UK's first AI-powered general ledger launches amid accounting tech shift

Heat. Heat. Good morning everybody and welcome to Ask the Accountant. I'm going to have to wing it because none of my notes are showing up. Um, so I've lost everything. You'd have thought though after 205 episodes of this I know what I'm doing. And oh, we're back. I think. There we go. So, I now have the right order of everything we're discussing, which is important because we have got something big to talk about, but we're not allowed to talk about it until a very certain time in our diaries. So, we're going to be monitoring that carefully. Um, well, you know what? It's quite hard, Aaron, to find which episode we're on when they all start with Aaron's apology corner.

Well, yeah, I know.

It is the 5th of October. It is Monday morning at 8:30ish. It is Ask the Accountant episode 205. Welcome to everybody. And as always, I am joined by my co-host, Mr. Aaron Patrick. Aaron, how are you? And how's your week been?

Well, first of all, hello to the um Instagram team because uh I forgot to press live this time last week. So just you know

putting Aaron's apology corner again.

So yeah, welcome, welcome, welcome everyone from Instagram. Um what a week last week it was. It was absolutely mental. So if you think back to this time last week I was in where was I? I was in St. Pancress. Um and we were doing the pod from there. From then on in I went into London to ICW. um took my new new role as um chair of the small practice committee. So I took that with honor. Um and then I came back to Derby to go back to London for accounting web which we'll talk about in a bit. Um and then yeah, it's just been a mad mad week from there on in of just meetings after meetings and and everything that goes with it. Yeah, other than that, I mean, this weekend's been weird with the Formula 1 at strange times and delays and and everything else that goes with it.

My whole Sunday was ruined.

It exactly right. You know, we were supposed to take the the puppy for a walk and couldn't do that cuz we think and also we for whatever reason last two days we've lost internet. So, it's been like having to watch it on a on a mobile device just isn't quite the same, is it? But yeah, but overall not a bad race. Good race. Not a bad race once. It was all right. Uh bit of bit of trepidity about it. So that was good to see. What about you, Yan? How has your week and weekend been?

Uh yeah, not bad. Last week was down in Wokingham, uh doing more of that business conferency stuff that I do with the business coach. Um yeah, like just yesterday was a total mess after losing what an hour and a half of our morning. We were expecting the race to be done when it finally started and yeah, just the whole day. Yes, there was a bit of chaos and then because I've had to pack a bag and stuff for a digital accountancy show to make sure I've got all the cameras all charged and ready to go. Um, so yeah, it's uh bit bitty if I'm honest, but looking forward to this week, that is for sure. And of course, we would be nowhere if it wasn't for our community. So, let's say good morning to everyone on the community channel. Uh, so first of all, at 8:30 on the dot, first in this morning was Kirsty St. John. Uh, good morning everyone from a chilly Cambridge. It's fair to say winter is coming. Yes. If you think you've got it bad, come to Scotland. Um, we're about a week in now and we've just been told the temperatures are going to drop further this week.

So, I'm off to London to escape that.

I'm really liking it. I like the brisk morning and

I love I love autumn.

Yeah,

it's one of my favorite times.

Uh, good morning to Cheryl as well. Good morning. Autumn sun is out, but it's still a bit nippy. Central heating is about to go on. I think it's October. It's okay now. Don't swear on the uh podcast please.

Can't afford luxurious.

That That's been the win of my month. So, I uh September's over. So, I looked at September last September's electricity bill.

Yep.

I looked at this September's electricity bill. Oh, my solar panels are working a treat. So, we've literally h haveved the energy consumption and then sold a load of energy back to the grid. So, I think I spent instead of spending 160 quid in September on electricity like I did last year, I spent I think I've spent 30 quid.

Nice.

I I am very happy with that. Um,

and if you use the link below, you can get your own. But is it uh who who gets sponsored by is it the rest is politics

uh they get sponsored by Fuse Energy, don't they? That's what we need energy providers to sponsor us. Um and then we've got Stephanie from the free biz. Morning gent. Good morning Stephanie. Uh Dave Paul accountant says morning all from a wet and windy tmbi. Slightly tired today after the GP yesterday's early start. Yeah, we all got up out of bed early and realized we could have spent another hour in bed.

Yeah, but it was good to watch the chaos in tune, wasn't it? Yeah,

like you and I said, I've never seen a uh safety car in the middle of the pack before. Absolutely chaos.

And then and especially never seen them having to dish out software updates just so they could go for the line. What is going on?

Absolute chaos. Uh Paul White House says morning all morning Paul Mahul says good morning from a chilly morning uh chilly morning in London. I hope everyone had a great weekend. So do we with you. Uh Juliet says morning all. Suzanne says morning. Paul Ingram says good morning all. AmgB accounting. Peter says morning. Good morning to you. And Paul White House says still okay to wear t-shirts here though it is overcast. That's that's the depths of the south in sunny Portsmouth for you. Um,

and Wilson says, "Morning all from Birmingham." Good morning to you, Wilson. New name.

It's not quite bikini weather though, is it? Like, yeah, I got a bit few few funny looks when I got my bikini out the other day, but you know, it's fine.

I don't think it was because of the weather that you got those looks, but never mind. Moving on very swiftly. Uh right, let's get into today's topics. So Aaron, as part of your going up and down the bloody country, um you went to the accounting web awards. I didn't go this year. Um so talk us through it. How was it? Yeah, honestly, as a spectacle, as a night, probably one of the best ones I've been to. Uh they had this new bit. You know how they try and do that amazing like you're all in that foyer at the top

and you're all kind of overlooking

and the idea is supposed to be they do that big reveal, don't they? And it opens up and then you're like, "Wow." You know what I mean? Um

Oh, tables and chairs.

We're allowed to sit at this event. Oo. Um but yeah, they do that big reveal, but it always felt weird, didn't it? cuz they do a big reveal then typically then you had to kind of like walk backwards, go down some stairs and kind of took away from the the illusion and the the

Don't tell me they had slides and you could parachute off.

Wasn't slides but they had a staircase from that directly in so you went straight into it which I thought was a nice little up nice little thing. There was a live band as well. Um, so every time like well at the end when they did the party bit there was a nice live band to listen to which was cool but also every time someone walked up it play they played a live rendition of whatever

song they had on I thought it was a lovely lovely addition. Um, FAB was mentioned a few times. It was uh,

you know what, you'd think FAB and accounting web awards are owned by the same company. Like, and if you look at tried to look at accounting web website this morning, you've got multiple FAB posts to get through before you actually get to any content or news. Um, so yeah, anyone would think they're drumming up business.

Yeah, we were um we were playing like a fab bingo games. every time fab got mentioned we uh

drinking game

mistake number one. Um but speaking of that, I mean, shout out to Tim and isn't it? I don't know if he's told you his new um Well, he he told me a new way of dealing with with drinking at the moment. So, I've never been a massive drink, so I'm not too thinky, but I never have hangovers or anything, but at the moment, I'm going through a bit of a trying to be a bit careful on No, that's not hangover when my voice is gone. It's more of a I'm still with it. Um but anyway um but his technique is after every beer you have a b you have a glass of water with it and it's it's changed my life like it

that's drinking 101.

Yeah. Well was it though cuz I was always like why waste time getting the water. Do you know what I mean? Like you just now in my older years now I'm more mature just in both hands just beer water. Beer water works an absolute treat. Um but no, the event itself was really really good. Really enjoyed it. Uh I feel like cuz this this will probably be the last time that I will um have some sort of skin in the game or anything like that because the reason we were always putting like applications and stuff. It was great for Lizzy. Like it was a really good way of her like doing a almost like an appraisal of of everything that's happened and everything else. Um but this year, bless her, I think she took it a bit too literally because we went in the the 10 to 50 bracket um employees bracket, which is right for what we are if you like took it as a group, but we were completely out of a depth in that one, right? Like literally it was like like thingy versus Goliath sort of thing. And I think if we would have got into probably the up to 10 employees, we would have had a much better or at least I would have felt like we would had like an opportunity to kind of walk away with something. Um, but it did make me think though because the marketing one disappeared. Um, and I know last year we kind of shoehorned ourselves into it, right? Like it Yeah,

we shouldn't have really have put ourselves in, but we