XU: We’re joined by Tushir from Capium today on day 1 of Accountex. So, how are you guys finding the event so far?

TP: It’s been busy for us. It was a good first day and we’re expecting the same for the second day. We have lots to showcase at the moment. We’ve got a new time and fees module and charity accounts that we’ve launched as well in the cloud. We’ve had a lot of interest from a lot of customers and hopefully some more leads coming through the launch today.‍

XU: That’s great to hear. And as a matter of interest, leading up to the show, what made you focus on pushing those?

TP: Good question. I hate to labor on a point, but we were one of the first in the market with a full Cloud Suite product. I’d probably say, a pioneer in that. But what’s happened is we’ve seen a lot of vendors push on with that as well competitively.

What we’ve had to do is listen to our marketplace and to our clients and ask ourselves, what do they need next? And part of that was looking at time and fees and looking at charities. We’re now also revamping the whole language, technology and the platform itself ready for bringing out AI machine learning when the market is ready for it.

‍XU: That sounds exciting! What do you feel the main itch is that needs scratching at the moment amongst the accounting community?

TP: It’s all been about simplicity and ease because accountants themselves, they’re totally snowed under with work and I think from that perspective we just need to make their lives a lot easier going forward. If there’s anything that we can do to try and simplify and speed up their time, so they can focus on more profit-making areas, then that’s what we’re trying to do.‍

XU: Have you guys got anything in the pipeline over the next 12 months? Can you give us an idea of what’s happening, without giving away any trade secrets?

TP: Time and fees and charities are what’s coming out now. We’re then aiming to build a much more integrated platform between all the modules and themselves. The speed and the essence of everything for an accountant is what we are looking at and focusing to actually push on.

I think from that perspective we’re bringing out new bookkeeping and payroll aspects. We’ll then probably start looking at AI and machine learning as we’re doing some research into it and hopefully by next year we’ll see what we can showcase.‍

XU: With AI and machine learning, how do you see it having an impact on the way that accountants and bookkeepers will operate going forwards?

There’s obviously a bit of skepticism amongst some people. It’s like, “Oh, are we going to have a job left?”, which is probably said at every single innovation along the way, but everybody still does have a job left.

How do you see it actually enhancing the offering that they can give to their clients?

TP: It’s in very early stages at the moment but I don’t think there’s anything to be scared about necessarily. There’ll always be something to do. We’re still the brains behind the operation.

I think what it will do is probably help to speed up mundane tasks going forward. It will probably become more pervasive for business, where they just deal with all robotic answers to questions that customers may have. I think that’s step one. I don’t think we should be even looking at step two or step three at the moment until we’ve got past that point. I think it’s going to be more service-led more than anything else after that.