The Future Of Accounting ft. KPMG

Wim: 0:00

The accounting work has really evolved over the last decade. The focus has really gone from processing documents and transactions and boring numbers to being more proactive and to really making sure the company is compliant with with everything.

Bea: 0:15

One of our clients that took two days and a half manual input work, we do it now in less than three hours by using the OCR and artificial intelligence from Odoo.

Wim: 0:24

As things are moving that quickly in, accounting profiles are hard to find, we really need to make sure that we spend our time efficiently, so it's really important that we avoid any double tasks between our clients and our accountants. So by working on a common platform with our clients, we have access together and we really work together.

Bea: 0:42

By switching to Odoo, we now have a future proof tool that is flexible, that makes our view on the real time accounting a reality.

Wynand: 0:50

Hi, guys, and welcome back to Planet Odoo. You might not recognize my voice, but that's completely normal because actually it's my first time on the show today. So let me introduce myself. My name is Wynand Tastenhoye and at Odoo, I mainly focus on the rollout for accounting firms in order to provide them with the future proof tools they need to become the best version of themselves. Today we are sitting down to tune into this very topical issue. The digital and technology evolution is rapidly getting up to speed. Changes keep affecting many industries and jobs because realities are shifting. The accounting firm sector hasn't been exempt of the digital revolution and is now faced with the need to adapt and reinvent itself. New tools to embrace online document management. Enhanced customer experience. Improved efficiency. Going from analog to digital is not an easy task. So we invited Bea Binst and Wim Meert from KPMG to give us an insight on how the accounting world navigates this new environment from the challenges they face to the role they can embrace for companies. Join us as we will debunk together what the future of accounting is made of. Hey, welcome back. Are you guys doing today?

Wim: 2:04

Hi Wynand. We're great. Thanks for having us.

Bea: 2:06

Yeah, thank you.

Wim: 2:07

Well, thanks you guys for being here today in the first place. Maybe before we dive into the subject of today, can you both explain a little bit what you are doing at KPMG exaclty?

Bea: 2:19

Yes. My name is Bea Binst. I'm an accounting director in the Brussels office.

Wim: 2:24

And Wim Meert. I'm an accountant and a tax consultant, and I'm working in the same office as in the Zaventem office for KPMG.

Wynand: 2:31

Cool. Well, welcome again. Maybe we can start with you and dive immediately into the subject of today by explaining in a few words what an accounting firm does exactly? I'm not sure that all our listeners are aware of what an accounting firm does on a daily basis.

Wim: 2:47

Yeah, well. Wynand, accounting work has really evolved over the last decade. The focus has really gone from processing documents and transactions and boring numbers to being more proactive and to really making sure the company is compliant with with everything. The basis is that we want to become a trusted advisor for our client and not only work on compliance such as bookkeeping, VAT returns, corporate income tax returns and all of the different documents we have to file.

Wynand: 3:16

Okay. Well, that sounds indeed like a wide range of services, more than people might expect, I believe. So what about your typical customers? I guess you mainly focus on small companies, but do you also focus on larger international companies?

Bea: 3:31

Yeah, we have different clients from individuals to SMEs to large multinationals. These clients are mostly active in different sectors, making our job, of course, very interesting. And we also have work for public sector clients and we have a large client base in international not for profit sector. We assist these clients from out of our eight offices spread over Belgium. And of course, as you probably know, we have also a large international network at KPMG that can help us if needed.

Wim: 4:08

Okay. Well, lucky you I would say to have such a wide network. So different kinds of customers, different kind of adapted services that we already heard. Now, is there maybe also a common reason why an entrepreneur or a company or any kind of companies in general should collaborate with an accounting firm? Why should they come to you? Well, good question. I would say in a company, or at least a company director or a company owner needs to hire an accountant for his ease of mind, because in today's fast evolving world, there's absolutely no possibility for an entrepreneur to really know all of the legal requirements to have all of the administration and the tax knowledge. So he really needs to have an accountant, an advisor to make sure that he can focus on the stuff that he is really good at and he is good at selling his products or his services. He's good at taking care of the well-being of his employees. So that's what he needs to focus on and we'll take everything else off his hands. And then, yeah, in terms of services, for some clients, we rarely do nothing at all. They do their full accounting. We only provide like a review once a quarter or we provide some assistance with their financial statements. But there's also some clients who fully outsource their administration and their accounting. So we do everything for them from A to Z.

Wynand: 5:32

So not only to pay less taxes.

Wim: 5:34

No, that's not only the focus, but it's an important.

Wynand: 5:38

Yeah, okay, cool. Well, it's indeed interesting. But do you have maybe an example of that?

Bea: 5:44

Yeah. You know, and as an example, I could give the way banks work nowadays. Banks You know, you used to be able to go to your local bank contact and you could arrange a and discuss a project. Now you have to draft and submit a very big electronic business plan and that you discuss then afterwards with the headquarters of the bank.

Wynand: 6:06

Yeah, now that you said it, I must admit as well that I cannot remember anymore the last time that I went to a local bank office. I'm not sure if it exists anymore actually, but sounds like. But it definitely sounds like challenging times are ahead, linked to that technological evolution, let's say. But I believe not only for your customers, but maybe even more for accounting firms themselves, right? Maybe we can we can go further and identify the main, or at least some of the main challenges that accounting firms encounter today? Can can you share a little bit about that?

Bea: 6:44

Yeah, I think what's really key is, is a challenge to be more efficient with the communication with our clients, with the coordination with our clients. Clients need accurate and up to date data to in order to make the right decisions, in order to make a decision faster. So having a platform, a common platform, allowing us to work closely together, it's necessary that with our clients, it's necessary to achieve this optimal communication. And so to be able to collaborate on a daily basis.

Wynand: 7:14

When you talk about working closely together, what do you mean exactly with that? Is it different than before?

Wim: 7:21

Well, as things are moving that quickly in, accounting profiles are hard to find. We really need to make sure that we spend our time efficiently. So it's really important that we avoid any double tasks between our clients and our accountants. We want to make sure that we're not both working on the same paper and documents. So, by working on a common platform with our clients such as Odoo, we have access together and we really work together hand in hand. And that way we can best suit our clients needs today.

Bea: 7:52

Now of course, working in an integrated tool instead of before a traditional accounting software, it's a huge help for us to tailoring our approach to each of our client's needs. It's very important that we adapt to each client separately so we can define access rights for different roles on that platform, and we can also provide adapted services. What we also find as useful tool for for additional tool that we use today is the artificial intelligence. It's a saves up a huge amount of time as opposed to the manual input that we did before the hours that we save. Now we can use on work, more efficient work.

Wynand: 8:34

Artificial intelligence. I clearly think it's a frequently used term today when talking about technology. Right. You already explained a little bit, but can you maybe elaborate a little bit and explain to our listeners how the AI works related to your daily tasks?

Bea: 8:51

Yeah. So the artificial intelligence, based upon historical data that the system knows, the invoice data and all the relevant bookkeeping information, it's completed fulfilled and there is a substantial reduction of the manual intervention from our accounts.

Speaker4: 9:09

So less human intervention? More algorithm. Okay, cool. Thanks for sharing that Bea. Wim, any others? Maybe. What about document management? When we think about accountants, maybe people are going to think about a lot of people coming in with a lot of paper documents. Is it still accurate today?

Wim: 9:28

Yeah, for some clients that might still be accurate, but most is electronic, of course. So indeed a big challenge is gathering all of the relevant accounting documents to make sure that they're processed in an efficient and a fast way. So yeah, you used to be able to open the your mail and you had all all of your invoices available. Today, documents can be obtained through various different means. So they can be in different formats, they can be available in different platforms. So invoices can still come in through paper. They come in through mail, through a platform. Each supplier has its own platform where you need to log in. So nowadays it's really challenging to be able to retrieve all of the documents to make sure that you can process these daily basis.

Bea: 10:11

Additionally, what is also a challenge for an accounting firm is the real time track of task and deadlines. It's of course crucial that we respect these deadlines because the fines could be applied if we do not respect them. For example, we have different kind of deadlines. We have the financial statements, we have the VAT return, we have the client listings, we have the corporate tax return, but also Intrastat and many others depending on the client, of course.

Wynand: 10:39

Yeah dnd keeping into consideration the number of customers you have,I understand that it's very crucial for you guys. Yeah. That there are already a lot of different challenges. What about recruitment? Maybe? I think we all are, let's say a little bit in the War for Talent. It's a hot topic today. Are you guys also affected by that?

Wim: 10:57

Yeah, sure. I think recruitment might even be the biggest challenge. Finding accounting profiles is increasingly difficult. There are a lot less accountants graduating nowadays. I'm not sure why, but I think, like the younger generation thinks it is a less interesting job. Not sure why because it's a very interesting job, I can assure you.

Speaker4: 11:19

You can pitch it if you want.

Wim: 11:21

Yeah. So everybody wants to join. Just call us. There's a lot less accounting students graduating now than perhaps there were a few years ago. I heard that about half of the classrooms are filled in accounting studies today.

Speaker4: 11:36

I believe we have the same problem for developers.

Wim: 11:38

Yeah, it is maybe the same problem, but the war for talent is thus very still very much ongoing.

Bea: 11:46

Of course, last but not least, for an accounting firm as well. Making sure that we work with the right tools is, of course, also a must. It's not only the above mentioned or the challenges that we mentioned already. So the accounting firms also have to adapt to the ever evolving world we are living in. And the offer of tools and solutions is pretty wide. Of course, it's not only the platform of Odoo that we know, but we you have to make sure that you choose the one that will answer our actual and future needs by saving time, work more efficiently and bring added value to our clients. Additionally, we cannot afford to waste too much time on manual input work. Clients simply don't want to pay any more for that. We need to continuously question the tools and adapt our way of working in order to remain future proof and efficient.

Wim: 12:41

Wow. That are a lot of different challenges ahead for accounting firms. If I resume a little bit, I have the feeling that all of these challenges are mostly linked to digitalization, right? And to the technological evolution. You explain very well the importance of a good and up to date data overview, but but also the necessity of getting your clients and accurate support. But where are you as an accounting firm standing toward your own digitalization today? What new approaches can accounting firms embrace to face today's challenges? First of all, maybe explain why not every accounting firm is looking at digitalization, robotization nowadays. If you're not looking at that, you really have no future at all. So that's really crucial. And I would say different accounting firms are looking for different solutions. What we've been focusing on because we think that might be the way to go and the best solution, is to implement real time accounting. And when talking real time accounting, I mean really processing all of the incoming information on a daily basis so that a client always has up to date information in his platform and in his real time accounting and reporting. So in the past, decisions were often made based upon outdated information. You used to work towards a deadline for submitting the financial statements, which is in most cases like six months after the year end date. And nowadays that is no longer possible. A company and a company director really needs accurate and real time data to be able to make the best business decisions. I can give you an example on that, where in the past you used to be able to, to review your strategic business plan, like every three years. People had a big meeting on that. I think now you really need to do that annually and maybe even two times a year. So the world is evolving that fast nowadays.

Wynand: 14:38

Yeah, that makes definitely sense. I guess everybody is indeed talking about real time accounting, so it's great that you explain that part a little bit. But yeah, maybe on your side, are any decisions have been taken from your side in order to obtain that precious, let's say, real time accounting for your customers?

Bea: 14:59

Yeah. Well Wynand first of all, I think choosing the right tool to work on a daily basis is of course the key for a better data collection and management, as mentioned by Wim. Therefore, we opt for an integrated tool that we could share with our clients. We could better communicate with our clients, we can share tasks with our clients and work on the same platform or same page. We give them direct access to the data and we can give accurate and real time overview also via the platform as mentioned by before. In the past, we had difficulties providing our clients with the real time accounting because we were working to deadlines and chasing our clients to provide the documents and answers in order to be ready for deadlines. As you know, the most common deadline is the VAT declaration. The VAT deadline is the 20th of every month. Clients provided us the information so that we could reach that deadline. It's the 20th month, as I mentioned before. And so, with some exceptions, they provided us a close, very close to the deadline. So it was very stressful for our employees. We were doing overtime every month and over and over again we were stressed in order to meet the deadlines.

Speaker4: 16:10

Yeah, I really hear what is key here is the fact that you and your customer are working together in the same platform, which has some great advantages. Some others Wim?

Wim: 16:21

Yeah, true. I know. Search for a new tool. We wanted to change all that. We one of the reasons we chose Odoo is that completely changes the working relationship between the accountant and the client. We now work together, so not separately in search of a new tool. We changed all that. So the result is huge. The perception of the deadline has been completely changed, where we're no longer working the last days of the month towards the closing or the last days towards the VAT return. But we're really convinced the client that they are able to share information with us on a daily or a weekly basis making this real time accounting possible. And also, yeah, getting the client more involved in what we are doing, so they can really see now on a daily basis the impact of what we are doing in their accounting through their live reporting that they get on the platform and.

Bea: 17:12

Also via the mobile app.

Speaker4: 17:13

Yeah, I remember the customer you shared with us that he was so happy that even in the evening he was checking all his daily figures in his sofa, right?

Wim: 17:21

Yeah, indeed. Some of them are having fun and checking their daily figures on their iPads. That's very cool. What's also very important that our employees can now better spread their time. So not working towards those deadlines and uploading daily documents, not not only the invoices, but also through the Psd2 connection. We can get daily bank statements that are updated automatically and also through an integration with our payroll. We really process payroll documents automatically as well. So, we have most of the data available to do to really do the deed that that real time accounting.

Bea: 18:02

Yeah. And of course, thanks to the power of the OCR combined with artificial intelligence, we gain of course also a huge amount of time.

Wynand: 18:10

Yeah, that's interesting. Maybe for those of you who are not familiar with it, the OCR is basically the algorithm that will transform documents such as customer invoices, but also vendor bills in any kind of formats like PDFs, but also pictures. So entrepreneurs can just take pictures of the images. The recognition will actually be the same, but the OCR will will transform all of that in text and thanks to the algorithm behind, we're going to make sure that all those text comes in the right boxes in Odoo so that basically, thanks to the artificial intelligence behind, we will take into consideration all of these data and learn from it so that all the necessary bookkeeping information is actually pre-filled so that there is less manual intervention. Right. But that's an interesting statement you end with. Can you maybe tell us a little bit more about the time you gained by using the OCR? Basically, we want figures!

Bea: 19:05

Yeah, sure. We have been using OCR for a while and now in combination with different other software tools, but that couldn't always meet our expectations. But in combination with the artificial intelligence is a game changer that we we have right now. I think the best example is one of our clients that took two days and a half manual input work before, it does it now in less than three hours by using the OCR and artificial intelligence from Odoo. So as mentioned, we are gaining some time for accountants that they can focus on more other tasks sometimes.

Wynand: 19:43

Yeah, that's really a huge impact actually. But it's very cool to hear that you gain so much time on manual input work, but to continue on that part actually, I also wonder how that impacts your your daily job now that we've freed so much time with how is that time spent?

Wim: 20:01

Well, yeah, indeed, we have freed some time, which that free time is of course used to treat more clients. So more so work, more revenue. But the actually the ultimate goal of automating everything is to become this trusted advisor. So we have more time to be able to interpret the data and to be able to provide our clients with added value advice that he can really use to to run his business.

Wynand: 20:29

The focus is on advice.

Wim: 20:30

Yeah, correct. With less time spent on manual tasks, we can really advise our clients not only on accounting part, but also on decisions that he needs to make. I really enjoy my clients calling me and say I have a difficult decision to make. What is your opinion on that? Sometimes they follow me, sometimes they don't. But yeah, it's really good to to work to this towards this trusted advisor role today. Customers don't want to pay an accountant a huge amount of money just to process some documents and deliver them financial statements six months later. They really have higher expectations and demands and they are really looking for a partner that can make a concrete impact on their finances and their business. So yeah, with that in mind, we have been working towards this trusted advisor role for several years now and we think it's really appreciated by our clients. So, switching to an integrated tool has helped us reaching that trusted advisor position and that was much more difficult in the past. So we are really getting there. Yeah.

Wynand: 21:42

It's a real game changer. How does that impact the use of the usage of Odoo?

Bea: 21:47

Yeah, when using a solution such as Odoo, we have more information available than only accounting. We have also access to the stock movements. We have access to the e-commerce website. We can give our clients full support with that also. So it's a huge difference compared with before and as already mentioned, as as using an integrated tool, there are no blind spots. The transparency goes in both ways. So you can access a whole business in just a few clicks and you can better tailor your advice to your clients. By switching to Odoo, we now have a future proof tool that is flexible and that makes our view on the real time accounting a reality.

Wynand: 22:33

Very interesting way, way beyond purely the accounting information. Interesting. Thanks for sharing that. But if we go a little bit further, let's say, how is the integrated tool perceived by your clients? Is there an impact for them? Is there also maybe an opportunity to make them go digital as well?

Bea: 22:53

Yes. As mentioned, we have a lot of our clients, our SMEs, They don't always use digital or integrated tools that comes close to the Odoo standards. As their accountant, we saw an opportunity in switching to Odoo to encourage them, to our clients to work more efficiently and work digital and incorporate also the integrated tool in their daily operations because not only for accounting but also for other tasks.

Wynand: 23:19

That's really super cool. I personally believe as well that combining the pure accounting tasks and advice it can make the job content even more attractive. Right? Could it also help a little bit with the recruitment issues we talked before, that the sector is experiencing today? By having this additional, let's say, line of business?

Wim: 23:41

Yeah, we believe so and we really hope so, because nobody these days wants to do real repetitive tasks. So having efficient working tool is very important for our accountants and for our team. So the team is very happy that they can combine their accounting tasks with assisting with, of course, providing advice to the client, but also with assisting the client to improve their Odoo setup and to improve their business processes.

Speaker4: 24:07

The full package experience. I definitely understand that that combination is way more attractive for younger people, let's say, and also have having less r epetitive tasks and less manual input work will be appreciated by them, right Bea?

Bea: 24:22

Correct. Especially wirh the OCR and artificial intelligence, as already said, we'll make sure that they can concentrate on more interesting job content. We don't only work on the accounting module, but we take this a little bit further with the platform of Odoo. It's also involves setting up and advising the clients on other modules, on their processes, on their business processes, so they can go from sales and inventory management, setting up CRM, expense cart invoice approval flows, timesheets, you name it. The possibilities are endless.

Wynand: 25:01

I can only agree with that. I think using the right tool can change accountants daily tasks, but definitely also the pride they get from the tool itself. When speaking about that, I can even remember when we first talked about implementing. Odoo for KPMG at that time, you guys invited me to your annual meeting where I was lucky to be able to showcase Odoo to all of your employees so that they could have a first taste of Odoo. And I was very surprised when some of them told me afterwards. They were so excited to finally have a user friendly, modern and effective tool that they could actually be proud of and very happy to show to their customers. I had the feeling they couldn't wait to get started. That thinks I'm happy that I still impress you. We talked about the importance of choosing the right tool in order to bring accounting firms to the next level and becoming, like you said, Wim, to become those trusted advisors. You made that switch yourself for more than 100 employees. I think you switch to Odoo, but you use your previous tools for for a lot of of years, right? I can even remember when I was working at KPMG more than ten years ago, we used it already. So how did that transition go? How long did it take and what about the change management in that?

Wim: 26:25

Well, yeah, indeed. Change management is very important. We used our previous, what I would call a traditional accounting software for more than 20 years. So we took our time to really choose a software that we thought was really correct for us. And then eventually we started our Odoo journey around September 2021. And we needed to be ready for the new accounting year that starts January 20th, 22. So we didn't have a lot of time and we went extremely fast and migrated all of our accounting clients in a very short period.

Wynand: 27:01

Short period? Yeah. To be very honest, I was actually surprised as well that it went that smooth. All of your customers, like you said, I believe more or less, more than a thousand transferred in more than two and a half months, right?

Bea: 27:15

Yeah, correct. We transferred more than 1000 accounting files, although we add on a daily basis Odoo files. Yeah, New clients.

Wynand: 27:27

Okay, well, thanks both, both of you for sharing all of that. Maybe to finish off, could you both tell us what is, according to you, is your preferred advantage of using the integrated tool we discussed here during the podcast in your daily job, then let'say?

Wim: 27:42

Yeah, not easy to choose. I would say my preference goes to the OCR combined with the artificial intelligence because I think that saves us the most time.

Bea: 27:50

Yeah, as we mentioned, is a difficult question, but if I think about it, my preferred feature is the possibility to set up a live reporting. And that combined with the customer dashboard, I think.

Wynand: 28:02

Difficult to choose indeed. But I think I would follow you, Wim. I would go for the OCR as well. I'm still impressed myself on a daily basis how effective it actually is. But spoiler alert here, there are many, many more new exciting features for accounting coming in Odoo 17, so stay tuned for that.

Wim: 28:20

Yeah, we gave you some tips on that as well.

Speaker4: 28:23

Thanks both to be here with us today and to share your experience about the accounting firm. It was very interesting, even for me and looking forward to c ontinue our collaboration in the upcoming years.

Wim: 28:35

Thank you, Wynand. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Bea: 28:37

Thank you, Wynand and see you next time. Bye bye.

Wynand: 28:40

Well, this episode was super enlightening! I hope it gave you a better understanding of the current stakes of the accounting firm world. If you enjoyed learning about an industry like we did today, stay tuned as there will be more episodes like this coming up. In the meantime, don't hesitate to stay with us longer and listen to our previous episodes. Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share the show with your friends and see you next week!