***First shown on Facebook, transcribed below.
Tanya: Hello, Facebook world. Tanya Hilts from Cloud Business Services and Tanya's Bookkeepers’ Bootcamp. As though you didn't already know that. If you're watching, you're probably on one of my channels, or Twitter world, or Instagram world, wherever you're watching this. I hope you're having an absolutely amazing day. We have with us, Andrew from Tech4Accountants. So, Andrew say hi and let people know what they do, or what you do.
Andrew: Hi Twitter universe, Facebook universe, Instagram universe. There are other universes.
Tanya: LinkedIn universe.
Andrew: LinkedIn universe, metaverse.
Tanya: And it'll be on YouTube as well. So YouTube universe.
Andrew: Yeah. So, to everyone out there, Tech4Accountants, we are IT specializing in the accounting industry. So, specialists for bookkeepers, tax accountants, everybody under the accountant umbrella for doing audits and things like that. It's been our specialization for the last couple of years. So, we're not just, "Hey, I'm an IT, I'll fix your stuff." But, focus on the actual needs of the bookkeepers, and accountants, and that world as a whole, and focus all the work that we're doing basically on that field. So, dentists are not interested in doing business with Tech4Accountants. Chiropractors are not interested in Tech4Accountants, but we were in business six years before the Tech4Accountants piece. So, we've got 2000 customers that just won't leave us. They're like, I don't care if you're called Tech4Accountants. We still love using you. And it's like, all right.
Tanya: That's a pretty good compliment.
Andrew: I suppose so. I mean, it's like, oh, I can't get rid of these customers. And it's like, what if I raise their rates? And they're still like, no, I love you. So, I was like, okay, well I can't in good faith keep doing that. So just stay with us. And, we had to weed the client's garden, get rid of some of the … people that we didn't love. And so now a happy, wonderful community, but specializing with bookkeepers, enrolled agents, CPAs, and people in the accounting world, basically if QuickBooks matters to you.
Tanya: Awesome. So, I'm going to ask a few questions here. So, I'm sure a lot of people hadn't heard of you because honestly, until I spoke to Richard Roppa-Roberts, I hadn't heard of you either. And that needs to change because we've had conversations and yes, let's just say we get along. Anyway. So, when you are doing that and you're working with the accounts and doing the IT, is it just in general? Is it Microsoft? Is it, "Hey, your QuickBooks, isn't working all that great? We can help with that." Is it setting up the computers? Are you using certain software that you can access things through? Security?
Andrew: Yeah. So, kind of a blanket statement, everything that you said. Yes, they're on QuickBooks desktop, moving into the cloud, things of that nature, but a lot of what we do instead of just, "Hey, we're a bunch of tech people, and we do tech stuff, and just trust me blindly, because you don't know any better so use me. What we do, all of the practices we do are just straight from the IRS and they're different publications. So even though bookkeepers aren't answering to the IRS, that's still the framework that we use for everything that we do. So, it's not like a, well, my tech person said I needed, insert tech word that's over someone's head where they're just like, "I don't know. He said I need it. Who am I to tell him he doesn't? If an accountant told me I needed to, whatever."
Tanya: You trust him because he's your accountant and that's not what you do.
Andrew: Right? Well, I've been on the wrong side of that recommendation several times. But you know, end of the day. So, we're putting all the security protocols that the IRS is requiring for people that handle taxpayer data. And then the IRS says, you also need to follow FTC regulations so do 200 pages of that too. And then we just sprinkled on AI CPA best practices just to make it...
Tanya: Just that much more fun, right?
Andrew: Yeah. But the benefit with that is since we only see maybe 20 different software from all of our clients, everybody learns those 20. And so instead of having to know everything for everybody and just, "Well, this guy knows how to do this one, and this guy knows how to do this one." It's just like, we all are familiar with all these different software. So, it's easier for us, which is better for the client because we're familiar with it. So, they're not explaining to us, "Here is what QBO is and how it works." It's like, okay, yeah, what's wrong?
Tanya: So, then you would be able to also handle, because I know, we talked about the main stage, that was on. So, for anybody not here, it's a lot about security. And I do know an accountant who I am not going to name. He can come clean with his own story, but who had his firm system breach? So, you would also, because you kind of covered the general blanket, you would cover that as well.
Andrew: Yeah. So, the remediation is one of the hardest things to do, because if you had done the proactive work... So, it's kind of like if you were doing taxes and it's like if you had a good bookkeeper that was reconciling the books, then doing taxes is a whole lot easier when you've got bank recs. But we are in an emergency 911 scenario. And I was like, okay, well let's just run the backup. Just restore the backup. Everything's good. It's like, well, we never set up a backup. It's like, well get a time machine. And let's go back to last week and get that really set up because it looks like troubles ahead. So, the remediation is part of what we do. And we've unfortunately there are only two types of clients that we get. There are proactive ones that want to stop things from happening and reactive ones where something very bad has happened and now they need it fixed immediately. And the proactive ones don't fall into the reactive category because if something were to happen, it's just, let's undo that.
Tanya: That's awesome. Well, and it's really important, so for those of you out there who are not doing something like this and being proactive, it's very important to think, how do you feel when your client comes in and says, I need my taxes and books done tomorrow and drops down a garbage bag, full of receipts. You want that client to be better. So yeah, that's exactly, what we need to get into that thinking ourselves, if you're not, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, right?
Andrew: Yeah. Well, and being here and talking to all the different bookkeepers and the people that are in the accounting industry, people are talking to us and saying, " Look, I know I should be doing this. And it's just kind of, you know, I got busy". And I totally get that. But at the same time, just one time where it doesn't go well. It's like riding in a car without a seatbelt. And it's like, okay, I didn't get in an accident today. Therefore, I don't need a seatbelt. And it's like, you really need the seatbelt in case an accident happens. Most people wouldn't say, I'm the kind of person that's going to get in an accident today. Like an accident, not on purpose.
Tanya: Absolutely.
Andrew: So, having the proactive pieces in place in case something happens is super important. Then you've got the other proactive pieces of, we're able to identify problems before the user's able to identify. So, for instance, say your printer is broken. You don't know it's broken until you need to print. And then it's, "Oh my God, like, I've got my client in front of me. The printer's not working. Like turn it off, turn it on. This thing's garbage." You know, you look like an idiot. Meanwhile, on our side for our clients, we'll get a notification like "The printer's offline". We say, all right, turn it back on. Actually, it's scripted. So, it says: Printer's offline. And we say, when it does that, turn it back on, script, automatic. And so, we're keeping the uptime higher because the problems just aren't happening as frequently because there's a lot of things that should be done. And I don't know if it's in there, "When's the last time you rebooted your computer?" And the concept is, these are proactive things we know we should be doing, but it's not a problem until it's a problem. And I mean, that's how most people handle their IT stuff is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Which works until it doesn't.
Tanya: Absolutely. And I just have to say, yes, I laughed and smirked when you talked about the printer, because that took me... I have PTSD from yesterday. We bought a mobile printer to come and print these little tags and no, I tested it. It worked fine. Apparently not. So, I ended up losing myself, plus the three people that worked on it, probably about six hours yesterday. That's six hours I'm not going to get back. And then I ended up just coming downstairs and having five pages of paper. That's all that needed to print. Five pages. I should have been here. I should have done this beforehand because I'll never get that time back.
Andrew: And these are all the things that two days ago, it's like, oh, a proactive printer, whatever. And then when you're in that moment, it's like, I would do anything to not feel this way anymore. And that's why these things are so important. But I completely understand on the side of, oh, it's never happened yet, but it's like one time is a pretty bad time.
Tanya: Absolutely, and that's great. And you're right. Being proactive is so important. And like I say, just yesterday.
Andrew: Just make it work.
Tanya: And that's exactly why I'm like, "Oh gosh. I don't know if I'm going to be bringing that printer to a conference again." Made me rethink the whole... I'm like, "Oh, we can do this. Great. I can do this. And we can provide better service to some of the sponsors."
Andrew: The print shop down there, it's only like, seven times the cost of what it does if you get it from like Vistaprint.
Tanya: Four pages of paper cost me $13. Now, for those of you who know me, I'm from Canada, and that's $13 US. That's like 17 Canadian. What could I do with that? Well, in this hotel, probably nothing but.
Andrew: In this hotel literally nothing. It was originally $700 to print these. Sorry, it was $1,400 for postcards. And then the guy was like, well, I cut it in half. We made it smaller so we could fit the postcards two to a page. And it was like $700 for some postcards. You shouldn't have, literally, you shouldn't have, that's robbery. But hey, it is what it is, right? So yeah, printers.
Tanya: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, it can happen to anybody and that is really good and really smart advice that yes, we need to be proactive. We wish our clients would be proactive. We all need to be proactive as well, too. So that's really important.
Andrew: Yeah, so we're taking $250 off of the onboarding for all of our new clients, and 20% off of the monthly, which is the proactive maintenance. All the software that you need to stay protected. Things like backup so that if something were to happen, it's just not a problem. It's a minor inconvenience of: undo. Okay. Let's not do that again. And then you just keep living your life.
Tanya: That's so easy. It's like the Staples easy button. I don't know if they have that down here in The States too or if it's only a Canadian thing.
Andrew: We do.
Tanya: Do you? Yeah, Staples easy button.
Andrew: We did. I think in my office, I think someone had given it to me.
Tanya: And so, where's your Tech4Accountants easy button? That's what you need to have.
Andrew: That is what we need to have.
Tanya: You do.
Andrew: Actually, I did a webinar with Liscio and they actually promoted it as here's the Tech4Accountants. Here's the easy button, go to Tech4Accountants.net and they'll just do all this for you. That is the easy button.
Tanya: Beautiful. So that's awesome. So, is there anything else that you wanted to bring up or let anybody know before we wrap this up?
Andrew: I just can't stress enough how important it is and not just as well, you're in IT. So of course, you say that you should do this. Because that's how you make money. But just, the proactive support, I can just say from seeing it time and time and time and time and time again, people that get in a pinch; there's ransomware or something is broken. We had one client, and back in the day, we used to let people pick and choose their plans. And just now the IRS says you need it and we agree with it. So, we just, everybody gets back up because it's super important. But we had a client and she was like, "Oh, I don't want a backup. Like I've got..." I'll skip the nerdy details. But she had a hard drive that copies itself to another hard drive. So, if one fails, then she's got the backup.
Tanya: And they both failed, right?
Andrew: Well, one failed and we told her, "Hey, one failed. You bought them at the same time, they've been doing the exact same thing for the exact same amount of time for the exact same work. So, one failed. You really need to back up number two because it's about to die. I don't know if it's today. I don't know if it's tomorrow. I don't know if it's a year from now and you get lucky. It's really important that we back this up." She was like, "Nah, I don't need it." And then the next day she was like, "My server won't turn on."
Tanya: Oh no.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, it looks like the hard drive failed. She's like, "Well fix it." It's like, that can't happen. So here we're in a spot she needs to buy... or she had to send it to a data recovery center. Starts at $10,000 with no guarantee to be able to get it back. And then no guarantee of how long it'll last and then what they do after they get it recovered, is they make you buy back up and host it in the cloud. So, I mean $10,000 plus they were down. And this is right at the beginning of COVID too. So, everything, this was like February of COVID 2020.
Tanya: So, everything took forever to fix and...
Andrew: So, everything was just a pure nightmare, and like, maybe a couple of hundred dollars wasn't like, a bad thing for it to just work. But you know people... I understand because it's like, well, why do I want to spend money for this if that's probably not going to happen to me? And it's not really about the statistics of it happening or not. It's more about just being covered on as many things as possible and not just well, buy this, buy that, buy this, buy that. But just a holistic, like, let's be sure you're protected and have a backup. Have best practices in place so that just, you can just run your company. And it just works.
Tanya: Well, because what can happen, and this is always the time, Murphy's law. You are just near the end of tax season. Something happens. You now can't continue your work. You have cost your client to be late. You're paying your client's penalties. There is so much involved in that. And one thing we need to remember that I hope we all know, tech is meant to not last. It is meant to be replaced. Those big companies want you to buy more. They don't want to say, "Here, you only need one of these forever." So just like you said, it will only last so long.
Andrew: Yeah. And the landscape of security has changed so much. And just in the last 10 years, it used to be, oh, slap on Norton and I got my cyber security. And it's like, it's not how it works, but like, you're close enough to right. And now it's just like, oh, you got Norton. You think the hacker knows how to make viruses, malware, and ransomware, you think he didn't consider, "Make this get around Norton."
Tanya: They go after Norton, Microsoft, they go after the big guys. My understanding is it's almost like a game to them and a challenge. Oh yeah, this is easy. We can get into the big guys.
Andrew: That's literally how it works. It's a cat and mouse of hacker changes this, making a new strand and the antivirus catches it when one of their clients get it, or enough of their clients get infected with it. And then, well let's fix that, and then I say, well, we made this one. So infect as many as we can, and then they fix it when they fix it.
Tanya: Absolutely.
Andrew: Yeah. So, stopping that from happening in the first place is really where a lot of what we do comes into play. We do security awareness training so that you're familiar with it, here is what a phishing email looks like. This is not from Microsoft. You can tell it's not from Microsoft by this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. Here are the ways you can spot it. So, if you get one, it's like, is this real? Well, I'm familiar that this is suspicious. Here are things that I can do. So human error is unfortunately where a lot of it comes from. 92% comes from emails.
Tanya: Wow. That's a big percentage.
Andrew: Yeah. So, it's not just, "Oh, I left my computer on and they infiltrated and hacked everything." It's, you clicked on not Microsoft and typed in your password to not Microsoft. And that's how these things happen.
Tanya: Absolutely. All right. So, I think we should wrap it up. Thank you so much, Andrew. That was great. I've learned stuff today, which is awesome. And thank you, Andrew, for being a sponsor for these little beagles, $50 from this is going directly to Beagle Freedom Project, definitely going for a good cause. And thank you very much for that. And thank you for helping on the social side as well.
Andrew: Yeah, well, it was great being here. Thank you so much.
Tanya: Perfect. Thank you. All right. Have a great day, everybody. We'll see you later. Bye.
Until next time,
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