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Episode 52

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Published on:

16th Mar 2023

Growth And Transformation Through Technology and Coaching

In this episode, Damien and Penny discuss how accounting and bookkeeping firms have been impacted by the pandemic. They discuss Penny’s recent trip to Chennai and how people are shifting towards remote work, businesses have had to adjust to a high rate of turnover, and schools have been on Zoom for two years. They delve into gender inequality and unequal representation in the workforce, as well as the importance of allowing people to tell their own stories.

Tune in as Damien and Penny discuss the current state of accounting firms in the age of the pandemic!


[00:00 - 01:55] Opening Segment

  • Penny recently traveled to Chennai and noticed some similarities between India and the US in terms of remote work preferences and difficulty finding employees
  • Business owners in Chennai are having difficulty filling jobs due to a lack of education caused by the pandemic


[01:56 - 13:12] Growth And Transformation Through Technology and Coaching

  • Investment in the office space, HR person, and administrative assistant
  • Change is difficult for accountants
  • Hiring technology people to work with apps and train on the accounting part
  • Building camaraderie among team members
  • Leadership classes for team leaders
  • Openness and freedom of employees to state what they want


[13:13 - 25:42] Exploring Opportunities For Change In Accounting And Bookkeeping Firms

  • They talk about clients having problems with QuickBooks
  • Accounting firms struggling to communicate the value of services effectively
  • Tax business model doing the rest of the profession a disservice
  • Providing timely, paperless, digital access, and good communication back and forth leads to little price resistance


[25:43 - 37:19] Closing Segment

  • Damien and Penny share with the listeners that having control of the flow of accounting data starting January 1st makes doing the tax return easier!


Tweetable Quotes

“If you could control the flow of the accounting data starting January 1st, and you can do it under the control of you are going to have access to everything you need when you need it to close those books every month. Then doing the tax return is easy.” - Penny Breslin


“At the end of the day, it's an accounting firm, probably just like yours with people, with technology, with the process and, and challenges and, and, and solving those challenges, and instead of the individual clients being the business client, and the actual client is the accounting firm.” – Damien Greathead


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Thank you for listening, please like and share this episode with a friend!


Websites: https://moneypennyllc.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damiengreathead/

Twitter: @Damien_GH

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/penny-breslin-0228b81/

Twitter: @pennyb57

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About the Podcast

Strategy and the Virtual Controller
Helping accounts and bookkeepers build the firm they want, their way
Your hosts Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead have more than 30 years of combined experience in the accounting industry. This podcast is to share their experiences of working in, and consulting to accounting and bookkeeping firms of all sizes, helping them grow.

Nothing discussed will be rocket science, instead they'll be discussing 'how' firms have successfully, and not so successfully, pursued growth. Penny and Damien will be sharing their insights on how firms can be successful by focusing on their people (clients included), their technology, and their processes and systems.

Ultimately how successful an accounting business will be depends largely on how the owners manage change, which alongside taxes appears to be the only constant.

We do want to acknowledge David Maister's great read Strategy and the Fat Smoker: Doing what's obvious but not easy as the inspiration for our title. Buy it on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3dhcUFC

Subscribe today for an upbeat and practical conversation about what's working and what's not in accounting businesses around the world.

About your hosts

Penny Breslin

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Penny Breslin is the founder of MoneyPenny, a consulting firm specializing in helping accounting firms and other businesses embrace the power of technology to simplify their operations and increase their profit margins.

Drawing on her years of experience and her knowledge of what it takes to run a successful business, Penny oversees the development of back office processes for her client firms. From the initial evaluation of the firm’s workflow, to technology selection, and assisting in the on-boarding of the firm’s clients, Penny works with her clients to maximize the benefits of a paperless and cloud-based firm.

Damien Greathead

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Damien has been working in the accounting industry for more than 15 years. In addition to getting his hands dirty preparing tax returns and doing bookkeeping, but the bulk of his experience comes from consulting to both accounting firms and the technology companies that serve the industry.

He set up 2020 Group USA which was a membership group for small and medium sized accounting firms and then went on to set up Receipt Bank (now Dext) in North America.

He regularly speaks to industry bodies on technology, marketing and change management.