Australian CFO Summit 2023 returns

THE AUSTRALIAN CFO COMMUNITY IS THRILLED TO ANNOUNCE THE HIGHLY-ANTICIPATED RETURN OF THE ANNUAL AUSTRALIAN CFO SUMMIT, KICKING OFF ON 30 MAY, 2023.

Established in 2022 by spend management platform Weel (previously known as DiviPay), this year's summit explores the theme of 'protecting profit.'

The entirely virtual and free event offers the opportunity to learn from CFOs and finance industry leaders from businesses across Australia, including ANZ, Deloitte, RSM, Aurecon, Employment Hero, Deputy and Weel.

The summit will open with a keynote address from ANZ's esteemed Chief Economist, Richard Yetsenga.

This will be followed by a series of sessions explored through the lens of the CFO and finance professional, covering the state of M&A in Australia, cyber security, the use of AI in finance, and how to preserve company culture during cost-cutting.

For a complete list of sessions and speakers, please visit the event lineup on the website. Notably, this event is proudly sup- ported by Eftsure, Mackay Goodwin, Alena Bennett, MyAccounts, ezyCollect, EXL Cloud, Hudled and Fathom.

“We are excited to continue our support for the Australia CFO Summit for 2023, exploring the unique challenges and needs of finance teams in Australian SMEs. The response to our event last year was overwhelmingly positive and had over 2,000 participants. This year we have an expanded lineup of speakers and content - including new themes such as the role of AI in finance to drive revenue and managing culture during challenging economic conditions," says Damon Hauenstein, CFO of Weel.

Weel addresses the gap in the market for spend management solutions that are tailored to SME and mid-market businesses, where traditional solutions designed for larger enterprises may not be suitable or accessible.

We look forward to welcoming finance professionals across Australia to the Australian CFO Summit and providing them with valuable insights... Find out

By Michael Ford

ENTREPRENEURS ARE DRIVEN BY ‘THE ITCH’. IF YOU’VE FELT IT YOURSELF, YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN. IT’S THAT INNATE GNAWING, DISCOMFORTING FEELING THAT COMES FROM A DEEP, AND OFTEN LIFELONG, CONVICTION THAT THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY. THE ITCH IS NEVER FAR AWAY - IT LIVES IN YOUR HEAD, DISTRACTS YOUR THOUGHTS, NAGS AT YOU. I’M NO PSYCHOLOGIST, BUT TO ME THE ITCH IS AS DEEP AS DNA. IT’S NOT A LEARNED BEHAVIOUR, SO IT CAN’T BE ‘UNLEARNED’. THERE IS NO ESCAPE.

Entrepreneurs start businesses because the itch gets too much. They resist it, they damp it with logic, they try to ignore it, but it never goes away. As time goes on, it intensifies. Finally, they are compelled to do something about it.

The caricature view of the entrepreneur as a risk-taking, slick-talking hustler could not be further from the truth. The real entrepreneurs, the ones that you and I work with, are just people doing everything they can to scratch their itch. And no matter where they are in the world, no matter what industry their business serves, no matter what age, sex, creed or colour, the itch, the belief, the drive to find a better way is exactly the same.

They can see the path ahead. They can see the forks in the road, the options, the decision points. And they need help to work out which way to go.

At Castaway, every day we talk to entrepreneurs and to the accountants who look after them. Our customer base is split evenly, so we get a healthy range of views from both perspectives.

The Entrepreneurs tell us they see the services their accountants provide on 3 levels:

• They appreciate the compliance work that keeps their business on the right side of the law

• They value the work that supports and sustains the business (bank loans, grants and the like)

• They love the work that helps unlock the possibilities of the business (scratching the itch)

It should be no surprise that their level of ‘excite- ment’ about the fees they pay follows the same order.

The Accountants we talk to tend to fit into one of 3 categories:

• A few tell us “my clients just don’t need that sort of stuff”

• Some say they build budgets and forecasts when clients ask for them

• For others, forecasting is the backbone of their advisory practice. Clients love the work they do and happily pay their fees

To the first group… who knows, they may well be correct. But if there’s even one entrepreneur on the client list, I guarantee that firm is not asking the right questions.

When we dig deeper with the second group, their focus is generally the entrepreneur’s second level of satisfaction, the sustaining and supporting work like applying for bank loans and grants, churning out annual budgets and the like. Although the demand generation is reactive, this work is useful for clients and can be readily systemised and productised into a profitable service… definitely a winwin.

The third group are different. They work differently, they think differently, they talk differently. And they get different results for clients. By different, I mean better… much better. Of course, the question of “how” they are different has a hundred answers.

One thing stands out for me. The third group have gone beyond forecasting as a maths exercise focused on putting numbers on a page. They’ve evolved to embrace the idea of forecasting as a framework for exploring what is possible. This is a big step, in both mindset and methodology. They’ve found the holy grail - a way to help their entrepreneur clients scratch the itch, a way to help those entrepreneurs unlock the possibilities in their business.

It’s a simple idea, but it’s counter-intuitive, especially for firms with strong compliance-based business models, where efficiency and capacity utilisation are the traditional optimisation tools.

But it’s also entirely intuitive. Clients perceive the greatest value when you help solve their biggest, most annoying problems.

And for an entrepreneur, the ‘itch’ is the most significant long term problem there is. And forecasting, the process of looking ahead, considering scenarios, facing realities, game-planning responses, making decisions, is the best framework I know for unlocking possibilities, for finding solutions to the itch.

So how do the third group of accountants start the conversations with their clients? How do they build the interest? How do they get the clients to happily agree to engage them?

Well, the good news is we’ve seen lots of different approaches… and they all work very well. It’s a matter of finding something that works for you. If you’re looking for somewhere to start, here’s a simple 3-step approach that involves zero selling, but is highly effective at unlocking possibilities for both you and your client.

1. Find the itch

Here’s an idea. Find a client. Take them to coffee, or to lunch, or just have a call. With genuine interest, ask 3 questions:

1. Why did you start this business?

2. What were your dreams for the business back then?

3. How have those dreams changed?

You’re looking for the itch. Given the chance, and an engaged audience, most entrepreneurs love talking about their business. Some will open up immediately, the ideas and stories will just start flowing. For others, the conversation might take some time to get rolling.

If you’ve been in business a while, the daily grind, decision fatigue, pandemics and other challenges can wear you down … its all too easy to forget (or suppress) the original dreams for the business. In this situation, be patient and nurture the conversation. The memories will start to come back, a trickle at first and then more. Keep at it and you’ll see the imagination spring to life and the ideas start to flow. That’s the itch firing up again … it never goes away.

2. Run a Possibilities session

Find out more

By Emily Ossington, NextMinute

WE LIKE TO THINK WE KNOW OUR CLIENTS PRETTY WELL, BUT YOU KNOW WHAT ‘THEY’ SAY ABOUT ASSUMING…

As a company, we want to make sure that our customers succeed, and that our product plays an important role in helping our customers achieve their goals.

One of our team values at NextMinute is to sit alongside our customers and partners.

We also have the value proposition that we “make life easier by managing pricing, planning, people and profits.”

So, we recently put together a Customer Survey in order to get a better understanding of the needs and preferences of our customers, and to question are we delivering on what we promise?

‘They’ also say success is in the eye of the beholder, and our beholders are our customers - who are also your customers!

If you are a Trusted Advisor with clients in the Trade & Construction industry, here are some results from our Customer Survey that might help you understand the industry better.

Who are they?

Our average client is a 39 year old male builder, business owner, married with more than one child and has completed some form of tertiary education like trade school, college or university.

What do they need?

We asked our clients, on a scale of 1 to 10 how important are the below items to their business (answers in order based on the av erage response.)

1. Profit

2. Managing their team

3. Save time

4. Consistent work

5. Scheduling work

6. More clients

This re-confirms for us that our value proposition of pricing, planning, people and profits aligns with what our customers con sider important in their businesses.

What do they want?

We asked them to rank the importance of family time on a scale of 1 - 10. It was num ber one.

Other questions around ‘hobbies and free time’ had a variety of answers, all of which included outdoor activities such as fishing, board sports, or playing sports with their family & friends.

These responses indicate that our clients value and want more time to spend...

Find out more

By Danny Bateman, SeedLegals

Want to make your accountancy practice more attractive to new and existing clients? Add more services and become a one-stop shop for startups and small businesses.

But how do you do that without hiring specialist staff? By partnering with SeedLegals, you’ll be able to offer a more comprehensive, integrated service for startups and SMEs. You do the accountancy tasks; your client uses SeedLegals for extras. You can choose to add SeedLegals as white label software to your existing digital services, or give your clients discounts for SeedLegals and claim a referral fee.

Established in 2016, SeedLegals is an online platform which combines automated legal documents with friendly, personalised help from a team of experts. Since 2020, the company has worked alongside accountants to provide clients with a seamless, affordable service.

Over 50,000 companies have used SeedLegals to grow and scale faster. As well as straightforward business legals such as employment contracts, company policies and board management, the legal-tech service helps founders and business owners with the pivotal moments that matter:

• Secure S/EIS Advance Assurance

Do S/EIS compliance

Two thirds of all SEIS and over half of all EIS Advance Assurance applications are

• Set up option schemes

Get an EMI valuation

One quarter of all UK EMI schemes are designed and managed on SeedLegals

• Do a funding round

Take an investment

SeedLegals is the UK’s number one closer of early-stage rounds in the UK with over £1 billion raised to date. The company pioneered ‘agile funding’ to help companies take one-off investments outside funding rounds.

Make clients happy - and boost profits

By partnering with SeedLegals, you have the reassurance of offering extra services via a market leader. And with a more extensive set of

National Trust launches three-year partnership with Starling Bank to improve access to nature for over 1 million people a year

THE NATIONAL TRUST AND STARLING BANK HAVE LAUNCHED A THREEYEAR PARTNERSHIP AIMED AT ENSURING MORE PEOPLE HAVE ACCESS TO NATURE, BOTH NOW AND IN THE FUTURE.

Through the partnership, it is estimated that over 1 million people will be able to benefit from improved access to nature through the family-focused Summer of Play programme, nature workshops for school children, and Starling Banks’s refer a friend scheme.

More than 157 properties and outdoor places in the care of the National Trust will take part in Summer of Play. Summer of Play supports young families, grandparents and children to get out and about into nature during the summer holidays. Nature workshops aimed at both primary and secondary school children who otherwise struggle to access outdoor space will provide additional opportunities for them to experience nature and learn about how best to protect the environment and wildlife for future generations. It’s estimated that more than 6,000 children will be able to take part in these workshops thanks to funding from Starling Bank. The workshops will primarily be offered to schools in urban locations with high free school meal uptake.

The partnership will benefit adults as well as children and young people; with 95% of adults saying that accessing nature is important to their mental health, improving this access for those who

Airwallex And Approvalmax Announce Powerful New Partnership

AIRWALLEX, A GLOBAL PAYMENTS AND FINANCIAL PLATFORM FOR MODERN BUSINESSES, HAS PARTNERED WITH APPROVALMAX, A LEADING PROVIDER OF AUTOMATED APPROVAL WORKFLOWS FOR INVOICES AND PURCHASE ORDERS, TO OFFER A POWERFUL INTEGRATION THAT ENABLES USERS TO PREPARE AND APPROVE PAYMENTS FOR EXECUTION (INCLUDING BATCH AND MULTI-CURRENCY PAYMENTS), WITHOUT LEAVING APPROVALMAX.

The integration also gives firms the ability to manage client payments without handling manual file uploads, thereby saving time and reducing errors. ApprovalMax has named the new functionality ‘Payments with Airwallex,’ which will be live in beta starting April 2023 for organisations in the UK.

PayPal Announces New Employee Inducement Grants

PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. (NASDAQ: PYPL) face barriers is critical. Free individual day passes to National Trust sites will be available for Starling customers and their personal networks through the bank’s refer-a-friend scheme, opening up more opportunities for people to visit the fantastic historic buildings, gardens, coast and countryside in the care of the National Trust.

Funding from Starling Bank will also be used to deliver projects that help halt the decline in wildlife and protect our wild landscapes. Projects include taking action to restore peatlands in the UK, with the aim of restoring up to 37.5 hectares of peat over three years. 80% of UK peatlands are in a degraded state but these hugely important environments provide a rich and diverse home to rare and threatened wildlife, represent one of our most important terrestrial carbon stores, and play a vital role in water regulation and flood management.

Victoria Floyd, Head of Corporate Partnerships at the National Trust, said:

“We’re delighted to be launching this partnership with Starling Bank. Corporate Partnerships are a hugely valuable income stream for charities like ours, enabling us to deliver more in partnership than we ever could alone. Together we will restore vital peatlands, help children and young people both enjoy and learn how to protect the natural world around them and enable Starling customers to explore the places in our care.

“As Britain’s first digital bank, Starling believes in a sustainable future on...

Find out more

The integration offers a seamless solution for businesses seeking greater control over their payments by streamlining the preparation and approval of payments.

Using Airwallex’s financial technology, businesses like ApprovalMax can seamlessly scale their business across borders. This solution provides ApprovalMax’s accounting partners and customers with an all-inone solution that can easily automate the approval and processing of international payments.

Keep reading

Bluevine and Wise Launch International Bill-Pay Solution for U.S. SMBs

WISE, THE GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY COMPANY BUILDING THE BEST WAY TO MOVE MONEY AROUND THE WORLD, AND BLUEVINE, THE LEADING PROVIDER OF SMALL BUSINESS BANKING SOLUTIONS, TODAY ANNOUNCED A PARTNERSHIP THAT LEVERAGES THE POWER OF WISE PLATFORM TO MAKE INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS MORE CONVENIENT, SIMPLE AND TRANSPARENT FOR BLUEVINE’S CUSTOMERS IN ITS ALL-IN-ONE DIGITAL BANKING ACCOUNT.

Research found that 75% of SMBs are dissatisfied with cross-border payment solutions because fees are normally high and unpredictable. Traditional banks and other providers often hide fees in inflated exchange rates and offer confusing pricing structures, draining already tight profit margins for businesses. This also adds unnecessary complexity to the already busy lives of small business entrepreneurs.

Through this partnership, Bluevine customers can now start with eight currencies across 26 countries with highly competitive exchange rates and a transparent, low fee rate. Additional...

Keep reading

TODAY ANNOUNCED IT HAS GRANTED EQUITY AWARDS ON APRIL 15, 2023 UNDER ITS 2022 INDUCEMENT EQUITY INCENTIVE PLAN (THE "PLAN") TO NEW EMPLOYEES WHO JOINED PAYPAL.

The grants were previous- ly approved by the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors of PayPal Holdings, Inc. Information regarding the equity awards can be found on the company's investor relations website at: https://investor. pypl.com/news-and-events/ news/

Keep reading

Revolut Australia Apr’23 New Users Cashback Promotion (17 April 2023)

WELCOME TO THE REVOLUT AUSTRALIA

APRIL 2023 NEW USERS CASHBACK PROMOTION (THE “PROMOTION”), OFFERED BY REVOLUT PAYMENTS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD (ABN 21 634 823 180) (“REVOLUT”, “WE”, “OUR” OR “US”).

Terms and Conditions

The terms and conditions of the Promotion are set out below. These terms and conditions apply in addition to any other terms and conditions that apply to you as a customer of Revolut, including the Personal Terms, and the Fees and Charges Section.

Promotion Periods

The Promotion starts on 17 April 2023 11:00am AEDT and ends on 1 May 2023 10:59am AEDT (the “Promotion Period”).

What is the Promotion?

The Promotion is the opportunity for Eligible Customers to earn 5% cashback each week that they make at least three (3) Eligible Transactions.

The total cashback you can earn in one week is capped at $5.00 per week, and total aggregate cashback you can earn during the Promotion Period is capped at $10.00. This means that if your Revolut Card transactions made during the Promotion Period exceed $200.00, your cashback will remain capped at $10.00.

Who is eligible to participate in the Promotion?

To participate in the Promotion, you must be an Eligible Customer of Revolut.

An “Eligible Customer” is defined as a customer that has:

• personally received communications from Revolut inviting them to participate in the Promotion,

• passed Revolut ‘Know

Your Customer’ checks and been onboarded,

• an active Revolut Standard, Premium or Metal account; and

• not previously closed a Revolut account or had an account become suspended or restricted.

What is an Eligible Transaction?

For the purpose of the Promotion, an “Eligible Transaction” is a physical or virtual Revolut Card transaction that is:

• made in-store or online; and

• a domestic purchase.

For the avoidance of doubt, a Revolut Card transaction means you use your Revolut physical or virtual card to purchase genuine goods and/or services from a third-party merchant by entering the details of your Revolut physical or virtual card into their payment processing system. The...

Read more