8th October, 2021
A large accounting firm swiftly migrated to Connected Ledger, with help from MYOB’s Concierge Service.
For 27 years, WMS Advisory has been helping its clients succeed in business and life. It’s one of the largest accounting firms on the Gold Coast, with approximately 70 team members who each bring a wealth of experience and knowledge.
The firm has always taken an agnostic approach to software – it’ll happily adapt to the different technologies and systems that work best for clients.
It’s also important that the tools are fit-for-purpose in an ever-changing digital environment. In support of that outlook, the firm recently migrated to MYOB’s Connected Ledger – and it’s been onwards and upwards ever since.
WMS Advisory at a glance:
For many years, WMS Advisory had been using MYOB’s BankLink product to automate the reconciliation of clients’ bank feeds.
While it had served the firm well, the software was an older version, and upgrading to an online tool not only made good business sense, but was also the best thing to do for clients.
“The key motivation was wanting to make sure that we’d taken the necessary steps before we had to have panicked conversations with our clients,” says Greg Merrick, system administrator.
The alternative was “a lot of time and damage to client relationships”, and that was something the firm didn’t want to risk.
“We try really hard to provide our clients with a better experience than those around us. So, the thought of having to say to them, ‘Not only are we moving you online, but we need you to do all this work’ – we just knew that wasn’t the conversation we wanted to be having,” Greg adds.
True to its agile relationship with technology, WMS Advisory put the decision in clients’ hands. While the firm considered several options, what made Connected Ledger stand out from the beginning was how little disruption was involved.
“One of the challenges you have with moving clients online is not only getting them used to new software but also the time involved to get their bank accounts connected,” Greg explains.
“With MYOB, the commentary was that bank feeds would remain live during the migration – I barely had to lift a finger!”
Greg says the whole migration process was unbelievably easy, and very little training was required to get staff and clients up to speed. The fact that clients can pay the same price for an even better (and cloud-based!) product, and not have to worry about any downtime, was what made MYOB’s Concierge Migration Service “phenomenal”.
“If I had to do all of that on my own, I probably would have pulled my hair out at some point,” Greg laughs.
Why the firm chose to upgrade with another MYOB product came down to user experience and intuitive design.
Greg says most people were able to “follow their noses” and that can be attributed to MYOB’s commitment to good design. And, if they need help, there’s additional material and tutorials they can fall back on.
“Usually, most people have found their way around with the knowledge-based articles available within the software, so they’ve been able to self-service their training.”
Shifting to the cloud has always been about the visibility of real-time data, and moving to MYOB’s Connected Ledger has done that for WMS Advisory’s clients.
The firm chose to migrate a niche group of clients – most of them have been able to operate comfortably for many years on BankLink. What they have now is easy access to status and entry reporting that they didn’t have before, and “that visibility in real-time has benefited them.”
It’s the little changes that have had the biggest impact, Greg says.
“You’re a business owner, and you want to know how you’re tracking. We can log in, show them how to run the report, and then they’ve got the balance sheet in front of them. It’s just nice to be able to give that to them straightaway.”
While these clients may not require a lot of daily attention, there’s always a risk that they could up and leave at any moment. Migrating to MYOB ensures that WMS Advisory continues to facilitate valuable client relationships.
“It might not have the same scale that we have with other groups of clients that we’ve moved to cloud solutions, but for this particular niche, the biggest benefit is being able to add more value to our partnership with them,” Greg explains.
Often, the biggest thing that holds people back from migrating to new technologies is fear. Greg says that’s something you don’t have to worry about with MYOB.
The first step is to realise that what you have now might not be the most cost-effective option for you anymore. Then there’s the fact that using outdated software only slows you down, and you “don’t want to end up in a situation where you’re forced to move quickly.”
Naturally, some clients were hesitant, Greg adds. But once they realised they’d be paying the same for more, “they could see it was a win-win.”
“Some people might expect the move to be quite disruptive. We moved a small batch to start and within a few days, we had everybody migrated.
“Honestly, it was such an easy process that’s really worth doing,” Greg says.
Already an MYOB Partner? Find out more about migrating your files to MYOB Connected Ledger today.