1 00:00:05,620 --> 00:00:08,280 Thanks for coming back for another episode of Count Me In, 2 00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:12,120 MA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. 3 00:00:12,970 --> 00:00:14,100 This is Adam Larson, 4 00:00:14,360 --> 00:00:17,540 and I'll be bringing you right up to the start of our conversation for episode 5 00:00:18,380 --> 00:00:19,213 167 of our series. 6 00:00:19,790 --> 00:00:23,570 Today we hear of from the co-founder and CEO of SoftLedger, 7 00:00:24,390 --> 00:00:25,223 Ben Taylor. 8 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:30,130 SoftLedger provides real time visibility to critical financial data with their 9 00:00:30,131 --> 00:00:34,570 cloud native business management platform and APIs. And in this episode, 10 00:00:34,910 --> 00:00:39,250 Ben talks about some of the specifics relating to APIs that can truly benefit 11 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:42,800 today's accounting and finance professionals working on current accounting 12 00:00:42,801 --> 00:00:44,320 systems. To learn more, 13 00:00:44,790 --> 00:00:47,600 stay tuned as we turn our attention to the main conversation now. 14 00:00:54,700 --> 00:00:55,160 So Ben, 15 00:00:55,160 --> 00:01:00,000 I know our conversation today is around accounting systems and I first want to 16 00:01:00,001 --> 00:01:03,790 give you an opportunity to share a little bit of background about you and your 17 00:01:03,791 --> 00:01:06,310 company and then, you know, how it all came about. 18 00:01:06,370 --> 00:01:10,910 So my first question really is what are some of the limitations with current 19 00:01:10,911 --> 00:01:11,910 accounting systems? 20 00:01:13,230 --> 00:01:17,150 Hi, yeah. Thanks for having me on we view like accounting systems, 21 00:01:17,711 --> 00:01:18,990 as we think of them, you know, 22 00:01:19,191 --> 00:01:24,020 the ones you use in your job at a corporate accounting department is it's a 23 00:01:24,021 --> 00:01:25,180 general purpose system. 24 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:30,180 And so general purpose accounting systems started in the early eighties or 25 00:01:30,260 --> 00:01:34,500 I guess late seventies, but then came to market broadly in the early eighties. 26 00:01:35,160 --> 00:01:39,740 And essentially that brought together a bunch of specific purpose systems in one 27 00:01:39,741 --> 00:01:42,860 place where you could form financials in, you know, in your general ledger, 28 00:01:43,531 --> 00:01:44,570 from your general ledger. 29 00:01:45,230 --> 00:01:49,810 And then that progressed over time to when 30 00:01:49,900 --> 00:01:52,490 cloud accounting became or cloud computing became a thing, 31 00:01:52,491 --> 00:01:57,290 then these became cloud based systems, then you could access them from anywhere. 32 00:01:57,910 --> 00:01:59,170 And that that's great, 33 00:02:00,190 --> 00:02:03,090 changes it so that you don't have to worry about running your own servers and 34 00:02:03,091 --> 00:02:05,760 some other things like that and use a subscription model, 35 00:02:07,100 --> 00:02:10,320 but it didn't fundamentally change how those systems work. 36 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:15,240 They're still somewhat rigid in that it makes it tough to connect to 37 00:02:15,241 --> 00:02:16,074 other systems and it, 38 00:02:16,201 --> 00:02:19,080 makes it tough to configure things in certain ways that are, you know, 39 00:02:19,081 --> 00:02:23,600 unique to your business. And so that's what we've done is, you know, 40 00:02:23,601 --> 00:02:26,790 early eighties was version one of an accounting system. 41 00:02:26,791 --> 00:02:31,270 And then late nineties is when the cloud accounting systems came out 42 00:02:31,700 --> 00:02:34,270 initially now, or 20 years later. 43 00:02:34,650 --> 00:02:39,230 And the cloud's been around for enough that if you design a system 44 00:02:39,231 --> 00:02:42,110 specifically with cloud computing in mind, 45 00:02:42,650 --> 00:02:45,140 you'll design it differently and that's what we've done, 46 00:02:45,160 --> 00:02:47,180 and there's just a number of benefits, 47 00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:52,180 but I'd say that ease of configuration to unique business cases and 48 00:02:52,181 --> 00:02:56,700 then connecting to other systems are among the biggest benefits to that. 49 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:01,000 So let's dig into that a little bit deeper now, as we talk about, you know, 50 00:03:01,001 --> 00:03:04,400 connecting the accounting system with different systems and you know, 51 00:03:04,460 --> 00:03:06,000 how we can do that more efficiently, 52 00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:10,880 I understand the reasoning behind it or the capabilities come from APIs. 53 00:03:11,020 --> 00:03:14,560 So give us a little background on APIs for those who may not be familiar and 54 00:03:14,561 --> 00:03:18,320 really talk about how they help in this scenario that you've described so far. 55 00:03:19,220 --> 00:03:20,053 Sure. Yeah, 56 00:03:20,511 --> 00:03:25,230 that is a big part of this API is application programming 57 00:03:25,231 --> 00:03:26,830 interface. That's what it stands for. 58 00:03:27,070 --> 00:03:31,910 And it's essentially a way of communicating with a software application 59 00:03:32,730 --> 00:03:37,470 if you're using browser based application and you're clicking on buttons and 60 00:03:37,770 --> 00:03:41,700 to create journal entries, for instance, what that's doing is that's, 61 00:03:41,701 --> 00:03:45,780 that's programming the application and API allows you to do that 62 00:03:46,360 --> 00:03:49,900 programmatically. So it allows you to do that via 63 00:03:51,461 --> 00:03:54,620 just setting up code to automate your processes. 64 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:58,020 And so the more stuff you can do via API, 65 00:03:58,580 --> 00:04:01,650 the less you need to actually really key things into the application yourself. 66 00:04:02,390 --> 00:04:04,730 And so the better, 67 00:04:06,470 --> 00:04:11,050 the more available a software application is to being programmed via API. 68 00:04:11,070 --> 00:04:12,210 The more you can automate. 69 00:04:12,670 --> 00:04:17,290 So, you know, again, APIs, they work between a number of systems, 70 00:04:17,710 --> 00:04:21,920 and I understand that legacy accounting systems have APIs as well. 71 00:04:22,340 --> 00:04:24,480 So what is the differentiating factor? 72 00:04:24,550 --> 00:04:26,760 What is it really that we're talking about here? 73 00:04:27,100 --> 00:04:31,600 So it's a great question that the difference between legacy 74 00:04:31,630 --> 00:04:36,560 systems and how they've approached APIs and us is for legacy 75 00:04:36,920 --> 00:04:40,790 software accounting software providers, the API was kind of an afterthought, 76 00:04:41,271 --> 00:04:44,470 it happened after they already built the system initially. 77 00:04:44,471 --> 00:04:49,110 And what that means is you can't access everything in the same way 78 00:04:49,290 --> 00:04:52,430 as as you can via the user interface. There's just, 79 00:04:52,500 --> 00:04:54,350 it's really tough to do that after the fact, 80 00:04:55,140 --> 00:04:59,350 whereas we've constructed our system to use the API 81 00:05:01,370 --> 00:05:03,420 with the user interface, from the get go. 82 00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:08,460 And so what that means is it's, everything is programmable via API. 83 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:11,180 If you're building an integration with another application, 84 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:17,020 you can use our application programmatically in the same way as you can as an 85 00:05:17,021 --> 00:05:19,100 end user. And that just, it, you know, 86 00:05:19,120 --> 00:05:23,690 it removes friction essentially in the process of creating integrations in a way 87 00:05:23,691 --> 00:05:28,210 that that can really make new integrations possible in a way that you couldn't 88 00:05:28,211 --> 00:05:29,044 do before. 89 00:05:29,330 --> 00:05:30,163 I got it. So, 90 00:05:30,340 --> 00:05:34,850 based on your experiences and the ease of use, 91 00:05:35,010 --> 00:05:38,450 I suppose you could say, right, as far as the, the benefits over your system, 92 00:05:39,410 --> 00:05:43,120 compared to APIs being added after the fact, right, 93 00:05:43,460 --> 00:05:48,120 how has this API driven accounting system really 94 00:05:48,121 --> 00:05:51,040 gained traction? You know, what are some of the, you know, 95 00:05:51,041 --> 00:05:55,360 do you have any examples or some business cases that outline improved 96 00:05:55,520 --> 00:05:58,600 efficiencies or whatever goes into your target users? 97 00:05:59,350 --> 00:06:03,360 Yeah, absolutely. So there there's a, a few different cases we work with. 98 00:06:03,420 --> 00:06:07,760 The first one is, you know, a CFO and controller or, 99 00:06:07,920 --> 00:06:11,400 or controller trying to automate their transactions for their, 100 00:06:11,530 --> 00:06:14,880 their internal business processes. And if you, 101 00:06:15,020 --> 00:06:18,990 if you have internal systems that you need to bring a high volume of 102 00:06:18,991 --> 00:06:21,870 transactions in, for, or at least, you know, 103 00:06:21,940 --> 00:06:26,910 complex transactions in from then having access to an API 104 00:06:26,970 --> 00:06:31,470 allows you to bring those in automatically just remove the manual work from that 105 00:06:31,471 --> 00:06:32,304 process. 106 00:06:32,970 --> 00:06:37,580 And then what's something that's interesting also is that we have some 107 00:06:37,780 --> 00:06:41,700 customers where the first person to reach out was a software engineer because 108 00:06:42,160 --> 00:06:45,820 our platform and our API are constructed in a way that that is 109 00:06:47,050 --> 00:06:50,300 what you'd want to use if you're working with it as a software engineer. 110 00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:55,180 And so it's interesting that as engineering's more involved in decision making 111 00:06:55,181 --> 00:06:58,650 process for internal systems, that's you know, 112 00:06:58,650 --> 00:07:02,490 that's something that we only see increasing in importance in the in the coming 113 00:07:02,491 --> 00:07:03,324 years. 114 00:07:03,450 --> 00:07:07,290 So I wanna kind of follow up on that for just a moment here. I know you started, 115 00:07:07,470 --> 00:07:09,890 you know, looking at CFOs controllers, 116 00:07:09,891 --> 00:07:12,330 those who are looking for certain information, 117 00:07:12,510 --> 00:07:17,330 and my understanding is with these APIs and the ability 118 00:07:17,470 --> 00:07:21,880 to integrate allows for more real time data. 119 00:07:22,210 --> 00:07:25,240 Right? So how again, does the, you know, 120 00:07:25,420 --> 00:07:29,960 API driven accounting enhance real time data available to them 121 00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:33,320 compared to some other accounting softwares or other, you know, 122 00:07:33,570 --> 00:07:35,960 dashboards that may come across as real time? 123 00:07:36,430 --> 00:07:37,263 Sure. Yeah. 124 00:07:37,510 --> 00:07:42,390 APIs are what enable real time financials that that's just 125 00:07:42,951 --> 00:07:47,390 mentioned removing friction in the process of getting data into 126 00:07:48,150 --> 00:07:50,830 or operational data into your financials. 127 00:07:51,250 --> 00:07:55,430 That's really what it's all about is the more steps that you have in 128 00:07:55,860 --> 00:07:58,790 between, whatever the thing happened in your, 129 00:08:00,380 --> 00:08:03,500 and the relevant financial impact being reported in your financials, 130 00:08:04,810 --> 00:08:07,100 that that just makes it take longer. 131 00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:12,340 And so if you can directly connect the underlying transactions to what the 132 00:08:12,341 --> 00:08:12,981 financial impact is, 133 00:08:12,981 --> 00:08:16,700 then that's how you start chipping away at the process of getting a financial 134 00:08:16,701 --> 00:08:17,420 data quickly. 135 00:08:17,420 --> 00:08:21,290 And I think of it as you go down your chart of accounts and you just see, okay, 136 00:08:23,270 --> 00:08:26,250 my cash account, what, where is this coming from? 137 00:08:26,470 --> 00:08:28,130 Is it coming automatically from the bank? 138 00:08:28,310 --> 00:08:32,570 Can I code the transactions automatically use some logic to get them in? Okay, 139 00:08:32,860 --> 00:08:36,690 great. Next, get down to your accounts receivable account, 140 00:08:36,950 --> 00:08:41,160 and maybe there's a another system that you're using for invoicing and that 141 00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:45,320 directly feeds into there. And you just, you know, tick down the list and, 142 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:48,120 and figure out how to automate every, every account. 143 00:08:48,420 --> 00:08:52,440 And how much code or, you know, you were talking about engineering a little bit, 144 00:08:52,860 --> 00:08:53,693 how much of those, 145 00:08:54,350 --> 00:08:59,290 that knowledge or skillset is required in order to utilize these 146 00:08:59,291 --> 00:08:59,670 systems? 147 00:08:59,670 --> 00:09:04,490 Is this something that the everyday accountant would be able to essentially 148 00:09:04,491 --> 00:09:06,890 build out or, you know, what kind of assistance is required? 149 00:09:07,590 --> 00:09:11,730 So it depends, you know, you can use, you know, our, our system, for instance, 150 00:09:12,810 --> 00:09:15,480 standalone, as an end user can pick it up pretty easily. 151 00:09:15,550 --> 00:09:18,560 It's fully easy to learn. It's built for accountants, 152 00:09:19,060 --> 00:09:23,840 but then if you want to get really into the technical details and 153 00:09:24,040 --> 00:09:27,720 automate things, you can, so those are both, you know, sides are available. 154 00:09:27,820 --> 00:09:29,520 And then in between, you know, 155 00:09:29,521 --> 00:09:34,240 there's some integration platforms that help to make it so that non-accounting 156 00:09:34,241 --> 00:09:37,590 users can get more involved in the integration spec design. 157 00:09:37,610 --> 00:09:41,070 So there's a number of different ways you can, you can do it, 158 00:09:41,290 --> 00:09:45,990 but having an easy to use platform and then easy to use 159 00:09:46,580 --> 00:09:48,430 APIs, only help to enable all that. 160 00:09:49,280 --> 00:09:52,660 So APIs, real time data, you know, new technology, 161 00:09:52,680 --> 00:09:55,740 all this is part of the profession. And then, you know, step by step, 162 00:09:55,890 --> 00:10:00,010 you kind of gave us how things have progressed, you know, real time today. 163 00:10:00,030 --> 00:10:04,250 One of the big trends in accounting is crypto assets, right. And, 164 00:10:04,370 --> 00:10:05,530 and everything that's out there in, 165 00:10:05,770 --> 00:10:09,330 in the crypto world and how that's going to impact accounting and finance now 166 00:10:09,810 --> 00:10:10,730 just poking around your website. 167 00:10:10,731 --> 00:10:13,890 And I see that you do have some crypto companies under your use cases. 168 00:10:14,630 --> 00:10:15,490 So I'm just curious, 169 00:10:15,630 --> 00:10:20,520 how does this system work with crypto and what is it that you're doing for 170 00:10:20,521 --> 00:10:21,354 these companies? 171 00:10:21,870 --> 00:10:26,640 Sure. That's been a big area of interest. So in 2017, 172 00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:31,960 Jeff, my co-founder and I got interested in crypto and we 173 00:10:32,740 --> 00:10:37,710 saw these companies doing ICO's - initial coin offerings - and other complex 174 00:10:37,750 --> 00:10:41,310 transactions. And we realized, you know, 175 00:10:41,311 --> 00:10:44,270 these are small companies that don't have full accounting and finance 176 00:10:44,271 --> 00:10:47,110 departments that are doing this very complex thing, 177 00:10:47,700 --> 00:10:50,670 that there's gonna need to be a system to track this. 178 00:10:50,690 --> 00:10:53,230 And we realized that there wasn't cuz we, you know, 179 00:10:53,420 --> 00:10:57,110 many companies reached out to contact us and asked if we could help. 180 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:00,100 And so we decided in, 181 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:03,940 in 2018 to release a crypto specific module, 182 00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:08,900 and we did that in August of 2018. And so over the past few years, 183 00:11:08,901 --> 00:11:10,500 we've been working with a variety of, 184 00:11:11,580 --> 00:11:15,540 of companies that have cryptoassets in their operations to it's the same problem 185 00:11:15,541 --> 00:11:15,901 we're solving. 186 00:11:15,901 --> 00:11:19,450 We're just helping them get those transactions into their financials quickly, 187 00:11:20,150 --> 00:11:21,370 but they're very complicated. 188 00:11:22,070 --> 00:11:25,170 And there's a lot of considerations that are unique to crypto. 189 00:11:25,390 --> 00:11:27,410 And so that's why having this, 190 00:11:27,411 --> 00:11:31,450 this specific set of functionality for these companies has been helpful. 191 00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:35,380 So my last question is, you know, 192 00:11:35,381 --> 00:11:38,620 obviously you were able to identify a gap, right, 193 00:11:38,621 --> 00:11:42,610 or opportunity where we could take these systems to the next level and, 194 00:11:43,030 --> 00:11:43,440 you know, 195 00:11:43,440 --> 00:11:47,570 enhance the use of data and everything else that goes with API driven accounting 196 00:11:47,571 --> 00:11:48,404 systems. 197 00:11:48,590 --> 00:11:53,170 So I'm just wondering if you have any other thoughts or ideas for your system, 198 00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:55,960 for your platform, for the profession, really, you know, 199 00:11:55,961 --> 00:11:59,960 what other opportunities in line with what we're talking about today could be 200 00:11:59,961 --> 00:12:01,120 out there for, you know, 201 00:12:01,121 --> 00:12:03,320 our listeners to think about and consider down the road. 202 00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:04,870 Oh, sure. You know, 203 00:12:04,870 --> 00:12:09,680 I've learned a ton going through the process of started with the idea of 204 00:12:09,681 --> 00:12:11,040 there could be a better way to do this, 205 00:12:11,200 --> 00:12:16,070 a faster way to get financial data and then listening to iterating on 206 00:12:16,310 --> 00:12:19,510 feedback as Jeff and I were building the product and realizing, okay, 207 00:12:19,580 --> 00:12:23,190 here are some limitations with designing computer applications or software 208 00:12:23,191 --> 00:12:24,024 applications. 209 00:12:24,410 --> 00:12:29,390 And here are some benefits that I didn't even realize could exist and, you know, 210 00:12:29,391 --> 00:12:32,750 taking the time to understand what's available, what the options are. 211 00:12:32,751 --> 00:12:34,340 And you know, 212 00:12:34,500 --> 00:12:38,620 I think there's something great that comes from having somebody who's an expert 213 00:12:38,980 --> 00:12:41,020 in an architecting software application. 214 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:45,180 And then somebody with the accounting experience on the accounting side, 215 00:12:45,620 --> 00:12:48,940 figuring out what the best overall solution is. 216 00:12:49,040 --> 00:12:53,730 And so I think the more we can integrate what's available from a 217 00:12:53,731 --> 00:12:54,810 technical perspective, you know, 218 00:12:54,811 --> 00:12:57,050 starts with understanding what's what's out there. 219 00:12:57,051 --> 00:13:01,970 The more experts in corporate accounting can, can do that. 220 00:13:01,990 --> 00:13:06,170 The more they can apply it to solving the pain points in their jobs. And so, 221 00:13:06,490 --> 00:13:06,571 you know, 222 00:13:06,571 --> 00:13:09,650 sometimes it's a tough balance to have to think about both sides of it, 223 00:13:09,651 --> 00:13:11,450 but I think there's a lot of benefits to doing so. 224 00:13:14,070 --> 00:13:15,320 This has been Count Me In, 225 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:19,960 IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from 226 00:13:19,961 --> 00:13:22,440 the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard, 227 00:13:22,441 --> 00:13:25,800 and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance 228 00:13:25,910 --> 00:13:29,520 education, visit IMA's website at www.imanet.org.