AccountingWEB

How can firms ensure technology improves the client experience rather than complicates it and can such a step be taken without affecting that relationship? David Gartside and Luke Farren join The Progressive Firm Podcast to discuss.

The team starts with good news for the Finance, Accounting & Bookkeeping Show, after FAB picked up two event awards. Richard Hattersley reflects on what the wins say about the show and what’s next for FAB 2027. Tom Herbert turns to HMRC’s tax gap figures and asks whether Making Tax Digital for income tax (MTD) is still the right answer. He looks at research from Mazuma founder Lucy Cohen, which su...

No Accounting for Taste ep216: P&L filing from proposal to final form by AccountingWEBUK

Tom Herbert shares his takeaways from Tax Tech Live in London, where the AI conversation felt more grounded. Rather than sweeping claims about revolutionising the profession, the focus was on practical use cases, how teams are using AI now, and what this could mean for training and the profession. Herbert also warns that a pricing crunch may be coming as AI costs rise. Matthew Ord then looks at EY...

Matthew Ord opens the podcast with good news for anyone still working on their Accounting Excellence entry: the deadline has been extended to 3 June. So if you haven’t quite finished your entry or wished you’d have started one, now is the time to get it done. Tom Herbert shares news that Bokio, a cloud accounting system, is pulling the plug on its UK operations on 30 June 2026. He explains what ha...

As Tom Herbert returns from sunny San Francisco, he reflects on his time at Sage Future and the event’s focus on building trust in artificial intelligence (AI). He shares the research from the conference, the push to improve user confidence and the announcements pointing towards a more practical, pragmatic phase of AI adoption. Mathew Ord explores the perception and performance gap facing finance...

Speaking to AccountingWEB technology editor Tom Herbert at Sage Future, Sage’s annual user conference in San Francisco, chief executive Steve Hare argued that artificial intelligence (AI) adoption in accounting will depend less on flashy generative features and more on whether finance teams can inspect, verify and trust the outputs. Hare also addressed the wider market anxiety caused by large AI p...

How does an accounting firm navigate the breakdown of a relationship with a difficult client and what’s the cost of letting such a scenario play out for far too long? Muntazir Bhimji and Natasha Millward join The Progressive Firm Podcast to discuss.

There is just under a month to go until entries for the Accounting Excellence Awards close on 20 May. Matthew Ord shares more on this year’s awards, including the new categories, while Tom Herbert outlines the trends he expects to see in the entries and offers some good advice on what actually makes a good entry. After an Any Answers post criticised AccountingWEB for covering artificial intelligen...

Making Tax Digital (MTD) has finally become a reality, more than a decade after it was first announced. Richard Hattersley reflects on the journey so far, from the highs and lows to where MTD stands today, including the National Audit Office report, confidence levels, costs and how the initiative has changed. The team also argues that the real crunch point is not 6 April, but the first filing dead...

While MTD and AI dominated the chatter at the Finance, Accounting and Bookkeeping Show, one theme kept surfacing above the noise: accountants are still searching for software that solves real problems rather than just adding another shiny layer of complexity. This was the broad verdict from Hancock and Hastings director Amy Hancock and AAG managing director Aaron Patrick, who joined AccountingWEB’...

How can a firm broadening their horizons improve a relationship with a client? Aaron Patrick and Eriona Bajrakurtaj join The Progressive Firm Podcast to discuss the journey of introducing a new service line and knowing when the time is right.

Tom Herbert opens the podcast with two tech stories from Companies House and HMRC. First, he unpacks a security flaw at Companies House that left confidential details linked to more than five million companies exposed, explaining what happened, how Companies House responded and how serious the breach was. He then turns to HMRC’s decision to reintroduce multi-factor authentication for agents from J...

In the latest episode of our Inside the Numbers podcast – which pulls back the curtain on the KPIs of finance leaders – Chris Sharp of Intercity Technology sees out series one with the three main metrics that help him navigate his work, as well as discussing his non-traditional route into the profession and the need to be able to tell a story with data.

Recorded live on day two of FAB, the team discuss the sessions they hosted, the conversations happening across the show floor and hot topics, from artificial intelligence (AI) to Making Tax Digital (MTD). They also unpack the insights from the MTD Accountability Club session, Sage’s AI Labs and the growing interest in fractional CFO services. Sharing takeaways from roundtable discussions with mid-...

The government’s Making Tax Digital programme has prompted a rush of banks to release tools to handle its new quarterly filing requirement through basic accounting functionality, without the complexity of a full-scale accounting platform. Is the all-in-one ledger finally here? AccountingWEB speaks to Starling Bank’s Dan Hogan to find out. For links to everything discussed and full show notes visit...

Stephen Murdoch, CEO of Bright, joined the No Accounting for Tech podcast to discuss the group’s ambitious journey toward a "one-stop shop" for accounting firms, and acknowledged that the initial communication around moving BrightPay customers from desktop to cloud "didn't land well enough". For full show notes visit: https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/content/brights-ceo-reflects-on-practice-pain-po...

With our technology editor, Tom Herbert, off on holiday, we have parachuted in Rebecca Benneyworth, an upcoming speaker at FAB to offer her thoughts in the run up to the event. Ahead of her first session, MTD Accountability Club Live, Benneyworth reflects on her hands-on experience of MTD testing. She outlines what she has learned, how the process has worked in practice, and the growing pressure a...

In this special episode, Sam Gooding, Nikki Adams and James Bennett - all of whom are speaking at the Finance, Accounting and Bookkeeping Show (FAB) - discuss some of the lessons learned on their growth journeys.

In the latest episode of our Inside the Numbers podcast – which pulls back the curtain on the KPIs of finance leaders – Alton Nutile of GeoAcoustics reveals the three main metrics that help him navigate his work, as well as how the role is evolving and why being able to explain the facts and figures is so important.

Tom Herbert opens the podcast by looking at accounting firm consolidators and the difficulty of integrating acquired practices. Following news that the sale of Xeinadin has collapsed after its private equity owners failed to land a £1bn-plus price tag, he explores Xeinadin’s background and the challenges of knitting together different tech stacks, workflows and data. Drawing on his conversation wi...

The new series of the show sees Emma Reid of Cottons and Paul Attridge of Gerald Edelman look at how to keep client relationships strong during the sometimes difficult-to-navigate self assessment season.

At the end of last year, Matthew Ord may or may not have made a glowing prediction about the positive direction audit reform will take in 2026… Anyway, this week he discusses the Audit Reform Bill being scrapped, almost eight years since Carillion entered compulsory liquidation. The team unpacks the reasons behind the decision, what it means for firms and whether there’s still a will for change. F...

In the latest episode of Inside the Numbers – which pulls back the curtain on the KPIs of finance leaders – Kay Chaplin of Mantle Space reveals the three main metrics that help her navigate her work, as well as discussing skills, software and spreadsheets.

January means one thing for accountants: self assessment season. Richard Hattersley opens the podcast with the latest filing statistics. He compares these to the figures from previous years and reveals the statistics from the festive period. Every year, AccountingWEB checks in with the community and Hattersley highlights a few member responses. The team then explores what’s changed with the rise o...