The Gravita Story

Morning, folks. I think we’ve got the first few people clicking in. Glad to help you with this. I’ll give it a minute or so, just let numbers ramp up. Another ten or fifteen seconds or so. Right, we’ll get going. Good morning everyone. Thanks for coming along today and joining, today’s webinar. Just a quick few housekeeping rules before we get started. So things should run kind of content wise for about half an hour. And then we’ve allowed sort of fifteen minutes at the end for a bit of a q and a. So forty five minutes altogether. That q and a panel is open right now. So feel free to chuck them in as you go along. The more questions the better. We’ve got the guys joining us today happy to answer them. Today’s session is recorded. So if you have to drop off at any point, then don’t panic. Within about forty eight hours, a copy of the webinar should come out to you. And at the very end of the session or towards the end of the session, so sorry, we’re going to share a link to download the Grow Without the Chaos guide. So this is the sort of five step or five stage digital transformation roadmap that we’re going to kind of be basing it on today. So keep an eye for that when we finished off. Right, let’s get going. So today’s session, as you can see, is titled, the gravity story of fighting the capacity crunch. And I’m going to start by asking a question that I hope a lot of folks and I think a lot of folks should relate to is, how you kind of beaten the capacity crunch or have you beaten the capacity crunch? Or are you still kind of fighting it? And that’s what we’re going to kind sense the whole webinar around today. So, that’s it. The main aim of the focus of what we’re going be going through. And we’ll start off with a couple introductions. So my name is Mark Turley. I am a senior account exec here at Silverfin. Coming up to four years here. I’ve worked at Xero before, spent about four years there. Also a few other kind of accounting based digital transformation solutions as well. So I think all in all, close to ten years working with accountants. At Silverfin specifically, I’ve really helped some firms on their journey and path to digitise things. So people like Gravita, funnily enough, BDO, are firms that I’ve worked with fairly closely, as we kind of help them take the next steps in digitising their solutions and their softwares. I’m also joined by Aleisha. Aleisha, I’ll hand over to you and let you introduce yourself. Could you do a far better job than I can? Hello, I’m Aleisha. I am Head of UK and Ireland for Silverfin. I’ve been at Silverfin almost five years this year, similarly to Mark, previously worked at Xero for four years as well, in their partner consulting team. And before all of that was an accountant in practice, mid sized practice, a manager covering the small business services sector and managed the digital transformation. So whilst it feels like a lifetime ago, hopefully it means I’m quite good at seeing things from both sides of the fence. Yeah, that’s me. Lovely, thank you Aleisha. One more person to introduce before I do that, just to let you guys know, the whole plan of today is to be really kind of informal, it’s going be very conversational. We didn’t script things, we had a chat beforehand to make sure we weren’t going right off topic, but it’s all about the kind of warts and all honesty and truth about what it means to go through this kind of digitization journey I should say. But with that, the last person to introduce is Adrian. So thanks for joining us Adrian. Just very quickly, if you weren’t aware Adrian works as a transformation manager at Gravita. Decades worth of experience in space and now a really important kind of part of the journey that they’re on. Adrian, do want to add a few more words in your own words, a bit more about your kind of background and what you get up to? Yep. Thanks for the introduction, Mark. Yeah. Thanks for the invite to join you today. Yeah. So Adrian Logan, so I’ve got twenty years plus technology background. I come from a technology, so not specifically an accountancy background, but covering public sector, private sector, and a number of different industries. More recently, a lot of experience and expertise in the accountancy sector, transforming, introducing new technology platforms, reviewing processes and really deploying them and embedding them across, you know, across the firm. Really pleased to be be Gravitas. Joined at the beginning of this year. And a bit of background about Gravitas, so a private equity backed firm. And really, we brought together six specialist accounting firms under a single brand, single vision, five offices. So London office, Oxford, Essex Bristol and Exeter. So really covering the south of the UK. About five hundred team members, which is a really good size and really embedded in the top forty accountancy firms. Full service offering covering accounts audits, business services, outsourcing, tax, personal and corporate, and a lot of different sectors and really some really, really good sector expertise. We do pride ourselves as being a tech enabled firm. So, you know, we’re really keen that we embrace and adopt the right technology that ultimately delivers an excellent service for our clients, supported by really strong and experienced colleagues within the firm. And that for me as a technology advocate is a really, really exciting place to be, to use technology to streamline processes, improve accuracy, and ultimately, you know, keep that focus on delivering an excellent and an amazing service to our clients. Obviously, it won’t come as a surprise, so often, is a key component of that. So, yeah, it’s really helping us to standardise and drive efficiencies. Lovely. Thanks, Adrian. Know, really appreciate the detail there. So going back to types of things today, I’ll start asking you quite straight away. Sorry, Adrian. Do you guys think at Gravitas, you’re right in the middle of that capacity crunch fight, or have you beaten it? Where are you on that journey at the moment, do you think? It’s a really interesting question. I don’t think anybody will ever beat it, because I think there is always that. Clients always ultimately want more, and we’re trying to deliver more for our clients as well. We’ve definitely taken some really, really big strides to help us manage the time and investment that people and colleagues put into delivering services to clients, trying to streamline where we can. But it is still very much a blend between humans actually delivering part of the process, as well as optimizing technology. It certainly helped us, and aligning the firm on a common technology stack following acquisitions. I think that’s something in the acquisition space is really aligning that technology stack starts to build cohesiveness across all of the firms that join. It a challenging time, you know, for those colleagues that are being merged into a bigger firm and it’s very common in the accountancy sector at the moment. But keeping that culture and really keeping that focus on client experiences is key. But yeah, I think it is an ongoing challenge for the sector. Yeah, The challenge globally at the moment, so fuel cost of living, etcetera, we can’t just keep increasing costs and taking that and passing that on to clients. So they’re expecting more from us as business advisors. We need to make sure that we can still continue to deliver that service with as much extra that we can as well. So yeah, it’s definitely an ongoing challenge. We’re getting there and we are improving it, but it’s something that I don’t think we’ll ever completely nail to say that we have beaten the capacity crunch. Yeah, no, that’s really interesting. I think when we pick that apart and look at that stat on the screen there, firms beyond gravity are trying to challenge it and fix it and beat that crunch. Eighty nine percent of folks are investing actively in software, in accounting workflows today. But you said yourself, it’s still not been beaten yet. Any thoughts on why it’s still there? Why it’s not yet been no one’s managed to find that silver bullet, so to speak? I think on the start’s really, really interesting because there are so many tech stack, new digital tools out there, they’re coming numbers in a day, every day, see mailings saying that there’s new tools out there. So I’m not surprised to see, a lot of firms investing in digital tools. And that’s creating quite a disconnected ecosystem of lots of different tools. And I think over the next period of time, we’ll see a bit of a consolidation of that, And we see it in some of the app marketplaces. So it’s about investing in the right tools. And yeah, I think the other part of it is encouraging all of the providers of these Veritas to talk to each other. I think we’re moving to an environment where we’ve got so many best of breed products across to deliver services. It’s now encouraging those providers to connect them. That, because we’re investing in tools, but then inevitably creating inefficiencies because people are having to transpose and move data between platforms. So, we talk about this capacity crunch and a lot of what we’re seeing at the moment in the industry is moving towards a disconnected ecosystem, which is great because we really can automate and streamline certain aspects of processing, but then you’ve still got that manual data transfer. So I think there’s still room to go, you know, and software providers are certainly a critical component to that. No, lovely. And I imagine, Aleisha, you might have a bit of a perhaps a different perspective given your background, you know, from initially in a firm, you know, getting to the role you did do, spend some time at Xero and now at Silverfin. Have you got any particular thoughts on why it’s not yet been nailed? And what Chinese are still you know can protect themselves to firms? Yeah I think it’s a really interesting one like the stat isn’t surprising right actually I’m amazed it’s not even higher than eighty nine percent given we’re at currently and I think a big part of it is the change to the industry. We know that in the last ten to fifteen years the accounting industry has changed more than it’s ever changed before that, like the demands on accountants are changing from clients, from regulatory bodies. At the same time we’re in this tech era where it’s getting quicker and easier to spin up new technology and new vendors are emerging all the time. And it’s really challenging every area of that accountant workflow, whether it’s your processes, whether it’s how you’re actually managing your own firm’s admin, not just how you’re actually preparing and doing accounts. So there’s lots of change for an industry that is probably like typically risk averse. I’m going to say it, we are quite risk averse accountants, and that leaves a fair bit of uncertainty. I guess my worry with it is with all of those options and all of this new tech coming really quickly, yes we’re investing in digital tools, are we investing in the right ones, are we doing it in the right way? And I think that’s what some of the stats in the report that we’re going to talk about has alluded to, right? We’re not necessarily going to beat the capacity crunch. Yes, we can improve how that feels internally, but the goalposts are forever changing and they’re going to change faster than ever with AI and the movement of technology as it’s going. Yeah, I mean I’ve just brought some of those stats on the page and I think there’s some in there that are surprising, some that are perhaps maybe a bit less than we might have thought. I’m not going to sit and talk for all of them. Kind of two that stand out to me massively are the ones around, you can probably guess the ones around the cost of things. I work in sales at the end of the day, I’m very much focused on that sort of stuff. But I just can’t, you know, I’d be amazed if I ran my own business and that figure of one hundred seventy six in the top right hand corner kind of came back to me and I’d be thinking, wow, I’ve got to do about that. Adrian, are there any on here that you kind of, you’re drawn towards and really sort of hit home with what you’ve kind of gone through the different roles you’ve had? Yeah, I think the two that stick out to me is the one point two days to two hours, sorry, loss per day. And I think it’s interesting we use the phrase automation and people jump to a robot’s gonna take my job or do it for me. And I think there are so many opportunities now with AI tools, chatbots, etcetera, that could streamline what people do and how they operate, but without actually taking the control away from them. And that’s about that education piece and building trust and confidence. As you said, Aleisha, accountants as a very nature are risk averse. It’s almost what you want, you want that inquisitiveness and that risk aversion as part of delivering an amazing service to clients. The other side of it is, it’s breaking those habits. So a lot of these tools are available to create the efficiencies, but if people have always done something in a particular way, research tax legislation a particular way, then making use of some of the technology that’s now available is really, really challenging. The other one on there and being married to an accountant in another firm is the five extra hours worked per week per accountant. I guarantee it’s a lot more than that. And I know Weatherhark definitely works a lot more than that per week and it’d be interesting to see whether that’s time that people record or whether it’s actual time that people put into it. And I think that partly then links to that twenty five percent where the two of those really go hand in hand. That twenty five percent is like it’s a sad stat but it’s not a surprising stat which I think also makes it even more sad is I didn’t look at it and think oh one in four that’s steep. I thought no yeah I can see that you know and it does beg the question doesn’t it with all the technology that is being adopted eighty nine percent of fans are looking at technology and introducing new digital tools. We need to be working smarter not harder. Actually are you bringing in tech to support some of these issues and to make life easier on accountants or are we just compounding the problem and adding more and more in without looking at the root cause and is that affecting them, this extra work that accountants feel like they’re doing, the higher risk of burnout because the whole point when we think about introducing technology, we think about bringing it in to make our job easier. Yeah, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there both a bit with the, you know, bringing in tech and forgetting about the human element. At the end of the day, it’s people doing this job for us, using tech or not. And yeah, twenty five percent sounds a lot. One in four sounds even more. It’s the same figure, just the way he presents it. Yeah, can imagine this. Not a nice place to be if that many people in the business aren’t feeling good about what they’re doing or struggling with the kind of the workload and the balance of things. To kind of put those all together then and the stats that we’re seeing from this supposed capacity crunch and why they’re happening, why do they exist? What is it that’s causing these problems? I know that Adrian, you’ve got a few thoughts on why this issue still persists. Completely, you know, and this is a challenge I’ve set myself personally, because I am from a technology background and it’s really easy sometimes to look at it and say, actually, I’ll introduce this piece of tech. It can automate A or do something, and it’s going to be amazing. And this slide’s been around for a long time when we were prepping for this, comes back to this, the same old approach of people, process and technology. And they all carry equal weight. Can have the best technology in the world and unless people know how to use it and are comfortable using it, and those supporting processes are there and embedded. It’s not just about launching a piece of software, training everybody, and then walking away from it. We’ve said so far that the technology is moving so quickly, and that’s existing platforms and new platforms. And that needs keeping on top of. People like to know that they’re going to come into work, they’re going to log on and they’re going to be able to operate and deliver the service to their clients that they want to. And as soon as something changes that disrupts that, it adds to that stress and pressure that people feel. So I think that the previous stats around twenty five percent of accountants showing burnout isn’t just the physical workload, and the mental pressure that that puts on, But it’s a lot of this change as well that really is creating that added pressure and added stress. Changes is becoming the norm. We’re expecting people just to adapt to change day to day, week to week, with a lot of cloud products that changes are just released and you almost can’t keep up with them. But that’s the challenge for people like me and across the industry to look at that, be ahead of the game, work with our software providers to understand and hopefully shape what’s coming and be prepared so that actually we can support the teams, adopt and really maximize the software that we’ve never invested in. Thank you. Aleisha, have you got anything to add to that? No, I’d echo what Adrian says. I think, we are at risk of concentrating or putting all our energies into fashionable AI. Like at the moment everyone is, every vendor who’s anyone is talking about AI and all the things we’re doing right and it’s really easy to see that, get excited by it, and want to use that in your firm. But I think particularly with the amount of option and amount of change happening we have to be really deliberate about those choices and how it supports and embeds those processes, those people completely. Know you could pick up any tool and think oh yes I’m going go gung ho and use that piece of tech’ but good tech doesn’t fix a rubbish process. So you know I probably shouldn’t say I’m definitely not in sales when I say this’ but sometimes the answer is ‘slow down’, Just slow down. Let’s make sure we do it properly. Mark’s killing me. He’s gonna kick me. We were in the same room. But when we when you make that decision to embed technology, we also want to be confident it’s the right technology for our processes, for our people, because that’s where you are going to get the benefit of it. Slowdown might not have been the phrase I’d use, you’re right. But I think what you’re saying is you can’t consider one without the other two in equal measure. All equally is important and you know, like building a house, if one brick is not in the right place, the whole wall is going to fall down sort of thing. It’s good to see a little bit simplified on the screen, think for folks that might not know where to start in some cases. The other point, just to add into that, which is really interesting is, people learn and people change at different rates and deploying technology is, it really exposes that. That’s a real challenge to bring everybody along on that journey. At some point you have to get brave and almost take away legacy ways of working to really try and, I won’t say force that change, but to really try and get people over that. Because a lot of it is behaviour. I’ve always done it this way. That’s what we did last year. That’s what we did the year before. And it works. So therefore we’re going to roll that forwards. And really is trying to break that habit. I think some of the sort of stats over the years, takes somebody sort of doing something ten times differently before that habit then changes and evolves. We haven’t got ten years worth of accounts to wait until that change happens. So we’ve got to be brave, we’ve got to be confident in the technology and the processes that we’re deploying, and bring people on that journey with us. It’s a real balance, but I think there’s a real opportunity there. Absolutely. I sometimes feel when I talk to a few firms, it’s the default mindset is back to the devil, you know. And that’s, you you said that we stick to what we know, but you’re right. If there’s no bravery in there, things will never change, never improve the football and will never go forward. So we’ve kind of identified a little bit there with why we’re seeing these the persistence of that capacity crunch challenge. Aleisha, when we were kind of preparing for this webinar, you came up with a bit of a kind of sound bite there. I think that’s quite nice and sort of helps folks realise why that’s so important to kind of plan for that change and make sure you have the right parts involved. Can you talk us through your thoughts here a little bit please? Yeah, I think I would challenge anyone in accounting firm to just think about this a little bit and how it might apply to the firm. And it’s this idea that if growth is reactive it creates chaos, but if it’s intentional we create scale. And what we mean by that is firms can grow organically, like naturally your client base will grow and your fees might grow, but as you’re adding more clients you might do that quickly. If we don’t have the right process in place behind that, you’re also at the same time adding more stress, you’re adding more complexity and actually the same margins, like your margins won’t be growing at the same time. So when we think about growth, we really want to be deliberate about that and make sure that we’re growing at a healthy rate that can be sustained and get the best from the extra work that’s coming in. So people talk a lot about their tech strategy, tech stack, right? I’ve got, my ideal tech stack, I’ve got a tech strategy, but a tech strategy can’t just be a list of tools. This is my tech strategy and it’s tool A going into tool B going into tool C because the way that technology is evolving, tools might change and we probably need to think about that strategy bigger than that. It should be really concrete decisions on how your firm is going to operate. This is how I’m going to manage this part of my process and at the moment this tool will serve me best in that piece of process, right? And it’s been a bit clever about it and longer term about those decisions that we make because if we just add tools in to our firm quicker than we are able to critically evaluate the process we followed for a long time or improve that process, we are just going to increase complexity rather than efficiency. It’s like buying a brand new car. It’s going to be shiny and fast but I’m only actually ever going to drive it in first gear. So what I would say is definitely look at the tools. There’s some amazing tools. Obviously Silverfin is one of them. You know, we do what we do really well But there are loads of great tools out there but when we’re looking at embedding a new tool into our process, does it remove a bottleneck? Does it standardise a process that we need to be standardised that’s currently not as efficient as we want it to be? Or does it improve my decision making? If it doesn’t do any of those things, we’re probably not at the point where we should be implementing it. And where we are successful and where we are really successful with our customers at Silverfin is that when we do bring Silverfin into an accounting firm, we know the bit that we do really well. We’re not going to do absolutely everything and we can’t be a unicorn product but we really want Silverfin to be part of that wider strategy. Like this is the process that I want to standardise in my firm and this is where I think time savings are going to be made. And then the Silverfin team and the product will try and work to that. And sometimes that means also helping and giving advice and saying that bit of your process we can’t do, but you might want to look at a tool to do that bit. And it’s a much bigger conversation, but it’s also really rewarding, to see it working and see it working well and get the feedback from great customers like Gravita. Definitely. Aidan, I’m not going to judge you on any analogy come up like Aleisha did with her car in first gear there, but keen to, she’s got loads more as well guys, so but keen to kind of get your thoughts on that kind of those stats and that information on the screen, like how have you found that within Gravita from your kind of workings with them? Yeah, no, mean I completely agree with the state, firm out there wants to grow. But I think, if you look with the increase of staff costs, obviously not just salaries, but increased employers NI and some of those additional costs, the model of increasing, gaining new clients and recruiting more employees to deliver that service. It’s not a long term scalable model. The really exciting side for me with Gravitor is that technology and introducing and accelerating our tech transformation is really a key part of the strategy and the vision of the company. So we’re ultimately still a colleague and people led business, but underpinned by a great technology and a great technology stack, which is going to allow us to grow, grow at a sustainable pace and really continue to deliver excellent client service. And that’s what at the end of the day is what it’s about. It’s about a service to the clients that we deliver to. So yeah, it’s absolutely echo what’s there. But that growth has got to be sustainable. Otherwise, you’re going to put yourself in a position where you’re not going to be able to grow. To retrofit it is going be really, really hard. And yeah, I think again, sort of the two slides around people process technology and this one you’ve just brought up around that process standardization, again, is the foundation of the ability to grow, connecting your systems. And it’s interesting that these are in an order because I think, connecting our systems when there is still work to be done by providers in the sector is a really interesting point. The standardization enables automation and I think those two really go hand in hand and the outputs of it. Everybody in the sector is talking about reducing the time to deliver compliance, to free up time to give more advisory, because that really adds value to clients to advise them where their business might be going, opportunities, planning advice, and etc. So, a lot of stuff around managing tax liability. So there’s huge opportunities for advisory services. It’s about how do we streamline and create the efficiencies And the standardization and automation is a key component of that. The Connect is definitely something I think a lot of the suppliers across the sector have got ground to improve on. But those conversations are starting, which is really, really encouraging and really exciting. So yeah, we, as Gravitor, we’re definitely at the point where we are connecting our key systems. A key part of my role is standardizing and then working with software providers and introducing a really good optimized tech stack to drive the next stage of growth for the company. That for me is really exciting. Growing through acquisition is going to be, again, different challenge for me, because I’m new into this sector. But having that real concrete foundation that’s scalable that we can then bring new firms into, is, you know, is really, really positive. Excellent. And so would you say, I pose a question, are you sort of somewhere in the middle on this slide then, do you think, grabbed this kind of current position? Completely. So we’ve standardized a lot, but the technology has continued to move on. So there’s definitely more opportunity for us there. So I’d sort of collate though the sort of standardize, automate and optimize. We’re in the space where we’re doing that. And we’re definitely unlocking the advisory, which is really positive and the connection is there. So I think the sort of infographic with them looking like a sequential list is probably a little bit misleading in that sense, but certainly we’re in that standardised, automate and un optimised phase at the moment. Yeah, I mean my own opinion here is that I think it’s quite interesting that a firm like Gravitor, who I know fairly well and I think are very vocal about how they’re tech enabled and that sort of stuff, finds himself kind of in that, what’s the word I’m looking for? Still almost building it, the building blocks of it I think. And I think that might be lost sometimes in with other firms, in that they have to get there overnight. It very much is a journey rather than an event. But this also isn’t like a linear journey, right? Like on the, we’ve got it on the screen because it makes for a nice visual to when we’re talking about the processes you go through, but actually you also don’t go through each of these stages once. Like we might do a level of connection, get a level of standardization and automation, but we will then go back and look at our processes again and refine them and there’s always more connections to be made. Like Adrian makes a great point around vendors making that easier as well to connect across different technologies. That will hopefully continue to improve as the accounting landscape improves. So really we go through these cycles and we jump backwards and forwards, and we’ll continue to do so. We’re never going to get to the point where we’ve completed it. Everything’s super efficient. I don’t need to ever look at my processes ever again because the world isn’t built that way. I completely agree. Then you’ve got the legislative backdrop to do it as well. Obviously making tax digital, it’s not a stable landscape that we’re operating in either. The challenges around the globe, as I mentioned earlier with fuel cost of living, etcetera, a lot of companies and a lot of individuals are looking at their accountants as business advisors. So all of these are creating different challenges in terms of demand, but also change generally across the sector. So, you know, really interesting place to be working in. And yeah, it’s, you say, Aleisha, we cannot stand still. We need to continue looking, continue evolving, adopting new technology to make sure that we stay there and we continue to deliver good services for our clients. And vendors have to do the same, right? Account, yes accountants need to keep moving and keep pushing that and keep looking at it, but so do us as suppliers. Like how do we make sure that we remain relevant? How do we make sure that the bit that Silverfin helps with, we continue to be the best and continue to help with that as that landscape continues to change. And that’s where these really close customer vendor relationships come in because without knowing what the accountants are seeing and feeling and needing, how can we make sure we’re at the forefront of our own development, which is something we talk about a lot internally as you know Mark. Yeah, well thank you both for that. I think like what really shone proof for me there was the kind of passion from both of you from slightly different perspectives. Like you’re both obviously very tech passionate, both obviously passionate for the industry, for accounting as well. And I think we could kind of sit here and talk for another half hour quite easily about what we’re doing together as Silphin and Gravitas, but the rest of things in the industry too. But I did promise that we keep it to about half an hour and allow for some time at the end of them for questions. So I’m gonna take a quick look in the chat and see what’s come through. I can see one come through straight away, which we’ll pick up, but then if other guys listening have questions to ask them, please feel free to chuck them in. So question here, I’ll read it out first and then maybe one of you can elect yourselves to answer it first of rather than me tell you who should answer it. So question comes through is, how do we balance the need for standardization to manage risk with the reality that in some cases, it can introduce inefficiencies or friction that make change management and team buying more difficult? So really talking about I think that it’s a great question to start with. I find the most difficult part is, is that, change management piece. So yeah, maybe I wasn’t going to do this, but maybe Aleisha, what do you think about how what tools have you used over the years to help firms, or tools, processes, ideas that you used to help firms kind of overcome that? Yeah, I don’t think the answer is a specific tool or a specific process because it really depends on you’re looking to do and what you’re looking to improve internally. The big thing with change management is it is all about the people and there is a balance in Acton. I don’t think there’s one right way to approach that. When we’re looking at standardisation, yes, like it can maybe bring that friction in, particularly across teams, that are used to a set way of working. Maybe like, oh you know it’s not broke, don’t fix it, otherwise done it this way. We do see that and I think the best way to approach it and how we recommend to our customers is to get those objections early. Like it feels counter intuitive to say oh like you know, give me all the negatives, let’s just go full in and let’s hear it, hit me with it’ but actually that team buy in place is often from an insecurity or from not understanding what the end goal is And sometimes there is that friction, but actually the reason we’re embedding this process, if you’re doing it for the right reason to improve a process longer term, and we communicate that effectively, you’ll find that that buy in is far easier to manage. The earlier you can get a cross representation of your team involved as well to understand those needs, understand that decision making, the better. When we pick teams within our customers to roll out Silverfin. One thing that we always say is we don’t just want the managers, we don’t just want the people that can do the decision, we need the boots on the ground, we want all of those different viewpoints, so that also they might have a challenge that you haven’t thought of yet and that’s okay as well because that questioning your decision making we’re never going to get it one hundred percent right all the time it’s far better for us to look at that early on than it come up far later and then be chasing your tail in terms of justifying the decisions you’ve made and the standard, you know, the standardisations or processes you’ve put in place. Yeah, it kind of goes back to that slide what was it people, technology and process I think it was wasn’t it? Like if don’t consider all of those then it’s probably not definitely but it’s likely to kind of fall over. It’s a three pronged decision yeah. Yeah absolutely. I think you want to add Yeah, I’m sure you’ve got something to add, yeah. Yeah, was gonna say from a risk perspective, it’s really interesting because I think, for technology generally, just accountancy, over the last sort of ten to fifteen years, we’ve gone from one solution that does absolutely everything to best of breed. And with that, inevitably comes some risk because there may be some scenarios, etcetera, that aren’t catered for. Thankfully, Aleisha and Mark aren’t in the room, and we see that with Silverfin. It’s really good at what it does, but it doesn’t do everything as much as I’d like it to. We have lots of between us as to how we can grow that. But it’s about acknowledging that early. It’s not a one size fits all. It’s not a magic silver bullet where we’re going to drop a solution and it’s going to be amazing. It’s about creating that engagement and the support mechanism with everything we’re deploying out across Gravita. We’ve got a really great group of software specific champions that we meet regularly with. We get the feedback We’ve got really good relationships with software suppliers, including Silverfin, where we can have those open conversations to go, this isn’t working for us, or we would really like your product to go in this direction. And what are you doing about that? So, working with other customers as well to really, I say, hold the suppliers feet to the fire and make sure that they’re actually delivering for us, not just looking at their bottom line and thinking, how do we grow this? How do we get more money? But ultimately it’s got to work for us as a cohort of customers. And it’s great to see. I was in London yesterday with myself and with other customers for exactly that session. So, I think that’s really positive to keep that feedback going to make sure that we’re managing and ultimately I can see it’s about managing risk. So yes, it’s definitely a challenge and that balance, but that as Mark said, that people process and technology keep keeping that in front of mind. It’s not just about the tech, it’s about the people and the supporting processes. Lovely, thank you. I’ve had a kind of tenuously linked question come through around AI, and I certainly fuel this a little bit when I’m talking to firms that there’s so much out there. There’s lot of noise, a lot of hype. This webinar wasn’t about AI, but I think we don’t we’ve talked about it a little bit, so it’s important to kind of but the question goes along the lines of of that. So everyone’s talking about AI, and every tool I come across has an AI badge on it. How do you Adrian kind of cut through that noise and work out is actually doing what it says it does? Is it going to bring value? And what do you kind of cast aside is just hype and noise and not really something that’s going to move the needle? Yeah, and this is sort of where I’ve got a bit of sort of an internal challenge. So as my tech side of me goes, this is amazing, this is fantastic. It’s such an opportunity. And then the sort of reality hits and I guess says, ultimately we’re, as accountants, we’re responsible for huge volumes of client data. It’s personal, it’s sensitive. We are their trusted advisors and we have to ensure that we take all care and we manage that appropriately. So, you’re right, there’s so much out there. There is a lot of hype. There’s a lot of noise within the sector, which for once is quite nice. Think it’s a sector that’s been under loved over the last few years when it’s come down to software developments with some of the big tech providers. And so it’s really nice to see some opportunities arising within the sector. I haven’t seen any sort of come through to fruition yet. I think there’s still, there is a lot of hype and noise there. And yeah, it’s definitely something that, having those appropriate and really rigorous due diligence processes in place to do more than kick the ties. These things need a real road test. A big difference with AI is it’s not just about testing the output. It’s actually about all that data security, the data processing side. Everybody will be aware of AI and hallucinations. It’s got to be right. We’ve got to work with the accountancy regulators, ICW, ACCA, FCA, etcetera, on effective and ethical use of AI. There is a huge amount to be considered as part of it. So it’s great to see software suppliers working with customers on it. I think it is a huge opportunity. At some point in the not too distant future, we will still see some real groundbreaking things coming through. But for the moment, I don’t think we’ve got that, the data protection side of it nailed yet to really allow the sector to move forwards with it. And again, say that those regulatory bodies are a vital part of that discussion as well. Good. Okay, well I’m going to leave a call time there, but only because we are running out of time for today and I’m sure folks have got other things to be doing. Despite how insightful and wonderful our chat’s been. So to round things off, first of all thank you both for joining today and giving up time Adrian particularly on your part to go through things with us and share your kind of findings and your experiences of what’s going on within Grafica with or without Silafin. Not, you know, it’s not gonna be helpful to folks joining this call today. One thing I kind of pick out from that and maybe kind of leave as a parting thought is you can’t just slap a bit of technology on something and hope it works. There’s no kind of sticking plaster approach when tied to this. I’ve sort of come up with a not a question or maybe more of an idea but you know when is the last time a firm honestly looked at that whole people workflow technology piece rather than isolation? I’m thinking in my own ways of working and living and I probably haven’t done it myself, so it’s a little bit difficult to call. But I think, you know, if you leave this call today, one thing to think about is just that like when have I in earnest and really kind of seriously looked at the bigger picture piece? And hopefully, know, with what Adrian talked about and what Alisa tried as well, kind of lends some weight to why you kind of take that approach. Naturally, plenty of ways you can further the conversation with us here at Silverfin. So as I said at the beginning, we’re going to, share around, a recording of this webinar, should be with you in the next forty eight hours, so if you couldn’t attend, you’re gonna see it that way. If you had to drop off, you can catch up what we missed out on. That grow without the chaos white paper will be shared well. So it’s gonna give you some real, you know, thought points, next steps, points to consider. If you’re looking, you know, if you think you got your your firm at this this point in time now, you just have a look at what we’re doing more holistically. And then last but not least, you can always reach out to me or one of the team. So, I believe those QR codes should take you through to relevant areas. But naturally, you know, I’m only a phone call or an email or a LinkedIn message away from you guys getting in touch and asking how we might work together with you at Silverfin. But other than that, fantastic. Thanks everyone for joining. Thanks again for my two guests joining and running through things, and we hope to speak to you soon. All the best, have a have a great day.