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The head of a boutique firm has found that cost barriers to accounting technology have continued to fall, creating scalability opportunities in particular for smaller firms that weren't previously possible.
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'Enormous' opportunities for small firms as tech costs fall
02 October 2017
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7 minute read
Speaking to Accountants Daily, Matthews Steer Accountants & Advisors CEO Ken Matthews said firms avoiding technology upgrades on the basis of cost in particular are losing ground on their arguments.
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“Cloud accounting has changed the whole landscape. You can do virtual CFO work for clients now that just wasn't possible even probably three years ago,” he said.
“You can provide not only tax and accounting advice, but also business services advice and strategic advice, and technology is driving a lot of that and you can do it very efficiently.”
Mr Matthews said that as a firm they invest heavily in technology because, as he sees it, there’s no other choice in this day and age.
“We use all the latest state-of-the-art technology and we're constantly looking for opportunities to become more efficient in the processing space and the superannuation space,” he said.
“We don't see technology as a barrier we just see it as an opportunity. What we're seeing is an enormous ability to create capacity so we're putting in technology that's releasing a couple of hundred hours a year for us in a number of ways.”
The risk of not investing in technology is being unable to attract or retain both clients and employees according to Mr Matthews.
“If you're not looking at the disruption that's going to occur in this industry in the next three to five years then you're going to be at a great disadvantage because the firms that are, are going to capture that opportunity,” he said.
“You've got to be looking three to five years ahead at all times and if you're not you're dead, because you won't be able to attract the good people who know what's happening out there and are aware of the different programs that you can use and they want to be trained in them and they want exposure to them.”
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