Walker Accountancy. “Looking at the future updates on your 2021 roadmap, everything looks absolutely incredible. Being able to break down a task into subtasks is exactly the sort of thing we would like and automation of shared tasks between bookkeepers and accountants so that it tells the accountant ‘you can now start’ – is excellent.”  Continue reading...

AccountancyManager (AM) are pleased to announce yet another integration with an accounting software powerhouse – Sage Business Cloud Accounting.

Who is AM?

AccountancyManager is a multi-award-winning, fully customisable cloud-based practice management software – designed by accountants and used by thousands of accountants, bookkeepers and payroll businesses across the UK. 

What does this integration mean for you?

This integration will allow you to sync client details between AM and Sage Business Cloud Accounting – in both directions. When you update your clients details on Sage Business Cloud Accounting these will automatically be reflected across the client file and portal in AM, and vice versa

Say goodbye to duplicate entry

The biggest benefit of synced client fields is the amount of time you and your team will save, not having to update multiple systems. Just make the change in one software. 

New clients – added automatically

Once you’ve integrated, if you add a brand new client to AM, it will automatically be added to Sage Business Cloud Accounting. If you add your new client to Sage Business Cloud Accounting first, they will appear on your AM integration list and you can create the client in AM from there. 

Giving your clients a great experience is probably one of your highest priorities. So it’s one of ours too. With white labelling, you can make the Client Portal look like part of your website. Your branding, your subdomain, not a glimpse of AccountancyManager in sight.

With AccountancyManager’s GDPR-compliant Client Portal your clients can access all of their documents, details and deadlines, in one place. They can also sign documents and fill in online forms. On the AM side you get a notification when the client changes their details, uploads, downloads or e-signs a document. You can make folders in the portal private, so it works as an internal storage system too. 

Sounds great – and it is – but our users weren’t quite content…

They wanted to steal our portal and fully embed it into their websites, as if they’d built it themselves. No AM branding, no AM in the URL, just erase us from their clients’ journeys entirely.

Ok, we said, no problem.

Make our portal look like part of your website

What is white labelling?

White labelling means a product or service is created by one company – in this case, AccountancyManager – but other companies (yours) can completely rebrand it. The term comes from physical products that have blank labels, for resellers to add their own name instead.

You can already add limited elements of your brand to the portal, such a logo in the top left. This functionality remains on AM free of charge and is called ‘portal branding’.  Continue reading...

We know how it is. You sign up for a trial then – before you know it – your 30 days are up. Cue half an hour of panicked clicking around. Wouldn’t it be good if the software company gave you some guidance around how to get a really good understanding of the system during your trial? We thought so.

Complete five 10-minute missions a week

When you sign up for a trial of AccountancyManager (no billing details necessary), you’ll receive an email each week giving you five things to do in AM. Each action should take about 10 minutes, so you could book in 10 minutes a day, or an hour a week, where you can focus on exploring AM.

Take full advantage of our help and support – and your 1:1 demo

We’ll summarise the actions here, but on your trial you’ll have access to short videos to guide you. There are also clickable walk-through guides built into the system – and our friendly support team at your disposal. If you get stuck with anything give them a call on 01926 355 366.Make sure you book in your free 1:1 demo too, a personalised guided tour where you can ask as many questions as you like.

Week one: Getting started – Adding users and clients

We would skip straight to the fun stuff, but for AM to show you all its bells and whistles, you’ll need to add users and some clients. (Any client data you put into AccountancyManager will stay in your account if you join up after your trial and we’ll delete all data at your request if you decide AM’s not for you.) Continue reading...

On your free trial of AccountancyManager, we recommend trying out every feature. Once you officially join, it’s all about gradually introducing features. We asked AM users how they’ve approached AM adoption.

When you start looking for practice management software, it’s probably because you want a better way to do something. So naturally, when you start using the software, this is where you’ll begin. But hold your horses! 

There are two dangerous routes you and practice could take next. One – trying to implement too much at once and only using the highest-level of each feature. And two – only using AM for those one or two life-saving features that you originally needed. Both these routes lead to the same, unfortunate scenario: AccountancyManager not saving the time it’s supposed to across your business and not providing the value you expect. That being said, we gathered together some advice from users in how to get the best out of Accountancy Manager.

Ease yourself in – don’t try to use everything at once

“Take it step by step,” says Jim Borrill, at DH Tuck & Co. “You don’t have to jump in and use every single feature. See how one feature works and you’ll find the rewards are there when you actually start using it. Then you’ll think, ‘Ok, now we’ll start using this….’ So don’t think, ‘oh I must use everything’, just do a bit at a time. Just dip your toe in.”  Continue reading...