5pm – After what has been a fantastic day we end with some music. Thanks to everyone who has come to the Reckon National Conference. We’ll have more conference updates from Melbourne Park Function Centre tomorrow when Reckon Accredited Partners come together for #ReckonEngage.
4.40pm – The Reckon team, with Doug Sleeter, take questions from the audience. A lot of questions coming about Reckon Accounts Hosted – Zack Levy, our head of infrastructure, explains updates coming to the service in the months ahead.
4.20pm – Daniel Rabie announces that NAB will partner with Reckon to deliver Reckon Pay, a new payment solution.
Nathan from NAB says that together with Reckon they’ll be able to create a simplified experience, “Reckon handles the front end and NAB handles the back end”. He said that the device wil be like a “tiny eftpos terminal”. Certainly more on this to come!
4.10pm – Daniel Rabie, our strategic director, sets the scene to announce the soon-to-be released Reckon Pay solution. He says “72% of customers are left with a negative experience” when they can’t pay with credit card.
Daniel also says the vast majority of customers will spend more when they can pay with a card. He shared the story of a friend who runs a pop-up shop and is doing very well but doesn’t have a very good way of managing inventory.
2.20pm – And we can’t forget the most important part of the day – lunch! Interactive chefs served sushi, wraps and yoghurt.
12pm – The Reckon team is on stage sharing insights into trends occurring across the accounting industry today and provide an update on Reckon’s future strategy.
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Daniel Rabie, Reckon Strategic Director says “relationships are key to what we do in the future”. He outlined Reckon’s history and experience internally, “we’ve got the experience to understand the market and the strategic initiative to change the market.”
Sam Allert, MD of the professional group touched on what he calls “the reality” that accounting professionals are working with clients on various types of software but he wants there to be one process regardless. He says Reckon is focused on providing a way to streamline the way data is managed from beginning to end in accounting firms.
Pete Sanders, MD of the business group outlines Reckon’s commitment to desktop, hosted and cloud. He says each will have their role to play for our small businesses in the future. Follow the tweets from Reckon National Conference using #ReckonEngage
11.20am – Alan Oster, NAB’s Group Chief Economist, provides an economic update on trends occurring across the globe and in Australia. He gives an overview of where Australia is today, in particular business sentiment in light of political change. Alan covered a whole range of trends including the economy in Europe, retail sales in Australia and Australian house prices – “people are talking about property bubbles, that’s really early,” he said. Alan said his general comment on business sentiment is that “the weak are getting weaker but so are the stronger getting weaker”.
9.40am – Doug Sleeter is taking accounting professionals “on our tour” this morning raising many many questions about where the accounting industry is heading in the near future. He gave an overview of how technology has and continues to change and what it means for accounting professionals. He says we’ve all lived “in an old world” for the last few decades with clients in their office and accountants in their office. He then spoke about the various ways that files are shared in what he calls in the old world and limitations.
Doug has a view of “new world” where relationships and the way data is shared is different. “The new world provides an opportunity to do the things that have not been easy in the old world.”
8.20am – The Reckon National Conference is about to being at Melbourne Park Funtion Centre. We’re expecting more than 500 accounting professionals at the event that will feature keynote presentations from Doug Sleeter, founder of The Sleeter Group, Alan Oster, Group Chief Economist at NAB, and the Reckon team. Here’s a picture of the Reckon team on site at Melbourne Park Function Centre this morning.
You can join the conversation from the Reckon National Conference on Twitter using #ReckonEngage and #FutureofAccounting. We’ll also be posting regular updates on the Reckon Blog, just check back in throughout the day to see pictures from the event.
