How JTW Accountants is shifting into high gear with AccountKit

In March 2020, Jeremy Wotton said goodbye to his director role at an accounting firm and got together with some friends to celebrate launching his own business, JTW Accountants.

Little did he know, things would look very different just a couple of days later.

“I went out on a Friday, and by the end of that weekend you couldn’t go out anymore,” Jeremy explains. “So I decided to blow up my career and do my own thing at probably the worst possible time – right at the start of the pandemic.”

Despite the challenges of the past two years, Jeremy says his business has gone from strength to strength.

“I’ve been very fortunate to get lots of recommendations and I’m far busier than I ever imagined I would be.”
 

Powering up with AccountKit

Prior to launching JTW Accountants, Jeremy had discovered AccountKit at a Xero roadshow and was immediately impressed – so impressed, in fact, that AccountKit was his first choice of software provider for his business.

“I had a good chat with Paul [AccountKit’s founder] and what was really appealing straight away is that he’s an accountant, so he just gets it,” Jeremy explains. “I find that a lot of accounting software solves problems that may not actually exist. AccountKit couldn’t be further from that. They know what it’s like to be an accountant and they fill in all the gaps.

“When starting my own business, AccountKit was the first software provider I reached out to use, and I specifically designed my tech stack around it.”

JTW Accountants’ tech stack includes Xero Practice Manager, Xero Accounting files, CAS 360, Simple Fund 360, SuiteFiles and Microsoft Teams – all of which are seamlessly integrated with AccountKit.

“The integrations are absolutely brilliant. Quick and easy to set up and couldn’t be smoother. AccountKit gives me the ability to see a snapshot of all my software from the one dashboard. It just works.”

Standout tools & features

Jeremy subscribes to AccountKit’s Equipment Finance, Correspondence Register and Franking Account register tools, and relies on the Global Client Group view to get a complete overview of his client groups’ entities, lodgement status, finance schedules and more.

“The Equipment Finance tool offers amazing flexibility in how the schedules are set up and shown in the underlying Xero file and the functionality allows for early payouts, refinances, etc. It will also automatically check (and alert you to) whether the Xero account reconciles to the schedule or not. This allows me to have real-time, proactive conversations with clients.

“The Correspondence Register takes away the useless shared Excel spreadsheet that logs mail and other correspondence and replaces it with a register that’s easily viewable across any entity within a client group, or searchable and linked to the client database, and you can tag and notify team members. Just so good.”

As for the biggest timesaver, Jeremy says AccountKit’s ATO Lodgement Statistics free up nearly a day a month.

“In my previous life, using a different accounting software provider, my monthly reconciliation of the firm’s ATO client list and lodgement program would take five to six hours every month. There were no smarts about the process and it was very manual. This is all but a distant memory now. AccountKit has freed up at least five hours a month through that one feature alone.”

Next on the agenda is the Client Map Tool, which he has recently finished trialling.

“Clients really enjoy being able to see the layout and flow of their entities on the one document,” he says. “It has been infinitely beneficial in helping bankers, finance brokers, solicitors, financial planners and other advisors in clients’ business networks to understand the structure and make-up of a client’s group of entities.”

 Putting the pedal to the metal 

Looking ahead, Jeremy has big plans for business growth – and he’ll be taking AccountKit along for the ride.

“With AccountKit, I’m so much more efficient. I can see things in real time and be a lot more proactive with clients, which they love.”

And why should other businesses consider adding AccountKit to their tech stack?

“You’re mad if you don’t,” Jeremy says. “You have a seamlessly integrated set of tools that can post back to the client’s accounting file, you can see it all in real time and it saves so much time. Why wouldn’t you?”

Find out how AccountKit’s time-saving tools can help your business perform at its absolute peak. Try it free for 14 days (no credit card required) or get a live demonstration of AccountKit’s tools.