September 18, 2024 • 36 mins
Andrew Lassise, founder of Tech for Accountants, shares his journey from entering the financial planning world during the 2009 recession to transitioning into IT and tech consulting for accountants. He discusses the importance of a robust tech stack that can scale with business growth.
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KC Brothers (00:06):
Welcome to the Canopy Practice Success Podcast.
I'm Kasey Brothers from Canopyand I'm here with Andrew Lassise
from Tech for Accountants, butmost recently purchased by
RightWorks.
Andrew, tell us about yourself.
Andrew Lassise (00:20):
Well, hey Kasey, thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for having me.
And Wow, about myself.
So this guy that, uh, I grew upthinking that I was going to be
a financial advisor and Igraduated in 09 with a financial
planning degree during therecession.
KC Brothers (00:38):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (00:39):
So Um, turns out nobody wanted to hire a
financial planner with noexperience in financial planning
during a recession.
So did restaurants for a decadeand randomly landed in I.
T.
I'd always had a passion for it.
Worked at this startup that wentfrom 10 employees to 500 in less
(01:04):
than a year.
And
KC Brothers (01:05):
wow.
Andrew Lassise (01:06):
The pure chaos of being part of that.
And then some friends said, Hey,we're starting a company.
And I was like, eh.
Startups are risky, even thoughI was in like a complete crazy
thing then.
Um, but I was 26, 27, no family,
KC Brothers (01:24):
a little bit
Andrew Lassise (01:25):
of savings.
And I was like, let's do it.
You know, see what happens,right.
KC Brothers (01:28):
And they went
Andrew Lassise (01:29):
out of business in three months, but despite
themselves though, I was runningthe whole tech department and
made an agreement with theowner.
I'd always wanted to do my ownthing and sort of use the
technology.
That as the jumping off point.
And I said to the owner, I willcontinue to do everything.
And we don't have to tell peoplewe're out of business.
(01:50):
They pay you for two months.
And then every time the phonerings after those two months,
I'm just going to update theirbilling.
So everybody keeps paying you.
You don't have to pay me.
And we'll see where that takesus.
And, you know, here we are 10years later, it worked out
pretty well.
KC Brothers (02:10):
Well done.
Well done.
Well, I feel like you have somuch to offer, which is probably
why a company like WrightWorkssaw the good things you were
doing.
It was like, we need to haveAndrew on board because the
accounting industry, I'm justgoing to go off of some, uh, two
(02:32):
companies that, I'm fairlyfamiliar with that have been
around since the seventies that,um, aren't super tech forward
solutions.
And so as a result, I think theindustry got used to that, that
that was the status quo and thatthere, there wasn't necessarily
challenges there.
(02:52):
Um, and I've seen a lot ofaccountants that they go in just
like any entrepreneur, um, tobuild a business with the skill
set they have.
Not realizing that by being abusiness owner of sorts,
wherever you're at in the firm,however, the larger firm is,
(03:13):
there are business needs youneed to engage in.
One of the most important beingtech.
So where, where do you startwhen you're talking to people
who the status quo for them fortech is stuff that looks like
Windows 95?
Andrew Lassise (03:33):
Yeah, we do run into that quite a lot.
And I think for a lot of people,status quo, you know, what, what
did we do last year?
Well, let's just do it againthis year.
Comfort worked and we know howit works.
We know where it's good, whereit's bad, but we're at least
familiar with it.
KC Brothers (03:51):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (03:52):
And so, you
KC Brothers (03:52):
know, versus the devil, you don't
Andrew Lassise (03:54):
exactly.
And so usually people will cometo us in a, when it comes to
consulting with a tech stack ina.
Our way used to work when we hadthree employees.
Now we have 10, 15, 20, our oldway does not work.
It does not scale.
(04:15):
We have a million emails with amillion different things.
One person was working with oneclient exclusively.
They left.
Everything is in their brain.
There has to be a better way.
That's usually where the, thetipping point is, where if
something Big happens.
And then there's, there's peopleon the other side that are sort
(04:38):
of in the, the alcoholic realmwhere, where they're like, I've
got 7, 000 apps and I know thatthere's 500 more and I want them
all
KC Brothers (04:50):
hand overwhelm.
I feel hearing that.
Andrew Lassise (04:55):
Yeah.
I used to be in that category asa business owner.
Every time.
We would run into some obstaclewith some piece of software.
It's we have to get another one,a different one, newer, better,
faster.
And then really what we came torealize too was just because it
solves the one pain point thatyou have in one spot doesn't
(05:16):
mean that it won't come withthings that you took for
granted.
On your other software that youthought, well, don't they all do
that?
And then it turns out theydon't.
So really getting things to talkwith each other, integrating,
having a central source of truthand building off of that is.
really the starting point for alot of the tech stack
(05:39):
conversations.
KC Brothers (05:42):
Yeah.
Um, and in 2024, right, youcan't in a world too, where we
have recent launches of AI invarious forms.
I know there've beenconversations of Is AI going to
replace me?
I want to say like a tax prepactivity, some level of tax
(06:06):
preparation was one of the firstexamples put into, um, chat GPT
when it got really big just inthe last year or so.
Um, and there was this.
Fear there, but I think now andI don't, I know you've had
content and maybe we share thatout in the description of this
(06:28):
later where you've talked aboutthat, um, addressing, okay, is
it really going to replace myjob or not, but where do you
see?
AI taking firms of all sizes,right?
And maybe we split it up alittle bit into, I mean, however
you would like to segment thesesizes.
Andrew Lassise (06:46):
So I think we have to just look back
historically when there havebeen things that are disruptive
to a industry at large.
And, and I think a lot of peopleare on board now where.
This is right now we're 1997 AOLand saying what the internet's
going to look like, or we're2010 talking about the first
(07:08):
iPhone and what that's going tolook like that's this
generations.
Disruptive things that willchange everything.
I don't think at this point now,Chad, GPT has been out for
almost two years, 18 months ish.
I don't think anyone's going toargue that anymore.
That's been the side that I'vebeen on and firmly still.
I think the argument
KC Brothers (07:28):
more now is, um, how can you prove you're using
it?
Cause if you're not, you'regoing to be left behind.
I feel this in my job inmarketing where it's.
We, there's a level of proofthat I feel like, and this
hasn't been set out, said to me,I feel like maybe I'm connecting
some dots here, that we need tosay that we're involving
(07:51):
ourselves.
So that our CEO can talk to aboard of directors or investors
because it's, it's crucial.
Now there's not a point at whichwe are just able to say, no,
we're, we're fine without it.
We can.
Move on.
It's like, uh,
Andrew Lassise (08:12):
yeah, well, especially canopy.
I mean, you guys were the onesthat had the AI integration when
it was, and I guess now it'sbeen a year or close to a year
since it was canopy, the one
KC Brothers (08:27):
that
Andrew Lassise (08:28):
has the AI built in, help your communications,
this and that, but, uh, what Iwas getting at before though,
with the displacement of jobs,if we, if we go back 200 some
years, about 40 percent of thepopulation, they were farmers
and that constituted ditchdigging and all sorts of things.
(08:50):
And then the tractor comes alongand the tractor got rid of tons
of jobs and irrigation startedbecoming automatic.
And all of these things startedchanging the way agriculture
worked.
So At the time there were notoperators of these machinery, so
(09:14):
people were no longer farmers.
They were operating themachinery.
So fast forward 200 some yearsand where we're at now, 2
percent of the population arefarmers, but all of the
opportunities and things thatcame out of the machinery and
things that were built as aresult, that's where they have
(09:36):
spread out.
And you don't hear about farmerssaying.
Uh, I wish tractors weren'tinvented, you know, that's just
made things so much worse, butgo back then people were
probably feeling that way.
I mean, just anecdotal, but Iwould take a guess that a lot of
what people are feeling nowwith, well, accounting, will it
(10:00):
take my job and.
That was the example.
Look, we did tax prep.
And so, I mean, a lot of the lowlevel compliance things, yeah.
I mean, people have beenbuilding software for this all
along.
So you've got things likeTurboTax that have existed and
these have been available to themarket.
(10:22):
There probably isn't a singleclient that a tax preparer has
or firm has that isn't aware ofthis.
That there is TurboTax as analternative or that you could do
it by yourself for free.
So this is a little different inthat it's a lot more accessible
and who knows, maybe I'm wrongwith this, but these things have
(10:46):
already existed.
It's just different and shinierand all the apps for a long
time, pre chat GPT, when chatGPT came out on GPT 3.
5, there were GPTs before.
That so a lot of software hashad AI analyzing these things,
(11:06):
machine learning in thebackground.
It's just now the public hastheir hands on it.
And can see the opportunitiesand potentials and threats.
And I think that's really wherewe're at now.
And like you said, withmarketing, you know, some of the
things that, that I know firmmarketing firms would do, so
maybe not internal, but it wouldbe higher content writers for
(11:31):
one off things for blogs and,you know, you would pay X
dollars and now.
You could at least get aframework or just have it type
the whole thing.
Maybe have someone come and edita couple things.
I'm not in that world, but youknow, a lot of the just sort of
grunt work will get automatedand then the, the need will be
(11:55):
for how do we do the higherlevel things,
KC Brothers (11:59):
which I see is so exciting.
Who likes the grunt work?
Andrew Lassise (12:03):
I mean, maybe the,
KC Brothers (12:04):
Maybe there's a time and place where like, okay,
I could use a busy work day.
So I can have a Netflix showrunning in the background.
This needs to get done, but thenI'll enjoy whatever it is I'm
listening to.
But I see that more as a, okay,if I can get this grunt work
taken care of again, like yousaid, I can focus on these
higher earning activities andmaybe even work less, go figure,
(12:28):
right?
Andrew Lassise (12:28):
Right.
I mean, and I mean, I do a lotof marketing as well.
So just a, for instance ofsomething that was very.
Unique on my plate that mostlikely AI wouldn't have come up
with.
And I mean, yeah, we'll probablylook back on this five years
(12:50):
later and be like, not onlycould it have, but we asked it
to go back to this time when youthought of this and it found a
million ways that you failed,but for us, we focus a lot on
cybersecurity and the FTCsafeguards rule essentially
said.
You need to have cybersecurityif you're doing tax or you have
(13:12):
access to people's books.
So pretty much all bookkeeperstax prep have to abide by these
laws.
And so, and they had a deadlineon, it was June 9th of last
year.
So 23.
And so I saw the writing on thewall that this was going to be a
giant need because a lot ofpeople aren't that tech savvy.
And so we built up a whole lotof marketing and underground
(13:36):
infrastructure to be able to getthis out, scale it and all these
things.
And where if you just said toAI, what should my next
marketing campaign be?
Oh, well, we recommendsponsoring Habitat for Humanity.
You will get your name out thereto people that are nice people
(14:00):
that contribute to charity andthey will catapult your company
or just, just very genericideas, but where it's like, we
work specifically withaccountants and bookkeepers.
This is something that willapply to all of them very
uniquely and understanding themarket and things like that.
And it's not that AI couldn't,but unless you knew what you
(14:22):
were talking about as the userof the AI, if you very, very
specifically said, we do it.
Specifically for accountingfirms, cybersecurity, there's
going to be new cybersecurityrequirements.
How could we put this together?
You would have to be promptingit.
(14:42):
And so it's really about how youuse it and using it correctly
and effectively.
And not just the generic do myjob for me, but teaching it the
specifics.
KC Brothers (14:56):
Well, and knowing how to do that.
I think too, we've reached apoint where tech technology
companies like Canopy have seenthat it's, I mean, we moved
pretty fast.
We saw what it meant, knew weneeded to act and not drag our
feet.
Um, and it paid off for us andI, and more and more companies
(15:20):
have felt similarly, right, andhave integrated it in some form
or fashion.
And I think that the issue is nolonger.
How do I, as an accountant,utilize this?
I don't think we need toencourage accountants to perfect
their prompting skills, butrather to your skill set is
looking at the tech stack thathas incorporated AI in a way
(15:44):
that is most beneficial, um,because it is getting into
everything in a way that.
As long as you have the righttools, you are going to be
leveraging AI in an easy andapproachable way to you.
Because again, it's not justthis, I have to come up with
ways to utilize open AI on myown.
(16:13):
Um, I don't have to come up withways to utilize AI on my own
rather.
As long as I do the, the work tofind the tools and integrate
them into my business, I'm goingto be reaping the benefits of
AI.
Andrew Lassise (16:34):
That's very true.
You don't have to become aprompt engineer just to be an
accountant and help yourclients.
However, being able to leverageit as well.
And understanding the nuances,being able to safely put
information in and say, theseare the things that I'm going to
(16:57):
talk to my clients about.
What else could I be looking at?
What might I have missed or myclient's goals are to minimize
their, their AGI this year orflip side.
My customer is looking to selltheir company.
(17:20):
They don't want to focus on adbacks.
They just want the, the end ofthe year return to look as good
as humanly possible forprospective buyers.
So, you know, the story that youwant to tell and not just
popping it in, understanding howto use it is great for that.
(17:40):
But like you said, picking atechnology stack.
That already utilizes thesethings and does it for you so
that you can just say my clientneeds to send me documents.
I am furious.
Send this in a polite tone.
KC Brothers (18:00):
Seriously?
Andrew Lassise (18:01):
Yeah.
And keep
KC Brothers (18:02):
my mood in check.
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (18:04):
Yeah.
I'm going to list 10, 000reasons why you are the worst
and it will politely say, Thisis, this is the nice way to do
it.
Like one time I, I, um, my, my,uh, wife, her and her parents
(18:26):
went to Costa Rica with two ofour children.
I was home with the one, andthen my wife was like, we want
you guys to come.
And I was like, how do I tellher no without making her want
to kill me?
And, and, and I was like,leverage your daughter.
(18:47):
Say it's not safe to fly with aone year old.
KC Brothers (18:51):
I love it.
I've used chat GPT in mymarriage.
Um, my husband's a big words ofaffirmation individual, and it's
not my strength.
And I put something in and askedlike, Hey, give me a list of 25
affirmations based on myhusband's qualities.
And I listed 25.
Some things out about him and Iwould text him affirmations and
(19:14):
he never caught on that it waswritten by AI, but he loved it.
It filled his cup and I was wifeof the year for a month.
Andrew Lassise (19:24):
Um, I'm in the same boat as you like, I know I
should, maybe I'll just have AImake an app.
Makes the affirmation, sendsthem from my phone, and just
like lets me know what was saidin case it was brought up.
KC Brothers (19:40):
I love it.
Um, well, on that, um, sorry, Ijust had a pregnant moment and
I'm trying to think.
I had a thought.
And I'll, I'll edit this out.
I apologize.
Um,
Andrew Lassise (19:57):
no worries.
The fact that you're even doingthis, kudos there.
It's your affirmation.
You're a hard worker thatdeserves the world.
KC Brothers (20:08):
Um, there was, Oh, I feel like I've said this on
the podcast before in variousforms, um, because I feel like
it applies so much toaccountants and the accounting
industry, but a phrase I love isjust slow down to speed up.
And this can be hard as.
Ambitious individuals as anentrepreneur, as an owner, as
(20:29):
someone who's responsible.
I've got all this on my plate.
How in the world am, you'retelling me to slow down?
What do you mean?
And how is slowing down going tospeed me up?
And the reason I bring this upnow is because We've been
talking about tech stacks.
If you're not familiar with thelatest technology in the, in the
industry, you need to getfamiliar and it is important to
(20:53):
set aside billable activities,whether you're doing flat or
hourly rate, I don't care.
You need to, it is essentialright now, where if you have not
looked at what is in the marketand 18 months.
You need to take, I mean, howmuch time would you recommend?
(21:13):
I was almost about to say a fullwork week.
If you're a partner.
I
Andrew Lassise (21:17):
mean, it's, it's a gigantic pill to swallow
because what is out there, thereare infinite things.
I would say though, when tryingto filter things down a go with,
and this isn't just becauseit's, you know, recorded for a
canopy, but we'll just say.
(21:39):
A market leader that is wellrecognized with a lot of clients
and not try to find, well,here's this random one off
obscure thing and we're going tobe their fourth client ever and
help them build it like it's sogreat in theory.
(22:00):
But the reality is a lot ofcompanies disappear.
A lot of companies haven't had alot of eyeballs on them to help
them build over time.
So it's not that they can't begreat or won't be great or
aren't currently great.
But when you're really lookingfor a tech stack to utilize
(22:23):
going with the market leadersand just kind of price,
obviously will play a role inanything, but really look at who
is leading the market and kindof.
Pieced together, they'reprobably the, the big names
because they're doing somethingright and everything has its
flaws, you know, that's, that isgoing to be a given no matter
(22:46):
what you get.
And recognizing now the, atleast comparing the big names
and what they have available.
KC Brothers (22:57):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (22:57):
And then there's so much documentation that you
can ask peers how to use it.
These are all mistakes that Imade early on.
Where I was just trying to findthe best product for what I
thought we were going to bedoing.
And then, you know, despiteourselves, we grew from me and
my living room to, we had 50employees in six offices at one
(23:21):
point and nothing that westarted the company with was
built for any of that.
KC Brothers (23:26):
Yeah,
Andrew Lassise (23:27):
literally would have been better on a
spreadsheet and at least have aCSV.
KC Brothers (23:31):
Well, and that actually brings up another point
that I feel like I've picked upon with accountants, uh, more so
than any other industry I'veworked in, they're just not a
typical, or for me, typical tome, um, buyer of tech, of
(23:54):
software.
Um, so, Maybe, maybe we wrap upour conversation is talking
about how do you evaluatesoftware?
What are the things you shouldbe thinking of?
What do you think about beforeyou even step into looking at
software?
I'd love your thoughts.
Andrew Lassise (24:11):
When evaluating software stack, what I'd really
start off with is not looking ateverything that's available and
making your list of what isimportant to you at this time
without being swayed Well,everybody seems to have this
feature and this one doesn'thave it.
(24:34):
And therefore I can't use thembecause this feature that I
never even thought of that,frankly, I don't know if I will
use or not, but you know, thisFOMO and overanalyzing.
So starting it off with whereare my pain points currently?
KC Brothers (24:51):
Yes.
Andrew Lassise (24:52):
And then building off.
Getting
KC Brothers (24:54):
really clear and to your point, sticking your
ground.
This is where I'm mostfrustrated.
This is where things fallthrough the cracks in our
workflow.
This is where I, things fallthrough between me and, uh,
people internally or me and myclients.
But yeah, getting reallyspecific.
Yes.
Andrew Lassise (25:12):
Yeah.
And because we've, we've beenthrough this.
So many times.
So I'm not even speaking from aconsultant point of view, but
just a business owner point ofview that's gone through this so
many times.
And the problem that we ran intowas we were growing so fast that
changing our stack, just, youknow, the best time to change
(25:35):
your stack is yesterday.
The next best time is right now.
Yeah.
Unless you're planning on justyour practice going to the
ground, I mean, there's, there'sreally no downside to having
good technology that runs,especially if it's got a lot of
(25:58):
different modules and can be forthe most part, that single pane
of glass and that single pointof truth.
Where it's easier to trainpeople, get them to understand
and things that you just takefor granted.
Like RCRM doesn't integrate withanything.
And when it was just me, that'sfine.
(26:19):
Cause I know all the clients byname.
I know they're things I don'teven need to really look it up,
but you have five people and.
Now all of a sudden, okay, well,yeah, we'll just document it in
a documentation app that doesn'ttalk to the CRM and we'll just
manually update the CRM everytime.
(26:40):
And we did a giant overhaul.
I've got so good at codingPython and Zapier just to kind
of get things.
To work where it's yeah.
Where it's like, wouldn't ithave been great all along if
just things integrated, youknow, QBO has a million apps
that connect with it.
And it's like, you just don'tthink about how convenient the
(27:04):
integrations are, unless you'rethe dude that is me that spends
so much time reinventing thewheel, all for these things for
decisions that I made.
On the tech stack that, and youknow, it's great.
Now I have the skills andthings, but if you're working in
the accounting industry,probably that's not best place
(27:26):
to leverage your skills.
And you had mentioned peoplecoming in as the, the
technician.
I'm very good at what I do, butnow I am running a business and.
That is very different than thethings that I came in doing.
And so not just owning a job,but owning a company and, you
(27:51):
know, all the things that, thatcome with that.
KC Brothers (27:53):
Yeah.
Tech is a big part of that.
Um, it's the.
Cogs and wheels in between thebig machinery, the machinery
being your employees who havethese killer skills.
If you don't keep those cogs andwheels lubricated too with
updated functionality that keepsthings running smoothly and And
(28:17):
fast, like it's easy to feelbogged down.
It's easy to work 60, 70 hours aweek, thinking that that that's
what you have to do.
It's easy to feel like, um,there just isn't time in the day
to do these slow down to speedup work on the business instead
(28:39):
of just working in the businessactivities.
Um, tech.
Yeah.
You can't, you can't livewithout it.
You just got to face it.
Right.
And like, again, hopefully thebig takeaway here is that there
are so many solutions, like evenin, um, I frequently look at our
(29:00):
G2 grid of practice management,and just in the last year and a
half, there have been severalentrants into our, um,
competitive landscape.
To me, that says that there arepeople who recognize that there
is a gap, that there is anopportunity to better serve
(29:21):
accountants.
And, um, makes me grateful towork at Canopy and that we've
been around the block for aslong as we have and are serving
the industry in that regard andis actually just an affirmation,
positive affirmation to me thatwe're doing the right things.
Um, but you see that in all, inseveral other aspects of
(29:42):
accounting as well, where thereare just more and more providers
entering because there's a need.
And so.
So to your point, maybe we wrapit up really quick with that
process.
Identify your pains, jump in andlook at some, um, Well
recognized brands, uh, as itpertains to the solutions that
(30:03):
you're looking for.
Uh, be clear with your, thesales individuals that you
interact with.
Don't feel like you're going tohurt feelings.
They're there to sell, you know,and you'll have different
interactions with differentcompanies.
Hopefully they're all good.
Hope we're past the days ofterrible salesmanship.
Andrew Lassise (30:25):
That car dealership.
Yeah.
Mentality.
KC Brothers (30:28):
Yeah.
Sales reps know that there'sthat stereotype and I think they
realize like, I just need to bea human.
Anyway.
I, I love our sales reps.
They're some of my best friendsat work, but, um, but be, be
real.
Don't be afraid to shootstraight with them and, and then
make a decision and, andrecognize that, like, I don't
(30:50):
know, lastly, if you want to endon some sort of takeaway on
implementation and, um, Adoptionbecause it is, it's hard.
It's hard to make a change.
It's hard to train your team.
It can be hard even sometimes toprove ROI.
Andrew Lassise (31:06):
Yeah.
The implementation piece, Imean, for better or worse, what
I have done is I work hand inhand with the implementation
team at the company, and I am.
Documenting every step of theway, because no two companies
are going to use somethingexactly the same.
(31:26):
So I kind of put together ourflavor of how we are going to be
using the software.
And once I have that down, thenI start rolling it out to
everybody else so that we canhave an ongoing piece of
documentation where people canlook to how do we do it and not
(31:53):
just have me be The oneeverybody, cause then
everybody's asking me how to dothings.
So I'm a big fan ofdocumentation so that you can
scale and remove yourself.
But having a very, very strongunderstanding, and especially if
you're, if you're in a companywhere you're wearing a lot of
hats and you understand.
(32:14):
Okay.
Maybe I don't work in sales, butI could talk to a couple
prospects, see what this processlooks like.
I could do double entry.
I can do it the old way as well,just because it's tried and
true.
And that translate that into thenew system documented.
(32:35):
And then when you are a thousandpercent ready.
Then you can roll it out to theteam and have a switch over date
of, we have 60 days or whateverto fully integrate into this
system, because then ifeverybody's doing two things,
two ways, it makes things amillion times worse.
(32:58):
And everything I'm speaking ofis just anecdotally of.
I mean, we, we at one point hadthree different payroll things
going on.
We had a Google doc andpaychecks and ADP and we were
checking everything against eachother and it was.
Nightmare.
We couldn't, we didn't even knowwhich was right.
It was big headache.
(33:20):
So having the cut over date,knowing how to use it for the
way that you run your firm andthen having your team understand
and present to them, you know,how you hate this great news, we
will no longer have these painpoints.
So you can get them on board.
(33:42):
Yeah.
Because.
Nobody likes change so it'sdifficult to just say, Hey,
we're going to be changing.
Why are we changing because it'stime to change?
And I could see the potentialROI and pitfalls and integration
that are all these things then,I mean, not a lot of people are
(34:05):
thinking about the exit andsuccession succession in a
company, but, you know, at beingsomebody that's gone through the
last year of due diligence andintegration into a larger
company.
And every piece of software wehave, they're like, what is
this?
I don't know how to use it.
So then I have to be the onegetting all of the reports and
(34:28):
explaining how everything goes.
Whereas again, if we were usingjust a name brand thing to begin
with and technology, it wouldhave, there's so many instances.
And I couldn't even imagine toquantify the hours that I've
spent Putting, uh, square pegsin round holes because of having
(34:52):
not the correct stack from thebeginning.
KC Brothers (34:56):
Yeah.
Well, hopefully we're helpingpeople avoid some of those
mistakes just with thisconversation.
Um, just to wrap up Andrew, ifanybody wanted to work with you,
RightWorks or not, how mightthey do that?
Andrew Lassise (35:13):
Uh, you could find me on LinkedIn, Andrew L A
S S I S E and, uh, also tech foraccountants.
net with the number four rightworks.
com.
I mean, there's, there's amillion different resources and
ways to connect and.
You know, fortunately being partof a team of over 700, um, I'm
(35:38):
not the bottleneck anymore.
Our, our bad tech from not, Isay bad, just not bad, bad, but
could be better.
Tech that we used to use in techfor accountants.
And now right works says, Oh,we're going to run like a real
company and you will use realsoftware.
KC Brothers (36:00):
What's your big boy pants on.
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (36:04):
And now that migration that you are afraid of
internally, you have to do itanyway.
KC Brothers (36:09):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (36:09):
Yeah.
KC Brothers (36:10):
Well, thank you again, Andrew.
It's been a pleasure.
Andrew Lassise (36:13):
Oh yeah.
Thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate it.
Welcome to the Canopy Practice Success Podcast.
I'm Kasey Brothers from Canopyand I'm here with Andrew Lassise
from Tech for Accountants, butmost recently purchased by
RightWorks.
Andrew, tell us about yourself.
Andrew Lassise (00:20):
Well, hey Kasey, thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for having me.
And Wow, about myself.
So this guy that, uh, I grew upthinking that I was going to be
a financial advisor and Igraduated in 09 with a financial
planning degree during therecession.
KC Brothers (00:38):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (00:39):
So Um, turns out nobody wanted to hire a
financial planner with noexperience in financial planning
during a recession.
So did restaurants for a decadeand randomly landed in I.
T.
I'd always had a passion for it.
Worked at this startup that wentfrom 10 employees to 500 in less
(01:04):
than a year.
And
KC Brothers (01:05):
wow.
Andrew Lassise (01:06):
The pure chaos of being part of that.
And then some friends said, Hey,we're starting a company.
And I was like, eh.
Startups are risky, even thoughI was in like a complete crazy
thing then.
Um, but I was 26, 27, no family,
KC Brothers (01:24):
a little bit
Andrew Lassise (01:25):
of savings.
And I was like, let's do it.
You know, see what happens,right.
KC Brothers (01:28):
And they went
Andrew Lassise (01:29):
out of business in three months, but despite
themselves though, I was runningthe whole tech department and
made an agreement with theowner.
I'd always wanted to do my ownthing and sort of use the
technology.
That as the jumping off point.
And I said to the owner, I willcontinue to do everything.
And we don't have to tell peoplewe're out of business.
(01:50):
They pay you for two months.
And then every time the phonerings after those two months,
I'm just going to update theirbilling.
So everybody keeps paying you.
You don't have to pay me.
And we'll see where that takesus.
And, you know, here we are 10years later, it worked out
pretty well.
KC Brothers (02:10):
Well done.
Well done.
Well, I feel like you have somuch to offer, which is probably
why a company like WrightWorkssaw the good things you were
doing.
It was like, we need to haveAndrew on board because the
accounting industry, I'm justgoing to go off of some, uh, two
(02:32):
companies that, I'm fairlyfamiliar with that have been
around since the seventies that,um, aren't super tech forward
solutions.
And so as a result, I think theindustry got used to that, that
that was the status quo and thatthere, there wasn't necessarily
challenges there.
(02:52):
Um, and I've seen a lot ofaccountants that they go in just
like any entrepreneur, um, tobuild a business with the skill
set they have.
Not realizing that by being abusiness owner of sorts,
wherever you're at in the firm,however, the larger firm is,
(03:13):
there are business needs youneed to engage in.
One of the most important beingtech.
So where, where do you startwhen you're talking to people
who the status quo for them fortech is stuff that looks like
Windows 95?
Andrew Lassise (03:33):
Yeah, we do run into that quite a lot.
And I think for a lot of people,status quo, you know, what, what
did we do last year?
Well, let's just do it againthis year.
Comfort worked and we know howit works.
We know where it's good, whereit's bad, but we're at least
familiar with it.
KC Brothers (03:51):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (03:52):
And so, you
KC Brothers (03:52):
know, versus the devil, you don't
Andrew Lassise (03:54):
exactly.
And so usually people will cometo us in a, when it comes to
consulting with a tech stack ina.
Our way used to work when we hadthree employees.
Now we have 10, 15, 20, our oldway does not work.
It does not scale.
(04:15):
We have a million emails with amillion different things.
One person was working with oneclient exclusively.
They left.
Everything is in their brain.
There has to be a better way.
That's usually where the, thetipping point is, where if
something Big happens.
And then there's, there's peopleon the other side that are sort
(04:38):
of in the, the alcoholic realmwhere, where they're like, I've
got 7, 000 apps and I know thatthere's 500 more and I want them
all
KC Brothers (04:50):
hand overwhelm.
I feel hearing that.
Andrew Lassise (04:55):
Yeah.
I used to be in that category asa business owner.
Every time.
We would run into some obstaclewith some piece of software.
It's we have to get another one,a different one, newer, better,
faster.
And then really what we came torealize too was just because it
solves the one pain point thatyou have in one spot doesn't
(05:16):
mean that it won't come withthings that you took for
granted.
On your other software that youthought, well, don't they all do
that?
And then it turns out theydon't.
So really getting things to talkwith each other, integrating,
having a central source of truthand building off of that is.
really the starting point for alot of the tech stack
(05:39):
conversations.
KC Brothers (05:42):
Yeah.
Um, and in 2024, right, youcan't in a world too, where we
have recent launches of AI invarious forms.
I know there've beenconversations of Is AI going to
replace me?
I want to say like a tax prepactivity, some level of tax
(06:06):
preparation was one of the firstexamples put into, um, chat GPT
when it got really big just inthe last year or so.
Um, and there was this.
Fear there, but I think now andI don't, I know you've had
content and maybe we share thatout in the description of this
(06:28):
later where you've talked aboutthat, um, addressing, okay, is
it really going to replace myjob or not, but where do you
see?
AI taking firms of all sizes,right?
And maybe we split it up alittle bit into, I mean, however
you would like to segment thesesizes.
Andrew Lassise (06:46):
So I think we have to just look back
historically when there havebeen things that are disruptive
to a industry at large.
And, and I think a lot of peopleare on board now where.
This is right now we're 1997 AOLand saying what the internet's
going to look like, or we're2010 talking about the first
(07:08):
iPhone and what that's going tolook like that's this
generations.
Disruptive things that willchange everything.
I don't think at this point now,Chad, GPT has been out for
almost two years, 18 months ish.
I don't think anyone's going toargue that anymore.
That's been the side that I'vebeen on and firmly still.
I think the argument
KC Brothers (07:28):
more now is, um, how can you prove you're using
it?
Cause if you're not, you'regoing to be left behind.
I feel this in my job inmarketing where it's.
We, there's a level of proofthat I feel like, and this
hasn't been set out, said to me,I feel like maybe I'm connecting
some dots here, that we need tosay that we're involving
(07:51):
ourselves.
So that our CEO can talk to aboard of directors or investors
because it's, it's crucial.
Now there's not a point at whichwe are just able to say, no,
we're, we're fine without it.
We can.
Move on.
It's like, uh,
Andrew Lassise (08:12):
yeah, well, especially canopy.
I mean, you guys were the onesthat had the AI integration when
it was, and I guess now it'sbeen a year or close to a year
since it was canopy, the one
KC Brothers (08:27):
that
Andrew Lassise (08:28):
has the AI built in, help your communications,
this and that, but, uh, what Iwas getting at before though,
with the displacement of jobs,if we, if we go back 200 some
years, about 40 percent of thepopulation, they were farmers
and that constituted ditchdigging and all sorts of things.
(08:50):
And then the tractor comes alongand the tractor got rid of tons
of jobs and irrigation startedbecoming automatic.
And all of these things startedchanging the way agriculture
worked.
So At the time there were notoperators of these machinery, so
(09:14):
people were no longer farmers.
They were operating themachinery.
So fast forward 200 some yearsand where we're at now, 2
percent of the population arefarmers, but all of the
opportunities and things thatcame out of the machinery and
things that were built as aresult, that's where they have
(09:36):
spread out.
And you don't hear about farmerssaying.
Uh, I wish tractors weren'tinvented, you know, that's just
made things so much worse, butgo back then people were
probably feeling that way.
I mean, just anecdotal, but Iwould take a guess that a lot of
what people are feeling nowwith, well, accounting, will it
(10:00):
take my job and.
That was the example.
Look, we did tax prep.
And so, I mean, a lot of the lowlevel compliance things, yeah.
I mean, people have beenbuilding software for this all
along.
So you've got things likeTurboTax that have existed and
these have been available to themarket.
(10:22):
There probably isn't a singleclient that a tax preparer has
or firm has that isn't aware ofthis.
That there is TurboTax as analternative or that you could do
it by yourself for free.
So this is a little different inthat it's a lot more accessible
and who knows, maybe I'm wrongwith this, but these things have
(10:46):
already existed.
It's just different and shinierand all the apps for a long
time, pre chat GPT, when chatGPT came out on GPT 3.
5, there were GPTs before.
That so a lot of software hashad AI analyzing these things,
(11:06):
machine learning in thebackground.
It's just now the public hastheir hands on it.
And can see the opportunitiesand potentials and threats.
And I think that's really wherewe're at now.
And like you said, withmarketing, you know, some of the
things that, that I know firmmarketing firms would do, so
maybe not internal, but it wouldbe higher content writers for
(11:31):
one off things for blogs and,you know, you would pay X
dollars and now.
You could at least get aframework or just have it type
the whole thing.
Maybe have someone come and edita couple things.
I'm not in that world, but youknow, a lot of the just sort of
grunt work will get automatedand then the, the need will be
(11:55):
for how do we do the higherlevel things,
KC Brothers (11:59):
which I see is so exciting.
Who likes the grunt work?
Andrew Lassise (12:03):
I mean, maybe the,
KC Brothers (12:04):
Maybe there's a time and place where like, okay,
I could use a busy work day.
So I can have a Netflix showrunning in the background.
This needs to get done, but thenI'll enjoy whatever it is I'm
listening to.
But I see that more as a, okay,if I can get this grunt work
taken care of again, like yousaid, I can focus on these
higher earning activities andmaybe even work less, go figure,
(12:28):
right?
Andrew Lassise (12:28):
Right.
I mean, and I mean, I do a lotof marketing as well.
So just a, for instance ofsomething that was very.
Unique on my plate that mostlikely AI wouldn't have come up
with.
And I mean, yeah, we'll probablylook back on this five years
(12:50):
later and be like, not onlycould it have, but we asked it
to go back to this time when youthought of this and it found a
million ways that you failed,but for us, we focus a lot on
cybersecurity and the FTCsafeguards rule essentially
said.
You need to have cybersecurityif you're doing tax or you have
(13:12):
access to people's books.
So pretty much all bookkeeperstax prep have to abide by these
laws.
And so, and they had a deadlineon, it was June 9th of last
year.
So 23.
And so I saw the writing on thewall that this was going to be a
giant need because a lot ofpeople aren't that tech savvy.
And so we built up a whole lotof marketing and underground
(13:36):
infrastructure to be able to getthis out, scale it and all these
things.
And where if you just said toAI, what should my next
marketing campaign be?
Oh, well, we recommendsponsoring Habitat for Humanity.
You will get your name out thereto people that are nice people
(14:00):
that contribute to charity andthey will catapult your company
or just, just very genericideas, but where it's like, we
work specifically withaccountants and bookkeepers.
This is something that willapply to all of them very
uniquely and understanding themarket and things like that.
And it's not that AI couldn't,but unless you knew what you
(14:22):
were talking about as the userof the AI, if you very, very
specifically said, we do it.
Specifically for accountingfirms, cybersecurity, there's
going to be new cybersecurityrequirements.
How could we put this together?
You would have to be promptingit.
(14:42):
And so it's really about how youuse it and using it correctly
and effectively.
And not just the generic do myjob for me, but teaching it the
specifics.
KC Brothers (14:56):
Well, and knowing how to do that.
I think too, we've reached apoint where tech technology
companies like Canopy have seenthat it's, I mean, we moved
pretty fast.
We saw what it meant, knew weneeded to act and not drag our
feet.
Um, and it paid off for us andI, and more and more companies
(15:20):
have felt similarly, right, andhave integrated it in some form
or fashion.
And I think that the issue is nolonger.
How do I, as an accountant,utilize this?
I don't think we need toencourage accountants to perfect
their prompting skills, butrather to your skill set is
looking at the tech stack thathas incorporated AI in a way
(15:44):
that is most beneficial, um,because it is getting into
everything in a way that.
As long as you have the righttools, you are going to be
leveraging AI in an easy andapproachable way to you.
Because again, it's not justthis, I have to come up with
ways to utilize open AI on myown.
(16:13):
Um, I don't have to come up withways to utilize AI on my own
rather.
As long as I do the, the work tofind the tools and integrate
them into my business, I'm goingto be reaping the benefits of
AI.
Andrew Lassise (16:34):
That's very true.
You don't have to become aprompt engineer just to be an
accountant and help yourclients.
However, being able to leverageit as well.
And understanding the nuances,being able to safely put
information in and say, theseare the things that I'm going to
(16:57):
talk to my clients about.
What else could I be looking at?
What might I have missed or myclient's goals are to minimize
their, their AGI this year orflip side.
My customer is looking to selltheir company.
(17:20):
They don't want to focus on adbacks.
They just want the, the end ofthe year return to look as good
as humanly possible forprospective buyers.
So, you know, the story that youwant to tell and not just
popping it in, understanding howto use it is great for that.
(17:40):
But like you said, picking atechnology stack.
That already utilizes thesethings and does it for you so
that you can just say my clientneeds to send me documents.
I am furious.
Send this in a polite tone.
KC Brothers (18:00):
Seriously?
Andrew Lassise (18:01):
Yeah.
And keep
KC Brothers (18:02):
my mood in check.
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (18:04):
Yeah.
I'm going to list 10, 000reasons why you are the worst
and it will politely say, Thisis, this is the nice way to do
it.
Like one time I, I, um, my, my,uh, wife, her and her parents
(18:26):
went to Costa Rica with two ofour children.
I was home with the one, andthen my wife was like, we want
you guys to come.
And I was like, how do I tellher no without making her want
to kill me?
And, and, and I was like,leverage your daughter.
(18:47):
Say it's not safe to fly with aone year old.
KC Brothers (18:51):
I love it.
I've used chat GPT in mymarriage.
Um, my husband's a big words ofaffirmation individual, and it's
not my strength.
And I put something in and askedlike, Hey, give me a list of 25
affirmations based on myhusband's qualities.
And I listed 25.
Some things out about him and Iwould text him affirmations and
(19:14):
he never caught on that it waswritten by AI, but he loved it.
It filled his cup and I was wifeof the year for a month.
Andrew Lassise (19:24):
Um, I'm in the same boat as you like, I know I
should, maybe I'll just have AImake an app.
Makes the affirmation, sendsthem from my phone, and just
like lets me know what was saidin case it was brought up.
KC Brothers (19:40):
I love it.
Um, well, on that, um, sorry, Ijust had a pregnant moment and
I'm trying to think.
I had a thought.
And I'll, I'll edit this out.
I apologize.
Um,
Andrew Lassise (19:57):
no worries.
The fact that you're even doingthis, kudos there.
It's your affirmation.
You're a hard worker thatdeserves the world.
KC Brothers (20:08):
Um, there was, Oh, I feel like I've said this on
the podcast before in variousforms, um, because I feel like
it applies so much toaccountants and the accounting
industry, but a phrase I love isjust slow down to speed up.
And this can be hard as.
Ambitious individuals as anentrepreneur, as an owner, as
(20:29):
someone who's responsible.
I've got all this on my plate.
How in the world am, you'retelling me to slow down?
What do you mean?
And how is slowing down going tospeed me up?
And the reason I bring this upnow is because We've been
talking about tech stacks.
If you're not familiar with thelatest technology in the, in the
industry, you need to getfamiliar and it is important to
(20:53):
set aside billable activities,whether you're doing flat or
hourly rate, I don't care.
You need to, it is essentialright now, where if you have not
looked at what is in the marketand 18 months.
You need to take, I mean, howmuch time would you recommend?
(21:13):
I was almost about to say a fullwork week.
If you're a partner.
I
Andrew Lassise (21:17):
mean, it's, it's a gigantic pill to swallow
because what is out there, thereare infinite things.
I would say though, when tryingto filter things down a go with,
and this isn't just becauseit's, you know, recorded for a
canopy, but we'll just say.
(21:39):
A market leader that is wellrecognized with a lot of clients
and not try to find, well,here's this random one off
obscure thing and we're going tobe their fourth client ever and
help them build it like it's sogreat in theory.
(22:00):
But the reality is a lot ofcompanies disappear.
A lot of companies haven't had alot of eyeballs on them to help
them build over time.
So it's not that they can't begreat or won't be great or
aren't currently great.
But when you're really lookingfor a tech stack to utilize
(22:23):
going with the market leadersand just kind of price,
obviously will play a role inanything, but really look at who
is leading the market and kindof.
Pieced together, they'reprobably the, the big names
because they're doing somethingright and everything has its
flaws, you know, that's, that isgoing to be a given no matter
(22:46):
what you get.
And recognizing now the, atleast comparing the big names
and what they have available.
KC Brothers (22:57):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (22:57):
And then there's so much documentation that you
can ask peers how to use it.
These are all mistakes that Imade early on.
Where I was just trying to findthe best product for what I
thought we were going to bedoing.
And then, you know, despiteourselves, we grew from me and
my living room to, we had 50employees in six offices at one
(23:21):
point and nothing that westarted the company with was
built for any of that.
KC Brothers (23:26):
Yeah,
Andrew Lassise (23:27):
literally would have been better on a
spreadsheet and at least have aCSV.
KC Brothers (23:31):
Well, and that actually brings up another point
that I feel like I've picked upon with accountants, uh, more so
than any other industry I'veworked in, they're just not a
typical, or for me, typical tome, um, buyer of tech, of
(23:54):
software.
Um, so, Maybe, maybe we wrap upour conversation is talking
about how do you evaluatesoftware?
What are the things you shouldbe thinking of?
What do you think about beforeyou even step into looking at
software?
I'd love your thoughts.
Andrew Lassise (24:11):
When evaluating software stack, what I'd really
start off with is not looking ateverything that's available and
making your list of what isimportant to you at this time
without being swayed Well,everybody seems to have this
feature and this one doesn'thave it.
(24:34):
And therefore I can't use thembecause this feature that I
never even thought of that,frankly, I don't know if I will
use or not, but you know, thisFOMO and overanalyzing.
So starting it off with whereare my pain points currently?
KC Brothers (24:51):
Yes.
Andrew Lassise (24:52):
And then building off.
Getting
KC Brothers (24:54):
really clear and to your point, sticking your
ground.
This is where I'm mostfrustrated.
This is where things fallthrough the cracks in our
workflow.
This is where I, things fallthrough between me and, uh,
people internally or me and myclients.
But yeah, getting reallyspecific.
Yes.
Andrew Lassise (25:12):
Yeah.
And because we've, we've beenthrough this.
So many times.
So I'm not even speaking from aconsultant point of view, but
just a business owner point ofview that's gone through this so
many times.
And the problem that we ran intowas we were growing so fast that
changing our stack, just, youknow, the best time to change
(25:35):
your stack is yesterday.
The next best time is right now.
Yeah.
Unless you're planning on justyour practice going to the
ground, I mean, there's, there'sreally no downside to having
good technology that runs,especially if it's got a lot of
(25:58):
different modules and can be forthe most part, that single pane
of glass and that single pointof truth.
Where it's easier to trainpeople, get them to understand
and things that you just takefor granted.
Like RCRM doesn't integrate withanything.
And when it was just me, that'sfine.
(26:19):
Cause I know all the clients byname.
I know they're things I don'teven need to really look it up,
but you have five people and.
Now all of a sudden, okay, well,yeah, we'll just document it in
a documentation app that doesn'ttalk to the CRM and we'll just
manually update the CRM everytime.
(26:40):
And we did a giant overhaul.
I've got so good at codingPython and Zapier just to kind
of get things.
To work where it's yeah.
Where it's like, wouldn't ithave been great all along if
just things integrated, youknow, QBO has a million apps
that connect with it.
And it's like, you just don'tthink about how convenient the
(27:04):
integrations are, unless you'rethe dude that is me that spends
so much time reinventing thewheel, all for these things for
decisions that I made.
On the tech stack that, and youknow, it's great.
Now I have the skills andthings, but if you're working in
the accounting industry,probably that's not best place
(27:26):
to leverage your skills.
And you had mentioned peoplecoming in as the, the
technician.
I'm very good at what I do, butnow I am running a business and.
That is very different than thethings that I came in doing.
And so not just owning a job,but owning a company and, you
(27:51):
know, all the things that, thatcome with that.
KC Brothers (27:53):
Yeah.
Tech is a big part of that.
Um, it's the.
Cogs and wheels in between thebig machinery, the machinery
being your employees who havethese killer skills.
If you don't keep those cogs andwheels lubricated too with
updated functionality that keepsthings running smoothly and And
(28:17):
fast, like it's easy to feelbogged down.
It's easy to work 60, 70 hours aweek, thinking that that that's
what you have to do.
It's easy to feel like, um,there just isn't time in the day
to do these slow down to speedup work on the business instead
(28:39):
of just working in the businessactivities.
Um, tech.
Yeah.
You can't, you can't livewithout it.
You just got to face it.
Right.
And like, again, hopefully thebig takeaway here is that there
are so many solutions, like evenin, um, I frequently look at our
(29:00):
G2 grid of practice management,and just in the last year and a
half, there have been severalentrants into our, um,
competitive landscape.
To me, that says that there arepeople who recognize that there
is a gap, that there is anopportunity to better serve
(29:21):
accountants.
And, um, makes me grateful towork at Canopy and that we've
been around the block for aslong as we have and are serving
the industry in that regard andis actually just an affirmation,
positive affirmation to me thatwe're doing the right things.
Um, but you see that in all, inseveral other aspects of
(29:42):
accounting as well, where thereare just more and more providers
entering because there's a need.
And so.
So to your point, maybe we wrapit up really quick with that
process.
Identify your pains, jump in andlook at some, um, Well
recognized brands, uh, as itpertains to the solutions that
(30:03):
you're looking for.
Uh, be clear with your, thesales individuals that you
interact with.
Don't feel like you're going tohurt feelings.
They're there to sell, you know,and you'll have different
interactions with differentcompanies.
Hopefully they're all good.
Hope we're past the days ofterrible salesmanship.
Andrew Lassise (30:25):
That car dealership.
Yeah.
Mentality.
KC Brothers (30:28):
Yeah.
Sales reps know that there'sthat stereotype and I think they
realize like, I just need to bea human.
Anyway.
I, I love our sales reps.
They're some of my best friendsat work, but, um, but be, be
real.
Don't be afraid to shootstraight with them and, and then
make a decision and, andrecognize that, like, I don't
(30:50):
know, lastly, if you want to endon some sort of takeaway on
implementation and, um, Adoptionbecause it is, it's hard.
It's hard to make a change.
It's hard to train your team.
It can be hard even sometimes toprove ROI.
Andrew Lassise (31:06):
Yeah.
The implementation piece, Imean, for better or worse, what
I have done is I work hand inhand with the implementation
team at the company, and I am.
Documenting every step of theway, because no two companies
are going to use somethingexactly the same.
(31:26):
So I kind of put together ourflavor of how we are going to be
using the software.
And once I have that down, thenI start rolling it out to
everybody else so that we canhave an ongoing piece of
documentation where people canlook to how do we do it and not
(31:53):
just have me be The oneeverybody, cause then
everybody's asking me how to dothings.
So I'm a big fan ofdocumentation so that you can
scale and remove yourself.
But having a very, very strongunderstanding, and especially if
you're, if you're in a companywhere you're wearing a lot of
hats and you understand.
(32:14):
Okay.
Maybe I don't work in sales, butI could talk to a couple
prospects, see what this processlooks like.
I could do double entry.
I can do it the old way as well,just because it's tried and
true.
And that translate that into thenew system documented.
(32:35):
And then when you are a thousandpercent ready.
Then you can roll it out to theteam and have a switch over date
of, we have 60 days or whateverto fully integrate into this
system, because then ifeverybody's doing two things,
two ways, it makes things amillion times worse.
(32:58):
And everything I'm speaking ofis just anecdotally of.
I mean, we, we at one point hadthree different payroll things
going on.
We had a Google doc andpaychecks and ADP and we were
checking everything against eachother and it was.
Nightmare.
We couldn't, we didn't even knowwhich was right.
It was big headache.
(33:20):
So having the cut over date,knowing how to use it for the
way that you run your firm andthen having your team understand
and present to them, you know,how you hate this great news, we
will no longer have these painpoints.
So you can get them on board.
(33:42):
Yeah.
Because.
Nobody likes change so it'sdifficult to just say, Hey,
we're going to be changing.
Why are we changing because it'stime to change?
And I could see the potentialROI and pitfalls and integration
that are all these things then,I mean, not a lot of people are
(34:05):
thinking about the exit andsuccession succession in a
company, but, you know, at beingsomebody that's gone through the
last year of due diligence andintegration into a larger
company.
And every piece of software wehave, they're like, what is
this?
I don't know how to use it.
So then I have to be the onegetting all of the reports and
(34:28):
explaining how everything goes.
Whereas again, if we were usingjust a name brand thing to begin
with and technology, it wouldhave, there's so many instances.
And I couldn't even imagine toquantify the hours that I've
spent Putting, uh, square pegsin round holes because of having
(34:52):
not the correct stack from thebeginning.
KC Brothers (34:56):
Yeah.
Well, hopefully we're helpingpeople avoid some of those
mistakes just with thisconversation.
Um, just to wrap up Andrew, ifanybody wanted to work with you,
RightWorks or not, how mightthey do that?
Andrew Lassise (35:13):
Uh, you could find me on LinkedIn, Andrew L A
S S I S E and, uh, also tech foraccountants.
net with the number four rightworks.
com.
I mean, there's, there's amillion different resources and
ways to connect and.
You know, fortunately being partof a team of over 700, um, I'm
(35:38):
not the bottleneck anymore.
Our, our bad tech from not, Isay bad, just not bad, bad, but
could be better.
Tech that we used to use in techfor accountants.
And now right works says, Oh,we're going to run like a real
company and you will use realsoftware.
KC Brothers (36:00):
What's your big boy pants on.
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (36:04):
And now that migration that you are afraid of
internally, you have to do itanyway.
KC Brothers (36:09):
Yeah.
Andrew Lassise (36:09):
Yeah.
KC Brothers (36:10):
Well, thank you again, Andrew.
It's been a pleasure.
Andrew Lassise (36:13):
Oh yeah.
Thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate it.
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