Randy Johnston and Brian Tankersley, CPA, went on video at the AICPA Engage conference and CPA Practice Advisor‘s annual Think Tank meet-up. Watch the video or read the transcript.
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Transcript (Note: There may be typos due to automated transcription errors.)
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 00:00
Brian, Hello everyone, and welcome to the accounting Technology Lab. My name is Brian Tankersley and I wanted to present for your review here a Randy Johnson and I were at AICPA engaged together last week, and we basically walked the entire showroom floor. And so since many of you may not have been to an accounting trade show lately, I thought you might want to see some of the names and faces and some of the, you know, some of the things going on in the accounting profession and what people are selling these days. And so we’ll go through, and Randy will go through and do commentary. I’m running the camera behind him. But with that, I’m going to let you go ahead and see the see our video. Thanks for being here. And again, this runs about an hour. Thanks.
Speaker 1 00:49
Welcome to accounting Technology Lab. I’m Randy Johnson with my cameraman today, Brian Tankersley, and we’re walking the AICPA engage 2025 floor for you. We wanted to take you through a number of vendors. So the technique here is, if we get a chance to interview somebody, we’ll call that in quickly. But for the moment, we’re just going to start a walking tour. So the first booth here today is the citrom folks. Now Citron has had hosting for quite some time, started by Chris Stark. Good company has a lot of big clients that are around, so that would be a if you need hosting a good company to use. Next up is WSG Empire suite founder, Bill Kornfield, is talking with a guest right now, but it turns out that this is one of your best scheduling and resource management products in the market today. They’re opposite of Wolters Kluwer. Wolters Kluwer, kind of like Delta Airlines has 100 year anniversary this year, so you can see that you’ve got some of the big dogs from Wolters Kluwer here, as well as others from that are currently guests and users of the platform. So now next up, McGowan, professional liability, is over this way, and McGowan has been around for quite some time. So liability carrier, next up is personage, and behind that is the bi folks. Now we’ve known the bi folks for a while. So guys, good day. How you doing? I’m doing great. So Jim Keenan here, I’ve known for, I don’t know, 20 years more, 1818, but anyway, they have a product called beehive, which is an AI powered scheduling product. I think it’s way better than, let’s say, day shape its competitor, simpler to use and so forth. So Jim, what would you want people to know we’re you’re live on in camera.
Speaker 2 02:52
I think the biggest thing you can take away from from seeing bi kind of in action is we are truly full firm type scheduling option, right? So by that, I mean we support, we have controls in the product for managing task oriented scheduling, the tax and cast, and then we’ve got block scheduling for audit advisory,
Speaker 1 03:14
yeah, and I’ve looked at the product with Jim. It’s really a fine thing. So if you need a demonstration on a good product. You might consider that along the way, you’re right. Okay, he’s gonna make you say all that again.
Speaker 2 03:26
Okay, all right, sorry about that. Yeah. So the product, BI is a true, full firm scheduling tool. And by that, I mean we have controls in the system for task oriented type scheduling for tax and gas and then block scheduling for audit advisory.
Speaker 1 03:45
Cool. Thanks, Jim, good to see you so Matthew, nice to meet you. I’m Randy Johnston, and this is my associate, Brian tech. I know I remember the name. Good to see you in person. All right. Well, Thompson Reuters is here to the right.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 04:00
I’m gonna have to get outside you. You’re gonna
Speaker 1 04:02
I’m gonna have to sit up where you’re behind, what’s behind you? Yeah? Understood. So come ahead. No, yeah, we’re live, but you go ahead. Don’t
Speaker 3 04:13
wait. It’s good questions. So we have, I wanted you guys to come. Mike’s, you’re doing some cool recording. We have Howie Mandel from America’s Got Talent? Yeah, he’s gonna be doing a live a hologram appearance at 130 that’s we’re calling accountants. Got Talent. So if you guys have any good talent and want to come by and check it out 130 over in the field guide, I heard that that you were doing that we are. So that’d be really fun if you want to be covering that live while you’re over there. Cool. Fun with that. Thank you for the invitation.
Speaker 1 04:39
It’s my pleasure. How’s the show going? Oh, excellent. There’s not enough hours in the day. There are not enough hours in the day. Good to see you. So Thomson Reuters has, you know, a main breakthrough on their guided assurance platform. And it turns out that guided assurance is the material platform that’s been remade
04:59
that’s. When you’re on here, make sure you’re
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 05:04
on. Yeah, there you go. Now you’re now you’re
Speaker 1 05:05
on. Okay, so the that’s probably better anyway, but materia has become co counsel, and there’s a bunch of coverage on the website with that. And it looks like to me that a number of the upper level people from Thomson, Reuters are here for this particular show. So I guess moving along, Brian might just have you shoot that we’ve got tangible property and inspire outsource and FedEx all here as suppliers to the profession. But this side’s a lot more interesting. So it turns out that the Drake software folks are here, and we’ve talked to Drake about some of the offerings that they have. I got to spend a little bit of time yesterday with the audit file folks out of Nashville and other places, nice little system that they’ve got. And of course, Cost Segregation is here with their offering, and the right works folks are one of I said, I think two, but there’s three hosting companies that I’m aware of that are here. So right works continues to have their hosting offering, and then beyond that, we have the National Association of estate planning councils that are on the floor and the accounting tax and brokerage people,
Speaker 1 06:39
and a little bit of cost, segregation and frost, law, the business litigation folks. So you know, as it turns out, this is just one aisle of 200 vendors on the floor this year at AICPA engage, there’s 5000 attendees in total, 4000 here. So 1000 are online. Now. Here we have crosslink tax software, which are very we probably need to spend some time with the crosslink folks, as it turns out. And over here are the tax GPT folks, which I’d hope to come back and see their demo, because they’ve got a new AI product called Arthur that they want to show us. So tax, GPT is one of those AI tax research products.
Speaker 1 07:37
So you may not want to film the FBI, I don’t know, but in any case, it could be burger Cash’s crew and count is here that we visited in Dallas last year. Brian and uma is also here. And of course, then we’ve got the hub sync folks that just took $100 million from Tom abravo. And we could, well, let’s see how much he knows. So all right, so this is our friend, Cheryl Haber. He’s been around a long time. We know him in lots of different places, so guess what? Hello.
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 08:21
I case? Yeah, actually, we do need to hit one switch on
08:26
it. Wonder why it’s dropping off. Are we on? I don’t showing now, yeah, okay,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 08:35
I don’t know why it’s doing it. You got it, I guess.
Speaker 1 08:41
Yeah, it, I’ll make sure I hand it before I do in the future. Anyway, we’ve known Cheryl. I don’t know 20 years, damn close, Damn straight, as he says. So in any case, what would you like us to know about hubsync? Hubsync is very interesting because we have an end to end digital tax process. So not just the PVC, not just organizer, but end in from the inflow up front, the engagement, letters, collection, all the workflow in between, and the tax delivery. So very interesting product. And as Randy knows, I’ve been around a few times, and this is the best product I’ve had in 15 years that is super well. I know CEO John McGowan supposed to roll in later today, so we’ll look forward to seeing him then. But if you need a single solution, Portal plus, and I really want to have you thought about that, because there is, to my knowledge, almost no product in the marketplace that covers all of what you need for tax and audit and chaos. I think hubs got a great shot at where they’re headed. Come by booth 224, thank you, super thanks. All right, we’ll steal this and move on
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 09:57
continuously, and I’m gonna get in stuff in. All right, it’ll all work.
10:01
Thanks, Joe,
10:08
yeah.
Speaker 1 10:20
Oh, that’s good. Well, netgain is a well known hosting company, so they’re one of three that I’m aware of hosting companies that are here. They’re primarily driving off of Azure. Hosting is their strategy and a low end all in one tax product is taxed on other than your they actually have global operations that are selling pretty much everywhere on the planet, lots of things inside their platforms that are beneficial, as I would see Now, interestingly enough, the UMA phone systems here on the floor, which is a good Offering, but we also have safe send in a completely separate booth, which you know, to me, is interesting because Thomson Reuters has a booth, but safe sends got like a bigger booth. Look they’re right next door, right next door to each other, but look bigger, the best I can tell. So any case, safe send, as you know, is the gathering and delivery part, but mainly on the delivery side of things. Now I think what we’ll do is we’ll kind of walk by safe send, and
Speaker 1 11:36
you’ll notice another another one of the features here of safe send is protection plus. And I got to meet one of the protection plus people yesterday, and talked to them, and they were right, talking about their written information security program as being an alternative. So that was kind of fascinating discussion.
Speaker 1 12:00
And of course, a little bit earlier, we’d seen the founder of safe sin, Andrew Hatfield and, you know, a late arriver, but still owner, Steve buscelona, think was here. So we said hello to those guys.
12:20
I like, are you not
Speaker 1 12:23
many, many of your firms. Looks like many of your firms are trying to find marketing solutions. And this is one of the many marketing companies that is here, then a relatively interesting positioning. We are not seeing as many client accounting services and reporting softwares this year as we have in the past, but this is a virtual bookkeeping company, kind of like books was in the past. To us, good day. Good day. We’re doing well. So I got it. So here you’ve got kbkg. Let me get the mic back on. Here you’ve got KB kg, which is basically a tax credit company, and they look like they’ve got several offerings in terms of the cost,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 13:35
saving other
Speaker 1 13:37
pieces, okay, so the surelink people have just released new software, pretty significant upgrades in their platform. So if you haven’t looked at surelink in a while, they’ve got opportunities, I think, for you to look at things that are new there. Of course, you also have another tax credit company here. And you know, this particular is one of about a half a dozen or so with CTI. CTI is another tax credit company. Then you have tax credit, which is an R and D tech software. So that’d be very much like the product we looked at last year, just zoning off the name kipsy. Very, very much like that. I was going to use this for, oh, cool. And of course, you’ve got Boomer consulting. Jim Boomer is the chair of the tech version of the conference this year, and you’ve got the tech gurus company for IT support now, the avantex people have been pretty aggressive about their positioning, but also are doing. A fair bit of r, d and other things. Excuse
Speaker 1 15:16
me, a hat bar at a van Tex. I’ve never seen a hat bar here. He’s able to so next up are your the canopy folks. Those would be your primary competitors. Canopy would be your primary competitors against tax dome and several of the other low end practice management products out there, there’s about 50.
Speaker 1 15:59
So I’m not sure how I missed you yesterday, but I did not see you. How you been good? Well, I have my friend Brian tankerson along here with this, so you mind if we just ask you questions on the tape? Okay, so, so this is Jeff Kubiak. He’s got Pro Staff been around for 30 years as a product. Yeah, a long time, and what we’re gonna do is just kind of put this up so you can be heard. Okay, so would you just tell us a little bit about what pro staff can do for firms? Yeah, by all means, Randy, so we’re really a kind of complete resource and staff scheduling tool for accounting firms, where they can keep track of not only their staff and their staffing assignments and getting the right people on the jobs, but also managing and monitoring the project. So are they, you know, is the leverage Correct? Is the is the skill level proper on the job? So it’s really that, given that visibility to firms to see what those resources are like, making sure they’re they’re bringing them along and getting them the right experience. And so from really a well rounded and couple of different, you know, points of view, pro staff is providing that information for decision making. That’s super and, you know, I recommended your platform in a tech assessment that I delivered Sunday, it just happens that I’ve recommended your platform for years, and you made a real radical upgrade to the platform. What about three years ago? We did so we kind of wanted to see where our focus was at and actually define the focus a little bit more succinctly. So we picked three areas that I think really made a lot of sense, and we recognize that data integration and getting data into our entire product automatically, and then certainly being able to bring that information back out for reporting purposes or other uses, was essential. So we made a lot of effort on bringing it that piece of the puzzle, the second piece of the puzzle. They’re not really, you know, thought provoking items, but we we understood the need for for good data and good BI reporting. So bringing that then for decision making make a lot of sense. And then obviously everyone’s trying to automate and put a lot of smartness into their systems. And our third focus is really doing that. We concentrated on the tax module because no one seemed to be bringing that to the table. And we, fortunately, we had a number of large clients that came to us, always also on this. And we were able to, you know, really partner with them and then produce that so, you know, in a nutshell, that’s what we’ve been kind of moving. Sounds super so good to see you. Thanks for going on short notice. So how did that final exam go on short notice? You know, I think it sounded pretty good to me. So, yeah, oral defense. Is that what we call that? I think so. So Thanks, Randy, thanks. Brian, yeah, good to see you guys. Yeah, great to see you. So we’ll come back and talk some more. Real good. All right, thanks. So let’s see. You’ve got Oak Street funding here and the abcgi. These guys tried to pull us in yesterday, which was good. You also have Madras accountancy. Outsourcing is not as common this year, although we’ve seen a few, I don’t have a good count. And I think summit software is doing financial reporting, which is one of the new few news like that. And, of course, long term players, Emilio, they’ve had engagement letters and many other functions in their platform for years. So happy to see that they’re on the floor, and then you’ve got the Romo tax incentives group here. Okay?
Speaker 1 20:02
And continuing around we’re about a quarter of the way through this.
20:16
So you’ve got Daniil. I
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 20:19
think it’s important to note that that we are we’re not at a break, we’re not at a break. So that’s why there’s nobody here. Normally there would be like, wall to wall, people in the middle of this.
Speaker 1 20:32
It was so noisy last night we couldn’t even shoot. Is basically how it turned out. It was just impossible. Like Danielle, we need to learn about that AI product. You got data Snipper out of Holland, which is here, and a very popular tool on audit. They’ve incorporated new financial reporting in their product. Now Sam is interesting because they are onshore outsourcing. It’s one of only two providers that we’re aware of that has onshore outsourcing. Actually, maybe three. Grunt Works has it. You can get some from sure prep and sand, but Sam is the full real deal. And then, of course, more cost seg services here with engineered tax services. Now I think this shot Brian this way, probably makes the most sense, because it’s really the full scope of the AICPA booth, large booth, just little kiosks that they’re talking about the different services that they provide. I
Speaker 1 22:00
Okay, now we’ve got the back side of the event textbook, which you basically have my task, LMS, training a competitor to LC Vista. You’ve got the financial sense, folks, which is an entry level timing value. Type of product, nice little product. You’ve got Tex you’ve got tax connects, which is basically sales tax reporting. Let me get around so it’ll swing that way. Okay, I like the $100 bill laying there.
Speaker 1 22:39
And of course, you’ve got the CPA FMA Association group here, and CPA charge, which is one of the primary payment vendors, so let’s swing that way, and we’ll go on down to the end here. So
Speaker 1 23:03
because here’s another outsourcing company for accounting finance professionals and you
Speaker 1 23:20
it. So every significant transaction, every significant transaction, consultant and profession is here. I did see the one we were talking about off of Long Island last night, and we’ve got, obviously, another one here with the green growth CPA, there’s two types of education companies now. They’re competing against miles, where you basically have your own employees. So I the blue blue energy group is another cost seg company.
Speaker 1 24:12
And interesting to have a development company here with Cloud pressing, but then you have another practice management product here with mango solve has been acquired by profit profit solve, mango sauce has been acquired by profit solve.
Speaker 1 24:36
Now we’ve talked about robotic process automation for some years, but here you have key ins, the robotic process automation company, and we interviewed them as they were trying to make a break into the United States. Now, the ignition folks have been around for quite some time, and they’re making a pretty heavy push recently. Sherry dodgen, who. Was with cch has joined them.
Speaker 1 25:09
First, the tax, the tax. Now folks are back, so that’s notable. And of course, hertz has a present here, so we’re gonna go right around, right around the CPA, AICPA booth here. Actually, you know what? We’re gonna go right through it.
Speaker 1 25:42
So so here you have the abacus booth where the Sugarman brothers are developing a new k1 product. So automation is very good out of New York, and Ambit has outsourced servicing So, and I appreciate He’s working his booth. Good day. You.
Speaker 1 26:23
Next up, I hope you can see the Institute of Internal Auditors with their booth here. And of course,
Speaker 1 26:38
we have our long term friends from FreshBooks, which I can’t even remember Brian, how many years we’ve worked with that team. They just moved their office in Toronto. Yep. And next up, you’ve got the intap folks. I’ve recommended them for document management for a while, including this past week. So just did it in another tech assessment. So their platform has been used by a number of my clients for some time. How you doing today? Just recommended your platform on Sunday again. So here you have AG, fintechs Good day. And basically it looks like more bookkeeping outsource services with their service offering good day. And here you have the income Lab, which is a retirement management product. Haven’t seen too many modeling products like this. This one seemed pretty good. I it.
Speaker 1 27:46
And next up the Certified Financial Planning Board. So this might be board alley, I’m not sure.
Speaker 1 27:59
And then another outsource company. So maybe there’s more here than I thought with my source and talent. Let’s just make sure we’ve got that. How you doing? And then, of course, the finquery folks, which we’ve recorded in a prior accounting Technology Lab, this used to be known as Lee’s query. That’s their new name is finquery,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 28:25
and you have now seen only half of the show floor, and this is the smaller half. This is the smaller half of the show floor. So it’s been an experience.
Speaker 1 28:37
Yeah, we’re good to be here. How you doing today?
Speaker 1 28:57
So you want beer right, or beer left, Hey. How you doing getting along all right, yes, sir. So you have you met secret? No, I’m not from sorbent. Oh, you are. Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So anyway, so we come and see you here in a little bit. And I knew I had to get back to you, but I finally have my camera. Okay, good, see you. Good to see you. Zach, let’s go left. Sam, you
Speaker 1 29:40
it. Okay. Well, this is our long term friend and smart technician, Kevin Anderson, with file center. I think he is president. Nowadays, but they have a beautiful, low end document management product. They’ve been putting some very interesting new features in the system. But one of the significant ads here was e signature, which they’re doing for $96 a year. Great value, but the whole system is, frankly, a great value. So hope I got that pretty right? Yeah, that’s good. I’m good. We’ll come back and talk. So I’ll be back. So now, CPA club has been around for a bit, if you would let me make sure I’m back on and they have been teaching audit and other technologies for a while. Good organization. So if you need that type of training, I would absolutely look at them. Of course, you’re doing fine. So here’s another I’ll call it friend to the family Andrew and Amanda argue, started Corvi tax planning. They’ve now built instead, and they’re built, they’re building a new tax platform, which has been funded by Iris. So it’s kind of a big deal, as we would see it. Then from here, some statistical data for health care with high peak, which is interesting. Oh, it looks like Andrew might be coming up. Let’s see if we can get him. So Andrew team swing around here. So Randy, it’s going well. So he’s about swinging around. So I’d like for you to meet Andrew argue the founder, I think, is the right way. CEO, yep. But guys, she’s been around forever of instead, and they are working on a new tax platform, which has many modules, which he talked to me about yesterday. So Andrew, could you explain what you got available? I
Speaker 4 31:50
love that. Yeah. So, I mean, the most exciting part about what we’re doing is like our real vision is to create a new tax preparation, electronic filing product. So today, if you’re watching this and you’re a tax professional, you’re probably using ultra tax go system, cch Lacerte, that is our real vision. We actually have all of our federal approvals. So for 1040 1041 1120, 1120, s, 1065, and then we also have 25% of the states. We’ll get all the states and all the cities for tax year, 2025, and offer that product. If you sign up for our product today, we do a free trial at our booth. And come by, we’re actually giving out casino chips for everybody that we give out, I think, $5 for every 10,000 in savings that you find when you go through and do a free trial, which is really cool, but you can upload a tax return today. You can see all the tax strategies. You can implement those strategies and generate reports for clients to move from tax preparation and compliance to planning and advisory. And so if you stop by for a few minutes, yeah, it’d be great to kind of show you, and then you walk away with 50 bucks. You can go and, you know, you never know what could happen to that in the casino, right? It’s not 50 funny bucks, 50 real casino chips. Yeah, 50 bucks. Yes. I haven’t been told if we’re allowed to do that, but we, you ask, you know, ask for forgiveness, right? Yeah,
Speaker 1 32:51
it’s, it’s a Vegas which happens in Vegas days, exactly. I’m so pleased for your success, and this works out beautifully. Yeah, well, thank you. Good to see. You absolutely. Enjoy the rest of the conference. Brian, behind the camera, thank you. Yeah, all right, so we’ll steal the mic back. Oh yeah, totally. You want to keep this by my restroom break or something that’s happened before, right? Good to see you. Thank you. Good to see you. Thanks. So, so basically, this is the audit site, folks, and they have an audit platform which is actually quite worth looking at. And if you are smaller firm in particular, I think it can serve your needs very well. Behind us. Here we have outsourcing, vendor accounting. I talked to them for just a minute yesterday, so one of many that are in the in the mall, so the only real focus are you guys today, of course, Sandy Bay here I’ve talked to before in terms of their basic offering, in terms of dollars and funding, and over this way, you Have the Abdo tool, which we’ve talked about in prior podcasts, and the Abdo platform produces Power BI dashboards against most of the practice management systems today.
Speaker 1 34:18
So focus advisors is pretty much what you’re seeing. They’re basically working with advisory practices to try to improve them.
Speaker 1 34:33
Then you have another organization, the American College of financial services, and the big guys behind us paychecks and the cpa.com booth, so you can see they’ve got a fair chunk of real estate for cpa.com and supporting vendors. You.
Speaker 1 35:00
You the Forge path folks here are one of two cybersecurity vendors that I’ve spotted on the floor. I think they have a reasonable sounding offering. When I talk to them,
Speaker 1 35:15
we’ll come back. And as it turns out, linear, global, another Alliance offering here on the floor.
Speaker 1 35:38
Iris software has a number of offerings. They just acquired DEXT from HG capital. HG capital owns Iris. It was a little bit of a lateral movement, but also the document management products are over here. Our friend Kevin Sharma, is not here right now, but he was manning the firm operations booth. So Iris is rolling together star practice management and practice engine to create their platform. And of course, Iris themselves have been trying to break more into the payroll market in the United States. So they bought the Thompson my pay. They’re about payroll relief. They have several different products there. And of course, you’ve got carbon, the practice management folks here on the other side. So I’m supposed to get back to meet Gus later today. How you been
Speaker 5 36:36
Hey, Jeremy or Maxim, yeah. Good to see you. Good to good. Save,
Speaker 1 36:40
yeah. And this is, this is Brian, Hi, bro. All right. So in any case, nice to have you make her the trip across the pond. Yeah,
Speaker 5 36:49
that’s it. That’s good, good to be here. Yeah, that’s the big event. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 36:54
So you mind if we lay down just a question or two on you? All right. Well, there you go, Mike, for you and everything. All right, okay, so let me just make sure I’m back on. So I’d like you to meet Jerry comb out of Adelaide. Adelaide. Yep, Queens
37:10
Queensland. No. South Australia.
Speaker 1 37:11
South Australia. Adelaide, South Australia. I’m just putting you up
Speaker 5 37:15
in the wrong Park. Yeah? Southerners, yeah.
Speaker 1 37:19
Okay, southerners, so we’ll take it. Sorry, my mistake, but any case, CEO co founder, as I recall, yes, of Axiom, and we’ve talked about axiom in prior accounting technology labs. So what’s new with the platform?
Speaker 5 37:33
Ah, look, we are working on a shortly to be revealed, AI, solution to not only automate the payments and reconcile them and post them back into the system with our internal platform, but any external payment, because we’ve got all the data and we can get the bank feeds, we might as Well do all the the matching of payments to clients and invoices on behalf of the firm, and so we’ve had a fair amount of firm demand and interest in that, and we’ll be rolling that out next quarter.
Speaker 1 38:13
Okay, sounds super well. Nice to meet you. Thank you very much. And greatest success on the rollout and keep us informed, and we’ll make sure that our people know about it will do. All right. All right. All right. Again. Big day. Nice to meet you too. Yeah, you too.
38:32
All right. So come on down a little bit further. Now we’re going to take a cut to the outside,
Speaker 1 38:53
because at this level, this is old home week To you Becker. So actually, I’ll let you say it online,
Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA 39:03
I actually taught for Becker. So I got started teaching from 97 to 2013
Speaker 1 39:09
So Brian’s got a history with Becker, if you would. Yeah, he was instructor for a long time. So now here’s one. I have not talked to the guys, guys enough to know for sure, you’ll notice that they call themselves an AI tax preparer. So this might be another one we need to have in our list, Brian, magnetic,
Speaker 1 39:35
and, of course, the tax Maverick. And one more down here. Good, thank you. So we met and talked to this guy yesterday, who’s from Utah, and it is an AI audit tool in. Which helps build the work papers and proof them more rapidly. So he is supposed to follow up with this, so hopefully we’ll know more soon.
Speaker 1 40:17
Okay, now we’re back. Hey, Randy, good day. So this application is trust. Now, truss has a very user friendly portal product that they’ve built over time. I’ve known Zach, what, a couple years at this point, yeah, so you know that, and the product has evolved very rapidly. So what I’d like to do maybe, is just have you take that if you don’t mind, certainly. And so Zach, what? What do people need to know about trust? Yeah, well,
Speaker 4 40:46
trust, what people need to know is, is the ultimate client collaboration platform. We hope firms just completely automate and streamline tax engagements. The firms that we have the pleasure of serving save anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes per return while offering just a unparalleled client experience, zero friction, no headaches, which drives adoption. And so we do, we have quite a bit of functionality from being able to create tailored document request lists using previous year data, and then we specialize in tax workflow, helping firms create their work papers to get ready for the prep, and then we do assembly and deliver the final return as well. So just completely streamlining the entire tax workflow
Speaker 1 41:30
sounds, sounds beautiful. So having met and worked with both of the original founders, they built a beautiful platform which is certainly worth your review. So I think Zach’s pretty much summarized it better than I could, so we’re just gonna let that stand. So thank you very much. Thank you so much. Yeah, great to see you. Thank you. So send our regards back home. Will do okay so, and hopefully we’ll get this shot and then we can come back and actually talk All right, see you later. Are you trying to get him? All right? So remitian. Here is salon angels, new venture. This is intended to allow payments directly, quarterly and so forth to the IRS and with the new check free environment, that’s supposed to happen by what October 31 remedians actually got a product in the right place at the right time to get everything rolled out now these guys over here. Oh, and that was actually salon right there. So we have also Solomon here, which we have talked about and recommended for 1040 processing, good overall product, as I’d see it today. Good day. I’m excellent. Thank you. So this is Brian Tankersley. He and I are both with the CPA practice advisor, but we’re also speakers as well, so we’ve reviewed your product. Okay? And just wanted to maybe give you a chance to say what you can do. All right, if you don’t mind, I’ll just turn on this mic and hand it to this live or it is. It’s no it’s streamed. It’s recording. Okay? That’s what I’m gonna get back over
Speaker 1 43:28
here. Okay, that looks pretty tidy. Actually, let’s flip this side. Hey, Harold, how you doing? Too much. Okay, so there you are. And so this is kick Lee with Solomon. Now we’ve talked about Solomon. Have been recommending it since inception, I think when you went to market. So you know, for if you’re looking for 1040 work paper, but we’ll maybe let him say this product has, I think, good legs. So what would you like people
Speaker 4 43:55
to know? Yeah, so Solomon is a AI powered tax preparation automation platform. The way it works is very simple. You upload your clients documents that are needed to prepare the return to our secure portal, and our AI actually extracts all the tax relevant data from those documents and prepares the initial draft of the return. And because the AI is not perfect, there are certain things and judgment calls that it is not able to make. So we have CPA, who is full time us, based who review the AI, prepared returns before we send it back to the CPA form that we work with for review. It’s very simple. We integrate with Office tax, CPA Tax and Greg proconnect and lesser and our deliverables include, obviously, the return that is reviewable on any of these software, whichever you use, the set of open items that you need to follow up on with your client. And, thirdly, a work paper that you could use to streamline your
Speaker 1 44:58
review. Yeah, super you. Well, kick had done a demonstration for Brian and I during taxis about April 7, as I recall, because he was like, Yeah, I’m not interested in taking any new clients right now. And I said, No, no, we just want to see what you can do, because we want to know if we’re going to include you in our materials this year or not. Happy that you took the time then and now. Thank you very much. So nice to meet you face to face.
45:21
You appreciate it.
Speaker 1 45:21
You’re good. And so in any case, people are showing interest when we talk about the platform. So I wish you continued success. We’ll continue to be in touch.
Speaker 4 45:32
Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Very good. It’s gotta be shared for the
Speaker 1 45:39
we probably will do clips and make and we’ll make sure you know about the clip and all that when it goes live. Because what we thought we’d do, we normally do weekly podcasts, which is why we did the initial reach out to you. We recorded three this morning, but we thought if we’d walk the floor, there probably would be two podcasts worth of content. Maybe we’re not sure yet, so Brian’s going to try to edit all that down, and then we’ll publish it out as a podcast, and that’s probably going to be about a four week cycle from
46:13
now. All right, okay, appreciate it.
Speaker 1 46:15
All right. Thank you very good. Thank you. How much of this is going to be used? All right, yeah, thank you. And the next time I’m in New York, I think you’re in New York, yeah, yeah. Next time I’m in New York, I’ll try to look you up. I was there last week. I flew out on Saturday, but I was mainly taking care of my granddaughter. Okay? And my wife didn’t get to go with me, because my plan was, wife was supposed to take care of the granddaughter, and I’d go out and do meetings. I had to go solo. So grandpa’s taking care of granddaughter. I’m good with that, but it didn’t make for very good meeting time. Thanks. Nice to meet great. Take care. See you later. All right, so behind here we have wealth rabbit, which has been SEP IRA piece and not too much. Thank you. We’re just actually making sure our viewers, if you will, and podcasters, a famous IT guru, nice to meet you Nice as well. So we’re actually just walking the show forward to try to make sure that people who are not here get an idea of what’s here. So actually, I should have had it on for the introduction. We’ll just do it again. Yeah. So I’ve got Brian with me, but I’m got Jason Ackerman, yep. What’s your
Speaker 6 47:29
role? We are co founders of wealth rabbit, but we also have CPA firms, yep. So we have
Speaker 1 47:33
been in a wealth management firm and Adam. Adam Ackerman, yeah, very nice to meet you. So where are you based? At right outside Charlotte. Charlotte got it. So what would people need to know about your wealth rabbit offerings?
Speaker 6 47:44
So we’re a platform for CPA is if you recommend retirement plans for your clients. Supply IRAs, SEP IRAs, individual IRAs, we make it easy for you to set them up for your clients, and you get a revenue
47:57
share. Okay, very good. And how long you’ve been doing this
Speaker 6 48:01
wealth rabbit, about 18 months. But we’ve been CPA is for we’ve owned a firm for 50 or my dad started our firm 50 years ago, but I’ve been a CPA for 15 years, and Adam’s been a CPA
Speaker 7 48:11
CFP for seven or eight years, and we have a wealth management firm that has about 800 million
Speaker 1 48:18
in AUM, yep, understood very good. Well. I’m glad that you’re able to branch out this way. It’s nice to take over dad’s firm and have a lunch. We
Speaker 6 48:25
haven’t completely ruined it yet. That’s pretty good. That’s super
Speaker 1 48:30
well. Very nice to meet you. Thank you. Great to meet you as well. Nice to meet you. Thanks for everything you do, for the profession we appreciate. We do what we can, where we can see like I do. Yeah, thank you for asking, because I should have done that. And oops, I’ll get that. Alright, give you my card. Okay, we’re back. So this is the gusto folks. They’ve been a preferred payroll provider for a number of platforms for years. So gusto, I
Speaker 1 49:07
this is a new one to me, the tax and it’s here, you know, a lot of demand for 1099, products, Tex, 99 etc. So we’ve got some leg work to do on this one. So, I think, Brian, we’re going to take a wander this way,
Speaker 1 49:36
because we’re we’re doing well. It’s about 50 minutes before the lunch crowd hits here. Okay, and right now we’re kind of opting for this versus lunch so we can get something here, but you’ve got cloud accounting staffing running here, and this is the product we were talking about last night, the dual int. AI accounting. So we need to come, come back and spend a little time with these guys, seeing what they’ve got. So good to see how you doing. So and again, I know we need to come back and spend some time here. So, yeah, because our core competency is accounting software. Okay, in fact, I’ll do this just in case, because sometimes we get nailed, so I’ll do that. Okay, and if I’d have known you were in New York, I’d have seen you last week while I was there. All right, so here you’ve got the Sora band folks, which we’ve talked with Enoch and done webinars on them, accounting Technology Lab in the past.
Speaker 1 50:52
So this is another one of the cybersecurity companies. Sorry, gimbal fooling there, but they basically do have a pretty good cybersecurity offering when I talked to them yesterday, and of course, They say that they’re global outsourcing for accounting firms. I
Speaker 1 51:20
it. So we’re coming into the big dog area, CaseWare, the audit tool. Mike sabatus was here last night. We talked to him. He’s been on the board there for a while, and so certainly a good product. The AICPA Daz made a major announcement yesterday.
Speaker 1 51:49
Good day. You’re doing well, just getting ready to combine film you, if you’re going to be around, you’re going to be out, you know, why don’t we take that turn? That way we won’t miss it. Because you’re a busy guy? And,
52:06
yeah, well, people are in session right now, so it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1 52:16
So let me hand you this so you’ve got a mic as well.
52:21
Hold it on me,
Speaker 1 52:23
yeah, or you can clip it, whichever is easier for you. It’s not a great clip. It’s a little Okay, that should do it. I think testing, all right. So, So Brian, we’re gonna pick you up here. So I’m with Leroy Carey, who is one of the founders of filed, and this 1040 AI product is one that we’ve been recommending since we discovered it. Wish we’d have discovered it sooner. I appreciate you. But in any case, what would you like people to know about your platform?
Speaker 8 52:56
Our vision is to not replace anything inside of the existing tech stack, and we want to work with all the setup that you’ve created, whether it’s the practice management systems, whether it’s the review systems, whether it’s a tax software. Our goal is to be agnostic, and today we do 1040, a half of our clients already piloting on 1065, 1120, 1120, s prep. So excited about the future,
Speaker 1 53:21
yep, yep, that’s a great future to have so and as you are growing, you’re gonna stay in the US market. You’re gonna go to Canada. What are you gonna do?
Speaker 8 53:33
There’s plenty to be done in the US. I know as a as a Brit, you know, my love would lie with the UK, but transparently, the US has got plenty to be done. I just
53:44
didn’t I want to make sure you weren’t sending it home
Speaker 8 53:48
to the island, not in the near future. I can certainly say that
Speaker 1 53:52
much. Super well. I look forward to watching your product evolve and helping where we can. I appreciate your support. Good day. Thank you, sir. Thanks. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. Thank you, sir. Yeah, so we’ll let you know as we what we do with that. We’re basically thinking we’re going to publish it as a AICPA walk through podcast, so we’ll see how it comes out. Thanks. Okay, appreciate your time. Okay, so the mine bridge product was one of the first products into the market with AI salon. Angel started that company. He’s now involved in another new startup, the remedien product that we talked about a little bit earlier. So nice product. And of course, Grunt works. I don’t see Stacy there right now, but grunt works is one of the 1040 work paper products that’s been traditionally in the market. Of course, Premier, Premier financial is a talent recruiter. So if you need talent, you can get it that way. And interesting. Enough, great, same type of thing. Talent Recruitment. And the lease crunch folks, we’ve worked pretty much, recommended, pretty much, since inception, so they’ve been doing a nice job on the lease accounting needs.
Speaker 1 55:20
I guess we should not forget CPA. 360 is one of the products that we recommend as firm management. You probably haven’t looked at it in a while, but this is a more comprehensive product in the low to mid end. And of course, a lot of people’s best friend when needed Cameco. All right, we’ve talked about Cameco through the years for insurance, and you’ve got the CPE company, Luma cube. You also have Live Oak Bank for underwriting loans for firms. And then, of course, you’ve got the intricac. Let’s come a little closer.
Speaker 1 56:09
So you have here Integra balance AI, which is a CAS product. So that’s something you may want to consider in your future. We need to come back and talk to you too, just because I think I know where I want to position you in our materials and but I need, I Yeah, then I need the material or the discussion. Make sure I’m right. Very well. All right, thank you. Hopefully we’ll get chance to get back
56:38
soon. We’re also doing a receptionist as well. Okay,
Speaker 1 56:42
agentic, or just, well, actually, because of timing, we’re gonna move on. I’ll come back, but I know that you have it. Thank you. All right, don’t want
Speaker 1 57:03
right? So it’s lunchtime in the vendor Hall. It’s okay. We’ll try to not catch Reedy. But this is bill.com which obviously we’ve been around with this since we helped Renee design the product a good number of years ago. So many of you using that, and on this side you’ve got accordance, AI, but don’t know The functionality.
Speaker 1 57:38
Absolutely, this is my friend, Assistant trouble, or cameraman trouble, whichever way you want to call it. How you do it. We do it very well. So I see you’ve got Triple Trouble. Well, I learned trouble from you. Exactly. I am such glad to be a mentor for you. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s good. So you guys do, yeah, really can’t complain on any front. Energy, I boost is good. K2 is fun. So there we are. So tech updates around the corner, yeah, two hours out. That’s why we’re shooting this now. All right. How’s it going? Okay, we’ll continue. Thank you for bailing me out. You got your
Speaker 1 58:39
honey, right? Yep, that is important, super important. So here you have practice ERP, a higher end ERP practice management system based on NetSuite. So that’s been a good product. And of course, you have longtime vendor, sage, which has a lot of different accounting products and have traditionally been a big friend of the accounting profession. Of course, we’ve recommended Zen works, tax 1099, for a good number of years, and I think we’ve covered that in a prior podcast as well. I have not seen the datamatics folks. I missed their booth here yesterday, but another outsourced company, and of course, the newly announced relationships with blue jay with cpa.com so Blue Jays been around 10 years, so this is their 10th Anniversary. They just added the AI stuff.
Speaker 1 59:44
And of course, here you’ve got Validus, Jeff Gramlich company, they’ve now got an infinite number of import capabilities, very fine import product. You.
Speaker 1 1:00:05
Now we’re we’re getting into a few of the larger booths. So good day. How are you doing? You doing? All right? How are you guys? You couldn’t be much better. Thank you.
Speaker 1 1:00:29
So you’ve been busier with the money inflow. Yeah, we’re really busy going fast. I’m glad, very glad. How are you we’re doing okay. Thank you. Are you on the big stage, 233, time out, Tech Update. Yeah, we did cryptocurrency this morning, also on a fairly bigger stage. Actually,
1:00:50
you’re gonna talk about us and your tech update
Speaker 1 1:00:55
only a little bit, because it’s not CPA firm center. So I’m gonna actually set it up that way, so people won’t be thinking, Oh, he’s talking CPA from I would I wasn’t invited to do that. Okay, well, we’re doing a tour here, so good to see you. We’ll come by and see you in a bit, unless you’re out.
Speaker 1 1:01:22
See you later. So founder of field guide is Jin Chang here. Jen has a lot of you know things that they’re going to do this year, but Field Guide is one of the audit platforms that you could consider. And of course, Bloom is basically another outsourcing company, and you’ve got McGuire, which has some very interesting cost seg and other things. I owed Tim a call, but he caught me yesterday on it, so I won’t forget now this is very interesting, because Field Guide is using the same technology we saw at CES virtual person 18 months ago from AARP. Kind of fascinating. But then you have the PO group here for advisors again, one of the buy, sell companies scrubbed for in house, I guess more here than I thought on that particular topic. And Mark is out, but this inflow platform is probably the number four platform that’s in the marketplace.
1:02:43
It looks like his books are getting signed. Jim just gave us a high wave. I think we’ll continue though. Of
Speaker 1 1:02:58
course, you’ve got the old Templeton practice pro product here. This is one of your high end ERP practice management products as speakers. Oddly enough, we got an olive and cocoa bag. I hope you got one. Brian, yeah, I haven’t eaten mine. I’m taking it home and then reach reporting. Gosh, we’ve known this guy a long time. So how you getting along? You doing all right, I’m doing great. We’re doing great. So reach is a reporting tool that I think we found pre pandemic, and they do a lot of board level reports. We need to come back and get an update on what you’ve got that’s new, but this is one that we recommend frequently, and I think I had it in a recommendation on Sunday to affirm. So any case, we’ll come back and learn what you got this new sounds good. Thank you. All right.
Speaker 1 1:03:59
And Brian’s being a real, real trooper here. I’m sure his arm is killing him, but this is share file. So we invented share file with Jess Lipson and Ed chili, and then watched it go to Citrix and cloud and now over to progress. So that’s a pretty significant buy long term platform from 2006 for portals. And over on this side, you’ve got the Intuit enterprise family, the Intuit booth. So they’re pushing their enterprise suite, as well as others, how you been and
Speaker 1 1:04:42 so this group right here is important because they’re out of New Zealand and they actually help do CPE course evaluations. So that’s another one we strongly need to talk to. What’s right here? It. And of course, Paro is a long term talent group. We’ve named them in our materials for some time. The use platform, I think I first bumped into maybe seven years ago, 2018 I think it’s about when I first started dealing with use here and there. So as an alternative for AP, very strong offering. So tabs has been taking kind of an upper middle market position on practice management with AI power. So that’s one that we need to spend a little bit of time on, a vendor vice Association.
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