AccountKit Case Study: Drive Accountants

Drive Accountants is a fully cloud-based accounting firm on the Gold Coast. Founder Matt Hicks and his team of three staff help small businesses on their growth journey through tax, compliance, management reporting and advisory services.

As a fixed-fee practice, efficiency is a big priority for the Drive Accountants team. The ability to simplify tasks like client correspondence and finance schedules was what initially drew Matt to AccountKit.

“I started the practice straight in Xero Practice Manager and I’m always on the lookout for the latest and greatest tools in the cloud,” Matt says. “When I saw the features AccountKit has, I was like ‘I’m in!’”

After signing up, the first port of call was to do away with the messy paper trail and move client notes to the Correspondence Register.

“XPM lacks the ability to record events for clients,” Matt explains. “So I was going to meetings with a notepad and pen, and then I’d scan the notes into the computer afterwards and never look at them again. AccountKit formalises correspondence and makes it easy to quickly reference the client – and obviously it’s more legible and you can do a spell check.”

Matt and the team have also found the Equipment Finance Tool to be a big time-saver when it comes to calculating interest on client loans.

“Nearly all our clients have some type of financing on their books, whether it be a vehicle or equipment,” Matt says. “Normally we’d have to manually calculate the interest on it using a spreadsheet, whereas the Equipment Finance Tool does it for you every month. So you get to year end, and all the interest has been calculated automatically and posted in your Xero file.”

“It’s a big plus for people like us who work on fixed fees and need to make sure we’re doing everything as efficiently as possible. And it gives us the confidence that all the totals are right.”

Drive Accountants founder Matt Hicks.

Turbocharging’ the practice

In the near future, Matt and the team will be integrating AccountKit with SuiteFiles to enable even greater visibility of client documents across the business.

“We’re going to be turning on SuiteFiles in a couple of weeks, which links with AccountKit,” Matt says. “That’s going to turbocharge document management for us across our whole system and give us full visibility.”

Matt says he wouldn’t hesitate to recommend AccountKit to other accounting practices, thanks to its innovative features and the level of customer support.

“AccountKit’s still small and nimble, so if you need something done they can do it straight away. And because they’re a small business, we’re on a first-name basis with the team.”

“I reckon people coming to AccountKit from nothing would just be mind-blown. It’s like bolting a turbocharger on to your business.”

“A lot of accounting firms end up being really good at bad processes and it’s just not efficient. If you look at what AccountKit does, there’s nothing else out there even close to it. It’s a go-to if you want to keep expanding your business.”

Try AccountKit free for 14 days (no credit card required), or join a webinar for a live demonstration of AccountKit’s key features.