Editor's Note: This is another profile in our series of exclusive interviews with some of the accounting industry's leading executives and thought leaders.
Back in 2004, when Kenji Kuramoto founded Acuity CFO, some of the biggest questions he received was from entrepreneurs asking about the most basic financial accounting functions. So, in 2013, he teamed with Matthew May to launch Acuity – a firm dedicated to efficiently tackling bookkeeping, bill paying, payroll, invoicing, collections, GAAP reporting and anything else entrepreneurs need to grow their business, while continuing to help with their financial strategy.
Through Acuity, the duo have provided more than 1,000 companies with a full range of financial solutions, from high-level strategic financial counsel through its fractional CFO practice, all the way to virtualized bookkeeping solutions for early stage startups.
Kenji’s core business mission is to provide scalable financial solutions for entrepreneurs, so that their main focus can be on growing their company. By leveraging technology with the proven processes it has developed, Acuity’s seasoned financial accounting team helps companies big and small manage their books and get setup for financial success.
Insightful Accountant sat down with Kenji to get his thoughts on today's entrepreneurial landscape and how Acuity continues to expand its industry partnerships.
Give us a snapshot of the Acuity brand.
Acuity is a complete accounting service – from bookkeeping to CFO – for early and growth-stage technology companies. Our team of cloud accounting experts keep clients’ financial engines running smoothly to help them reach their goals with confidence. Our key differentiator at this firm is that we’re constantly leveraging the latest and greatest technology to automate backend accounting tasks and free up our accountants to focus on what they do best – providing financial guidance and advice to clients.
Talk a little about your relationship with Xero and Google.
At high level, our partnerships with Xero and Google enable us to leverage solid cloud solutions that improve our communications and operations with clients. Whether it’s sending an invoice with attached email history, or a chat with clients in the Xero platform using Google Hangouts, this partnership is essential to keeping us ahead of technological change in the accounting industry.
We’re also a Gold Champion Partner at Xero – with 28 Xero-certified employees in our cloud accounting team. Acuity is one of only 12 firms selected in the U.S. to be apart of the Xero Partner Advisory Council. Recently, Acuity partnered up with Xero and Google for a webinar to showcase the collaborative power of the Xero and G-Suite integration.
Why is this such a valuable relationship and benefit for today's accounting professionals?
Ninety-three percent of SME accountants surveyed said they could add value to existing client relationships by turning attention away from automated tasks. A strong ecosystem of cloud accounting tools can help. Unfortunately, our industry is notoriously risk averse, relying on traditional mechanisms for back office. We believe that by switching to the cloud, accountants can free up more time to deliver strategic insight and more value to their clients.
What has been the early feedback from the marketplace?
We’ve experienced very positive feedback from clients who have modernized their accounting function by moving it to the cloud. Most small businesses are already using other cloud-based tools in their business, so we’re seeing an eagerness within the market to have the accounting function get up to speed with the rest of their business.
What are some of things you are doing to help accountants continue to make that transition into the cloud?
Today, I’m hosting a monthly meet-up with Xero called Xero Hour. The intent is to all for peer-to-peer networking and experience sharing among accountants transitioning into the cloud. It has been a great way to learn from other accountants in an effort to help move our accounting profession to be more forward-thinking.
We expect the cloud accounting technology ecosystem to continue to expand rapidly with more and more tools that help automate tasks for business owners and accountants.
Definitely taking a strategic approach and keeping customers in mind during the cloud transition will go a long way in the future. At Acuity, we’re platform agnostic, so we can provide our clients with the same cloud service regardless of what software they are using.
What do you expect to see from the accounting space as we head further into 2017?
We expect the cloud accounting technology ecosystem to continue to expand rapidly with more and more tools that help automate tasks for business owners and accountants. We also expect to see more sophistication amongst the tools that will be useful not just to bookkeepers who are automating manual processes, but even CFOs who are performing strategic analysis and financial modeling.
What type of other partnerships are you developing?
We’ve developed partnerships with a wide variety of technology companies like Gusto, Bill.com, Zenefits, and Expensify. We’ve also helped with Xero’s partnership with Apple in being a group of cloud accounting experts that Apple’s Business Specialist Team can call on to assist with their business client’s accounting question.
What does your to-do list look like this year?
For the year, two of the big items on our to-do list are to develop some deeper niche expertise in a couple of industry verticals and also launch our customer success function in the second half of the year. We’ve been grateful that our client base has expanded over the years, but I’d like to be doing a better job of being more focused on specific industries.
Also, I think the need to have a customer success team that is proactively reaching out to understand the voice and health of our clients will be a big differentiator for our firm. The more we can listen to and understand our clients, the better position we’ll be in to serve them.
What’s the next "best thing" for you?
I’m really excited about what’s happening in the screen less software movement with technology like Siri and Alexa. While some view these technologies as “fun gadgets,” I really see them as opening up incredible opportunities and efficiencies in the future for accountants and small businesses. When we think about what possibilities may exist when we’re not constrained with the same old input and output mechanism with machines, I think there will be amazing advancements in the way that accountants are able to manage business data and how business owners are able to consume and act upon that data.
What should every accounting professional know about Acuity?
We are hiring. We are trying to create better accounting jobs by harnessing technology rather than resisting. We are going to have to change we work constantly as technology improves and we are doing everything we can to get other accountants to embrace that and rethink our jobs every day.