Comparisons between the American Cowboy and the Australian West are common. Both embody a “go it alone” mentality and a resolve to just “get ‘er done.” It stands to reason then that the 300 accountants, bookkeepers, and financial advisers we met in Perth have taken to the cloud like swans to a river. It just seemed like a “no brainer” to quote one financial adviser. “Common sense rules the day,” said another. This was, so far, the most advanced Xero + Add-On crowd we’ve met so far on the Xero Roadshow.
Our favourite part about the Perth stop was the enthusiasm of DIY investors. When we introduce Sharesight to first-timer Pros (accountants or advisers), we ask “do your clients have investment portfolios?” The answer is usually “yes,” but in Perth the response is “yeah, but I have one too.” We spent a lot of time Thursday looking up obscure share codes to check performance of favourite mining stocks.
One of the best, time-saving features of Sharesight is our corporate actions data. When one mining company takes over another, for example, Sharesight will handle this automatically. Name change? No problem. Share split? We’ve got you covered with no manual intervention.
In a market like Perth, where accountants and financial advisers are moving to the cloud in droves, an entire support and consulting industry has sprung up around this move towards a new ecosystem. We were fortunate to set up our stand next to the guys from Focus Growth Strategies. They work with accounting practices to optimise sales and service strategies in the cloud ecosystem. In short, there are so many practices moving away from old-school software into the cloud that a consulting cottage industry is thriving right alongside.
Next stop Sydney. Into the big smoke.