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The Navvai Shift – AI & Business Insights
Welcome to The Navvai Shift, the podcast where business leaders in finance share their journeys, challenges, and unfiltered thoughts on artificial intelligence. We dive deep into how AI is shaping industries, uncovering real-world insights from those driving innovation.
Subscribe for expert conversations on AI, automation, and the future of business.
hello everyone welcome to the navi shift
podcast powered by Nai my name is Dell
and I am one of the co-founders at Nai
I'm also here with Josh who is another
co-founder and we're here with a very
special guest today whose company is
redefined in accounting by using Ai and
Technology to create a proactive rather
than reactive approach it's David
co-founder of Utopia how are you David
yeah I'm good thank you I'm glad to hear
David So for those who may not be very
familiar could you give us a quick
overview of what Utopia does and how you
are transforming accounting yeah so
we're a small accounts practice that
didn't like the way compliance was being
done and a lot of accountants kind of
build build and focus on compliance they
give you the tax returns they give you
everything at the end of the period or
whenever it's it's due um in time to pay
your tax and that's about it we wanted
to be more of a finance director CFO
style Hands-On approach that help small
businesses achieve what they want to
achieve achieve their goals focus on
what they need to be doing rather than
paperwork and admin tasks in the
background so we we started building
that our two main focuses are technology
and the relationships so we're we're
building the relationships with the
clients we're becoming that that right
hand that person that they need for a
finance point of view
and then we're also using technology to
streamline and make sure everything is
working as efficiently as possible for
them and they don't have that stress to
worry about with the
numbers nice nice nice well we can't
wait to dive deep into you know more
about the AI side of things I'm pretty
sure our listeners will be you know
buzzing for this kind of content
especially a lot of people that are
working within this Niche or you know
other co-founders and you know business
owners within this niche so you know
today's conversation is about you know
real obstacles preventing you know
Financial Financial companies from you
know make making better decisions so the
three main you know areas that we will
will be exploring is you know the
biggest barriers to better Financial
decisionmaking turning insights into
action and the future of Utopia as well
so one of the first questions I did want
to ask yourself David is from your
experience what's the primary
reason Financial companies struggle to
make you know better decisions in your
opinion i' say it's it's down to the
information they have available so if
you're doing accounts or you're looking
at your numbers six months after it's
happened it's too late you can't you
can't make change you can't be agile you
can't work out what's going on and
you're already in that in that hole that
you've been getting into for six months
as I say so it's having quick
information ready to hand before you
make any of them decisions so one of the
main focuses is almost like management
account having that available so we're
on the on the 10th of the month if we're
talking about the previous month we need
to have that information already to make
sure we can get through now yeah um and
then it's actually sitting down and
going through the numbers some people
get the this information or have it
readily available but sitting down going
through it and holding yourself
accountable for it is another key thing
because for example people have it they
sit there and they kind of go yeah but
we've got sales coming in in the future
so there's not nothing nothing to worry
about we we'll see what happens in in a
month's time but you're just hiding from
the problem and that that's the problem
is you need somebody to hold you
accountable to say you know you want to
hit themselves figures you want to hit
that hit that goal at the end of the
year you've got to knuckle in now you've
got to buckle and and Achieve what you
want to achieve yeah sounds like you
guys would really want to stay ahead of
the cup absolutely yeah and do you think
um like Financial firms know how to
actually use this
information
um I think they
should however do they possibly not it's
it's a lot of it's also a lot of trial
and error at the beginning because what
what I might find useful you you don't
and it's what is useful for you at that
time as well because as you're growing a
business it's very different to if
you're trying to turn it profitable or
if you're if you're growing a business
and you're taking on an investment it's
a very different scenario as well
because you're your pro you don't need
the profit because you've got private
Equity or whatever is going on in the
background so there's a lot of
understanding and manipulating it to
work for your business but once you get
to that point uh it's it's definitely
about knowing numbers and understanding
a profit and loss understanding what's
on the balance sheet you don't need to
understand the balance sheet as such but
you just need to know because it's
affecting your business and as a
director there nobody cares about your
business more than you do so you've got
to you've got to know and understand
them them
numbers nice nice and just with that
there's a lot of uh seems like there's a
lot of decisions to be made and for for
a lot of Finance teams that are out
there what would you say are the most
common mistakes Finance teams make when
they are trying to enhance you know this
the decision-making
process for finance teams I'd say the
biggest problem they have is um this is
what's worked this is what's always
worked
and 30 years ago that same thing worked
well if you're still working how you
worked 30 years ago then you're not
running efficiently you're not keeping
up with technology you're not keeping up
with what's going on and there is so
much Tech out there that can drastically
change your
team
and the biggest problem I found with
Finance teams is essentially it's uh
being open to change it's having the
right mindset it's having the right
people in place that are willing
to learn new software do it slightly
differently challenge challenge the
numbers or challenge what's going what's
always happened um they have a tendency
to kind of go well you know we've always
done it this way we've always written
down these documents and posted them
here and done this but why and that's
that's the problem what because because
that's what I was taught 20 years ago 30
years ago which um I'd say that is the
biggest problem when it comes to it the
tech is probably there um well certainly
there is a lot of tech out there that
they're not using it's it's the mindset
and
training
uh the shift in
procedures nice I I like that phrase the
shift uh that's actually what we call
our podcast no shift but you you you
also said something that was interesting
as well which is um you know the times
have changed so there has been you know
transition and shift you actually did
mention on the podcast you you was with
uh Daniel or Sullivan you actually
mentioned that you know company should
be embracing AI now could could you
explain how AI can be leveraged to help
companies make better financial
decisions but it I mean it it all comes
down to timing and speed
and AI is able to give you that
information almost instantly it can work
much more
efficiently providing it's it's got the
right parameters in place and providing
it's been set up properly it's it's much
better at um analyzing data you know and
the problem is is from a financial point
of view everything is data and
everything has been built for a robotic
view like to produce a set of accounts
to produce numbers to look at numbers
it's it's robotic it's computerized so
if that's how we're building it then AI
is going to be able to pull it apart
much better than a human is and if you
can take the human out of it you take
the human era opportunities out um so
that's that's where I see it going is um
streamlining and
giving live information maybe you know
we're talking a couple of hours out but
essentially we're talking hours not not
if you go if I go back to my previous
practice that I used to work at they
were giving businesses their numbers
nine months after their year end so
we're talking this is 18 18 months out
of date how can you make a decision on
what happened 18 months ago as a small
business you know everything has changed
in 18 months yeah yeah that's it's Pro
it's pretty tough and harsh
and what would you say is some of the
toughest financial decisions account
firms face and how do you think they
could you know navigate them more
efficiently uh I said one of the biggest
problems at the moment is staff and it's
uh recruitment it's really hard to find
the right people it's really hard to
recruit it and and those who are good
are or have been over the last years
kind of demanding quite a good
salary which makes it very difficult
from an employer point of view and I
think AI is going to drastically change
that it's
enabling people who maybe haven't spent
10 years studying who
haven't had all the experiences that
probably is needed AI can have that
experience within an hour because you
can just upload everything to their
database um it's able to to do that and
then it'll be able to produce the
information uh we're we're actually just
talking about it now like um it can
analyze a p&l it can tell you what's
going on what what um targets to do what
summaries to have and and things like
that so it's going to make a huge
difference in feed
back what I think the role then becomes
for us is actually we become more of a
business coach we become more of
somebody who's holding you accountable
training you on what to look for what to
understand and what to go away and do
and then just making sure you actually
do what you said you will do yeah yeah
no I'm with you on that in terms of like
Talent would you go for someone like for
example if you were to hire someone
that's brand new uh into your company
would you go for someone that has more
experience understanding AI TOS over
someone that is you know completely
fresh to
it absolutely um I have to say we're on
a recruitment at the moment we're
looking for people and we are kind of
going we we've kind of gone two ways
we've got one person who is able to kind
of do the tech and we need them to be
able to do all the tech and understand
the tech and and do that side of it but
we're also going for somebody who's a
little bit more experienced that can
kind of just take that bit away from us
so they can they can do it all
to be honest it doesn't matter how it's
done it's just that it's done and it's
done correctly so um I have quite an
interesting conversation with people
about when it comes to like people using
Tech I'm more than happy with someone
being quote unquote lazy because they're
using AI to do all the work for them if
they're doing five times the amount of
work as someone else and it's all being
done to the same standard it's all being
done efficiently and correctly then
it just brings profit margins up and it
it makes everything work more
efficiently it works yeah yeah nice
would you say the tech aspect is kind of
more valuable than having the core
accounting skills in today's society or
would you still say the the fun M of
skills are still quite significant and
important at the moment I would
say accounting skills are still very
useful because when things go wrong or
when things aren't quite perfect you
need somebody who knows how to fix that
problem and you need to be able to go in
dive in understand what's going on but
from a 90% of the workflow side you
could have um AI doing it or you don't
need you don't need a person to be doing
that or a a technical person doing it
you could have anyone doing the work
using a bit of software that helps them
out it key bit is when it when it the
software doesn't quite get it right
because of
input what does that mean and how do
that you pick up on that and how are you
aware that that is not quite gone
perfectly so until I think maybe maybe
six months maybe nine months the
software is
are narrowed down on everything it's not
quite um quite there in my
opinion with you that's that's
insightful I did want to ask as well um
this is in relations to like bottlenecks
um how much of
the bottlenecks in financial decision-
making comes from internal processes
versus external factors like you know
regulations or market
conditions I would say a huge amount is
internal um getting hold of information
from internal team members is painful
getting hold of getting a decision um
especially when you start to go up the
ladder and you've got big companies
getting a decision from somebody is
extremely painful it's hard and nobody
wants to take that responsibility
so there is a huge number of bottlenecks
there
um the whole way through uh and PE
people are the biggest problem of I'd
say any business so the more you can
streamline the more you can cut back the
better the Amazing yeah so you're on a
want to say a rampage in terms of like
hiring but you are looking to get new
people in have you seen are you seeing
in the financial industry or your
industry that people are you know maybe
cutting down on you know highing new
stuff because of the tools that are
accessible to
people yeah absolutely so we're we're
actually getting work from it so
um in I guess in a nice way but um
companies of certain sizes are now kind
of going right well we can replace our
finance department of two or three
people and we can bring in kind of
part-time accountants that can do all
that or or fractional accountants or
however you want to kind of word it but
essentially us we can come in and become
their finance department and it's a lot
cheaper to use us than it is to use free
people on on the payroll paying National
Insurance paying pension costs paying
everything else so I'd say uh businesses
are definitely or slightly bigger
businesses are definitely getting to a
point now where they can do a lot more
without employing their Finance team or
they can they can streamline what
they're doing and they can reduce their
Finance team um and I mean all you've
got to do is look across look across the
big the big corporates and the
redundancies that are happening so far
and that will keep happening this year
is going to be huge and they're all
cutting back because they can because
they can be a lot more productive they
can be a lot more efficient
using different different procedures and
looking at things slightly differently
yeah yeah yeah it's yeah I definitely
think it's important for people to learn
about artificial intelligent tools to
get understanding of them because like
even you've mentioned for example if you
were to hire someone if they did have
the skills relevant to use AI tools you
know that would be a huge win in Factor
versus someone that doesn't which is
which is pretty interesting and you you
mentioned we've me what you've mentioned
today quite a few times um stream
streamlining I think it's it's it's huge
in the financial sector at the moment so
you use a toour called zero yeah yeah
yeah so where do you see you know the
biggest inefficiencies in traditional
Finance teams and how can automation you
know help them help them address
them so I mean there various different
things uh we're completely paperless and
the amount of companies that sit there
and still have somebody keying in they
keying it into their platform writing
the Day writing all the information out
and there's OCR readers or there's
software out there that can just screen
scrape the invoices and put them on the
systems for us um that's huge there's
things like we are we run a payroll we
ping across to you and say look you know
here's a 50 staff you have are you happy
to pay them these are the amounts you
click approve it does it for us the open
banking so we're talking like clicks of
a button and it makes everybody's life
easier but the amount of people who
aren't doing it or utilizing it it's
huge so I think we're still right on the
kind of bleeding edge of this sort of
technology and financial Financial teams
or financial departments are really uh
negative towards change they like they
like having the control they like having
it done the way it's always being done
and they tend to be stereotypical uh
Financial person without saying too much
more than
that I'm with you I'm with you how much
how much time is this is this automation
know these automations and streamlining
processes how much time has it saved you
you know if you were to look at it from
like a a week's worth of work how much
how much time has it saved to you reckon
throughout a
week well um we had a client that move
one client moved away from us um and we
had two of us in the team working
part-time on it
possibly um three hours a day on the
client they hired three people to take
over from us so that was three full-time
equivalents doing the same amount of
what arguably six hours a day was
happening um and then they felt like
they needed more they were they were
growing quite quickly and things like
that but a lot of what I do is actually
let's just shave 10 minutes off here and
10 minutes off there so like that that
payroll example actually for you to go
down and even just set up the bank
payment for 50 different people probably
takes half an hour to an hour whil
you're sat there and somebody get comes
over you get distracted you go back to
it then you get distracted again and
actually it's just one click of a button
so it's it's cutting that half an hour
down to a couple of
minutes right so would you say like are
you actually are you looking at any new
kind of AI tools or make automation to
kind of make life easier cuz I can see
see that you're all about streamlining
efficiency so I'm just kind of
intrigued yes I'm always looking at
different Tech every anything in
everything that is available I'm always
trying to work out what we can do where
we can cut where we can streamline
without losing quality I guess that's
probably the key thing does it cause a
headache for somebody else if it does
then it's not worth doing is it is it
making it life easier for everyone then
yes absolutely it's worth it um and and
you know even if it costs a couple of
quid it's still worth paying that money
just to make everyone's life easier
because time is something you don't get
back
nice nice he's he's ahead of the cup
guys head of the cup this this is where
your business owner this is this is you
know where you need to be um overall
right would you say that there are any
bottlenecks currently being experienced
by Utopia you know like what's been the
most difficult part of you know growing
your business yeah absolutely so you
know we're not we're not perfect
ourselves there's there's plenty that
we're doing so we we had probably 15
different apps and software this time
last year we've cut that down to about
six or seven um because the software is
improving constantly throughout the
throughout the time and they're
overlapping each other now so it's like
cutting back making sure we have
efficiencies making sure that we're
utilizing the software that we have
because the amount of businesses that
aren't um we have so me and my
co-partner co-founder Katherine we
essentially everything is coming to us
and it was bottlenecking on us so we've
bought in an accountant in place that
that now does all of that bit and now
we're looking at what bottle next we've
got now again um and it's it's
constantly you know there will always be
a bottleneck there will always be
something that you need to fix otherwise
you've got a perfect business and and
why why are you still here why aren't
you out enjoying that life um but it's
it's that key bit is trying to make sure
you're addressing it you're finding
Solutions and you're moving
forwards uh because it's easy it's easy
to fall into the same thing of we're
doing that it's working why why do we
need to change it um so yes absolutely
there's quite a few bottlenecks however
we are doing a lot so we've now got
Ultra wide screens like that are free
screens wide and and they're essential
for every team member and things like
that so we're we're doing a lot
internally to make sure that everybody
has everything that they need or we're
pushing everybody to keep
improving nice nice and with with the um
the processes well tools I should say
that you have cut down from were they
did you ever have anyone that you know
kind of like came into your came into
the office to teach people or was it
solely you understood how to use these
tools and you taught them yourself so
that's a big part of my role I'm I'm
huge into my gadgets I'm huge into my
tech I absolutely love both of them and
I get um I get distracted quite easily
so when somebody's trying to teach me I
get bored and I kind of go off on a
tangent anyway so what I tend to do is I
take the software on I kind of break it
I try and make it work I I build it into
the way that I won and then I've been
the one that rolls it out um I think
we're now getting to a size where it's
we're almost getting too big for that
and we need we need each person to kind
of own one part of it so that's what
we're currently doing is like having
almost at Champions we're calling it so
they are they're owning their app
they're coming back to us saying you
know we're not using these parts of the
tool what what do we do how do we do it
and and coming back which gives them
ownership and it Al makes them a bit
more accountable and they're they're
involved with it a bit more now yeah um
so yeah that that's kind of where we're
going with that at the moment nice nice
if if Financial companies you know want
to make better
decisions what is the most critical
change they would need to implement do
you
think um better decision so I guess
coming back to having that information
readily available at any given time so
if you can you can pull up your
financial data whatever it is that
you're looking at if you can pull that
up and analyze it or look at it within a
few minutes and you're looking at
yesterday's information or or last
week's information that's fine if you're
looking at last quarter or last year's
information you almost to you're too far
behind the world's changed in that time
your business has changed in that time
and the people around you have all
changed so it's outdated so the key
thing is just
having one I guess two two things I know
you mentioned one but two is like um
having somebody to pull you up on it so
if we if we were looking at the p&l
we're looking at that information and we
said the business is making a loss this
month what do we do okay we want to
double our sales next month
okay and then it's next month and we're
sat there going okay we've made a loss
again what's going to happen oh we need
to double it again next month you need
somebody there going what are you going
to do where are you going to get that
sales what how are you going to find
that what are you going to do to achieve
what you need to
achieve understood so I guess the two
main points are just up to the
information and having someone to take
accountability so I guess obviously with
you and know David that you have up
toate information and we saw on your I
think on the website or Lin that you are
doubling down on AI in 2025 so what does
that Intel what does that mean like what
specific improvements are you focused on
to enhance Financial
operations uh we are so we're looking at
recruiting two or three people in the
team we're looking at kind of pushing
that side of it and then we're we're
constantly going to expose talking to
different people I'm part of like uh
what's called an early adopter Hub which
is a lot of in Tech is involved it's
really quite useful so it's startups
that are bringing out Tech they go
through this course and there's a group
of accountants who I would argue is the
best in the country but um don't hold me
to that because there's no there no
rules on that but I would argue they're
the best in the country and they
basically pick it apart they say you
know this is useful this isn't this is
what we want this is how it would be
more useful for us and then the software
companies go away they they rebuild it
they come back before they this is
before they've even gone to Market
and then what happens is at the end of
that program they then decide they're
going to Market and they start selling
at that point so luckily for me I'm part
of that program and I get to give all
that feedback and I get to see what
companies are doing then we
have um massive Expos like digital
County show
accountex uh and there various others
don't hold me to just them too um but
they're the two that I like and I tend
to go to um
and it's trying to find the companies
out there that aren't like you've
mentioned I use zero everybody knows
zero Zero's kind of a
thing but that's not the one I'm looking
to see I don't want to know what's going
on with zero unless there's something
drastically they're changing I want to
find the small companies that are
starting up that are going to change the
world and they're going to do
things um so it's having conversations
it's talking to people like you guys and
it's talking to as many people as I can
to try and
understand what I'm missing if there is
anything I am
missing what with you what with you
taking taking things away from AI ever
so slightly I'm a I'm a person that
likes a story and I like adversity I'm
pretty sure you've seen Rocky all the
way up to all the way up to Creed but um
know it was been one of the hardest
decisions decisions that you've had to
make while growing Utopia you know how
did you overcome it and um how did it
feel hardest decision so when we first
started um well I I guess if I kind of
tell you how we started so um we decided
to go off on our own set up six months
before we so we we did loads of we did
like two years worth of research kind of
understanding what's going on how it's
all going to work six months prior to us
going on our own I bought a house got
mortgage great news um fast forward six
months I quit my job I go down to no
income and essentially I I Tak I'm
taking out 500 quid a month to pay the
mortgage and that's about it that's
about all I'm doing um desperately
trying to find work my business partner
is also done the same thing and she we
get to the point we had sort of like
five or six grand sat in the bank to get
us through the first couple of months
great that got us to one point and it
was drying up so she took out personal
loan I couldn't do it at the time my my
credit hit history had gone I couldn't
take out any money she took out a
personal loan put the money back into
the company again that's drying up we're
kind of sat here thinking like you know
this has got to work how do we make it
work I in the end went to job interviews
for an accountant or a bookkeeper and
I'd say you know we can do I can do it
or I can actually do it through the
company and we've got two clients from
it and that was enough to kind of
Kickstart and get things going um and
then there was one one day we sat in the
coldest at the train station waiting to
go to digital accountancy show actually
waiting to go to an event in London to
to learn about you know the industry and
what's going
on again we're still kind of at this
early stage we've only got these two
clients we're still not covering the
bills and we both said so 6:15 a.m.
do we stop do we give up like this is
not
working and ironically on the same train
was a client that we had a potential
client that we had given a proposal to
who came over and said yeah I'm going to
sign it all up tonight um just just let
me go through it all and I'll come back
to you by this evening and that was the
motivation we needed you know that
changed our whole day it kind
of kickstarted us got us going gave us
some motivation and we've probably had
some three points throughout the
business where we've gone is this going
to work do we do we give up like what do
we do we need to like look at it and and
take a step back and every time that's
happened something has given us the a
new client has signed up a new client
has approached us somebody has asked for
a quote and it's given us that
motivation to go you know what actually
this is going to work this is going to
make it and fortunately for us it it has
um a lot of hard work a lot of graft and
a lot of tiring days
but we we're now we're now coming out
the other end I think touch
Wood Wow David as you as you started the
story my face was kind of straight and
then as we lean towards the end I had
this smile on my face which was like
like you've dog for gold found it
story it's truly impressive I feel like
a lot of uh Founders business owners
they go through they go through that
trial and
tribulation but wow that's that's that's
amazing that's fired me up good good
that's the point yeah no that's good
that's good
so with Utopia is growing and it's
expanding it's reach you know you got a
really decent following on Instagram
I've seen that you're you know creating
a lot of content on YouTube and so forth
which is amazing what's been the biggest
learning
curve for you um to take every
opportunity you
can no opportunity is necessarily a bad
opportunity you know there's well I I
again looking at what I've done and
where I've been like uh I grew up in a
village like on a farm um wouldn't
expect to be an accountant and I got
invited a couple of years ago on a
skiing holiday
with um the top people in the industry
like
this was like huge it's a market leading
event there was about 20 of the top
accountants top software providers in
the industry all on this skiing
snowboarding trip um I've never been
before never done it but why not what's
the worst that can happen and I've built
some great relationships out of it I've
built some incredible friends and it
helps no end and I'd say that's the
thing that I've I've learned the most is
the opportunities that come around if
you can obviously you know it depends on
circumstances and things like that but
if you get an opportunity jump at it
with two hand two
feet um because you never know what's
going to happen on the back of
it nice how how's that ski trip did you
get oh it was incredible actually I
actually was snowboarding um and uh day
one couldn't even get on a on a LIF
because I ended up flat on my face and
these these French French guys were like
what the hell are you doing like they
shouting at me in French like Furious
because i' just gone flat on my face and
being dragged Along on this ski lift and
the snowboards in the snow behind me um
by the end of it I think I actually
tried to do a jump stupidly and ended up
doing a su assault and Landing fat on my
face but it was the most incredible
thing ever and I'm so glad I've learned
how to snowboard and I'd love to do any
trips if there are any in the future
amazing amazing
wish me luck I know I'm going ski in
April so hopefully I don't want to land
on my face or anything but I'm sure
you'll be fine fingers crossed David but
um where would you say uh Utopia is
heading within the next six to 12 months
the
moon um far enough to Mars no I I'll
take I'll take the moon
first um no we're we're slowly growing I
think we will will we'll be a team of
sort of hopefully sort of 12 people by
then um we'll
be I'll I'll be kind of one step out of
the business I'll be doing more of like
the sales and marketing side and I
weren't actually doing any of the
day-to-day work um the key thing that
we're doing at the moment is we we take
a day or half a day out and try and
focus on working on the business not in
the business and then it's that side of
it so it's trying to kind of come out
and focus on what I call is the fun
stuff the bits that I enjoy doing the
bits that I want to do and stepping away
from the dayto day so I think
potentially in a year's time we might
even double double in size we might um
be looking to kind of keep pushing and
see where we end up it's uh it's quite
an aggressive growth plan we've got and
we we achieved 50% year- on-year growth
for the first four years um year five
was a year because we we actually sacked
our two biggest clients and then we're
now kind of rebuilding
again
wow okay guys David's going to the Moon
not
Mars so David for for our listeners
where can you know where can people you
know find you where can they know learn
more about what you
do um yes so I mean I'm on I'd say
LinkedIn is probably the best best place
LinkedIn
is my only social media that I'm very
good on I'm not very good on any of the
others I I try but um no it's l LinkedIn
I have a lot a lot a lot of posts a lot
of kind of what's going on we've got
we've got our own channel on Spotify and
things like that we're building a
podcast as well so that's always great
but um personally send me a message on
LinkedIn