AccountKit’s 2023 Year in Review

As 2023 wraps up, I want to share our rollercoaster of a year at AccountKit. It’s been a mix of hard work, innovation, and a bit of fun along the way.

Growth and Achievements

This year at AccountKit, we focused on growth and pushing our technological boundaries. The journey was challenging but immensely rewarding.

Highlights: 

• 30% Subscription Growth: A significant 30% year-on-year growth in subscriptions.
• Revenue Increase: Achieved a 15% year-on-year growth in revenue.
• Technological Advances: Completed a full UI re-write, released Workflow out of beta, and introduced new DMS functionality, e-sign integrations, a Knowledge Centre, and Multi-office functionality.
• New Clients: We welcomed significant customers, including Grant Thornton, BDO, and RSM Australia.
• Client survey & 1-1 interviews: We engaged our clients to better understand how they’ve been using AccountKit, their favourite features, and how we can better serve their practices. Below are some comments we received from our clients about our Inter-entity Loan Tool.

• Awards and Recognition: We celebrated achievements like the Xero awards and recognition from Practice Protect.
  • Significant growth and recognition in the 2023 Practice Protect Accounting Cloud Apps report.
  • Top 3 Practice App of the Year finalist at the Xero awards.
  • AccountKit was also involved in the Xero Preferred list for Practice Apps (along with cool apps like Dashboard Insights, ChangeGPS, FuseWorks, Syft Analytics, XBert, SuiteFiles, BGL Corporate Solutions, ATOmate , FYI, Aider, and 2Shakes)
  
  
  

Screenshot of the Practice App of the Year finalists (Source: Xero)

A few snaps from the Xero Awards event in Melbourne.

Here are some screenshots from Xero Senior Partnerships Manager, Josie Attard’s “Optimise Practice Efficiency: Xero's Practice App Ecosystem” training.

• Hours Saved on Reconciliations for our Customers: Here’s a breakdown of the total hours saved for users based on AccountKit data.
  • Savings associated with raw work, reduced rework due to less errors and consistent workpapers;  Doesn’t include opportunities from having this information on hand.
  • Inter-entity loan reconciliations: I’d estimated we’ve saved 60,000 hours across 12,000 loans
  • Equipment finance reconciliations: I’d estimate we’ve saved 33,000 hours across 66,000 equipment finance schedules.
  • Division 7a: I’d estimate we’ve saved 18,000 hours across 13,000 schedules.
  • Client Maps: 13,000 hours saved across 15,000 maps.
  • Across all tools, we’d estimate saving our users approximately 152,000 hours or $23 million in raw savings and increased team capacity resulting in better margins and profitability on the teams work.
    
    

Lessons Learned:

• Writing a new UI is hard work, and getting it to work with legacy technology is even harder.
• Despite the years of experience doing development, it still continues to surprise me how long it takes to get anything done.
• Sometimes you just have to slow down and take a breath to polish and refine things. Amidst constant changes, careful usage and attentive listening reveal numerous small yet impactful improvements, the 1%'s, that enhance everyday tasks. Even minor adjustments, like repositioning a button or tweaking its label, can significantly improve the user experience.

Events and Community Engagement

This year was all about strengthening our community ties and exploring new markets. We learned a lot about the evolving nature of events and community engagement.

Highlights: 

• Global Engagement: Participated in Xero Masterclass webinars, Accountex UK, Xero NZ roadshows, Xerocon, FuseSign webinar, and exhibited at Accountex AU.
• Significant Webinar: The Fusesign webinar was particularly successful with 160 attendees.
• Market Insights: Gained valuable insights from interactions with accountants in NZ and the UK.

Lessons Learned:

• Large trade events are essentially dead (there are some exceptions). They’re expensive to participate in, yet numbers are down given the lack of perceived value received for the cost (both time and monetary) required to attend. This outcome is acutely felt by the app partners that pay huge amounts to participate.
• The future of events looks like a well-structured virtual event where accountants are getting true value with practical takeaways that they can put into action immediately. Given the nature of the industry with all the apps, there needs to be a collaboration between app partners, so we don’t just create a pile of noise that creates the same problem that the large trade shows resulted in.
• Love that the accountants we met in NZ and the UK are just as warm and welcoming as those in Australia and suffer the same problems in their practices. 
• There is much we can share globally to help the industry progress to the betterment of our small business customers.
  
  

Team and Culture

2023 was a year of significant team growth and personal reflection. We focused on bringing new talents to the team and prioritised personal growth and family.

Highlights:

• Putting family and marriage first

• This year has been one of reflection and a change of focus to put family and marriage first above all. There is no point in pursuing business through to success only to have lost what you love the most. 
• My highlight was stepping away from both businesses for a couple of weeks to reconnect with my family for the most amazing holiday in Italy. I loved that it had 3 distinct phases - Exploration in Rome, relaxing in the Tuscany hills, and adventures along the Amalfi coast.

Here’s our lovely family enjoying traditional pizza in Italy!

Team Growth and Development: 

• Saying goodbye to some long-time legends:
  • • We said goodbye to our good friends, Little Village Creative, the creative geniuses behind some of our amazing stands and initiatives over the years. (you can see photos of our stands over the years below)
    • We’re also preparing to say goodbye in January to our incredible customer success manager of 7 years, Matt Gaffney. (You can read Matt’s Linkedin post about his decision and next adventure).
      
      
• Welcoming new legends:
  • • We welcomed into the AK family Trent Mclaren and his team at Journey. It’s only early days, but already, we’re seeing some of their magic unfold.
    • Shaye Thyer joined the team as our head of accounting, bringing her years of experience across accounting and SaaS and quickly making herself indispensable to our day-to-day.
    • Ben Barker moved from Queensland out of accounting to join the team looking after all things accounting for our customers - bringing his accounting a-game to demos and relieving any technical accounting queries.
    • Matthew Taylor is our newest addition as our customer success manager, bringing with him many years of experience in the accounting software space. Can’t wait to see how he’s going to reshape how our customers get up to speed and engage with AccountKit over the years to come.
      
      

Lessons: 

• Prioritise Personal Time: Actively schedule regular breaks for family and personal activities to ensure a balanced work-life dynamic (this is a work in progress!).
• Welcome New Team Dynamics: Embrace changes within your team. Recognise departures as opportunities for growth and welcome new members for fresh perspectives and ideas.
• Enhance Team Diversity: Actively seek and integrate diverse skill sets and experiences within your team to boost innovation and problem-solving capabilities.

Final Thoughts 

2023 has been nothing short of extraordinary. I'm grateful for our community's support and excited for the innovations and growth awaiting us in 2024. 

Also worth mentioning here is that we appreciate the camaraderie and support from not just our AccountKit community but also from the other app partners and the broader accounting industry. Love this space!

We're all set to bring more efficiency, delight, and smart solutions to the accounting world.

Here's to another year of fun and efficient high-performance accounting!