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Your core apps for accountants sit at the centre of your accounting practice. Everything else revolves around them.
Core Apps for Accountants
Whatever sits right in the epicentre of your accounting firm, those are your core apps for accountants. They are the ones you start with on your journey to a more efficient and profitable practice.
In this episode, Amy Holdsworth and Ian Walker of Clarity Street – cloud integrators for accounting practices – discuss the core apps they usually implement, focusing on an Xero ecosystem and sharing valuable insights.
Here is what we learned but please listen in as Amy and Ian explain all this much better than we ever could.
To listen while you drive, walk or work, just access the episode through a free podcast app on your mobile phone.
Of course it all depends. And there is not just one solution. One set of core apps might work great for one firm. And another set might work perfectly well for a second firm.
Core Apps
It starts with a big brand name. You usually pick one big brand – be it Xero, MYOB, Quickbooks, APS, Reckon, Sage or another less known software – and everything follows from there.
How many apps you have in your core depends on that decision.
MYOB
If you choose MYOB for example, your core is just MYOB. MYOB might not have an API, but for that they try to give you everything you need so that you never miss one. So with MYOB, you got one ‘machine’ to prepare, deliver and lodge your work.
Xero
If you choose Xero, you get a Xero core but you still need to jump from one Xero app to another. You start with XPM (Xero Practice Management) and then attach Xero Tax and Xero Workpapers as required. If you need more document management, you can attach document manager like FYI Docs or SuiteFiles.
Quickbooks
If you choose Quickbooks, you need a stack of apps but for that Quickbooks has an API (RESTful). As an example to lodge you connect Quickbooks to LodgeIt – Quickbooks partnered with LodgeIt.
Sage
Sage also has a RESTful API, so you can connect other apps to Sage.
APS
If you have APS in your firm as a legacy from earlier days, then your core app is just APS. There is an API, but it is private. This means that you can’t just click and connect other apps to APS, but you can get a specialist to connect other apps to your APS system with your own custom-built connection.
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So these are some of the options you have regarding your core. In this episode Amy Holdsworth and Ian Walker of Clarity Street focus on the core of an Xero ecosystem. So please listen in.
Once you have these core apps, you keep going. You attach other apps you need around this core. We will cover those additional apps in the next episode – Peripheral Apps for Accountants.
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Disclaimer: Tax Talks does not provide financial or tax advice. All information on Tax Talks is of a general nature only and might no longer be up to date or correct. You should seek professional accredited tax and financial advice when considering whether the information is suitable to your or your client’s circumstances.
Last Updated on 16 March 2021
Tax Talks spoke to Amy Holdsworth & Ian Walker - Director / CTO at Clarity Street - for more details.
