Coaching club Proactive Accountants Network is taking to the US a dashboard tool for accounting firms to consolidate financial data and track clients’ KPIs. Unlike other dashboard apps, Panalytics includes a library of articles and videos to train accountants in selling advisory services.
Panalytics has been on sale since April and has over 400 accounting firms using it for businesses using online and desktop accounting software, the company said.
Panalytics consolidates accounting data from online accounting programs made by Xero, MYOB, Reckon and Saasu. The tool syncs daily giving accountants a near real-time view of the financial health of their clients’ businesses.
The accountant can set financial targets for clients and receives alerts if the client is moving above or below those goals.
The program will spot trends and alert the accountant to unearth business advisory opportunities, says Rob Nixon, CEO of the Proactive Accountants Network. “Right now the accountant must look for that data in Xero. This is pushing the data back in the clients’ face and (if there’s an issue) saying, ‘This is not good’.”
The program includes access to 130 hours of online learning created by Proactive Accountants Network. The material shows accountants how to improve a client’s business in different scenarios through business advisory services.
“The accountant might spot a receivables or payables number that’s gone south. We’ve got the methodology to teach the accountant what to do,” Nixon says. “We have systematised the process so a graduate or intermediate can do the analysis and the partner does the meeting. It fast tracks the learning of the accountant.”
The analytics tool works with desktop accounting software, although the data must initially be uploaded manually. This is a five-minute process after which the accountant can conduct a business performance review on the past three years of data.
“In that conversation the client says, How do I fix it? What do I need to improve? It segues into business advisory work for the accountant,” Nixon says.
A module that tracks rolling cashflow in real-time will be released later this year. The cashflow report is updated daily by online accounting software, Nixon says. A business could share access to the report with a bank wanting to assess a loan application.
Nixon is unfazed by Xero’s plans to add a dashboard to its own software, revealed recently at Xerocon. “The dashboard is just one part of it. Panalytics includes the consolidation of the data from multiple cloud sources, the way we have the alerts working, and the big differentiator is the content and methodology wrapped around that. No-one in the world has the content integrated with the data,” Nixon says.
The program costs A$499 per month for up to five users and an unlimited number of clients.