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IRS destroys 30 million paper information returns; crypto stablecoins collapse; KPMG uses Monday.com to build time-tracking app; Xero breaks 3 million subscribers; and more!
Show Notes
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Show Notes
2:57 – Tether (USDT) stablecoin drops below $1 peg
Bitcoin plunged to its lowest level since December 2020 as a cryptocurrency selloff gathered steam
10:46 – Crypto investors likely pay less than half the taxes they owe
12:05 – Web3 accounting firm officially launches on Tactic.com
22:59 – KPMG UK Somehow Won't Be Getting a Record Fine From the Financial Reporting Council For Carillion Mess
25:22 – Listener mail from Chris – Thank you!
35:22 – Logan Graf YouTube Video – How Much Money I made In 2021 As A First Year CPA Firm Owner
38:38 – Listener mail from Tyler – Thank you!
41:20 – Listener mail from Sarah – Thank you!
45:26 – IRS destroyed 30M paper information returns due to backlog
Report: IRS Destroyed 30 Million Paper Tax Documents
51:08 – Rippling raises $250M in series D funding
53:40 – Fueled by the remote work revolution, Deel more than doubles valuation to $12B with new raise – TechCrunch
55:08 – Deluxe Announces Collaboration with Codat to Embed Accounting Integrations Directly into Deluxe Payroll + HR Solutions Platform
57:18 - Avalara releases tax compliance automation tool for property managers
58:06 – Xero’s full year 2022 financial results
59:06 – Millions of Americans May Qualify for Free Broadband Internet Program
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What is The Accounting Podcast?
The Accounting Podcast (formerly the Cloud Accounting Podcast) is the world's #1 accounting, bookkeeping, and tax podcast! Join us weekly for a roundup of accounting news, analysis, and interviews. Plus, earn free NASBA-approved CPE credits for listening with the Earmark app. Learn more at https://earmarkcpe.com.
[00:00:00] Thank you to our sponsor, OnPay.
David: OnPay is an easy-to-use full-service payroll and HR app, that is the right fit for all your clients, whether they have just one or 500 employees to stay organized, to save time, and get compliant. If you're wondering why OnPay is so great, it's because it was built by payroll experts with over 30 years of payroll experience and has the most robust and customizable QuickBooks Online and Xero integrations of any payroll provider. Stay tuned to hear more from our sponsor, OnPay, later in the episode.
[00:00:28] Preview.
Blake: I fundamentally believe that Bitcoin has no value in the long run. Eventually, it will go to Xero at some future date. When that will happen, we don't know. And could all these retirement accounts getting into it, then institutional money getting into it, drive it up again to new heights before it collapses? Or maybe I'm wrong. And maybe it will be the new gold. But I think-
David Leary: I don't know. [crosstalk]-
Blake: ... those are the two possibilities. It's all or nothing.
David Leary: Coming to you weekly from the OnPay recording studio, this is The Cloud Accounting Podcast.
[00:01:09] Intro and Accounting Web Live.
Blake: Welcome to The Cloud Accounting Podcast. I'm Blake Oliver.
David: I've David Leary.
Blake: Good to see you, David
David: You too. We just started sort of two days ago.
Blake: San Diego Paradise Point 4 AccountingWEB live. What'd you think?
David: It was great. Well, it was obviously a first-year conference, but people came from everywhere to attend it. I mean, even people that kind of haven't been to a conference in a while. Doug Sleeter showed up. Clayton Oates came all the way from Australia.
Blake: He gave a keynote.
David: And he gave a keynote. Now the crazy thing is I think over those same days, I think it's like the business expo something, small business expo or something like that is in Australia happening. The UK had Accountex happening, which is... The Accountex in the UK is gigantic. And then conference SERA FIT. I think it's like finance, innovation, technology, which is a Spanish accounting conference that was happening in Florida. So, four conferences were all happening all at the same time. So, we're in the full swing post-COVID, I guess now when these many in-person conferences are happening, which is kind of exciting. What was your highlight from the thing? What was your event, your highlight?
Blake: I was just getting to see everyone standing around talking to people in real life, just standing around.
David: Yeah, that was good.
Blake: The small conversations that happened on the side of the event, those are always the reason I go, "Well, David, we got a lot to talk about this week. What's top of mind for you? I could start."
David: Xero had their fiscal year results and some other app news type thing.
Blake: We got listener mail. I've got three of those we got to get to, the US band accounting services to Russia or-
[00:02:57] Crypto and stable coins.
Blake: ... blockchain. We haven't talked about crypto in a while, ever since Tether and stable coins. And one of these stable coins, it went poof over the week.
David: Is it poof, poof, or is it like only 10% now or something?
Blake: Well, I mean, isn't that the equivalent of going, poof, if TARA-USD goes from a dollar for a TARA down to 10 cents for a TARA. It's not a stable coin anymore, right?
David: Let's check my Bitcoin investments here.
Blake: It's not going to be good. That also tanked this week.
David: Because remember, I bought like $10 on each one of the little platforms here.
Blake: All right. So, we're going to start with crypto then. [crosstalk]-
David: All right, let's jump there. Go forward. So, I'll check the values.
Blake: So, let's review our prior coverage of this on the show. we started talking about Tether a lot. Tether is the stable coin that is supposedly backed one-to-one US dollars to Tethers. And so, it's supposed to hold its value at a dollar. And we have looked into its audit. It's a test. And there's like three guys in the Cayman Islands who did the audit. And there's lots of questions as to, where is all this money, the $80 billion that was invested into Tether? And there are allegations that the people who created Tether have been using Tether for years to pump up the value of Bitcoin in particular.
And the way you do this with a stable coin is that you mint the stable coin, and then you use the stable coin to buy whatever cryptocurrency you want to pump up. And it looks like dollars. It acts like dollars, but it isn't dollars. And so you can create artificial volume, or you can create volume in a market where there may not be that kind of volume, and a bunch of people buying and selling Bitcoin in exchange for a stable coin can have the same impact as if people were buying and selling for US dollars, but that's not what is happening.
So, the problem with stable coins, even though they're not that big as a percentage of the whole crypto market, crypto markets, what, like $ 1 trillion, $2 trillion, something like that, and these stable coins, like the biggest one, Tether is 80 billion. But that's not where the risk is. The risk is that they create a lot of the liquidity for the crypto markets. Because most Bitcoin is not purchased with US dollars. It's purchased with Tether or another stable coin. So, the idea is if these banks for crypto suddenly turn out to be, failed, right, if the banks fail, then the value of the investments will also then plumb it because people won't be able to get their money out.
And that is kind of what happened this week, where not Tether, but TARA-USD collapsed. And that's what we're talking about, collapsed at 10% of its value. And this is one that's even scarier than Tether because it's an algorithmic stable coin, meaning that it's not actually backed by US dollars, fully. What's the best way to describe it? It's linked to another cryptocurrency and then it tries to maintain its one-to-one value to the US dollar by incentivizing people to buy or sell it.
David: Yeah. I tried to listen to This Week in Startups, and they had a guest to talk about this, and it was almost impossible to follow. Right? Because it feels like a little this. Remember the crash in the markets before we had from the flash trading and the automated transactions?
Blake: Mm-hmm.
David: It feels like that has a little bit to do with this, also has to do with the fact that people are truly trying to get out of Bitcoin a little bit. And so, there's a little bit of a bank rush happening. But the whole premise, right, if the Tether is supposed to equal the dollar one-to-one and it falls below, all bets are off then, right?
Blake: Well, so that is what happened briefly. So, this TARA-USD, which is the algorithmic cryptocurrency, which algorithmic stable coins are inherently unstable. And so, the algorithm failed. It didn't manage to stay pegged to the dollar and it fell. So, then people started to freak out and then Tether briefly for a day, dropped to 95%, 0.95 on the dollar. And if Tether goes down, my argument is that a lot of people won't be able to get their money out, and then the price of Bitcoin will truly plummet. I mean, it's already way down, but that's how the crypto markets evaporate is when the liquidity evaporates is the idea. So, this is-
David: So, are you suggesting that I'm down 30%, I should just count my losses and get my other $7 out of my Bitcoin investments right now?
Blake: No, you need to hold to the end, so we have something to talk about.
David: But what if I listen to everybody, and I would have put $10,000 in or $100,000?
Blake: Yeah, I know. A lot of people did, right?
David: Because it was going to go up forever, no matter what.
Blake: I wonder how many people invested at the top.
David: A lot because I mean, essentially, a lot of the run-up was stimulus money and the pandemic and Robinhood and I mean, impulsive buyers on Cash App, $10 in Cash App, $10 over here in Venmo. I use the PayPal app. I use that vending machine to buy Bitcoin. Right. I'm down.
[00:08:27] Fidelity to allow Bitcoin 401(k) accounts.
Blake: Well, here's another thing to be concerned about now. So, this news doesn't look so good in close proximity. Fidelity said it's going to start offering Bitcoin 401(k) accounts. Fidelity is the largest or one of the largest retirement planning 401(k) companies. And they're going to allow you to invest up to 20% of your 401(k) into Bitcoin.
David: So right now, I can. Is it sort of 401(k)s, you just pay out like a target fund?
Blake: Yes.
David: A little bit more risk is you try to self-manage and you pick yourself a suite of funds. And then the next is you move some of it into a brokerage type of account and pitch stocks yourself, and this is going to be another level where you're like, "I'm going to move some 20% of my assets into this fidelity Bitcoin account, and then I can go buy Bitcoin in my portfolio." Is it only Bitcoin? Is it all crypto? Is it-
Blake: I think it's just Bitcoin for now.
David: 20%.
Blake: Well, I know. It just seems nuts to me. And that's the sort of thing where I was trying to figure out what is going to happen. I fundamentally believe that Bitcoin has no value in the long run. Eventually, it will go to zero at some future date. When that will happen, we don't know. And could all these retirement accounts getting into it, then institutional money getting into it, drive it up again to new heights before it collapses? Or maybe I'm wrong. And maybe it will be the new gold. And I think those are the two possibilities.
David: I don't know. That's [crosstalk]-
Blake: It's all or nothing, right? It's a yes or a no. I don't think there's any middle ground with Bitcoin. It's either going to be one of the most valuable assets in the history of our planet, or it's going to be totally worthless.
David: But a lot of the value is pegged on the collapse of society, right?
Blake: Yeah. The end of-
David: The class of governments and all of these things, but I'm thinking there won't be electricity. So, then what's the point? You're going to want to have gold. You're going to have gold. You're going to have bricks. You're going to want to have guns. I don't want to be like prepper here, but I just don't know where the long-term value is. I just can't see it. Even right now, the economy is getting real shaky, and people are putting money in gold.
[00:10:46] More Bitcoin and crypto news.
Blake: So, there's two tie-ins to what we talk about on the show and accounting and tax having to do with Bitcoin or blockchain or crypto. The one I just saw today was an estimate that crypto investors likely pay less than half of the taxes they owe. This is according to an analyst at Barclays, Joseph Abate, or Abate. He is a veteran analyst of money markets and treasury department funding. extrapolated. He extrapolated from a 2017 IRS calculation to find the current tax gap for just crypto tax filers is around $50 billion a year, which would be about 10% of all unpaid taxes if the tax gap is around half a trillion dollars as the IRS has estimated in the past.
And let's remember. It could be more than that because Chuck Rettig told Congress that the tax gap could be as high as a trillion dollars a year. It's mostly people not reporting income. In crypto, hey, it's really easy to not report income because there's not a lot of informational reporting on crypto. It's anonymous. So, it's not like you're getting a 1099 for your crypto earnings most of the time, unless you happen to use Coinbase or one of the regulated exchanges.
[00:12:05] A new "web 3" accounting firm launches.
David: Yeah. The other interesting thing here is, so I saw, speaking of crypto, a new "web 3" accounting firm launched. It's actually a horrible headline, but-
Blake: Web 3. I thought we were still in web 2.
David: So, here's the headline. This is on Domain Wire or Domain Name News. Web 3 accounting firm officially launches tactic.com. So, Tactic is essentially a SaaS app, right, that'll go and connect to all your crypto wallets and exchanges to give you a full, right, of all your balances and activities, and then it's going to calculate your gains, your losses, taxable events, and then it's going to take it and export it out to QuickBooks.
Two things I think that I'm kind of finding interesting this. So why would you move it to QuickBooks unless you were a business doing this, right? An individual wouldn't need it, export it out to QuickBooks, right? Unless you're a business buying crypto. And then the other interesting thing is Tactic publicly launched from emerging from stealth mode with a 2.6 million in funding co-led by founders Fund and Ramp. So, Ramp's expense management card, right?
Blake: [crosstalk]. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
David: Who's a startup themselves. So, I'm kind of thinking like, so investors are investing into a startup to solve expense report management, right? Expense cards, basically, corporate spend, and then the founders in that company basically took that money and put it into a crypto startup. I don't know.
Blake: So, what does it do exactly? It aggregates, I'm reading the article here, TechCrunch, right? It gives them-
David: Well, this is not in TechCrunch, but I think it's still the same.
Blake: So, it tackles the problem of accounting for a business's cryptocurrency holdings and on-chain activity by aggregating data across disparate sources to give businesses a full treasury view of their balances and activities. Okay. So, you can see all your crypto holdings across all your wallets.
David: And your transactions and all that. I think a couple of players have done this now, right?
Blake: Yeah. Yeah. There's a bunch of doing this. The idea is you connect all your crypto accounts and then you can see it all in one place. And what do they sync into QuickBooks?
David: That's the part I don't fully understand. I mean, I guess if you're a business, and you're investing in this stuff and maybe-
Blake: I mean, you put in the gains and losses and put it on the balance sheet, right? That's got to be it. Cool.
David: Yeah. But if you're a personal finances, if you're just a person, you're not going to want 60 QuickBooks, but I don't know. It's just a lot of these can be popup. And it's funny because they're like web 3 accounting made simple. The taglines, it's all here.
Blake: Right, on the website.
[00:14:40] Thank you to our sponsor, FreshBooks.
David: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by FreshBooks. For those of you that know Twyla Verhelst, from her video-per-day experiment on Twitter, you remember the one where she encouraged hundreds of accountants and bookkeepers to get out of their shells and post videos on social media. If you do remember, you'll probably agree when I say Twyla is about community building. Now Twila and our team are building FreshBooks exclusive online accounting partner community. Be it sharing experiences, venting with peers, collaborating, ideating, supporting and elevating others, I like to define community as conversation.
And nothing beats a face-to-face conversation at a conference. In fact, Twyla is going to be an AICPA Engage 2022. And if you find her and have a conversation and tell her what community means to you, she'll give you a sweet FreshBooks hoodie and all toss in The Cloud Accounting Podcast shirt. If you want to learn more about the benefits of working better together with FreshBooks, head over to cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/freshbooks, that is, cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/freshbooks.
[00:15:55] Goldman Sachs gives 1st Bitcoin-backed loan.
Blake: Here's a more blockchain I've been saving, more blockchain news, Coinbase. Well, let me step back for a second. Goldman Sachs made the first Bitcoin-backed loan, so more traditional financial stuff getting involved in crypto and-
David: Crypto-backed loan.
Blake: Yes. So, meaning that-
David: [crosstalk]-
Blake: So, David, let's say you want to start a business and I'm going to give you a loan. I might ask for some collateral and your house.
David: Here's a kid. Here's-
Blake: Or your firstborn son. Right?
David: Okay. So instead of giving me your firstborn son's soul, you could give me a lien on your crypto. So, you have a bunch of Bitcoin, and I'm going to give you cash, and you're going to give me... The crypto is going to be the collateral. So do you see where the potential-
David: Did it say how many these amounts were, how big this loan?
Blake: So, it was a loan to Coinbase, and they didn't provide details about it, the amount.
David: Oh, I'm David. Listen, crypto holdings, assets that maybe are worth X, and I'm going to use that secure loan. They're basically giving the loan to actually the middleman crypto player.
Blake: Yeah, but you could see them doing this-
David: This is-
Blake: ... for other-
David: It actually would make more sense and feel less risky if it was other people, the people that kind of control the market.
Blake: I mean, I guess the reason that I brought this up is because it shows how... The reason cryptocurrency matters, even if you don't care about it at all, is could a crypto crash impact the broader market. And this is one of those ways in which it could, right? If we start having a lot of loans in US dollars, a lot of loans in Fiat currency backed by crypto assets and the crypto market tanks, those loans get called in, right? And they can't pay.
David: In the grand scheme of historical traditional financial institutions and the money they manage and the money they have and the grand size, is it just nominal these little amounts that are messing with crypto, and so it can't really impact the bigger economy. Or are they really putting more money than all of us know, and which is, there's actually a risk?
Blake: I think right now there's not much of a risk. Crypto is what? I don't know what it is now, but it was up to like $2 trillion, but-
David: With these all-press releases, the [crosstalk]-
Blake: Right. But imagine, if it gets bigger, many times bigger, if this continues, then ultimately it could become a problem. So, we're sort of spotting this maybe five, 10 years ahead.
David: I really like crypto lemmings, just marching towards the edge of that cliff, following each other.
Blake: I mean, we're just going to go along for the ride. We don't have a choice, right? The whole economy could go that way.
[00:18:43] Tax breaks from NFTs and crypto donations.
Blake: Last story here that I've got on crypto is... This was in the Wall Street Journal, and the headline is The New Way to Get a Tax Break: NFT and Crypto Donations. So, if you don't think that your NFTs are going to be worth anything, you could still get a sweet tax deduction by donating it at the price you paid for it, because these are hard to value, right? So, you could go out and buy an NFT and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for it instead of then reselling it. You realize-
David: I saw TikTok videos about this, but just for plain old artwork.
Blake: Yeah. You could basically say [crosstalk]-
David: [crosstalk] artist $100,000 to make some sculpture and then you donate it and say the value is $4 million.
Blake: Yeah. And then if you want to go criminal, you have the artists kick you back 90% of what you paid him. Right.
David: That's quite a little.
Blake: That's what people do, right?
David: But people are basically doing that with NFTs now.
Blake: You could, yeah. So, I could buy an NFT from you, David. Right? You sell it to me. And then under the table, you hand me the money back. Now I've got a high-value NFT I can donate to some charity that'll take it and sell it. I don't know. Yeah.
David: Auction it or something.
Blake: Auction it. But I get to take the deduction at the fair value at the time that I made the donation.
[00:20:01] KPMG and Monday.com announce alliance.
David: I have two other things that are confusing to me a little bit. Do you want to talk IRS, or do you want to talk about KPMG?
Blake: Are you talking about the KPMG Carillion mess?
David: No, but KPMG and Monday.com, their alliance.
Blake: Let's talk about that because I've got a story about KPMG.
David: Yeah. So Monday.com is like... I think some of our listeners, maybe who've used, some of them may have used this Monday.com, some of them probably used Cielo, right? Some of them are ClickUp or Trello, any of this kind of workflow software, right?
Blake: What's weird about Monday.com is I've seen the ads everywhere, YouTube ads everywhere.
David: Oh, their marketing budget's insane.
Blake: I don't know anyone who uses it for an accounting firm, not a single person.
David: Well, except for KPMG. I looked at it a long time ago when I was looking for a good dashboard tool like this. I went up settling on Fabro. But I did look at it one time, and it wasn't called Monday.com when I looked at it a long time ago. So, I'm trying to figure out if this is real or if this is really really Monday.com, really this is a big marketing thing, right?
Blake: Mm-hmm.
David: So essentially, KPMG has built top of... They're calling it now Monday.com's Work OS, right? So, they built different products that tie into NetSuite. So first off, I'm trying to rewinding here and I'm like, is it a company that's using NetSuite going to use Monday.com? Maybe a team individually, like the social media team might use it to manage some workflow or marketing team.
Blake: I guess they've been going upmarket then, right? They must be if this is what they're doing, trying to get big companies.
David: Yeah. So, apparently KPMG built an app, a crisis management solution app. And they're building apps also to integrate NetSuite for all the online, all the finance teams, on-processes, and projects, and they're syncing the data real-time back and forth. So, the project hours are spending over here in Monday are somehow getting back over to NetSuite, right?
They're also automating repetitive tasks, right? So, they have a smart document reader. I said the crisis management solution already. And then they're kind of in a partnership where KPMG is going to roll these tools out to in theory, KPMG clients, I guess this is the goal. So, I'm just confused because I am like, "I doubt KPMG is using Monday.com on any massive scale, right?
Blake: Yeah.
David: And are they really going to roll this out? Like I said, here's another article I'm just confused about. Is this is just another marketing PR thing, or is it-
Blake: Well-
David: ...people are really using this?
Blake: Remember when Xero signed a deal with one of the Big Four in Canada? That happens every now and then. You get the big press release, some big partnership deal, but then nothing really comes of it, right? So that's probably what this is. That's my guess.
David: So, let's probably watch.
[00:22:59] KPMG fined for Carillion audit.
Blake: So, I'm glad you brought up KPMG because this gives me an excuse to talk about the Carillion mess. Carillion was a giant audit failure in the UK, on par with like Wirecard where it was just complete total fraud and-
David: And what did Carillion do? Just because it's hard a name.
Blake: I think construction.
David: Doing construction. Okay.
Blake: So, the auditors, it was, it was a question of where were the auditors? Yeah. They're a construction company in the UK. And they didn't find the fraud. They should've found the fraud. Well, KPMG is going to be fined by the Financial Reporting Council. Originally, it was going to be the largest fine ever in the UK. It was going to be 20 million pounds. But that has been reduced to 14.4 million pounds to reflect mitigating factors and KPMG's admissions of wrongdoing.
David: So, it's been reduced 60, 70%.
Blake: But again, remember, what's 14 million pounds to a company that globally earns tens of billions of dollars in revenue every year?
David: Probably not much.
Blake: KPMG, UK revenue. Let's see if I can find this. So, it was 2.4, 3 billion pounds, and they're getting fined 14 million. Slaps on the wrist. Right. Why would you change your behavior if this is the situation? It's just like we talked about, was it KPMG in Australia with the cheating?
David: I think it was KPMG in Australia.
Blake: They're not doing so good in the news.
David: And the crazy thing about this, let's just look at TurboTax situation and Intuit, right? It's deceptive advertising, right? This is questionable integrity behavior over here. Everybody knows all advertising might be questionable, right? But you've look at what's going on with KPMG, especially in Australia, cheating on those tests. This is flat-out ethical behavior and their belly getting slapped.
Blake: Yeah. It's like total violations of the core values of public accounting. And they're not even banning them from... The partners involved are not even getting banned for life. They only have to sit out for like 10 years or something, and they-
David: During that time, they could go work for the PCO-
Blake: PCOB. Just go work for the companies that they were auditing, right?
David: No. But yeah. Probably yeah. They'll probably take this paycheck and not do much.
[00:25:22] Listener mail about 1040s and clients.
Blake: Hey, I've got that listener mail. Do you want to get to know that?
David: No, let's jump over that.
Blake: Okay. So, this is from Chris. Chris said, "Around the 32-minute mark of the most recent episode, David vented about how it's always a transactional relationship with tax repairs in response to the surgeon tax Twitter post. So, this is in response to... Is it Surgify? Who is the-
David: Oh, yeah. It was Surgify, I think.
Blake: Surgify is a robotic surgeon who also has like finance... He talks about finance thoughts.
David: Personal finance stuff. Yeah. Self-made millionaire. Self-made millionaire.
Blake: He made a video in his Tesla complaining about tax preparers.
David: Oh, he was in his Tesla. I didn't know that.
Blake: Yeah. Yeah. I think so. He had the big roof on the top. It's just saying like it's ridiculous you guys are complaining about your clients and stuff like that. It's unprofessional. And then some other stuff. Because he had a bad, I don't know, not a great experience. So anyway, Chris says, "I agree that it's mostly a transactional relationship with those clients that we only do a year-end tax return for. Blake mentioned off the cuff that greed is the cause of this because we take on too many tax returns trying to make more money. I agree that this occurs but don't believe greed is the cause. It's more like survival. Most accounting firm owners don't make that much annual profit, especially when considering the amount of hours they work. The real problem is there is a market imbalance between what clients value tax return work at and the prices that would actually work for an accounting firm to operate like any other normal business that makes good profit without all the overtime. I'm not sure where the tax return market is headed. But what I see is that my firm and all other firms I network with, including big firms are not taking on orphan 1040s anymore and firing many of the existing 1040 clients. There's hardly even any firms to refer the clients to. Nobody wants them anymore.
"Orphan 1040s is the term we use for tax return clients that we don't have a business-client relationship with, bookkeeping, business tax returns, et cetera. It's either going to be that TurboTax and H&R Block absorb all these clients or market prices for 1040 prep double. I'm going to be offering a new take-it-or-leave-it service to my clients in the segment, increase the price 80% to 100% and smooth it out over the year as a monthly subscription. This is after increasing prices by 30% to 40% over the past three years. We'll certainly add some services with the increase, but nothing we don't already do, like take their calls with questions throughout the year and send them tax law, updates, planning, suggestions, and reminders, et cetera. There simply is not enough capacity to service all tax clients in the manner which you desire while avoiding burnout and making profits big enough to be worth all the hassle. So, something has to break. We'll see what works, Chris." So, David, I want to give you a chance to reply to Chris.
David: I mean, I specifically... Hey, first off, I guess, I'd love this orphan 1040 come as I'm thinking show title. But the reason that problem occurred with Surgify is very transactional. It's like, I gave you my stuff and I'm expecting you to give me something back. Right? Both sides, that was the expectation that was said.
Blake: And I think he was frustrated with not hearing back.
David: Not hearing back. Yeah. But-
Blake: Yeah, just waiting and not knowing.
David: Not knowing.
Blake: Which is the biggest, I think most common complaint.
David: But it's also not like... We didn't go into this tax season without the knowledge that it was already going to be stacked up and behind since the last 18 months. Yes. I know one of my firms sent me a little email, just lets you know it's super busy if you've seen in the news, but that drum maybe need to be hit louder, right?
Blake: Yeah. It wasn't a surprise to anyone that it was busy this year.
David: Except to clients, right, I guess.
Blake: Well, yeah. So, here's my comment. I want to reply to the greed statement because I know that has come.... What's the right word? Some people didn't like that, right. They thought, "No, I'm not greedy." But I actually want to double down on this. Right? Think about it this way. If you, during busy season are working 50 hours or 60 hours, let's say it's 50. That makes it easier. Right? You're working 50 hours. If you did 20% less work, could you do 40 hours a week during busy season? And then think to yourself, could I live with 20% less income? Now, this is if you're doing the work yourself. I understand when you run a firm, you've got to think about this fixed salaries, and you've got to bring in enough work.
But to me, it's like a lifestyle choice. if you've got the really expensive car and you pay a thousand dollars a month for that car you're leasing, I don't think you can complain about being too busy because you could always turn in that car and just buy a Honda Civic like me and move out to the desert and not have to deal with that.
David: Okay. All right.
Blake: You could be a professional podcaster and work four hours a week.
David: I know lots of accounts of bookkeepers. And every so often, somebody crosses a new line or... And usually, the people I've noticed that have done this are at a certain point in their career. They're slightly older. It's obviously don't have kids anymore, and they've treated themselves finally after working in this industry for 20 years to a nice BMW or something like that, and they'll post pictures on Facebook, things like that. So, I don't necessarily think that... They're not operating out of greed. They're operating more need, right?
Blake: Well, need is greed. Greed is need. It's just, right, just learn to live with less, and you don't have to work so hard, right?
David: Okay. Yeah. Well then just only take the stimulus payments and live off of those and don't work at all. Right. Where does that stop?
Blake: No. I mean, think about it. We live in the modern world like kings and queens of 500 years ago. We have everything we could possibly want. And yet everybody still always wants more. So don't complain about it. If you're going to go buy a boat with your money, if that's your plan someday, don't complain about working too many hours or having client... Actually, let me step back [crosstalk]-
David: [crosstalk] named their boat 80 hours.
Blake: Well, there's EBITDA is like the best name for a boat, right?
David: That's true.
Blake: Debit. You need two boats, debit and credit. So, here's where the problem comes, I think, is we don't do a good enough job forecasting capacity in our firms. So, when busy season rolls around, you just take on every single dollar of revenue you can as a firm owner, because you don't know how it's going to shake out because honestly, you haven't planned it out. So, if you plan it out and you know how many returns you can handle with the staff you've got, and you know that in October, you should be able to manage the influx. And then also nobody's doing dynamic pricing to then adjust the demand, right? Everyone's complaining. I've got too many 1040s to do. Fucking raise your prices, you idiots.
David: I'll email. So blake@blakeoliver.com.
Blake: Well, Chris said it. He said he's going to increase his price 80% to 100%. That means there's a lot of slack here. And I've seen this. I've been talking to people who are like, "Yeah. Our 1040 price is now $800, $1,000 to do a 1040." And there's a certain segment of the market that will say, "Oh no, thanks. I'll go find H&R Block to do it." And that's great. You don't want those clients anyway. And then there's a segment of the market that is really not that price-sensitive because they do not want TurboTax or H&R Block. They have done it before. It's-
David: They're finding value in what you're doing yet.
Blake: I'm one of those clients, right? I'm one of those people where, I hope my preparer isn't listening, if you charge me $500, and then you say, "Blake, I'm going to have to raise my price to a hundred or a thousand," to me, at this point in my life, $500 is the increment. So, anything in between that, you raised me a 600, 700, 800, I don't care it's. Once it goes over a thousand, that's when I start to think about maybe I change. I just think that... Yeah. So, it's-
David: We talked about this in general before, just crypto change the price $10, and people are like, "Oh my God." Nobody's giving themselves some elbow room here, right.
Blake: I mean, if your margin is predicated on like that 10% that you get from QuickBooks or their payroll or whatever, that's not a real business.
David: Again, send all emails to blake@blakeoliver.com.
Blake: Jeez.
[00:34:13] Thank you to our sponsor, OnPay.
David Leary: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by OnPay. As a small business owner, I've had my share of accounting tax, bank feed, and app issues. Some could say I'm a mess, kind of like some of your clients. But as I reflect on the last three years of my business, the one app that I have not had any problems with is OnPay.
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[00:35:22] Logan Graf's YouTube video.
Blake: No, but seriously, I don't know. And I think you could actually make good money doing just 1040s. And you know what, we saw proof of that. So, Logan Graf has a YouTube channel. And what is his Twitter handle? I forget exactly. He goes by-
David: I know he's got a mustache. I can't remember his handle, but I remember his image.
Blake: I think he shaved it off.
David: [crosstalk]-
Blake: But his channel is Tax TeleGraf on YouTube, and his Twitter is LoganGrafTax. And he put out a video on YouTube, and he said the title of the video is how much money I made in 2021 as a first-year CPA firm owner. And he lays it all out. And I love this video. I highly suggest everyone go find it. I'll make sure that the link is in the show notes. Short story is he started 2021 with 130 clients. Some he brought with him from a previous firm. He didn't have to buy those clients. They just came with him. Some he bought. So, for a $16,500 initial investment, he had 130 clients. He made $142,000 in 2021, gross revenue. 142,000, his first year. And his take-home was $83,000. His salary the year before was 47,000.
So, he went from 47,000, take home to 83, net. And here's the best part. His average busy season hours, 40. Now, he says in the video, he lives in a low-cost area. He is the sole breadwinner in his family. But he obviously is able to live comfortably on that money. And he's choosing to work 40 hours a week. And the rest of the year, the second half of the year, 30 hours.
David: You see these like happiness numbers or go 70,000 is the right amount or 80,000 is the right amount to truly be happy. And I can see it too, because as soon as you start working all those extra hours, instead of being budget-conscious and making a meal at home, you're ordering food, you're constantly going out to eat, and it's like, are you just... It feels like that. There's a $20,000 window of like, you're making that 20 grand, but you're just blowing it because you're just using it to support your extra work habit. Yeah.
Blake: I don't think it's worth it. I mean, I have somewhat of a limited experience. But I spent a few years, three, four years where I was bringing in a ridiculous amount of salary in tech. And it wasn't as fulfilling as doing my own thing and having the control. So, I know. Accounting is very profitable. So, if your firm isn't making money, there's a problem with the firm. The busy season isn't the problem. It's the way you handle the busy season. It's got to be it. I think Surgify is right. Stop complaining about your clients. Go fix your firm. Again, send all hate emails to blake@blakeoliver.com. Let me know what you think about this or anything else we say on the show.
[00:38:38] Intuit shuts down DataDear for non QBO users.
Blake: I got two more listener males, David. Tyler wrote, "You guys spoke about Intuit buying DataDear. I'm not sure if you got their email, but they are sunsetting that product as a standalone option on October 31st. When I emailed back and asked, 'What about those of us that are QBO advisers and use it regularly? Will it still be available as a product we can use as part of our QBO subscription?' They responded like this. 'Hi, Tyler. QuickBooks customers in the US may upgrade to QuickBooks Online advanced to have access to spreadsheet sync, which is a feature that provides data sync capabilities between QuickBooks Online, Advanced and Excel. At this time, there is no add-on option to other versions of QuickBooks being offered.' A little bit annoying that a software I've paid 15 per month for many of my clients to upload data to the backend now need to upgrade their QBO subscriptions by $50 to $60 to get the same, or I guess more restricted service. And I'm guessing this is the end of the line for their Xero integration." So, David QuickBooks, right, they bought DataDear, and now they're shutting it down for everything except Online and Advanced.
David: I kind of understand if somebody shuts down for another platform because we're rolling it in. But the customers that are already QuickBooks customers and customers of the product you acquired probably should just be grandfathered in, right, to their existing current pricing model, or you slowly pull the bandaid off, right? But it's where we're at.
Blake: I just think it's like... I don't know. Who else has done this recently? There were a bunch of other things that got bought, and then they shut it down. Oh, I know. Notion, they bought Automate.io. I think that's the name of it. Might not be the right URL, but it's called Automated. It's a Zapier competitor. And then they just announced they're shutting that down, and they're just going to build automations inside of Notion. It's the risk we take in this cloud world that your favorite app is going to get acquired and shut down. Kind of sucks though.
David: Why don't we talk about Xero's numbers when we get to app news. We can talk a little bit more about these acquisitions that are happening, because there was another acquisition by Sage as well.
Blake: So, do you know about any DataDear alternatives, David, that we could recommend?
David: I mean, we've had a couple advertised on the show before. I mean, you have essentially Lifewill advertised on the show before. You have-
Blake: Genius Sheets.
David: Genius Sheets.
Blake: They've been a sponsor, I think
David: Let's see. I feel like there's one more that I just cannot remember. G-Accon, G-A-C-C-O-N.
Blake: G-Accon.
[00:41:20] Earth Class Mail.
Blake: One last listener mail. This is about earth class mail. This is from Sarah. "Hi, CAP guys. Love the show. In episode 275, you were mentioning check payments and using Earth Mail and printing a check." Remember that story, David, where we-
David: We got a check from a sponsor, and it went to my Earth Class Mail PO box. So, Earth Class Mail scanned it for me, and it came into my email as a scan. And then I use relay. So just to see if it would work, I printed out the check, cut it to be in the same shape as a check and then scanned it with my phone to make the deposit. And it worked. It got through [crosstalk].
David: Of course, because all they're doing is photographing those micro lines. That's the important part, the account numbers.
Blake: Yeah. Right, right. And I assume it's almost completely automated, because there's so much volume of these check deposits every day, right. So, they pull out ones that are suspicious. This probably wasn't a huge check. I don't think it was. Anyway. so, getting back to the message. "This made me think, if you had the authorization in place in a customer agreement, you could enter the routing and account info from the check into the POS system or QBO payments and process that payment electronically. Would that still work on a check from a payment system like Melio or Bill.com? Just a random thought. Take care, Sarah."
Now I do know that. I had a lease agreement at one point, where the leasing company for my apartment said they would do that. If you mail them a paper check for your rent, they would take the routing and account number and convert it to an ACH. I know that would work on a personal account. But I don't know if it would work on one of those clearing accounts like Bill.com has. They probably prevent ACH pulls on accounts like that. And I assume Melio too. Because Bill.com a Melia, when they mail a check, they don't mail it from your account. It's not your account routing.
David: Yeah. So, I don't know if it's true for Bill.com, but definitely Melio. So, you're protected, right? It does not have your bank account and routing number on the bottom of the check, which is why it's better than using your own paper checks, because anybody could take that, create ACH, and send money out of it or try to retrieve money. Yeah. So-
Blake: So, Earth Class Mail, by the way, they have a check deposit feature. So, if you sign up for one of their... If you don't want to have a physical office, you can sign up for their service. And then when checks come in, they'll deposit them for you. But it doesn't work at every bank. You have to check.
David: But wasn't that check you got a check to build up?
Blake: Yeah, it was.
David: So, it worked.
Blake: Well, I didn't convert it to an ACH. I just checked the system.
David: Oh, you didn't. Okay. Got it. You just took a photo of it and cashed it. Okay.
Blake: Yeah. I just deposited it like I had the paper check by taking a picture. So-
David: Got it.
Blake: the answer is it depends as all answers are in accounting. And that's all I've got for listener mail.
[00:44:16] Thank you to our sponsor, Canopy.
David Leary: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by Canopy. Accounting practice management software should bring together all your firm's mission-critical functions in one place, client management, document management, workflow, time, and billing and payments to keep your team organized. Canopy knows that not all firms are on the same practice management journey or timeline. So, Canopy lets you build your practice management platform as you need it. You start with client management as your foundation, then you choose the modules that your firm needs. And since nobody likes paying for modules they don't use, they offer modular pricing as well.
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[00:45:26] IRS destroys 30 million paper returns.
David: We've two reviews, but we can kind of get those maybe towards the end of the show here. Well-
Blake: That's why I'm excited. We haven't had reviews in a while.
David: So, one thing people got all fired up [inaudible] about is because the headline's really great. So, on Accounting Today, there's this big headline, and it's a great headline, by far, one of the best headlines we've ever had. IRS destroyed 30 million paper information returns due to backlog.
Blake: Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. They shredded 30 million items, but it's not clear what they said.
David: Destroyed it. We don't know if they burned, shredded, flooded.
Blake: Do you think that there was some manager out there looking at the field of storage containers, shipping containers with all the paper, and they're like, we just got to solve this problem. Let's just burn it all.
David: Well, that's what they do with recycling, right? They put it on these shipping containers. They ship it off overseas, then the countries say like, "We can't take any more stuff." And then that's where you have an island of floating plastic. It's not the candy wrapper you throw out your car window or the straw from your drink that wound up in the ocean. They mass-dump this in, and it's kind of that same thing, just massively did this. Now-
Blake: So, this report is kind of clickbait, right? Because it says they disclosed that they destroyed 30 million paper-filed information returned documents in March 2021, but they didn't say what.
David: Yes. They don't say what. They don't say really the why. Right?
Blake: So, everyone's wondering like, so is that why they still haven't processed that return I sent in?
David: So, I got in... Yeah. I did open the PDF that they link to. It's a 30-page PDF. This is from the treasury inspector general for tax administration. And so, I did get in there. It just has a lot of numbers, right. It's just lots and lots of centers. But they did have a chart, which I thought was interesting about the fiscal 2020 cost to process key types of tax returns. Right? So, e-file-wise, volume-wise, 1040s, 150 million of them came in through e-file. It costs 36 cents a piece to manage those. 9 million came in and paid through paper, and it costs $15.21 to manage those. Right. And so. Yeah, I see these numbers-
Blake: So, 30 cents electronically, $15 paper.
David: Yep. And then 9.90, 9.90s, right? Tax-exempt forums, payroll forms, 941, 943, those types of forms. Those are 20 cents, 31 cents. And those cost money to process, right. But the interesting one where's the... This is the stuff I think that is burnt or whatever. Information returns, 3.2 billion, the cost per return handle those is less than a penny. But only 9 million came in through paper in 2020. And so, this information returns, this is like your-
Blake: 1099.
David: 1090s, all these things that are already massive amounts are coming to them electronically, and they just had this small... They'll use those to reconcile against your returns, essentially. And apparently, about 9 million of those came in in 2020, and then maybe that's more and this is more. And at this point there's returns have been filed. That's where I'm guessing is the logic on this. It's not really clear, but to process those, considering it's less than a penny to process the e-file once, it's $4.30 to process the rest of those.
Blake: Each.
David: Yeah. So, the math just doesn't make sense. And apparently, probably the usefulness of them at this point is not good.
Blake: They probably decided, let's assume that it's 1099. Let's give them some credit. Right? They're not going to shred tax returns. That'd be stupid. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's some of these new people.
David: Everyone is crossing their fingers.
Blake: it's some of the new people that they just hired through that expedited hiring process, the ones making 15 to 17 an hour who used to work at Amazon, and they're like, "We're just going to be efficient." They just start shredding stuff.
David: Our episode title is going to be IRS shredded your tax return.
Blake: I know.
David: We're getting the clicks.
Blake: I like the other one better. What was the other one?
David: Orphan 1040s.
Blake: Orphan 1040s.
David: IRS burns orphans.
Blake: Well, so they realize these 1099s, they're never going to put them in, and they're never going to enforce any of this stuff. They're never going to audit any of this stuff. They don't have the resources, so let's just burn them all. That's the positive spin. The negative one is that they actually got rid of all these documents by accident, and we won't find out for a while.
David: So obviously, it's very clear how much more efficient e-file is. And we've talked about tax [crosstalk] doubled down on that.
Blake: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
David: But why not? And when we interviewed the-
Blake: IRS guys at [crosstalk].
David: Two IRS guys and the ones in the collection division, and he talked to-
Blake: We got to interview the deputy chief of criminal investigations and the deputy commissioner for-
David: Collections.
Blake: ... collections for the small business in self-employed division.
David: And he made a comment about the IRS in their division. Their division is about encouraging you to have a behavior change, to pay your taxes. Right. If you're not a bad actor, you're not going to get arrested, obviously going to come in. And I'm thinking about that changing people's behavior. So, if you want people to e-file more, charge them.
Blake: For 40 years.
David: Because they're still partnership returns, corporate returns.
Blake: Yeah. I mean, there are some returns you have to send in by paper, which is just stupid.
David: [crosstalk]-
Blake: All right.
David: So, 9 million.
[00:51:08] Rippling raises $250 million in series d funding.
Blake: Let's talk about avenues because we had a big story in the space. Rippling raised a $250 million round series D funding. Rippling is payroll, but they take an interesting twist on it. It's like payroll HR and connects all your apps and automates all this stuff that happens when you hire people. So, provisioning them a laptop, put their Google Apps. They're all the different systems you have. It just like sets them all up, which can take hours to do. So, there's a real niche use case. So, they did a blog post. Let's see. It was co-led by Bedrock and Kleiner Perkins. Wow. They're valued at $11 billion, over $11 billion. Does it say what they're going to do with the money?
David: Well, they're going to take some accounting partners to Bora Bora, I saw.
Blake: How do we get on that trip, David?
David: They probably need a podcast there.
Blake: They need an official podcast of Bora Bora, Rippling Bora, Bora. That's cool. Very nice.
[00:52:16] Sage acquires Futrli.
David: So, Sage acquired Futrli,
Blake: Oh, yeah.
David: So Futrli is a dashboard. A lot of trash in the UK. They connect to QuickBooks. They obviously connect to Sage products. They connect to Xero. They actually were one of our finalists when we were doing the app showdown. I was actually talking to a former Intuit employee, and we're just like doing the math of the apps. We did the app showdown three years in a row, and we pick like 10 final steps, and they compete for a hundred thousand dollars. And our record of acquisitions out of those groups is pretty high. This is another one that's been acquired.
Blake: So, we should take equity in all of these.
David: I should have. I guess I probably should have.
Blake: They should have made that the fee to apply is a thousand shares.
David: No, no. Literally-
Blake: 2,000 shares.
David: ... Intuit should have took equity and made investments, angel investments or early investments in all of these companies that they pitched. And not only that and to it. Intuit and as I think about this, right, Locate got bought by Xero, Futrli got bought by... AutoEntry got bought by Sage. Futrli got bought by Sage. Right. A lot of these companies, Intuit had in their basket, very close basket, so-
Blake: Yeah. But Intuit's making its own acquisitions, so-
David: No, exactly, and they're doing this. Yeah. And they were acquired. So, it is what it is, I guess, on that front.
[00:53:40] Deal raises $50 million.
Blake: Deal has raised $50 million. Deal is a remote hiring company that allows you to hire employees all over the world, so like a global PEO. They raised 50 million at a $12 billion valuation, according to an Axios report. They've crossed the 100 million annual recurring revenue threshold. Pretty powerful numbers there.
David: And then their prop is if I want 100% outsource accountants in India, in the Philippines or Brazil, that's a lot of headache for me as a firm to figure all this payroll stuff, but they can use their service and boom.
Blake: I think their focus is engineers. Because the customers, they're talking about Coinbase, Dropbox, Shopify. Engineers are ridiculously expensive. I was talking to a founder at accounting web, and he told me that a reasonably experienced front-end developer in the Bay Area is going to run you 300,000 a year. Not even the best, just somebody competent.
David: I mean, I think I just saw Apple, Google, Microsoft, they're all given huge raises their employees because they're trying to keep their engineers. Yeah.
Blake: Yeah. So, Deal, right, you can go hire those engineers for half the price less than that. Right. Why wouldn't you? You have to. The cost is just crazy.
[00:55:08] Deluxe checks now syncs with QBO.
Blake: Here's a nice one. This is good news, David. Maybe we can end on some good news. What else do you got?
David: Well, we have reviews. Then we got some other stuff. Is this another-
Blake: So, let's do this-
David: ... app article?
Blake: Yeah. Read the reviews, and then we'll do the good news.
David: Oh yeah. A couple more app things that are kind of quick.
Blake: Yeah. Does anyone care? Are they like-
David: I don't know. That's Deluxe, right?
Blake: Anything I've heard of?
David: So Deluxe. You've heard of Deluxe.
Blake: Deluxe Checks?
David: Yes. But they've quite-
Blake: Are you shitting me?
David: For starters, they're doing Deluxe, and checks is still more than any of the AP apps combined. Anyways, did you know that they have the app... I think we talked to him on the show before they have a payments division. Do you know they have a payroll and HR division? They have cloud payroll. So, if it's decent looking, I was like trying to figure out, is it white-labeled as somebody else's? But then I started going to their job postings. I think it's in-house built. But they just announced, and the reason that came on my radar is they just announced that they're now sinking to QuickBooks. They're using Kodak to do that, and they're going to be able to sync payroll software back to QuickBooks.
Blake: QuickBooks Desktop. QuickBooks Desktop.
David: Well, let's say their first one is QuickBooks Online.
Blake: Okay. Nice.
David: So, they did that. So, they did that. And then the other one.
[00:56:19] CPACharge has added a "buy now pay later" option.
David: CPACharge and a lot of accountants use CPACharge. Right? A lot of time we've talked lots about buy now, pay later. CPACharge has just added that. So, if your client, you're going to charge $2,000 for that 1040, and they're like, "I can't afford to pay that, you could be like, "Guess what? You can buy now and pay later." So, use the firm, get your full $2,000, but the client pays whatever, paying for $250, $500 a month, or whatever they pay.
Blake: And I think that's a great option. If you're not going to switch to offering clients tax prep, tax advisory on a monthly or quarterly recurring basis, just offer that, right. Why not? They pay the fee, I think. I guess you would pay the fee. It's different depending on how it works, right. But if you pay 3% to not have to deal with the non-payment or late payment, it's well worth it. So-
David: And then-
Blake: So, we do the reviews.
[00:57:18] Avalara launches compliance product for property managers.
David: One more. So, Avalara continues their March of being compliance, everything. So, they'd launched another new solution. This one's a compliance product for property managers. It's called MyLodgeTax Pro. And it's really geared towards property managers that have between five and 40,000 properties.
Blake: Five and 40,000. That's a pretty big range.
David: And it's going to let you register with the state and local tax authorities, lodge your tax rates.
Blake: Oh, the lodging tax. Yeah, that's a big pain. Yeah.
David: Create reports. So again, everywhere there's compliance related to tax, Avalara is just getting into that market. It's actually like, what's the spot they aren't in, and then go get in there before they get there if you can. if there's anything left on that front.
Blake: [crosstalk]
[00:58:06] Xero's numbers.
David: And now we just quickly Xero's numbers since Xero released their numbers. Just their operating revenue is up 29%, and they finally broke 1.1 billion.
Blake: Nice.
David: They broke a billion dollars in revenue. Total subscriber increased 19% to 3.3 million, which is-
Blake: Which is a little low. I'd be looking for like 20% to 30%.
David: Well, even QuickBooks, that growing 20%, 30% for subscribers has slowed down.
Blake: That's slowed down for them too?
David: Yeah. That's why Intuit doesn't release the number anymore, I think. Because I don't think they were... They were hitting my 30% or 40% a quarter. It was crazy.
Blake: And I guess that's why they're working on advanced is like with slowing subscriber growth, you've just got to move people up into the higher tier.
David: And then again, there's a nice sentence here. Because we talked about acquisitions. We continue to prioritize our investment to build new products and functionality and turn to partnerships and acquire businesses that are strategic, fit for Xero. So, this march of these accounting apps acquiring companies will just keep going.
[00:59:06] Millions of Americans may qualify for free broadband internet.
David: All right. That's it. Go to your article, then we'll do reviews.
Blake: Reviews. So, millions of Americans may qualify for free broadband internet as part of a new program. A coalition of the top 20 internet service providers in the US are going to join a government program that will offer subsidies on broadband internet to millions of Americans. It's going to be based on qualifying income, and it could be free after the rebate for as much as 40% of the US population. Well, I guess 48 million homes could qualify for this. So, AT&T, Comcast, Cox, Verizon, et cetera, are going to provide at least one service plan that costs under $30 per month with internet download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second. Families with an income of about 55,000 or less would qualify for the $30 per month refund as with those who are receiving aid through snap, Pell grants, Medicaid or SSI.
David: So, this is a public-private partnership, basically too [crosstalk].
Blake: Yeah. This is big because these providers that are agreeing to join cover 80% of the nation's population. But the rural areas have not yet joined in.
David: That's still an issue. Yeah.
Blake: Yeah. And rural broadband is a big problem in the digital divide. We've got to solve that. It could be really good for rural America with remote work now. The economies could come back. You have workers living there, buying, spending.
David: You're 80 grand and you're pretty far. You're pretty far. Yeah.
Blake: Really, that's what I'm talking about. Right. So, adjust your lifestyle to fit how much you actually want to work. And if you don't want to work 50 or 60 or 70 hours, figure out how to trim your budget back. I mean-
David: It's good to see that they're doing private and public combined because down here in Tucson, numbers came out recently. City of Tucson tried to build some homegrown on their own internet service, and they spent $7 million for a thousand people to get internet. So, people. I don't know. Sometimes Tucson kind of makes me crazy.
[01:01:18] Podcast reviews.
David: All right, we're going to jump into reviews.
Blake: Yeah, let's hear it.
David: All right. So, this one's a fancy one. This is Connor from Bookkeep. This is the best accounting industry podcast, five stars. This is on Apple Podcasts.
Blake: Thank you, Connor.
David: And Blake and Oliver, Oliver, I guess would be me, not only keep me up to date on the latest industry news but also are entertaining throughout the process. I first learned about The Cloud Accounting Podcast when they held a booth at a conference I attended. So, I know keeping up with the news, but COVID permitting in the community with boots on the ground, if you're looking for a place to go for entertaining, relevant accounting industry news, then your search is done. Thank you, Connor. That's a really great review.
Blake: Fantastic. Thank you, Connor.
David: And then we have another review. This is on Apple Podcasts. This is from Sewa, S-E-W-A, Merchant Services. And this is on Apple Podcasts as well. Keeps me thinking five stars. As an accounting student in a CPA program, you keep me thinking as to whether Big Four is where I want to be, or if I should focus on a smaller firm in my rural area, (much more difficult to get employed that way, where I am.) But as a follower of Bitcoin, and to lesser extent, other base chains since 2013, I must say your understanding is very lacking. Please look into the What Bitcoin Did podcast or some of Andreas Antonopoulos videos. So-
Blake: Sorry. I know the Bitcoin lovers, the crypto bros think I'm totally off base, and maybe I am, but-
David: I have data. I put my list of all of you. I put money into crypto, and it's down. I just was smart enough. I have enough knowledge not to put more than 0.0000% of my assets into it. That's all.
[01:03:02] Wrap up and where to find them.
Blake: David, that's all the time we have for this week. If people want to get ahold of you online, where should they do that.
David: I'm on all the socials just at @DavidLeary.
Blake: I am at Blake T Oliver. Send me an email blake@blakeoliver.com. You can send me a voicemail. Send me a note about what you think. We listen to those. We read those. We often play them on the air. We'd love to hear from our listeners.
David: And leave us a review.
Blake: If you want to give us a review on Apple Podcasts or on-
David: Podchaser.
Blake: ... Podchaser.
David: Or now in Spotify. I think you can put stars on your reviews. I don't think you can write anything.
Blake: And if you want to get continuing education for listening to this episode and all of our other Cloud Accounting Podcast episodes, download my app, Earmark CPE. It gets you continuing professional education credit for listening to podcasts. You're already listening. Why wouldn't you get it? Go get it.
David: I don't know who I was speaking to. And I meant to tell you this when we were at the conference. Somebody was telling me how they talked to somebody else who said they got 34 hours of continuing education credit using Earmark. So, I don't know if you've heard the story if you knew who this individual is, but-
Blake: It might be the same person. It might not be, but yeah, we've got some power users, so it's just exciting. It's fun. I just love building this thing. It's turning into a community. We've got 1800 people on the app now, and it grows like 15% to 20% every month. So, we'll see where we are at the end of the year.
David: You're like the Bitcoin of CPE. I don't know. Cross it. I'm sorry. Let's get-
Blake: Except I'm not making any money from it. I'm not making any money from it right now. Maybe I should have an Earmark coin, launched some NFTs. You could buy them in the app.
David: [inaudible]-
Blake: Anyway, crypto haters know where to reach me or crypto lovers know where to reach me, and I'll talk to you next week, David.
David: All right. Bye, everybody.
Blake: Bye.
David: Time for the classifieds.
[01:04:54] Future Firm.
David: If you're looking to quickly grow a scalable, systematic, seven-figure accounting firm without having to work 50-plus hours per week, check out Ryan Lazanis' online coaching membership, Future Firms Accelerate. Sign around Ryan's experience taking this cloud firm from scratch to sale so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You'll get online learning and topics that help you automate and systemize all aspects of your firm. You'll get coaching when you need help with implementation, and you'll also join a collaborative community of hundreds of other forward-thinking firm owners. For more details, head over to www.futurefirmaccelerate.com.
[01:05:29] Get W9.
David: Tired of clients not remembering to get W9s, GetW9 automates and streamlines the collection and storage of W9s. GetW9 has a QBO integration, and they have a partner program that pays 25% commissions. GetW9 plans start at only $19 a year. Visit getw9.tax today to get started, that getw9.tax. Are you looking for a dream job in cloud accounting? We have the job for you. Advisors for Change delivers cloud accounting systems to small and medium nonprofit organizations. Join our team of friendly and collaborative nonprofit accounting professionals while working from home. Our systems associate will join our experienced systems manager to implement and support cloud accounting systems such as QBO, Bill.com, Divvy, Saasant, and others. To learn more, head to our website at advisorsforchange.com/join-our-team. That's advisorsforchange.com/join-our-team. We'll find a link to the full position description on Indeed.
[01:06:30] Advisors for Change.
David: Are you looking for a dream job in cloud accounting? We have the job for you. Advisors for Change delivers cloud accounting systems to small and medium nonprofit organizations. Join our team of friendly and collaborative nonprofit accounting professionals while working from home. Our systems associate will join our experienced systems manager to implement and support cloud accounting systems such as QBO, Bill.com, Divvy, Saasant, and others. To learn more, head to our website at advisorsforchange.com/join-our-team. That's advisorsforchange.com/join-our-team. We'll find a link to the full position description on Indeed.
[01:07:07] Oh My Fraud: A True Crime Podcast for Accountants.
Blake: Hey, podcast listeners, it's Blake, and I wanted to let you know about a new show I'm working on with CPA/comedian, Greg Kyte, and blogger/former CPA, Caleb Newquist. It's called, Oh My Fraud, and it's a podcast all about financial crimes. That's right, a true-crime podcast for accountants by accountants. Caleb and Greg are going to come together every couple of weeks to unpack their favorite frauds and explore the circumstances, psychology, and interpersonal dynamics involved. They also fully indulge in victim-blaming the defrauded widows, orphans, infirm, and feebleminded because who can resist? If you fancy yourself a trusted advisor or prefer your true crime with spreadsheets instead of corpses, listen to this show to learn what to watch out for and to keep your clients, your firm, and even yourself safe. To subscribe, go to ohmyfraud.com or search oh my fraud on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
[01:08:05] How to advertise in these classifieds.
David: Want to get the word out about your newsletter, webinar, party, Facebook group, podcast, e-book, job posting, or that fancy Excel macro you just created? Why not let the listeners of The Cloud Accounting Podcast know by running a classified ad? Hit the show notes for the link to get more info.