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Transcript (Note: There may be typos due to automated transcription errors.)

Randy Johnston  00:04

Welcome to the accounting Technology Lab. I’m Randy Johnston with my co host, Brian Tankersley, we wanted to talk today about a portal called HubSync. Now there’s about 48 portals that are sold into the accounting profession in the US market. By our latest count. I’m sure we’ll find more as time goes on, and we’ve covered a number of the competitors in other podcasts with you. Now, hub sync is out of Alexandria, Virginia. They tend to work in higher end firms. So we recognize many of you are from smaller firms. This may not be as good a fit, but what this product does is actually pretty stunning. It accomplishes what I like to have done. See, in my world, a portal for your firm should be able to you should be able to have one for all your practice areas. So if you’re doing tax and client accounting services, or CAS and audit and others, you should be able to do that through a single portal, and hub sync gets that done. Now we’re quite cognizant that there’s other portals that can cover all three of these areas as well, but this one is interesting because they do very tight integrations into practice management and document management. Not everything is covered by all the bigs, but almost everything is covered. So if you’re a Walters Kluwer shop, or you’re a Thompson Reuters shop, or you’re an Intuit shop, or you’re a Iris shop and or a carbon shop and so forth, this company has done the integrations already, so that makes it kind of attractive, e signatures included and so forth. So Brian, I’ve probably started off with too long of a rant, because normally I’d say, What would you like our listeners to know about hub sync? But you know, again, I followed the product pretty much since inception, and I will just tell you I’m impressed on this high end portal product.

Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA  02:04

Well, it’s a it’s got, it’s got a number of different features that I think are helpful for firms of all sizes. It’s got an engagement letter wizard. Has tools for collecting data and doing PBC lists and then tracking the outcome of those, workflow tracking for tax returns and other engagements, e signature e filing, as you can track all your E filing in one place, client portal and Document Delivery. It also has got some visualizations for planning and analytics. And one of the other interesting things that they do is they do an R and D tax credit tool, so they can help you put together the documentation justifying the claiming of of an R D tax credit. So, so it’s a wide range of different things, you know, and we’ve looked at other solutions, like kipsi for R D tax credits, but, you know, again, this is, this has kind of got it integrated into that platform.

Randy Johnston  03:03

Yeah. In fact, I was actually going to call kipsi by name because their r&d gathering is about the most sophisticated and simple to use that I’ve seen. However, again, my call on hub sync for our listeners is that this platform is pretty much covering everything. Now, do I consider it to, you know, the silver bullet, and it’s the only one I recommend? No, you know, part of the issue there this is not trivial to implement, and it’s not inexpensive, so you’re going to have to be aware of that when you approach hub sync. But I am very pleased with their capabilities in each of the major practice areas. They also have a bit of a focus around legal, and I think part of that is driving litigation support and driving other areas like that. But I’m not unconvinced that they don’t want to span out into other vertical markets, like legal although they’ve been very focused on accounting up to this point, another key thing that the product does well is it works globally. So many of the products that we’ve recommended don’t work well outside US borders, for example, trying to get multi factor authentication often fails and so forth. So as you laid out, Brian, you know this end to end process, engagement letter capabilities, the PBC capabilities, with the workflow, being able to process e sign and then E file on the back end. You know that part of this product is, I think, very, very well done. Now, one of the things that the vendor does, and they’ve done it for some time, is they actually very specifically work with your firm in a consultative approach. It’s part of the reason they’re. Implementation expense is higher, but they also tailor their solutions then to fit with your firm’s vision and requirements. And that’s a good thing, as I’d see it. So you know, it’s it’s a bit of a compromise, more expense, better experience for your team members, possibly better experience for your clients. And the goal of the platform is to help your team, to help your employees minimize the administrative duties in a pretty usable interface. And you know, so that part of it I like now, Brian, you know, as I think about the the team, the management team and developers behind this. I’ve known quite a few of them for a lot of years. They claim, and I think correctly so, that all of their team had 10 plus years of CPA firm automation experience. The CEO has been around the tax and accounting space for 30 plus years. And you know, as I’ve spoken with him, it is, you know, real clear that John has a great understanding of the needs, particularly as he would see it from his perspective. And I think, with others. So are there other key things that would be helpful Brian and I guess one final call over before I hand it to you, is many of the team comes from our x big four. They come from big four firms, just like we’ve seen with platforms like inflow, you know, X, big four. So this will work more like a large firm will work, and probably less like a small firm will work. But what other things would you say are important?

Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA  06:57

I think the planning and analytics tool and the gateway are both interesting. The Gateway is actually a customizable dashboard that shows you key performance indicators and metrics. And in this age of growing private equity large firms, I think that’s a critical need that a lot of those PE backed firms have, because one of the first things they’re typically doing is putting in something approximating real time reporting of just about every kind of results out there so that they can again, be more effective at what they’re doing. You know, another thing that, another thing that I think is critical. You know, we’ve talked about the Nula application, KNU, u, l, a, that’s an engagement letter tool. But I think the engagement letter automation is a a thing whose time has come. You know, it’s one. One can go back to the the 80s and 90s, when insurance companies got those standard terms and conditions and standard contract language, and we’re really much more effective in in building that out and putting in or taking out riders, out of out of insurance policies. And, you know, it’s, it’s well past time that that, you know, human beings should be sitting, sitting, generating a new engagement letter for every single job that’s bespoke for that particular job. So many of them can use, so many of them can use something that’s much more standardized, and again, get the right things in there and just make it more effective generally.

Randy Johnston  08:33

Yeah. So you know, you’re really awful, correctly? So on this analytic dashboard, and the, you know, the take on a lot of the PE firms, excuse me, as they expect to go in and replace and automate things that aren’t done well, but the analytics inside hubsync can do multi views on engagement statuses or engagement length of time used qualified expenses on that And further, they have a survey tool inside their platform. Now, the survey can be used to gather all sorts of data, but just think of it as a, you know, client satisfaction survey. But it’s far more than that. In this particular piece, another item that we haven’t really talked about, and they have a what they call a deliverable wizard, and it’s really a document generator with templates, and then it integrates to a lot of these other systems that they work with. They do some conditional formatting and then some document routing in there. So you know, when you start looking at how this platform works, there’s just more sophistication than we typically see, and I think it was built to satisfy the needs of the larger firms with the larger complexity involved. So Brian, I think this might be a good time. Any parting thoughts for our listeners on the hub sync platform, again, big platform probably better that you demonstrate it. I. Ask for pricing and so forth on this particular instance, because there’s a whole lot to see here. Okay,

Brian F. Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA  10:07

so, so automation integration is the future of accounting. Where we’re taking we’re focusing on creating a personalized experience, but then we’re using using automation to deliver quite a bit of that quite a bit, quite a few of the touches that are needed with clients, whether it be engagement letters or PBC schedules or again, even the data for for engagements like those, like the rd tax credit gathering. So you know, you don’t have to get on this plane, but I think you need to, I think you need to get in the back of your mind that you need to get on somebody’s playing for engagement, engagement, integration and automation and communicating with clients. You know, this may this, this, this may be the right tool for you. It may not be the right tool for you, but I think you need to be thinking about how you’re making the automation better for your clients and how you’re providing best in class, similar to what we’re seeing with just about every other service provider out there that’s texting you reminders of your appointments, and again, setting up your setting up appointments in your in your Outlook automatically, and doing all kinds of things like that to make, to make it possible for you to practice your profession, instead of having to go in and deal with 500 zillion little details and taking the risk that either you or the client or both are going to drop the ball on one or more of those. Yeah,

Randy Johnston  11:37

I appreciate that. And Brian and I have spoken with you in several different technology accounting labs about the need for Portal automation, and it is really a combination of the end to end experience with engagement, letter delivery, PBC, gathering, delivery of final work product with E signature and payment. That’s kind of the way we’re thinking about the world. Hub sync tends to get that done. Now from a pricing perspective, I’m not speaking for the vendor. Many of these products price by user, but I believe they do a flat rate pricing based on your size, firm and the items that you implement. So anyway, make sure that you follow Brian’s advice if you don’t have a modern experience portal, you need to really get one, and get one soon. And we are trying to keep you from having 2345, portals in your firm. Look for one that satisfies your needs. Well, we appreciate you listening in, and we will talk to you again soon in another technology accounting lab. Good day.

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