M&A, AI, and Industry Evolution

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Doug Lewis: All right. We are rolling. I believe rolling. I'm coming in hot for anyone actually watching. Let's just nip this in the bud right now. There is a there is a T-Rex just shredding a guitar behind me, which is okay. Um, this is a weird day for me, so I'm working out of my basement, and that's one of the few things my wife let me actually put up on the wall.

Matt Lescault: So where [00:00:30] does it come from? Is there a backstory to your your guitar playing T-Rex?

Doug Lewis: I mean, I just I was walking through, I don't know, one of those home, you know, decor stores and I saw this thing and I'm just like, yeah,

Emily Madere: You said, I don't care how much it is, it's coming home with me.

Doug Lewis: Of course, everyone has that one. You know, this is going to be a family heirloom at some point. Actually, I'm pretty sure.

Emily Madere: So that's lovely.

Doug Lewis: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: You never got it framed?

Doug Lewis: No, of course not. [00:01:00] It's one It's one of those canvas, like, you know, canvas y kind of ones. So I'm like, yeah, I mean, you don't you don't change perfection. Let's put it that way, Matt.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: I can't believe 2024 is over. I don't even feel like it began. It just it was it was such a a fast year, to be honest. I mean, I just I can't believe, uh, that we're here in 2025 and moving forward. What's going on in the in the accounting world? What's [00:01:30] going on for us individually? I think it's it's always good to reflect. Uh, what's really nice about, uh, the end of December and the beginning of January, at least in my firm, is our South African colleagues. Uh, that's their summer and they go away. And so kind of the 15th of December to the 15th of January is a little more of a quiet time, and it gives me an opportunity to have a little bit less meetings and have a little bit more time to think about what transpired. And I kept on just going [00:02:00] back to 2020 for, for for myself being such a transformative year as our organization, but as a person as well. I mean, hey guys, we kicked off this podcast in 2020 for this journey.

Doug Lewis: That was pivotal in the grand scheme of history.

Emily Madere: Pivotal and really changing people's lives.

Doug Lewis: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Hey, look, I'm I'm getting some interesting feedback, uh, out there, uh, through LinkedIn. I think people are digging what we're talking about. I think that we've seen a lot of, uh, great [00:02:30] traction with this podcast, and it's not an easy feat for us to sit here and come up with content every week or every other week. Uh, and Emily, you do a great job with that. But I kept on going back to transformative for myself. And I think I really want to hear Doug's take, because I just keep seeing all of the acquisitions and all the roll up happening in our industry, and it's just mind boggling to me. It's it's like the amount of money that's that's being shifted out there. And really what The. It seems like [00:03:00] the firms are focused focusing on what what they're driving from a value perspective. For me, if I go back to it, you know, 2023 was like my first year after acquiring the firms in South Africa. And 2024 was a year in which we really focused on how we we came together as an organization. And you can imagine that change creates disruption and and it's difficult for everybody. And so I would say as much transformative as challenging for us as an organization [00:03:30] for me. But what I really appreciated that about that was the learning. And for me, learning how to be a better leader, a better owner, a better manager, a you know, a better overall person, how to balance work and personal life, which I don't think I did a great job in 2024. And part of what I'm talking to myself about 2025 is how to be better at that. And I'm going to get off my soapbox and hand this over because we're all going to have a conversation, but just continuing to [00:04:00] deepen the relationship that that organization has with Sage and really understand the direction that Sage is going and what they're investing in. I've really I as much as it's transformative and challenging. It was a really fun year at the same time.

Doug Lewis: And you use transformative a couple times there, which is ironic, but we'll get into that in a second here.

Matt Lescault: I didn't mean I didn't mean to do that.

Doug Lewis: No. It was I think it was just a happy accident, which is great for you because usually your accidents are tragic. Emily, what do you want to kind of go next? Kick [00:04:30] it off.

Emily Madere: In 2024, there were some organizational changes within our Sage Intacct practice. So one of our key, um, leaders left, and I think I spent 20, 24, um, taking some of what she was doing. And I made it my own, which was a huge step for me professionally. Um, so if everyone listening and the guys. I've only been doing this for three years. Last Friday.

Matt Lescault: I saw your I saw your LinkedIn post with your little three year [00:05:00] candle and everything. Congratulations. I forgot to say something.

Emily Madere: No thank.

Matt Lescault: You. That's amazing.

Emily Madere: Um, so I haven't I haven't been doing this. This what I call my big girl job for that long. So I think, um, the the key leader, you know, moving, um, and me stepping up was was huge for my 2024. I, I think if I take a look back from, from 20, where I was in 2023, um, just professionally, I think I've elevated my, my speech what [00:05:30] I know about intact, how to interact with with clients, um, and how to interact with other individuals inside my firm. And like Matt said, we started this podcast, which is all about, you know, Sage Intacct. And if you ever go in my LinkedIn, I am a Sage Intacct enthusiast, so it's right up my alley. As for you know, personally, I think it's hard for people in general to just keep friends, right and maintain those friendships. So I really spent [00:06:00] my 2024. Um, personally, just keeping your friends, you know, making sure to text them every day. Hey, hey. How are you doing? What are you doing? You want to hang out this weekend? Do you want to grab lunch? Whatever it may be. And I probably spent too much time on TikTok, but, you know, we all have our crushes.

Doug Lewis: I still don't fully understand what TikTok is. I don't have one. Never had one. I know, I know that it's a social media platform. My wife is trying to explain it to me multiple times. I still don't get it. [00:06:30] Um, but I've heard it's very addicting.

Emily Madere: So yes.

Doug Lewis: I've.

Emily Madere: I've learned a lot. I haven't learned a lot all at the same time on TikTok.

Matt Lescault: Well, you have 75 more days with TikTok. At least.

Emily Madere: I know, I know, get my scrolls in.

Doug Lewis: I thought, we're.

Emily Madere: Not getting.

Doug Lewis: Charged, Matt. Come on.

Matt Lescault: That wasn't politics. That was not that was just charged here. That was just a fact, mister.

Doug Lewis: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into the political.

Matt Lescault: I did that for you. I did that for.

Doug Lewis: You, Doug. You laid the breadcrumbs, you know.

Emily Madere: Wait, so I need I think I need to know. I think our audience needs to know what [00:07:00] are the generations here? Well, Matt.

Matt Lescault: I think I'm the. I think I'm the oldest.

Doug Lewis: I, I think you're accurate there. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Do I have to actually say my age?

Emily Madere: No. Just say what?

Doug Lewis: Like. Yeah. What what generation are you technically. I'm.

Matt Lescault: I'm still technically a millennial, but I think I'm like, in the first 1 or 2 years of, of a millennial. So I think, uh, I, I teeter.

Doug Lewis: Sure. I'm also millennial. Uh, but I, I think I skew slightly the [00:07:30] other way on the, on the spectrum of millennial like where that cutoff is.

Matt Lescault: Anybody that's watching this on video knows that. Yeah, that's.

Doug Lewis: That's true because I'm just so young looking. You know I get that all the time. They're like, are you sure you're not you're not Gen Z. I'm like, yeah, I'm not.

Matt Lescault: No. Most people are like, you're not 50 already? I'm like, oh.

Doug Lewis: No, no. That's so that's the people that just hear me talk and don't see me when they meet. When I meet people for people for the first time, they're always like, oh. By [00:08:00] the way, you talked. I thought you were like in your late 50s, but that's okay.

Matt Lescault: It's a talent in itself. And then, Emily.

Emily Madere: I'm Gen Z, which it. This podcast, it adds a lot of different flavors and and generations and I and I love it. This is a good episode for folks who want to get to know us a little bit more. This is a good episode for you because I think all of us besides Doug are really nice people.

Matt Lescault: I [00:08:30] agree with you, Emily.

Emily Madere: Yeah, that's.

Doug Lewis: That's one way to look at it.

Emily Madere: Yeah, I had to throw that one.

Doug Lewis: I'll, uh, I'll pause this and then just attack you offline. How about that?

Matt Lescault: You have to get Louisiana in in the snow. How are you going to do that?

Doug Lewis: Oh, no. Snow. Wow. What's that? Never dealt with that in Chicago.

Matt Lescault: It's not you. It's everybody else in Louisiana.

Emily Madere: What is snow? It's snowing in the French Quarter right now in New Orleans, which is crazy. [00:09:00]

Doug Lewis: It's it's bizarre, but a lot going on. Matt. You you dropped previously unintentionally, by the way. Uh, transformative is kind of your, your theme of last year, which is it could be a really nice segue into this because Sage obviously just changed Sage transform their, their flagship, you know, annual conference into a Sage future 2025. If I'm not mistaken.

Matt Lescault: The future is bright. [00:09:30]

Doug Lewis: The future which which pairs nicely into an actual conversation that might get into some legitimate talking points. Why did they do this? Either one of you, you've you've been in the Sage ecosystem for a while now. Both of you. Why would they change the flagship conference name?

Emily Madere: So Matt may have some more details. He seems like he's always in the know No.

Matt Lescault: I get things so wrong so often though, when I, when I, when I just, you know, I just say it with such confidence and [00:10:00] then I realize I get it wrong. Like two weeks later I'm like, oh I hope nobody like fact checks me on that one.

Emily Madere: Someone did.

Matt Lescault: That. Somebody did. And we had a great, uh, we had a great demo of the Intuit Enterprise Suite, didn't we? Now we're waiting to do a follow up one. So we're not going to give anything away right now, but, uh, interesting, interesting things. Um, I have a guess. It could be completely wrong. Nobody from Sage called me up and said, hey, Matt, this is why we're doing it. And what do you think? Because they do not care what I think. Um, [00:10:30] is Sage transform really was centered around intact for the longest time, and I think this is really a launching point for Sage to be much more, uh, unified as a whole organization into one kind of customer partner, uh, conference regionally. So I suspect we'll have ours here. I suspect that the UK is going to have, uh, [00:11:00] their own and so forth. So you'll have kind of your UK and your North America big conferences, and I think you're not you're going to see it not just be about intact, but there's Sage HR. That's a big push that's coming out. And we had a little bit of a conversation recently on that. You know, they're still developing and putting resources into Sage X three as kind of their manufacturing arm that that competes with SAP, more of a product outside of the US market from my understanding, but [00:11:30] I don't have a lot of insight there. So my guess is, is that this is this is the next iteration. And, uh, approach that Sage is going to do is being one company, not a company of products, but one company with one direction the future. That's my guess.

Doug Lewis: What? So like, what would you compare that to from like another entity that kind of split pay or plays in that technology space, like somebody that's just branded as one group but has has the organizations beneath them, like, you know, if you had to kind [00:12:00] of draw a comparison out there, I mean.

Matt Lescault: I mean, you could talk about Oracle because you got NetSuite and SAP and things of that nature. Of course, they they go a little bit more upmarket from, uh, from an SAP perspective. You know, a lot of your other big players like your Salesforce, it is Salesforce. But Salesforce also gets like a billion people at their conference. You go to if you go to a conference, Dreamforce. Yeah, I've never been. But if you go to Vegas, it's like 60,000 people. That's I'm also exaggerating. [00:12:30] You know, just everybody in Vegas is there because of Salesforce. Sage is a more unique organization. It's one of the things that I really, really think there's a lot of value in. And let's take a take a thought process here. Um, Sage is a UK company, is traded on the London Stock Exchange and their market share and market Of penetration has been outside of North America for a long time, and they have this global presence. And they bought intact to to to [00:13:00] come into the US and North American marketplace. From a finance and accounting perspective, after the Peachtree acquisition did not exactly transpire in the best way. And they've invested deeply. We've talked about this before, invested deeply in intact being available for all the other all the other geos, and I don't think there's a lot of players into it's not doing it. Zero is not really doing their UK organization. Netsuite is kind of doing it, but they're still far more [00:13:30] of a US based solution, and Microsoft is kind of doing it. And Sage is really, in my opinion, I guess it's one man's opinion. My opinion, the product that has the most legs from a global perspective. And if I see if we talk about the future, if I see where business is going, just like myself acquiring a company in South Africa, and I love Doug to jump into this from other companies. I think you're seeing more and more businesses get their fingers into regions outside of just the US. And what are [00:14:00] you going to have to support you in that process from a operations systems component?

Doug Lewis: I mean, you touched on it earlier, the consolidation that you've seen, you know, recently in the accounting world just continues to pick up. And I don't personally see that trend changing anytime soon. Case in point, in my organization who just really focuses on accounting firm to accounting firm M&A transactions. So we closed 16 transactions in 2024. And going [00:14:30] into 2025 I'm talking at 1231. We already had 49 active deals in play going into the year before we even started the new year. So the consolidation continues to just it's a rapid pace, and now we're starting to see a little bit more of firms getting creative with, who they're acquiring, who they're trying to merge with all this fun stuff in the sense that it's it's not a secret. Accounting firms have been merging into other [00:15:00] entities outside of the accounting profession for a long time now, and, and acquiring firms themselves. So it's not uncommon for us to see an accounting firm who wants to acquire, let's say, some type of VAR or an HR consulting company or a managed IT provider, somebody outside of their normal space merge it into the accounting firm. I think I mentioned it a couple times before, one of a very, very large client of ours that owns and operates two independent hospitals under their accounting firm umbrella. So the lines of kind [00:15:30] of who's acquiring who out there are starting to get even more blurred than they have been. And I know this is not a new strategy, but we're seeing an uptick in this kind of more holistic view from an M&A process in the sense that, yes, there are still firms out there who are just trying to roll up other accounting firms and get larger and sell and do and do all this fun stuff.

Matt Lescault: Let's let's talk about them from strategy. I just have a question. When has become your two mile wide and inch deep versus being inch deep, and [00:16:00] I mean versus being a mile deep and an inch wide in what you're doing. I mean, this is the one thing that concerns me with some with some of this acquisitions and roll ups and the private equity, it's like, let's be an IT firm, let's be an audit firm. Let's be a tax firm. Let's be an outsourcing firm. Let's be technology firm. Let's let's now play into into marketing and all of this because, you know, our client base needs it. But at what point is it too much.

Doug Lewis: I don't think there's a good answer to that honestly. You know I think it's [00:16:30] it's smart to I don't want to say I don't want to say divest kind of your service lines a little bit. But, you know, when these firms are starting to really they're becoming more consulting firms than anything else out there that do a little bit of everything you like you alluded to. But when they do this, you know, the client need is always going to be there. And I think a lot of people are starting to look at the future of accounting and going, okay, we'll be able to automate this to a certain degree. Now, I'm not one of those people out there that [00:17:00] says artificial intelligence is going to come and knock out accounting jobs. I think that's foolish. I think accounting firms will be able to be much more efficient in how they operate in the traditional compliance services, so they won't need as much staffing in that area. So when you look at the other client needs that are out there, you look at like HR, right? Hr is a is a pretty human capital intensive endeavor for a lot of firms to take on.

Doug Lewis: You look at like managed IT services. It's similar in the sense that you can scale those quickly and the client base [00:17:30] already needs them. So I don't think it's as much trying to be an inch deep and a mile wide. A lot of these firms, I think a lot of firms are approaching this in the right way in the sense that we're solving the client's needs because they're coming to us with these problems. So now we have the ability to go out there and find these missing puzzle pieces, bring it in, and then service our base with them. Yeah, it'll generate more revenue if they do it right. And all this fun stuff. There's always going to be that selfish component as to why firms are really consolidating and rolling [00:18:00] up and trying to get creative with their M&A strategies. But a lot of it from, from my experience really comes down to that, that client service in the sense that they want to do right. These are deep relationships with these, with these clients, and it's just something that's going to help them even more in their professional journeys.

Matt Lescault: And I can see that. And I think there's a I think there's a certain place for it. You know, when I think about HR and a lot of times can fall under the CFO office, okay. So it's not that that big [00:18:30] of a big of a leap, but there's other components that it just at some point I start to get concerned for the consumer on whether they're getting the best services at the end of the day, and maybe they and maybe they are. And each firm is different. Let's be very clear. I'm not saying that a firm that's doing acquisitions is doing something wrong or not providing good solutions and and advisory level services to their clients across whatever they're doing. But again, I think when you start seeing so much private equity in which it's really driven [00:19:00] by profit first, that changes the value structure. And I know we're talking about look back and everything else, but that's that's what I've seen. And that's where my concern is like people are like, what are you going to do? Matt? Are you going to are you going to sell? And I keep going, like once I sell, I don't know if somebody's going to get bought by somebody that I'm not aligned with from a value and culture perspective. And so how would I protect myself in that, in that circumstance. And so it's a hard question for me, and one that I think is part of this sort of like transformative notion [00:19:30] I have for what 2024 is and what I'm thinking about for 2025. Also with the all this and Doug, I'm sure you see it is I saw a lot of churn in employee and staff churn in our space over the last year, and I'm sure it isn't just the last year, But, you know, Emily, you mentioned the woman that you were working for. I can I can rattle off a handful of firms. Heck, mine included that different people in leadership have had changed positions because [00:20:00] it's just cherry pick and cherry pick and cherry pick and, you know, around the industry.

Emily Madere: And it's not even an accounting firm or consulting firm specifically. I mean, you look at Sage.

Matt Lescault: Know, there's been a lot of movement people I know at sage and I think, I mean, what would you say, Doug, that that may not even be industry specific. That could be just employment rate. Unemployment rate specific. And then it's such a small employment unemployment rate right now that you can't find enough good people to do the work that you need to get done. And so it's [00:20:30] a, it's a game of, of filling the gaps.

Doug Lewis: It's kind of it is kind of like musical chairs right now when we look at staffing, not only in the accounting profession. So, you know, my organization is relatively well known for doing a lot of M&A work between accounting firms. Right. That's a That's a big piece of what we do. But there's a whole side of our business that helps firms figure out how to make themselves more profitable. And that's where we explore some of these different service lines. You know, we actually go through the hard numbers with these with these firms, we interview the partners and the staff and all this stuff one on [00:21:00] one. And, you know, oftentimes we start looking at the clients themselves inside the base of the of these accounting firms, and they're having almost mirror challenges when we look at specifically staffing, keeping staff, retaining staff, um, all this fun stuff. So it is kind of like this big game of musical chairs right now. The tides will always turn. You know, we've we've seen this before. Um, you know, our economy is very cyclical. Uh, regardless of what happens from from outside factors, there will be times when unemployment is near zero. And, [00:21:30] you know, it's it's a game of musical chairs. But we've been experiencing, I think, through Covid up until the past couple of years, but we're starting to see indicators from a lot of our clients we work with saying it's slowing down. It's not quite as rapid as Rabid as it used to be, in the sense that people aren't jumping at every single opportunity thinking the grass is going to be greener. Because we've seen the cycle now a lot, a lot of staff, whether they're, you know, entry level mid-level or leadership professionals across [00:22:00] all industries have jumped around quite a bit these last really 5 to 6 years. And I think we're starting to see it slow down because people are realizing the grass isn't always greener. You know, an extra five, 10%, 20% jump in comp might not necessarily be worth it to continue doing this or work for an organization that I'm not culturally aligned with.

Matt Lescault: All right. Well, I think that's a that's a big a big thing, at least as an owner as, as a, as a leader within my own [00:22:30] organization is how do you make sure you maintain culture through acquisitions, and then how do you align who you're hiring with that culture that you want to drive? And let's be very clear. Every business has their own culture. There's nothing wrong with one with one person's culture versus the other. It's just you want to align people that have similar cultures, because then you're going to deliver in a similar way, and there's going to be consistency and continuity around the product that you do. So I don't I this is not a culture shaming moment by any means. I don't I don't want to go there [00:23:00] because I don't think that's fair. But uh, it's been a, uh, I my question for you, Doug goes, uh, goes into you said 49in the pipeline, 16 closed last year. At this time last year, how many were in your pipeline? What is the trajectory look like for you? Is was there 30 in the pipeline? 16. So 49 means you're going to have a 40% increase and you're going to be doing 2022. I did not do that math in my head, by the way.

Doug Lewis: Um, no worries. A usual cycle for us historically has been [00:23:30] going into January 1st. We'll start at less than ten legitimate opportunities on the table at any given time that were carryovers from the previous year. So our sales cycle in these these type of transactions can can drag on sometimes all the way up to like 18 months. And we've had some that are two plus years in that cycle. So usually it's nowhere near this, this amount of activity.

Matt Lescault: So it's a 4 to 5 x.

Doug Lewis: Oh yeah. Easily. And that's without that's without starting the year and hitting the ground running. Um [00:24:00] so we expect that to skyrocket even more, even more in the next realistically 3 to 4 months here. Because coming out of a busy season coming out of April, uh, all hell breaks loose. So that's that's when a lot of stuff starts shaking loose and all this crazy stuff, you know? But it's it's just not slowing down at any time. Um, now we're starting to see a lot of the M&A activity dip a little bit lower than it's been in terms of target sizes and all that fun stuff. So we're seeing smaller and smaller practices [00:24:30] starting to get, um, into serious conversations with prospective acquirers because these acquirers have nowhere else to go but downstream in terms of size. So there's going to be a lot of that this year. And there's a lot of confusion around, you know, firm valuations cash components in these transactions. You know is private equity right for you. Should you go to an independent firm. You know how important is geography. All these all these things just continue to change. It's fun. So you know I for better or worse, I'm invited to speak at a lot of different [00:25:00] events around the around the industry. Um, every year. And I always, I always tell people, you know, when I start, everything we talk about right now is going to be completely different three months from now. And it's always true because that's how fast all of this is changing in the accounting profession. When we look at the M&A world specifically, I mean, hell, by the end of today, I mean things things could be worlds apart from where they were right now. It's just that's it's just so quick.

Matt Lescault: So what I want to do is [00:25:30] I want to I want to put Emily slightly on the spot. I'm not, I'm not I'm not going to be mean to you, Emily, by any means. But, you know, we talked about kind of generational. You're Gen Z, you just you you just celebrated your three years. Uh, with the firm. I'm not going to ask you to speak specifically about your firm. I don't think that's fair to to to put you out there, but what do you look for? What's most important to you when it comes to who you work for and what, uh, what you see around the industry in general? Again, I'm not looking for any [00:26:00] specifics around Eisner or anything else like that, but kind of like your your take is kind of, you know, Doug, he's an owner. I'm an owner.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: We don't have the same view. Yeah, we have a different viewpoint.

Emily Madere: So it's actually a funny that you brought this up. So I was having a conversations with my, um, my, my good friends about, you know, work, some work in banking, some works at hospitals, some does, some do sales, whatever. We run the gamut of of [00:26:30] what we do. And, um, we were talking because one of the girls got a new job and, um, we were all kind of saying like, what's important. And the general consensus was, and this is in no particular order Was. It needs to be a culture fit. So you need to like who you're working for and who your team is. And the second one was compensation. Okay. So most of most of my friends are like 25, 26, 27, 28 maybe. And those are those are the two things I think we all had a consensus on what [00:27:00] was important. Um, and we even, we even hate to, to factor in compensation. Um, but but for us it is important. You know, it it just is.

Matt Lescault: Well, let's be fair. It's not like things have gotten cheaper recently. It's not like buying a house is, you know, in line with what, you know, wage inflation has done. It's not like groceries are cheaper. And again, I'm not going political with you, Doug. Don't worry. Uh, but it doesn't surprise me that compensation has [00:27:30] moved because, I mean, historically, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, compensation ended up being for 4 to 3, 3 to 4 on the list of what was most important for, uh, for people. And I think it really has, uh, inched upwards. And we all know that that and it's a reality for an owner that the way that people get paid more is to go other places, which is really interesting. It's a really interesting conundrum. To be in as a, as an owner is like, so the expectation [00:28:00] is I'll get more from somebody else than where I'm at. And how do we have a better conversation around that as employers and employees, especially in an industry like ours where it's heavily, heavily competitive and and there's obviously a demand need. So I see we were talking about the industry. I see 2025 as a kind of continuance of that of, you know, having having to figure out what the right balance is from a, from a compensation component for, uh, [00:28:30] for our industry. What is M&A? How is that going to play into it? How is I we haven't really talked about it. I think everybody's talking about AI. And I don't know that we need to get deep into that. But how is technology going to change the the the playing field within the organization? I think there could be a whole different conversation.

Emily Madere: Um, but on the topic of AI, do y'all use AI? Y'all use it every day. Every other day?

Matt Lescault: Yes.

Doug Lewis: Uh, I personally don't, but I know that several of the people inside my organization do.

Matt Lescault: I, [00:29:00] I have ChatGPT up basically at all times on my on my screen. Um, I could use it as simply as a search engine. Meaning, help me find this, because it'll do it faster than me all the way to comparing documents. Comparing lists. Uh, and you think, well, why is the owner doing that? Well, at some point, sometimes I get two sets of information, give me the differences. And obviously there's different prompts on doing that. Don't forget, I think that you probably use [00:29:30] AI when you don't know it. Um, Emily, I assume that you have an expense reimbursement product that your company is that uses. And then when you go on travel as a Sales person you use to submit your expense reimbursement. There's AI in that.

Emily Madere: I do, I do, yeah.

Doug Lewis: Ai advertisements. No free advertisements.

Matt Lescault: Hold on.

Doug Lewis: Go for it.

Emily Madere: Um, yeah. I use AI often. Every day, multiple times a day. And it it it helps me so much in [00:30:00] my job. I mean, could I do my job without AI, but I. Yes, but I have it, so why not use it?

Matt Lescault: Why? Why would you why why would you not use it? And there's, there's some interesting things and I mean, one of, one of, one of the things that I'm interested in exploring more is how firms and I, I would say how mid to smaller level firms are deploying AI in an organizational mentality, not an individual. I think there's a lot of firms that X person [00:30:30] is using it to do something another person is using to do something, but there's not really a coordinated effort with guided, uh, Application. Now I could be wrong. I don't sit in all these different firms, but from.

Doug Lewis: Could you just for for kind of my, my curiosity could you define what you would, would classify as middle to small firms. You know from a size perspective people, revenue, whatever.

Matt Lescault: So I'm thinking anywhere from 20 on the small side, you know, because if you're in a if you're going to deploy [00:31:00] something from an organization, you have to have some sort of organizational structure up to anywhere 250 to 300.

Doug Lewis: Sure. Okay.

Matt Lescault: And I think once you get over that, there's there's a gray area. We both know that upper mid however you want to however you want to talk about that. But um, I mean I talked to the firms that are 80 to 120 people frequently, probably more than some of those upper ones that that you do. And it really is deployed on an individualistic basis and not from an not from an organizational mentality. And actually, [00:31:30] if you look at 2025, it's one of my goals. How do I kind of create a a I office within our organization, not organization, not necessarily to deploy AI for customer solutions, but deploy AI for internal solutions. The simple one that I that I will talk about, um, is taking transcriptions of sales calls and turning them into project action plans when a implementation is signed. It's knowledge transfer and [00:32:00] summarizing that and talking about risks and mitigating risks and so forth. Deploy that in a way, that is how every single one of your scopers is, is delivering a project to the project team, and now you're changing the quality of service that you're providing the client. But it's an internal solution, because I could sit there and I could I could get on a meeting with Emily, and Emily can say, hey, Matt, I did this scoping. I signed this client. Here's everything you need to know by memory and, [00:32:30] oh, here's a transcript. Read it when you get a chance. Or we have trained an AI bot to extract the Extract information sometimes. Emily, you know this. Sometimes our scoping calls are five different meetings, and there's a ton of information, and it's hard to translate that one simple use case for it.

Doug Lewis: You brought up an interesting point there too, like internal use versus external client use. When we talk about artificial intelligence or any type of RPA or any automation inside firms. So [00:33:00] this will be I know we're getting a little long in the tooth on this one, so I'll I'll keep this relatively short. But I'm seeing a lot of people out there now. And uh, I guess I would classify them as counting influencer. I don't know how else to do it. People who are throwing a lot of this information around on social media and everything, trying to be like industry experts and consultants who don't actually do anything or never have run a firm or any of this stuff. I'm seeing a lot of language around what buyers [00:33:30] want for accounting firms is a fully automated owner removed turnkey strategy.

Doug Lewis: And my God, I couldn't. I could not disagree with that more because so much of the accounting profession is relationship driven. I mean.

Matt Lescault: It goes deeper than that. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's give a shout out, you know, earmark produces this podcast and they have the Accounting Cloud podcast. And it's I think the number one most popular accounting podcast out there. And if you [00:34:00] if you take a look at the content that they're putting out, it's good information. It's centered around this topic came up in one of their episodes. They talked about the bench, uh, bankruptcy. They've talked about, uh, how what the different messaging is going on and so forth. And, you know, I think figure out who you trust and what information that you're driving down because guess what? Ai is going to be an assistant. [00:34:30] It's going to make you more efficient. It's going to make you able to consume information at a higher rate. It's going to make you have to do less menial tasks. Uh, and I don't I never like to use menial because I could offend somebody, but less tactical tasks and it will allow us. This is like I always bring it back to the telephone. There was one time when somebody was sitting there changing the wires to get phone calls. Is anybody [00:35:00] mad that we don't have to do anymore? Is anybody mad that they really don't have a phone, a home phone and everything? Cell phone. I mean, let's let's let's talk about where this is going to drive us and let's not be protectionists.

Doug Lewis: I agree it's going to increase your leverage inside firms. And that's what it's going to do increase efficiency, all this fun stuff. But it's never going to replace the the the deep relationships that come with the true high value clients inside accounting firms. It's just never.

Matt Lescault: Well and it's not going to replace those individuals that care about advising [00:35:30] their clients.

Doug Lewis: Yeah.

Matt Lescault: Providing guidance that requires a degree of of nuance that I don't think I is necessarily going to get at the end of the day, because what matters to you, Doug, versus what matters to Emily, could have everything to do with something that is not written down or not obvious. It could be just an expression where you're from, what your background is, and those things [00:36:00] is where as your point, Doug, relationships matter.

Emily Madere: Yeah.

Emily Madere: Yeah, people. People buy from people. People continue to work from people. No. And I don't think that'll ever change.

Matt Lescault: No. And if it does, we can just keep talking and somebody will listen to us.

Emily Madere: We can. We can keep yapping. That's right.

Matt Lescault: Um, I mean, so I think there's a lot that's going to happen with AI, and I want to be. I don't want to say involved, but I want I [00:36:30] want it to help me, help me, help me, you know?

Emily Madere: Yeah, I agree. Help me. Help my clients.

Matt Lescault: Yes, but if it helps me, help me. I'm going to help my clients because I'm my own worst enemy at times.

Doug Lewis: All times. So as more information kind of trickles out on on Sage future, we'll we'll touch back on it a little bit. But any any kind of.

Emily Madere: A thing about Sage future. Let me give the dates.

Matt Lescault: Oh, [00:37:00] right. Right. We're in June, I.

Doug Lewis: Think pretty much all that's out there right now. Yeah, that's in Atlanta. That's about it. That's all we know.

Emily Madere: Oh my. How did you know? Oh, yeah. Sage future is in, um, June 3rd through June 5th, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. Save the date. So who will be there?

Matt Lescault: Me.

Emily Madere: Me?

Matt Lescault: Doug.

Doug Lewis: That's a that's a hard. Maybe. We'll see. Maybe we'll see if the travel schedule allows it. Yeah.

Matt Lescault: We'll [00:37:30] see. Everybody knows it's only going to be me and Emily. Please, if you want to see a fantastic road show podcast, that's where to find it. I'm actually not being honest at all about this. I think there'd be about I think they're expecting like 5000 people or something of that nature.

Doug Lewis: Might line up some good interviews there on site if we can make that happen, but they should be releasing a lot of like the speakers and sessions and all that fun stuff and hopefully the upcoming weeks here. So we'll keep trickling back and touching on that as it comes out.

Matt Lescault: Yep. One of things we're trying to do, [00:38:00] and we touched on this recently, is we have a list of the platinum award winners from Sage for 2024, and we're hoping to get some of those individuals on as guests. My big goal for the podcast this year is guests. Guests, guests means I get to speak less and you get better content.

Doug Lewis: Very true. Anything with you speaking less, I think myself, Emily, all listeners are fully on board, man. So we're good there.

Matt Lescault: You know, all the comments we get is that Doug needs to talk less. [00:38:30]

Doug Lewis: Really? That's weird, because all the comments I get are I love you. Everyone else is worthless. You're the only thing that makes this engine tick. No. It's okay.

Matt Lescault: Emily, what you have to realize is, like, the only person he talks to on a regular basis is his father, Bob. So.

Doug Lewis: No. No, I talked to my mom all the time.

Emily Madere: So, listeners, if you if you have anything you want us to speak on or speak less about or hear Matt yap less or you're [00:39:00] done, please just not join the podcast. Just let us know.

Doug Lewis: Hey love.

Emily Madere: It.

Matt Lescault: I think that's a very key thing there, Emily. If there's other information that you want to hear about, contact us directly through LinkedIn. Make a comment. But if you message us directly, we're more likely to get it. Um, what's going to drive the success of this podcast? And your interest in it is information that you care about, and only you know that.

Doug Lewis: So I actually I have had people come up to me, you know, at random conferences or events [00:39:30] and say, oh yeah, Sage Intacct podcast. I listen, You guys are great. You're awesome. So, like, people are listening. This is great. We're getting a little more traction, but we're going to bring in some hopefully heavy hitter interviews, uh, this year, which will make it even more exciting for everybody. So so stay tuned as we start releasing kind of who's going to be coming up, uh, on our calendar. It'll be a good year. It'll be a fun year. And I always I'll, I'll I'll kind of leave it to the two of you. I always throw the offer out. It's rarely ever taken. But to either one of you have just a phenomenal, terrible dad joke to end this bad boy with. [00:40:00]

Matt Lescault: No.

Emily Madere: Yeah. I actually did the the, um, one Doug when you weren't here, so it was phenomenally bad. So I'm gonna leave this one up to you.

Doug Lewis: All right. All right, let's see here. Go through the old Rolodex. Why should you never iron a four leaf clover?

Emily Madere: Crickets. I don't know why.

Doug Lewis: Matt, [00:40:30] you got a guess?

Matt Lescault: I don't.

Doug Lewis: Because it's bad to press your luck.

Emily Madere: Ah, that was a good one. Oh, a good one.

Doug Lewis: Oh. The disappointment.

Emily Madere: Oh.

Doug Lewis: I feed off of the disappointment. And which I love it. Yeah. Which is so sad.

Matt Lescault: I'm sad. I'm so very sad that I can't get these. They're so dumb.

Doug Lewis: Well, usually usually they're they're not that hard. Usually. They've definitely [00:41:00] been gotten before.

Matt Lescault: That's true.

Matt Lescault: That's true.

Doug Lewis: Yeah. That was one of the rare miss for me, but I think that's a good spot to wrap it. We'll keep leaking out. More information on Sage futures, not Sage transform 2025. And we're lining up our interviews, guests, speakers, whatever you want to call it for upcoming episodes. So it's going to be an exciting, fun year. Thanks for listening, everybody, and we'll talk to you soon.