Automation, robots, and worried about the future

All what you say is very relevent about how the future may change. We are in an industry whereby a degree of our work can be automated. However we have embraced these upcoming changes and actually increased fees and reduced work. We have used MTD as a tool to get all clients onto Xero now enabling us automate much more of the process. We are therefore reducing time but we have increased fees to cover the addition of Xero and a a more regualr service.

Our service will become a monthly or quarterly one and we will increaase our contact with clients and our service. We will be far more responsive as we will have up to date info available in an instant.

Most clients do not use us because they cannot do the work. In most cases they are in fact capable but it comes down to time. They do not have the time to spend the hours required recording data which they see as only calculating their tax. Something we may be able to perform in 3 hours may take them 10. Plus the stress factor. I'm s%#t at DIY. I've tried in the past and can do a few things but it takes me ages, I'm not guaranteed to get the result I want or even the right result and it is super stressful. I simply decide to pay someone to do it. I could by all means do it myself by taking the time to research and learn but I've really got so many other better things to do with my time.

Clients take this same approach. It's hard to grasp for people like us who generally like working with figures and find them easy but many people don't.

I do think the number of people who do their own tax returns may increase over the next 5 - 10 years but I don't overly seeing it affect me or my practice. More of a threat to us in the short term is the new PSB 'IR35' rules. Not necessarily on the PSB front as we only have around 10 clients who operate in the public sector but if HMRC deem the rules a success and role them out to all contractors that would mean a fair few lost clients.

Accountancy is a very fast moving profession at this time and I firmly believe you need to embrace the change and lead it. If you don't you will get left behind and dissappear as people will move to those leaders who are at the forefront of utilising the latest technologies.

A good part of my job as the owner of a modern practice is spent researching and understanding ways in which we could utilise, embrace and encourage the use of technology in order to make our practice more efficient and up to date with latest technological developments and trends. This iften means trying new things that no, or very few, other practices are doign and they do not always work. It also means that just because something is working well in the practice now does not mean that it is the best way of doing it. If we have not changed something for a while, why not? There could be a better way of doing it now!