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Clearly, we ruffled some feathers with our talk about Tether. In today's episode, we'll hear lots of listener mail about timesheets, work-study, Blake's bad haircut, and why one listener thinks we don't know what we're talking about when it comes to stablecoins ...
Show Notes
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Show Notes
... We'll also get into some app news, conference updates, and talk more tax, as we wander through the land of IRS troubles.
... We'll also get into some app news, conference updates, and talk more tax, as we wander through the land of IRS troubles.
02:10 – Listener Mail: On the Sovietness of Timesheeting
06:34 – Listener Message: Squarely Tax – Cash App gets in the tax game
Taxes Help
07:16 – TurboTax and Coinbase Team Up to Help You Invest Your Refund in Cryptocurrency
TurboTax: Deposit your tax refund into your Coinbase account
09:24 – New bill would change tax rules for cryptocurrency purchases
10:01 – Intuit CEO warns of tax bill shock for Bitcoin, NFT traders
13:38 – Why Is Matt Damon Shilling for Crypto?
15:59 – Listener Voicemail: Anti-Crypto Boo!
18:58 – Blake responds ...
23:38 – ACH Network up to 29.1B Payments Valued at $72.6T in 2021
24:06 - Crypto, NFTs are rife with ‘mountains’ of fraud, IRS says
26:24 – Deluxe Reports 6% YoY Growth in Checks Segment
https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2022/deluxe-reports-6-percent-yearly-growth-checks-segment/
26:59 – Deluxe Corporation (DLX) CEO Barry McCarthy On Q4 2021 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
27:24 – More Listener Mail: Splitting Bad Haircuts
29:41 – When you log in to your IRS account this tax season you'll likely have to use ID.me to verify your identity. The service scoops up a huge pool of personal data that police and other authorities could tap into.
31:00 – GOP lawmakers move to stop IRS facial recognition technology
32:25 – IRS to add 1,200 employees as agency confronts delays, backlog
33:10 – What’s the IRS Hiding?
35:22 – Even More Listener Mail: The Prometric Remote-Testing Faux Pas
36:41 – You guessed it – Listener Message: Another Disgruntled CPA looking for Work-Study Credit
37:45 – Weeks after a ransomware attack, some workers still worry about paychecks
38:53 – Intuit warns of phishing emails threatening to delete accounts
41:15 – Important update - Xerocon date change - Xero Blog
43:15 – Keri Gohman new CEO @ Abacus Next
45:48 – Pennylane wants to overhaul the accounting tech stack in France
48:39 – Lendio’s Sunrise Financial Platform Delivers Small Businesses Premier Tools Built To Save Time and Money
50:24 – SURGENT ACCOUNTING & FINANCIAL EDUCATION LAUNCHES "MAX THE TAX" GAMIFIED COURSES DESIGNED TO MAKE EARNING CE CREDIT MORE FUN & ENGAGING
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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.
David Leary: Did you know that FreshBooks is the number two small business accounting software in America? Did you know that FreshBooks now does double entry accounting? Did you know that FreshBooks offers accuracy, compliance, tools and reporting that you need to properly advise and work with your clients? Stay tuned to hear more from our sponsor, FreshBooks, later in the episode.
Blake Oliver: And I just want to address this 'calling people dumb' comment. I think it's because I said- I was speaking in general about bubbles, right? And the way it usually works is, you got a bunch of smart people who realize the end is coming and get out before everybody else. In that respect, you've got smart people and you've got dumb people. But I'm not trying to call our listeners dumb, and I'm not saying if you invest in crypto, you're dumb.
What I mean by that is that there's a lot of people investing in it that are not aware of the risks and are not- that they don't see it as gambling, because they've bought into this crypto.com bullshit advertising - "Oh, I’m brave If I invest in crypto! I am on the cutting edge if I invest in crypto!"
[00:02:10] Introduction
David Leary: Coming to you weekly from the OnPay recording studio, this is The Cloud Accounting Podcast.
Blake Oliver: Welcome to The Cloud Accounting Podcast, I'm Blake Oliver.
David Leary: And I'm David Leary.
Blake Oliver: Good morning, David.
David Leary: Good morning. Another week, another week.
Blake Oliver: Yeah, we're into February now.
David Leary: Yeah, we're past 1099s, W2s, everybody. Hopefully, you're not working on that still.
Blake Oliver: We've got a lot of listener feedback this week, David. I have five messages. No- yeah, five messages this week from listeners. And some of them are just amazing. I have a timesheet story. Do you remember in a recent episode I asked our listeners to send me their timesheets stories because-
David Leary: Because there was a big argument. Everybody's like, “Nobody lies on timesheets,” and you're like, “Please, tell me your stories of lying on timesheets.”
Blake Oliver: Well, it's not everybody. It's Ed Menlo - it says nobody lies on sheets. And ever since I interviewed him on my Earmark podcast, and he said that, I have to disprove it. One of our listeners sent in a story.
David Leary: This could have its own Twitter account. It could be an automated thing, like every time somebody lies on their timesheet, their tweet goes out.
Blake Oliver: If we get enough of these. So, maybe we could kick things off with this story. You ready for it?
David Leary: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:02:10] On the Sovietness of Timesheeting
Blake Oliver: So, this was an email I received, and I have text-to-speeched it using AI-based software, and not fake AI.
David Leary: Oh, so it doesn't have to be you reading it or I reading it, it'll sound like a person.
Blake Oliver: Well, and let's see. Wipe that from your memory and pretend that you didn't know that and see if you can tell.
Honest Dallas CPA: You asked for timesheet stories. Here's mine. I am a fundamentally honest person. But when I worked for a large public accounting firm in downtown Dallas, I became a chronic liar because timesheets had to be filled out and budgets had to be met.
When I started, I would almost always exceed the allotted time budget for any given tax return project, and as you can imagine, this got me into trouble. So, I did everything I could to fix that shortcoming, and meet the project budgets. I interviewed multiple other employees to ask for tips. I made multiple changes to my habits and procedures and the way I prepared and reviewed returns.
This helped; I got faster. But it wasn't enough. I still couldn't meet most project budgets. It was frustrating. Did management allow any leeway? I remember one manager explaining that while his budgets were "aggressive", I was still expected to meet them. Every time.
Eventually, I started lying on my timesheets and overworking myself. I would spend eight hours on a project, and report six and a half. If I needed 50 billable hours in a week, I would work 60, and report 50, not even getting paid for the other ten. Each day, I wrote down on a notepad, my actual time spent on each project. But before recording it in the system, I carefully considered it in the context of each project budget, and I would move time from one project to another, depending on what each project budget could accommodate.
My timesheets amounted to a combination of truth and lies that had to be invented to give management the impression that reality indeed conformed to their fantasies about how long a project should take. I wondered if this was what it was like to be a Soviet bureaucrat falsifying reports to conform to impossible quotas handed down from on high by Party leaders.
Through multiple tax seasons of this, I became exhausted and demoralized, and a little resentful towards management. When I got some negative feedback after one rough busy season, I decided I had had enough, and within two weeks, I had found a new job. Public accounting is terrible. It's terrible because of the hours. But it's also terrible because the hours are billed, and timesheets are therefore, required.
Blake Oliver: That's it.
David Leary: Wow. My guess is that that's not a unique story.
Blake Oliver: No, that's what's nuts about our profession. Lawyers are notorious for padding their hours, and overbilling clients to make more money. In the accounting profession, we encourage our employees to underbill in order to meet insane targets for budgets. Who does that help? It helps nobody. We don't make more money, and they have to lie to us, because it incentivizes that. You know who gets promoted? The people who always make their budget. You measure something, people will figure out how to meet that measurement.
It doesn't matter how much ethics training you give them, if the system is set up to reward unethical behavior, that's what you'll get. I love that quote. It felt like being in a Soviet bureaucracy; that's how messed up our way of running accounting firms is traditionally, with hours and time sheets. It is Kafkaesque.
I really enjoyed that. Thank you so much for sharing your story. That was an anonymous story. If you would like to tell us your timesheet story, whether it's about you or about a colleague, send it to Blake@BlakeOliver.com. You can record a voice memo and send it to me; that is the preferred method. But if you prefer to write it out, we now have this amazing technology that allows me to recreate your voice in an anonymous fashion.
David Leary: When you're leaving the voicemail, put that on your timesheet somewhere.
Blake Oliver: Bill it to The Cloud Accounting Podcast, then the partner will go read this, or listen to this episode. So, that was, I think my favorite voicemail or email, ‘cause it was very well-written too. I just loved the analogy. And our profession doesn't have to be like this. Accounting can be a great, wonderful profession. We just make it suck with our management techniques.
And there's a lot of firms that aren't doing this anymore; not a lot, in terms of a percentage of the profession, but 5 to 10 percent of firms have figured out how to drop the timesheets. But the big ones, man, they are going to take forever. Generational changes need to happen. Anyway, we've got too much to talk about this week, so I wanted to move on to some other stuff. I've got more listener mail. Would you like to do that now, or do you want to come back to it?
[00:06:34] Squarely Tax
David Leary: I have a- they can drop us into news follow-up a little bit, but it wasn't a mail, it was a tweet. It was a private message, but essentially, somebody asked about Cash App taxes. She didn't know that Cash App was in the tax game.
Blake Oliver: Wait, Cash App is in the tax game? Did we talk about this?
David Leary: Yeah. So, Cash App-
Blake Oliver: This is the Square Cash App?
David Leary: They bought the Credit Karma Tax product when Intuit bought Credit Karma.
Blake Oliver: Oh, because the feds said, “You can't buy-” they told Intuit, “You can't buy Credit Karma unless you divest the tax product, for competitive reasons.”
David Leary: Yeah. So, there's something about TurboTax and Cash App and crypto that has been weighing on my mind this week. I don't know if you saw TurboTax made an announcement.
[00:07:16] TurboTax and Coinbase Team Up
Blake Oliver: Yes, I saw this.
David Leary: That they're going to team up with Coinbase when you get your refund. Now, so I file my taxes on TurboTax- which I'm not, because remember, I am using tax organizers and working with a firm.
Blake Oliver: You hired a firm.
David Leary: I hired a firm. But if I was to use TurboTax, at the end, I have my refund. I could choose to deposit at my bank account, I could choose to have the IRS mail me a paper check; lots of different ways to get that money. Well, now, there's another option where I can deposit my refund into my Coinbase account. Then I have the ability to withdraw from Coinbase, I'm assuming, or I could use it and instantly by one of 100 plus cryptocurrencies.
Blake Oliver: Many, many, fun ways to spend that money.
David Leary: I was thinking just in general, rewinding a little bit when we were talking about how TurboTax and H&R Block are no longer in the IRS’s Free File program. And we deep dived on their websites a little bit about how you can file for free, but you have to do the- it's called a simple return. And as soon as you sell crypto, you no longer have a simple return.
Blake Oliver: Correct.
David Leary: So, I almost feel like so many people that arguably have simple returns, the whole generation, traditional college kid, et cetera, probably didn't have crypto, but so many do now. So, what was simple returns are not going to be simple returns. And it's almost like, is TurboTax and H&R Block a step ahead of everybody else in this? And then I was thinking about Cash App, because Cash App pushes you to buy crypto inside the app. I think I did it on the episode last week; I bought $1 worth of crypto.
Blake Oliver: Right, right.
David Leary: And someone was like, “Okay, what about their tax product?” And from what I can tell, all the forms you need to do a crypto return, it seems like they support- no, they don't support the situations, like if you have multi-states and things like that, you can't use their product at all. So, they don't have a paid tier. I can't find a paid tier.
But I was just thinking about this game that the more people buy crypto with Square, chances are, they're probably to have to pay Intuit and H&R Block to get their taxes done, or obviously, hire firms, et cetera. Just to wrap this whole thought process up, and I'll let you comment, I was actually thinking about my own situation, because on the show here, I bought in total now-
[00:09:24] New bill would change tax rules for cryptocurrency purchases
David Leary: $112 in crypto or something. And I'm like, “Ah, man, I'm gonna have to put this on my taxes.” But there is a new bill being introduced. It's a bipartisan bill that's being introduced; it's called the virtual currency tax fairness act. And basically, the summary of that bill is, it's going to exempt virtual currency if it's under $200 or less, the gains.
The tracking for everybody doesn't make sense, and the IRS doesn't have the ability to do this, but it keeps it high enough where if they have to go after real people they want to chase, they can. So, it pulls us in, but this whole crypto thing is really going to separate the simple returns from the other insurance.
[00:10:01] Intuit CEO warns of tax bill shock for Bitcoin, NFT traders
Blake Oliver: Yeah. Intuit’s paying attention to it; their CEO, Sasan Goodarzi, was quoted saying that a lot of people are going to be surprised this year that they owe a lot of tax, but they didn't make a lot of money, because there was the crypto dip. I think that was at the end of last year, was that? Or was that at the beginning of this year?
David Leary: I think we're in it. I think we are still in the crypto dip.
Blake Oliver: Because of the way it's treated for tax purposes, a lot of people, they bought it high, they sold it low when- I don't know- they were trading whole time. So, they're going to attacks because exchange. Every time you exchange crypto for crypto, it's not the same coin, you got to pay tax on the gain and all that. So, a lot of people are going to owe this year, they're not going to be happy; it's going to be a problem.
You know what sucks, is that so many people are getting drawn into crypto, and it's just not a good place to be as an investor. It's great- hey, if you want to go out and YOLO your money on crypto, and you have lots of financial resources, and you're not putting too much of that into them, maybe it's 5 percent, it’s great; good for you. But there are so many people out there now, who are putting all of their savings into crypto, betting on hitting it big. It's gambling.
Actually, Goodarzi calls it gambling in this article that he's quoted in. “We’re going to see a lot of that throughout tax season, where folks just don't understand what they did. And there’s a lot of millennials that did a lot of trading without knowing what the implications are. They are shocked as to how much money they've lost, or how much they owe, because they were, in essence, gambling with their money.”
David Leary: So, in the meantime, CEO of Intuit, who's also the CEO of TurboTax, right?
Blake Oliver: Mm-hmm.
David Leary: TurboTax is out there giving out the candy. They’re making it-
Blake Oliver: Oh, helping? Yeah.
David Leary: It's a conflicting thing. Now, I can tell you, historically speaking, Intuit always tries these things out, and then if they don't feel ethical, they wind up pulling back on it. They used to do those prepaid cards. You could get your refund turned into a BestBuy gift card or something. They got out of that. Do you remember the olden days, every time you bought software, you had to get all those refunds?
Blake Oliver: Yeah.
David Leary: In order to rebate, you’d have to mail in the receipts and the barcode. And so many people want to do it, but Intuit was one of the leaders on that. But then Intuit also was one of the leaders who stopped doing that. And then H&R Block and Intuit both used to give out those early loans for huge fees for your refund. Intuit got out of that.
Blake Oliver: Let's not forget what we were talking about last year, and the year before, which is Intuit hiding the Free File program from search engines so that people who are low-income couldn’t find it and file their taxes for free. This is what happens; giant corporations are evil by nature. They exist to make money, and they will figure out how to make money however they can, within the parameters of the law.
[00:12:27] 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.
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They have a mobile app, centralized file management, fillable PDFs, a client portal, task management, and the list goes on and on. For either integration with the IRS, you can easily retrieve all your clients’ transcripts, notices, and child tax care credit payments without leaving Canopy. To try Canopy free for 30 days, head over to the CloudAccountingPodcast.promo/Canopy. That is cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/CANOPY.
[00:13:38] Why Is Matt Damon Shilling for Crypto?
Blake Oliver: You know what? I want to keep this on Blockchain though, and I want to ask, have you heard the Matt Damon crypto.com commercial?
David Leary: Yes, I've seen that. Yes.
Blake Oliver: I just want to play this for people who haven't heard it, because it's a minute long, and this shows you just where we're at with cryptocurrency right now. History is filled with almosts. With those who almost adventured, who almost achieved, but ultimately, for them, it proved to be too much. Then, there are others, the ones who embrace the moment and commit.
And in these moments of truth, these men and women, these mere mortals, just like you and me, as they peer over the edge, they calm their minds, and steel their nerves with four simple words that have been whispered by the Intrepid since the time of the Romans: fortune favors the brave.
Blake Oliver: So, that is an ad for crypto.com, which by the way, also named a stadium- isn’t the stadium in LA now named crypto.com Stadium?
David Leary: I think it's one of them, yes. So far, it hasn’t run this- there's so many stadiums.
Blake Oliver: Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles, home of the Los Angeles Kings, and the LA Lakers. So, I have an interview that I did on my other show, the Earmark Accounting Podcast, with Dr Sean Stein Smith, going back to what we talked about crypto is a scam in our episode about Tether. Go check that interview out because the more I dig into this, the more I do think that cryptocurrency prices have been propped up by a stablecoin that is an $80 billion scam, an $80 billion fraud, that is bigger Bernie Madoff’s.
So, if there’s going to be a crash, crypto crash and a market adjustment caused by that, it’s going to be stablecoins not being stable. So, we don't have time to talk about it on this episode, ‘cause I could talk about it for an hour, which is almost what I did with Sean Stein Smith. He's the CPA who is really knowledgeable about Blockchain. Go check that out.
[00:15:59] Voicemail - Anti-Crypto Boo
David Leary: Bet I could pivot us off with Bitcoin. I have a nice transition ready for you, whenever you’re ready to.
Blake Oliver: I would love to, but we can't because we got a voicemail. Some of our listeners have not been too happy with our coverage of cryptocurrency. Because I get it; if you've bought into crypto and it fell by 50 percent, you're probably not very happy, but I'm just telling you the way I see it. But we also want to offer all the points of view, so here's a voicemail from one of our listeners who wasn't too happy with me.
Listener: My name is David. I'm a CPA, and just had a few comments on the recent show regarding crypto's a fraud or whatever the title was. First, pricing, getting paid upfront, or after the fact, or 50 50, thought on it, I'm a big part of my firm. Sometimes, people pay upfront. That's easy, that's a no brainer, you do that. But if you got a thing that clients would pay upfront in full, or at least 50 percent for doing something like a tax return, it makes no sense.
A lot of times, you don't even know what you need to bill until the tax return is complete, and you know what kind of forms, files, schedules, et cetera, what kind of work is going to go into the tax return. So, billing upfront, you can really shoot yourself in the foot. I would have answered ‘other’ in that poll, [INAUDIBLE] and that would have been my call, man. Again, billing upfront, it's just, you could really bill too little, too much; it's not a fair transaction, based on my experience.
The other thing, your comments about cryptocurrency, stablecoins, you all obviously don't know enough about the space to comment as you do. Y'all are uneducated, as far as I’m concerned, referencing one article in regards to this. You can go to Coinbase, put cash, U.S. cash into it, and buy cryptocurrencies that they offer. You can sell them back into cash.
It has nothing to do with stablecoins, and stablecoins crashing would do nothing to the crypto market, at regard to coins. So, y'all really shouldn’t be calling people dumb for making investment decisions in the cryptocurrency. Y’all are financial advisors here, and I really, truly enjoy the show, usually, but this episode just rubbed me all the wrong ways.
I'm not a big investor in cryptos at all. I'm very familiar it, I read a lot of stuff on both sides of the coin, in regards to negativity, doom and gloom, and then a lot upsides to it. And I just don’t think y’all are educated enough to be speaking at the level y’all are, and then saying people are dumb for doing something like this.
I know y'all didn't use the word ‘dumb’ but basically, you did. And I think your words are gonna come back to bite you in the ass. Again, I do have a lot of respect for you guys, but this episode really rubbed me the wrong way. I just wanted to give you my two cents on that. I do appreciate the show, but man, y'all blew this one. Bye.
Blake Oliver: So, I guess-
David Leary: I've already been bitten in the ass. All my crypto investments are down 35 percent.
[00:18:58] Blake Responds
Blake Oliver: Yeah, and I just want to address this 'calling people dumb' comment. I think it's because I said- I was speaking in general about bubbles, right? And the way it usually works is, you got a bunch of smart people who realize the end is coming and get out before everybody else. In that respect, you've got smart people, and you've got dumb people.
But I'm not trying to listeners dumb, and I'm not saying if you invest in crypto, you're dumb. What I mean by that is that there's a lot of people investing in it that are not aware of the risks and are not- they don't see it as gambling because they've bought into this crypto.com bullshit advertising - "Oh, I’m brave if I invest in crypto! I am on the cutting edge if I invest in crypto!"
David Leary: Every week, there’s a15-year-old who made a bunch of money in crypto.
Blake Oliver: Yeah, this is sales and marketing, okay? This is- it's hype, right? A lot of it is hype. Now, I'm not saying blockchain is hype. I think blockchain is an amazing technology, but what has cropped up around it is these scams.
David Leary: So, here’s how we can prove this. I actually find the whole crypto micro-transactions and micropayments very interesting. And we can spin up for our podcast, we can spin up a lightning node, and people can go to newpodcastapps.com, they could get a new podcast app, don't use Apple or Spotify or those apps, and you can actually- when you're listening to The Cloud Accounting Podcast, you could send us money.
We could eventually get rid of all sponsors if we wanted to, and just have our listeners send us crypto- Satoshis- through these podcast apps. Now, it’s a form of a transaction, and not an investment, on both sides.
Blake Oliver: That would be amazing if it was actually being used for that.
David Leary: My thought process on this is if we set this up, I don't see us getting a lot of income coming in from this, just because I genuinely believe most people are buying crypto as an investment, they're not buying it as a means of a currency to actually use.
Blake Oliver: I just wanted to address the getting paid upfront, because I actually honestly forgot that that was in the voicemail.
David Leary: Yeah, that was a separate-
Blake Oliver: And I would say that there are ways to price upfront. So, that logic, I just don't understand that logic, because to make that argument, you have to say that the customer cares about your cost. David, do you care how many hours it takes your accounting firm that you hired to do your tax return?
David Leary: No, but I could tell you right now, I've been getting work done on my house for the last 18 months. And not once has the work been done, and then I got a bill afterwards. I have to cut a check before they do a- they lift a finger, every single time.
Blake Oliver: So, every other profession has figured out how to bill upfront, and accounting hasn’t. Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s the same thing with the tracking time. Why do we do this to ourselves? And there's plenty of ways to price this upfront and figure out what's fair. You could take all of your returns of a certain type- let's say it’s 1065s. Let's say you do a lot of 1065s or 1040s, or whatever. Take all those returns, and list out how much you charged each client for those returns.
What you'll get is a range, and you'll get an average, and you'll get a median. Maybe you could bucket those clients into three different types - big, medium, and small - and then you could just set a price. So, if you're a big client, you need this return, it's this price. We charge you upfront. And you know what? On average, it all works out. You could make more money doing it this way, because people are willing to pay more when you guarantee them a result upfront.
People like fixed fees. Do you like getting billed hourly by your attorney? No! Nobody likes that! That's why I work with an attorney who charges me a fixed fee for everything I do. Even attorneys are figuring this shit out. I apologize for the language, but I get passionate about this. Everybody else is doing this. David, I do want to say to our voicemail leaver, thank you for your feedback. I'm sorry that you disagree with us. Actually, I'm not sorry that you disagree with us. It's totally fine, you can disagree with us all you want.
I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the episode as much, and I think these are just some painful truths. This is how I feel. I say what I think, and I don't intend to call anyone dumb. I guess I mean they don't have knowledge. They don’t have the knowledge they should. And we. as a profession, should be explaining this stuff to our clients. We should be aware of it so that if they are going to invest in crypto, they are aware of the risks, that they are betting on a speculative asset, there is zero guarantee it's going to go up just because it's been going up, and here are the risks.
And there's all these frauds hey need to be aware of, the NFT scams, the rug pulling coin scams that are happening, where people create a new cryptocurrency, and then they get people to buy into it, and then it disappears, pulling the rug out from under you.
David Leary: At some level, we probably talked about crypto too much. I think the media covers it too much. Let's put it in perspective. Cryptocurrency transactions across the board in 2021 we're 15.8 trillion. A wad about we know is just investment-type transactions. It's not people buying goods and services.
Blake Oliver: Crypto is hardly ever used for actual transactions right now. It’s speculative.
[00:23:38] ACH Network up to 29.1B: Payments Valued at $72.6T in 2021
David Leary: Let's put this in perspective.
Blake Oliver: At the consumer level, it’s not being used to buy and sell stuff.
David Leary: The ACH network in 2021, they just announced all numbers; they process payments totaling 72.6 trillion.
Blake Oliver: Traditional payment methods are still how people are transacting.
David Leary: These payments are goods and services. Just the B2B ones alone was 50 trillion. The ACH is just- the volume they do is just insane.
Blake Oliver: Yeah.
[00:24:06] Crypto, NFTs are rife with ‘mountains’ of fraud, IRS says
Blake Oliver: Meanwhile, IRS investigators ceased $3.5 billion worth of crypto tied to financial crimes during 2021 alone. That was 93 percent of all the assets seized by the division in that timeframe. Crypto is being used for crime, fraud, ransomware.
David Leary: ACH- everything gets used for fraud. So, I don't want to turn into, “Crypto is just a fraud tool.”
Blake Oliver: Most of it- it's speculation, and it’s crime. And meanwhile, the AICPA is out there- I heard somebody on a podcast talking about how, “Oh, we updated our cryptocurrency guide. It now has a glossary that has more definitions of cryptocurrency and what it is.” This is not the important thing to be talking about.
What the leaders of our profession should be talking about is, “Here are all these stablecoins that are unaudited. Here's this massive amount of fraud that's occurring. Oh, all the ransomware, by the way, that's crypto too.” We’re supposed to be, as a profession, helping people understand risks, and be aware of all this stuff. And maybe people will call us wet blankets, but I think that's what we're supposed to be as accountants, is bringing people back to reality. So, again, if you're investing in crypto, just understand what you are doing, that you are speculating.
[00:25:12] Thank you to our sponsor, FreshBooks
Blake: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by FreshBooks. Recently, I chatted with Twyla Verhelst, director of the accountant channel over at FreshBooks, because I wanted to see what they've been up to. For those who don't know, FreshBooks was the first accounting software I used as a freelance bookkeeper back in 2011.
So, I've been really curious to see what's new. Turns out, a few years ago, FreshBooks launched a new platform that is now more than just invoicing. FreshBooks is now a full general ledger with financial reports, bank feeds and journal entries.
FreshBooks also has your favorite app integrations, even some embedded ones like Gusto for payroll. And with the launch of their new accounting partner program, Twyla and the FreshBooks team are creating a platform, and a partner experience that showcasing that they're really listening to our feedback.
If you want to learn about the benefits of working better together with FreshBooks, head over to cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/freshbooks. That is cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/FRESHBOOKS. FreshBooks. Work better together.
David Leary: Another way to move money around are paper checks.
Blake Oliver: Oh yeah, we're still doing it with half of our transactions here in the U.S. Every time I talk to somebody in the UK or Australia, I always bring that up as a fun stat about the U.S.
David Leary: Well, Deluxe- Deluxe, the paper check company- so, they reported their earnings, and they had growth, 6 percent year over year growth, and their paper check segment is still growing year over year. But in their guidance-
Blake Oliver: Wait, how much is it growing? What does it say?
David Leary: It's 6 percent.
Blake Oliver: Oh, my gosh. So, it's keeping up with inflation.
David Leary: Yep, it’s keeping up. So, this is, their CEO, Barry McCarthy, he stated that for the first time in their 106-year history of printing paper checks, next year, it's going to tip to where they will see their payments division equal their paper checks division. Their payments division or electronic payments is finally going to catch paper checks in 2022. And then, obviously, it'll probably flip. That's going to be the peak and the tipping point. But still, paper checks, lots and lots and lots.
[00:27:24] Splitting Bad Haircuts
Blake Oliver: I got another listener message. This one is about my haircut.
David Leary: Sorry.
Blake Oliver: Remember that?
David Leary: Sorry.
Blake Oliver: No, it’s okay.
David Leary: I just didn’t see that coming.
Blake Oliver: You can laugh at me, David.
David Leary: I did not know we would get a voicemail about your haircut. I did not know that was so thought provoking; I'm excited actually, to hear this.
Blake Oliver: We have a very interesting listener base. Take a listen to this.
Brittany Herbst: I had to laugh at the opening to this week’s episode about being personally affected at the hair salon by the Great Resignation. I say this as a CPA, and a hairstylist who took part in the Great Resignation. Out of college, I went to work at Deloitte and got my CPA. It was not for me, as I had always wanted to do hair. I quit, went to hair school, and worked happily and successfully as an independent hairstylist up until 2020.
With salon closures and restrictions due to COVID, I ended up closing my salon studio and reactivating my CPA license. I could probably name another dozen hairstylists who left the industry due to the restrictions and uncertainty, so I have seen, firsthand, that there is a shortage of great stylists now.
While I didn’t end up going back to accounting, I did move out of state and I’m happily back behind the chair doing hair again. Keep up the great work with the podcast, and if either of you are ever in Sarasota and need a fantastic haircut with a side of chatting about accounting, look me up! Brittany Herbst, @brittshighlights on Instagram. P.S., I’m super excited to start listening to Oh My Fraud!
Blake Oliver: Thank you Brittany, for that email. And I'm glad that you enjoyed that story.
David Leary: I'm actually just smiling. Just to make sure I'm summarizing this correctly, was in the accounting industry, listen to The Cloud Accounting Podcast, left the accounting industry, still listening to The Cloud Accounting Podcast.
Blake Oliver: I love it. Worked at Deloitte and decided- Brittany decided that hair was her passion and went into doing that. But then during COVID, used the CPA as a fallback.
David Leary: You could give tax advice as you're doing people's hair, or you could ask them about their money situations. You could give out advice.
Blake Oliver: What if you had a firm where you did- it was like H&R Block, but you also did people’s hair?
David Leary: This solves my tax organizer problem. Why don't you just ask me these questions while I’m getting my hair done?
Blake Oliver: You bring in your shoe box, and you get you get a blow dry, or you get-
David Leary: Manicure, pedicure, you get the whole [CROSSTALK]. This is genius. That takes three, four hours to get the whole workup, and you could be answering questions the whole time you're sitting there.
Blake Oliver: That'd be really funny. I would like that, and I think people would do it. I got more listener mail, but I feel like I should give you a chance to talk about the news, David.
[00:29:41] More ID.me Backlash
David Leary: I have a little follow-up news.
Blake Oliver: Okay.
David Leary: Again, more news about the IRS and ID.me.
Blake Oliver: Oh, ID.me. Yeah, I saw this.
David Leary: So, this was an article in Business Insider. Basically, to summarize this, a privacy expert has looked at the privacy docs.
Blake Oliver: Of ID.me?
David Leary: Of ID.me. Ultimately, they, a little bit, are more loosey goosey with what they capture, and how willing they are to share it with other government agencies. So, it uses- they call it liveliness detection on the pitchers, and compares it with information from telecommunication networks, credit card bureaus, financial institutions, and other sources.
And then they do voice prints, location data, postal addresses, social security numbers. So, they're storing all this stuff in a database. Now, where people are really concerned about this, because there's a law on the books that says the Homeland Security Department can't go just pulling up IRS tax records. But because technically, this is not part of the tax process-
Blake Oliver: It's not part of the treasury, not part of the IRS. It’s a contractor.
David Leary: This is just an identification, prior to actually doing anything- exactly. They're saying that leaves wide open for other agencies to use this. So, it could just continue, which is good. That means watchtower groups, people are out there protecting us as citizens. My suspicion is that this gets scaled way back or pulled back.
[00:31:00] Republicans Not so Fond of ID.me
Blake Oliver: Republicans have introduced a bill in Congress to stop the IRS from using facial recognition technology, because of privacy concerns, which are legitimate. You have this company that's not government; a private company contracting with government agencies to do facial recognition to prove identity. But then my question is, if you aren't comfortable with that, how do you solve this identity theft problem that the IRS has been having for years?
Because we don't have a national ID system in this country, so your Social Security number, and your income on your tax return is how you verify your identity with the IRS, because how else can they do it? They don't have an ID database to pull from, so we have to use these third-party companies, or it's just going to be really easy for fraudsters to continue to steal our information and get our tax forms, and then commit fraud using all that information. So, what's the solution here?
David Leary: And then, it also grays those areas where, at some level, the IRS just cares that you pay your taxes. You could be a criminal, you could be, ‘I'm here illegally in the country,’ and file your taxes, pay your taxes, the IRS doesn't care. But as soon as you start uploading your ID information, that puts you at risk, for lack of a better word.
Blake Oliver: So, things just keep getting worse for the IRS. Everybody complains about everything they try to do. They try to do something innovative, like protect our identities with facial recognition technology- which is, it's a noble effort. They're trying to do what they can. They don't have the resources to build it themselves, so they contract another third party, and that gets shut down.
[00:32:25] IRS to add 1,200 employees
Blake Oliver: There's an article in Accounting Today about how they're adding 1200 employees to their roles, to navigate what will become one of the most challenging tax filing seasons in years. You know how much that is in comparison to their overall workforce? It's a 1.6 percent increase. They still haven't gotten that $80 billion that we kept talking about.
There's plan from the leadership in accounting to address this issue, long-term. The only thing that we can seem to agree on is that the IRS should stop notices and stop these automated actions against taxpayers because they can’t keep up with the influx of info. But that doesn't solve the problem, long-term. The IRS has been shrinking for a decade. Their employment roles have been shrinking for a decade, and the number of tax returns and the responsibilities have been increasing. And then everybody's complaining.
[00:33:10] What's the IRS hiding?
Blake Oliver: You see articles in CPA Trendlines, like, headline: what is the IRS hiding? And the author dreams up this dashboard where we could see of the information that we need, like the number of returns received in the current season, the number of returns remaining from the year before. Or maybe, individuals could look and see whether their return has been received, or whether it's on a desk, or in the back of a shipping container; have more visibility. But then, we don't fund the IRS to give them the technology that they need. One employee for every 17,000 phone calls is something I heard?
David Leary: And are they shifting people around? There’s a big reshuffle; we're going to take these bodies from over here and move them over here. Not sure that actually solves anything.
Blake Oliver: No, it doesn't solve anything; it's all meaningless. We're talking, they need massive changes there. And you can’t just say that it's mismanagement when you at how many employees they have, versus the job they have to do. Like I said, one employee for tens of thousands of phone calls, you think they’re going to be able to answer the phone?
David Leary: Until they get that $80 billion, they can't pay people more, like, “Hey, CPA students. We’ll pay you this much to come work for us. You don't have to work 55 hours a week. We guarantee you’ll only work 40.” I don't know how they solve this.
Blake Oliver: There’s zero leadership saying, “Here's how we fix this, long-term. It’s become political.”
David Leary: And it’s no win, right? ‘Cause if you fix it, and the IRS is super great, you’re gonna be damned by people that don't want to pay.
Blake Oliver: Well then, what's going to happen is, audits are going to go up, right?
David Leary: Yes, yes. If you truly fix this.
Blake Oliver: So then, people are unhappy because they're getting audited.
David Leary: I think we talked about this in our pre-[INAUDIBLE] episode: is this the year the IRS really breaks? [CROSSTALK].
Blake Oliver: It’s already broken. It is broken right now.
David Leary: Something major is going to either go wrong, or it's going to have to be addressed at a- this could be like the election, the way they determine the winner of the election. There's going to be a point, if 2023 comes and people still don't have their 2020 refunds, or their 2020 returns done, but people are gonna start losing their minds.
Blake Oliver: Yeah. Nobody wants to take responsibility for fixing this thing. Congress wants to blame the IRS; the IRS blames Congress for not having the funding. AICPA doesn't have a plan.
David Leary: Well, they give them little pats on the back, like, “Oh, that's a positive step.” They actually say things like that about their decision to reassign people in the IRS – a positive step.
[00:35:22] The Prometric Remote-Testing Faux Pas
Blake Oliver: I think it's enough of that. A time for another listener message. This one is about remote testing. We had a story recently about how Prometric is allowing people to take tests at home, and the experiences have not been great, apparently; here's one.
Joel: Hello Blake. I actually listened to your most recent CAP episode today and want to mention that I also took a Prometric test at home, in April 2021. I want to add that it was a terrible experience. I actually failed the exam, and I’m pretty sure it was due to the added stress of taking the exam in what was supposed to be the comfort of my own home.
Next time, I will go to a testing center. I almost feel like Prometric is making this stressful to discourage remote test taking. If that is part of their ploy with the remote test option, it definitely worked with me. Regards, Joel.
Blake Oliver: You have been warned. Thank you, Joel, for letting our listeners know it was not good. And I think another listener wrote to us and said it's because they make you show your camera everywhere in the room, and then undress in front of the camera.
David Leary: Undress, Jesus. #accountant.
Blake Oliver: You know how, at the testing center, you have to pull your pockets out and show the inside of your pockets? Imagine having to do that on a webcam. You feel like you're an OnlyFans-
David Leary: #accountant.
Blake Oliver: #accountant. You feel like you're an accountant of Instagram, not an account of LinkedIn.
David Leary: But the opposite, ’cause you're paying.
[00:36:41] Another Disgruntled CPA looking for Work-Study Credit
Blake Oliver: I got one more. We might as well get this done, right? Last listener message.
Eric: I was browsing a community college course list for classes. I was waffling between a language class, or some shop trade class, because I'm basically, a shop ape pretending to be a CPA. All these trade departments have work-study for college credit: computer science, welding, machine shop, nursing, they all have it. 75 hours paid equals 1 unit. I browse over to accounting, nothin'.
Blake Oliver: Thank you, Eric, for that message That was an email from Eric, a CPA who was responding to our discussion of, why don't accountants get work-study credit? Why can't you go work at a firm and get real-life experience, instead of studying for another year in college to get 150 hours? It's ridiculous to me that you can't. Why not? Why not give people credit for learning on the job? So, thanks for that, Eric. Apparently, a mechanic can do it, but we can't. So, where do you want go? App news?
David Leary: Yeah, let's jump into app news.
Blake Oliver: Alright.
[00:37:45] More Kronos Fallout?
Blake Oliver: The follow-up I wanted to say was- and this is related to app news, is Kronos. The fallout is still continuing from that ultimate Kronos Group ransomware attack. There was a story in NBC news, February 1st, about how Coca-Cola delivery drivers are still not getting paid their full amount. So, Kronos says it did resolve the issue on January 22nd, but the Teamsters Local 135 in Indianapolis says the vast majority of the roughly 200 Coca-Cola consolidated employees he represents are still owed pay. Some are still owed as high as $4,700.
David Leary: Wow.
Blake Oliver: That’s a lot of money if you're a delivery driver; a lot of money. What the companies did is they just kept paying people what they were making before, and they were going to true it up later. Just a mess. So, that is finally working its way out.
David Leary: The way that was caused is they hacked in.
Blake Oliver: Yeah, it was ransomware.
David Leary: [INAUDIBLE] are ransomware, it was because of phishing. They probably got phished. Somebody at the company got phished, opened the wrong email, downloaded the wrong attachment, et cetera. Well-
Blake Oliver: They get the credentials, they log in, they plant their ransomware.
[00:38:53] Intuit warns of phishing emails threatening to delete accounts
David Leary: So, this is an article on BleepingComputer. Intuit came out with the official warning; people are sending out phishing emails. And this happens all the time for Intuit, but these are really some new ones, and they're targeting the ProConnect people. So, this is your tax side of the business, not the QuickBooks side. The email basically says, “We've temporarily disabled your account due to inactivity. It is compulsory that you restore your access within the next 24 hours.” So, obviously, it comes through actually, a very urgent message.
There's always a photo of it when they do these things. And if you're not paying attention, you're gonna click the link, and then you're compromised. Then it's downhill from there, which your account gets disabled, then do things. Don’t click on warnings. I'd work backwards from there, because if it doesn't get disabled, that shows you that email was fake.
And then always check those addresses. And then, I think what's really popular, a lot of people do is, I’ll see this on Facebook, and the social channels, people will- before they click on it, they screenshot the email, and be like, “Anybody else get this email? Does it smell fishy?” Even legit ones. Check with your community, see who else got it before you just click on that, and your make sure your staff is not clicking on this.
[00:40:01] Thank you to our Sponsor, Relay
David Leary: This episode of The Cloud Accounting Podcast is sponsored by Relay Financial. For those listeners that haven't been following along with my drama caused by PNC when they purchased BBVA, and botched the migration, to quickly summarize, PNC bank feeds wouldn't work with QuickBooks Online. The website had all my old BBV transactions just listed as debits and credits, with no vendors or payees.
And to top it all off, the June bank statement was just missing, like June never happened. Let's just say my 2021 books were a mess. So, for 2022, I made the commitment to stop using PNC, and switch everything to Relay. Relay is a no-fee, online banking platform built for you and your small business clients. Relay understand and solves all the things we, as accountants and bookkeepers, care about: security, bank feeds, automation, reconciliation.
I invited both my interns to my Relay account, they created their own user IDs and passwords. And within minutes, they were using Relay to create virtual debit cards, physical debit cards, download statements, and reconciling. Now, the bank feeds and my QuickBooks Online are reliable, and my 2022 books are in order. To stop fighting with an unreliable bank that doesn't care about you or your small business clients, head over to the CloudAccountingPodcast. Promo/relay. That is cloudaccountingpodcast.promo/RELAY.
[00:41:15] Xerocon Reschedules to August ... In New Orleans ...
Blake Oliver: Xerocon was originally scheduled for May of this year, in New Orleans It has now been postponed to August, late August, in New Orleans.
David Leary: August 24th and 25th.
Blake Oliver: I wonder if anyone at Xero has ever been to New Orleans in August. I just wanna ask. I asked Xero why they decided to postpone. In their press release, they said, “Our decision to postpone the event aligns with our #human value of keeping our Xero community safe. All this changing of the dates, everything else we know and love about Xerocon will stay the same, yada, yada.”
So, I want to know, what do you mean keeping safe? Because everything I have seen says that the current COVID wave is going to recede dramatically by March, and it won't- the risk will be very, very low. So, it's not that. Xero got back to me and said it's because they have Canadian partners, and this is a North American event, and-
David Leary: It’s not a U.S.- okay, makes sense.
Blake Oliver: They are concerned that the Canadians won’t be able to get here or travel here. so, blame Canada That's why Xerocon has been rescheduled for August, in New Orleans. It's very humid in New Orleans in August. It's also hurricane season, so we'll see. I'm still gonna go, cause I love Xerocon, but a little regretful about that.
David Leary: Well, it'll be interesting because just looking at accountingconferences.com, May was crazy. There’s a conference every single week, and Xerocon was in the middle of that. really, from May 1st, until scaling New Heights in June, there was a conference, I think, every week, for six straight weeks. But now, in August, this is the only conference in August. Get there pretty out of breath, right?
Blake Oliver: I’m kinda glad about that, yeah. It was gonna be too crazy.
David Leary: Rumor still has it, QuickBooks Connect is going an in-person conference this year. No dates on that, but historically, that's always been that first week in November. But obviously, now, it's- hopefully, it’s not August 24th or 25th. It doesn't show up then.
[00:43:15] Keri Gohman new CEO at AbacusNext
Blake Oliver: Hey, speaking of Xero, Keri Gohman, who was president of Xero U.S., has been named the new chief executive officer and member of the board of directors at AbacusNext, the hosting company. You may remember, David- I think I talked about this years ago. AbacusNext had an invite-only conference. It seemed like they were inspired a bit-
David Leary: Yea, I declined to go.
Blake Oliver: Yeah, but it was great.
David Leary: [CROSSTALK] because I was like, “It's not- I can't-” because I think they're trying to get influencers too. And I was like, “I can’t get behind a hosting company. I just can’t do it, sorry.” And I didn't go, and I turned down the free laptop, or whatever else they had. I was just like, “Sorry.”
Blake Oliver: So, I was living in LA at the time. So, I went because it was all expenses paid, and it was in La Jolla. It was beautiful.
David Leary: Next story, [CROSSTALK].
Blake Oliver: Yeah, next story, I just drove down and got a weekend in La Jolla. But it was a little strange at that time, because they basically sat us in a room for all day long, and just- it was a bunch of journalists and “accounting influencers” and they just pitched us on AbacusNext. They’re a hosting company, and they do some amazing things.
It’s full-service hosting, which I really believe in. If you're going to use hosting, use something where they've got people on the team who are monitoring all of the hacking attempts, and who can act as your IT team; they do full service in that respect. So, you’re not just buying hosting, you're also buying an IT service; a managed service provider kind of thing. So, anyway, that'll be interesting to see where they take it. I think they must be doing well if Keri's joining the team.
David Leary: Or they have some plans or they're doing something in the future. Her background, she was at Intuit. She did a stint in Intuit, she did a stint at obviously, Xero; she was the North America VP, right, or something like that?
Blake Oliver: Yeah, yeah. And then she was North America president of Xero.
David Leary: And then I think she's done some investing, and she's been an advisor for a bunch of cloud apps.
Blake Oliver: She’s a VC, too.
David Leary: To me, I just- my initial reaction when I saw that headline, I was like, “Oh, that's odd.”
Blake Oliver: It's still a big business.
David Leary: Still, yeah, absolutely. All these hosting things are still big business.
Blake Oliver: You know why? Because every single accounting firm has to have hosting, because the tax software isn't in the cloud. What are you going to do if your tax software has to be hosted?
David Leary: So, they're in the legal side of the fence as well. There's still a lot of people still using hosted desktop legal software.
Blake Oliver: And what they've been doing is smart. They're like Right Networks, where they've been buying apps, and integrating those apps deeply into a tech stack that they can then sell you on a hosted managed service environment.
David Leary: But different. They've been buying desktop companies, enrolling them to their thing. Right now, where she keeps buying cloud-based companies, because I think they're trying to build a new thing. And I think that’s the difference.
Blake Oliver: Yeah, they’re trying to be the cloud connector.
[00:45:48] Pennylane wants to overhaul the accounting tech stack in France
Blake Oliver: Pennylane, the accounting SaaS- the Pilot of France, I guess is how I would describe them- they've raised $57 million in a series B. We covered their series A year or two ago. Sequoia Capital is in on this one. So, they're getting a lot of money to do what Pilot’s doing in Europe- which is what I initially thought, that they were going to be like Pilot.
But it looks like they've pivoted, because the article in TechCrunch is all about how they work with accounting firms. So, remember how Botkeeper was originally going directly to small businesses, and was competing with accounting firms?
David Leary: Yep.
Blake Oliver: And then after a few years, they decided, “Maybe that's not such a good idea and we should partner with accounting firms?” This looks like exactly the same story. And they now claim to work with 300 accounting firms that are using Pennylane as their software stack. Pennylane “wants to overhaul tools like Segid-” SEGID, I don’t know that one- “And Sage, and modernize the tech stack of accounting firms.” So, that’s what they seem like to me, is they’ve pivoted.
Here’s a quote from the CEO, Arthur Waller. “Nine months ago, 90 percent of our clients reached out to us directly, and 10 percent of them became clients through accounting firms. Nine months later, that trend has changed. 81 percent of our clients come from accounting firms.” While the startup didn't want to share revenue numbers, the CEO said that they've been growing 20 percent, month over month, since the summer. Since 2020, Pennylane has raised a total of $96 million.
And they think that they have a lot of opportunity, because in France, there are 12,000 accounting firms. Today, they work with 300; their goal is in four to five years, that they work with 1.5 million small and medium companies. I think this is ultimately where Pilot's going to go, because I think they're going to find out- as Botkeeper did- that working directly with small businesses, it's really, really hard to scale a business fast. You're not going to get 20 percent month over month growth, you're going to get 20 percent annual growth.
David Leary: Unless you just stay in that, “We're only going to do tech startups,” your formula, right? Which is like, “Okay, they have payroll, no expenses, and they have bank feeds.” And then that's it. And they stay on that because a lot of those startups, as soon as they go IPO, or they take their march, they’re going to have to get off of that, and move to probably, Sage Intacct. That’s been our observation. Sage Intacct were moved to NetSuite, right?
Blake Oliver: Even then, even if you are totally niched, I don't think that you can get the growth you need, because you still have to have a of people. And the human relationships that you have to have as an accounting firm, you can't automate that yet. I can use AI to create voices from texts when people send us emails. I cannot use AI to recreate the human experience of talking to your bookkeeper or working with your accountant.
And that's what these tech companies are figuring out. And so, they realize it’s actually better to work with accountants to scale, because then, they build the software, we provide the service, everybody wins. Service Plus Software, nobody's figured out how to do that yet, I don’t think. To scale it fast anyway.
David Leary: And it's funny because everybody thinks they're going to be one that does this.
[00:48:39] Lendio’s Sunrise Financial Platform Delivers Small Businesses Premier Tools Built to Save Time and Money
David Leary: Lendio, who’s a lone player. So, it's business finances. They have slowly been on the march of building accounting software. And so, they have this product called Sunrise; it’s their free bookkeeping product that they offer. Well, they added some tools to this, and [INAUDIBLE] press release. So, they added TaxAssist, which essentially, it's a depreciation calculator and an attached checklist.
They've added a bank reconciliation tool, which is essentially, once you read through it, it's bank feeds; they've had a bank feed matching. And then they've offered invoices. So, you can use your own logo, provide discounts, auto calculate. But the real thing is, if you go out to Sunrise app's website, yes, it is free self-service, it's almost merchant service.
You can sign up for that, but if you want bank feeds, now you're paying the $20 a month. But if you scroll down on their page, oh, you can add a bookkeeper on. It's volume-based on 120 transactions, $150 a month, 200 transactions, $299 a month, 500 transactions a month, $500 a month.
Blake Oliver: Who’s providing the bookkeeping? Are they doing it themselves, or are they-
David Leary: It's not clear on that.
Blake Oliver: This is Lendio?
David Leary: Lendio is the loan company, and then their-
Blake Oliver: Sunrise.
David Leary: Sunriseapp.com is their accounting app, they've been working on in bookkeeping service. So, everybody keeps marching into this space more and more.
Blake Oliver: Yeah, I wonder who's doing this. It makes-
David Leary: They probably purchased a bookkeeping firm.
Blake Oliver: So, to me it makes sense to offer as a side thing. You buy a bookkeeping firm, you offer bookkeeping as part of your software package, like, “Go sign up for this,” because it keeps people on your app. It's like providing enhanced customer support, but it's not the main way you grow. David, we've got just two minutes left before my son is going to barge in here, ‘cause I told him at 10:00 AM, we would go to the farmers’ market.
[00:50:24] Surgent Makes a Game out of CPE
David Leary: I know what you could do to keep him busy for two minutes.
Blake Oliver: What's that?
David Leary: You could send him to the Surgent website, and he could sign up, and he can play this Surgent videogame called Max the Tax.
Blake Oliver: Surgent CPE, Max the Tax. What is it?
David Leary: It’s a short, online-based game and a course you could do, and you'll get CPE credit. You get to play the role of the IRS agent, and interview taxpayers, and adjust the returns, based on their answers. And you'll get a quality score based on the interview, and the adjustments you make, and then you get your CPE credit. Now, what was interesting about this, and full circle to the IRS and a lot of people, did you ever see in the 80s, there was a movie called The Last Starfighter?
Blake Oliver: The Last Starfighter.
David Leary: So, to summarize, there was this videogame. It was like a spaceship flying thing. If you finished to the end, the aliens came out outer space and took you, and then you became the fighter pilot for the Alliance, I don't know, I'm just making that part up. But it was like, the videogame was the test. So now, I'm thinking, actually, if you're good at this videogame, they should sell this data to the IRS, like, “Hey, this guy's really good at pretending to be an IRS agent.” The IRS could come and pluck you if you do really good at this videogame. That's just my idea.
Blake Oliver: Maybe- well, there's that- what was that book, Ender’s Game, they made it into a movie?
David Leary: Yes.
Blake Oliver: And basically, it was like the game was designed to produce the future generals of their space army. So, they recruited all these-
David Leary: Yes, exactly. A similar vibe, similar vibe.
Blake Oliver: That's what the IRS needs. They need to create- but don't make this something you have to pay for. Put it up for free on the app store and then get all these kids playing it and answering tax questions. And that's how you recruit them. That's how you solve the problem at the IRS; flash video game. By the way, this does look like a flash game, if anyone's ever played one of those.
David Leary: It won't work on your iPad, probably.
Blake Oliver: I doubt it. We'll see. We'll see. That’s what-
David Leary: That's it, I'm done. I'm done. You can have the farmers’ market unless you have something else to close us out.
Blake Oliver: No, I'm just going to go enjoy the beautiful weather here in Arizona, ‘cause it's February and we're not in the snow, and I gotta enjoy it while I can.
David Leary: Hopefully, there won't be any wind. We've had so much wind this week. It’s been relentless.
Blake Oliver: David, if listeners want to go after you online, where should they find you?
David Leary: I'm @DavidLeary; very easy to find on all the socials.
Blake Oliver: I am @BlakeTOliver. You are welcome to @ me there, or send me an email with your voice memo, or just your email about anything that we have discussed on the show, anything else that's interesting in the accounting world. I'd love to hear more timesheets stories. Tell me about how timesheets have made your life unpleasant, or were people lying on timesheets? Because I want to dispel this myth- I want to compile these all into a coffee table book and send them to Ed Mendlowitz, and I need your help to do that, ‘cause I only have one right now, and I need more.
So, I know they're out there; I have my own. So, I would like you to please contribute your timesheet stories. Send them to me, Blake@BlakeOliver.com. If you send me one, then I'll give you an NFT copy of it. I'll send you a digital copy when I finally make it, I promise. That's it for this episode. Thanks, everyone, for listening, and David, have a great week. See you here.
David Leary: Beautiful. Thank you.
[00:53:35] Classifieds
David: Time for the classifieds.
[00:53:39] The Ambitious Bookkeeper
David Leary: Do you dream of starting a bookkeeping business, but you don't know where to start? Join the bookkeeping biz workshops, a four-day live workshop series hosted by Serena Shoup, CPA. You’ll learn where to start, what it takes, what tech to use, how to build a business, not a job, plus, how to get comfortable on discovery calls. The workshops begin February 23rd. So, register today at BKworkshops.online. That is BKworkshops.online.
[00:54:08] Royalwise
David Leary: As humans, we're programmed from birth, to learn watching others. Video has the power to engage, entertain, and educate, without ever feeling like work. When you want to become a QuickBooks Online expert in the shortest amount of time, the Royalwise on-demand, web-based learning solutions are the obvious answer. With 40 easy-to-understand QuickBooks classes designed to bolster your confidence and increase your accuracy, Alicia Katz Pollock’s training will take you from beginner to advanced user.
Pick just the topics you need or save money by subscribing to their entire QuickBooks Online library and coaching program for one low monthly price. Listeners to The Cloud Accounting Podcast can enjoy their first month of silver membership for only $1 using promo code ‘Podcast’.
So, head over to learn.royalwise.com. That's Royal like a king, and wise like an owl. Register for a QuickBooks class, become a member for just $1, and make learning a hoot. That's learn.royalwise.com.
[00:55:08] Oh My Fraud: A True Crime Podcast for Accountants
Blake: Hey, podcast listeners, it's Blake, and I wanted to let 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.
[00:56:10] 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.