“I would challenge the words account and accountant, because we are no longer just looking at the financial data. I think the expectation is to look at the business data holistically and become a trusted advisor for the business owner”.

– Viral Kanabar, Co-founder, Cloudoffis.

“You are actually there to understand the nuances of business through finance, you know, through accounting. Then bring that value out to your customers. I think that’s where your time should be spent”.

– Manish Sheladia, Co-founder, Cloudoffis.

Today I’m speaking with Cloudoffis co-founders Viral Kanabar and Manish Sheladia.

In this episode, we talk about . . .

  • Cloudoffis’ journey from SMSF audit automation to AI-first tax workpaper solution, TaxSorted.
  • Their goal is to create a complete cloud-based operating system for accounting firms.
  • The shift from manual processes (PDFs, Excel) to seamless AI-enhanced workflows.
  • The importance of integrations with BGL, Class, FYI Docs, and the ATO.
  • Key challenges facing accounting firms: time poverty, tech adoption hesitation, and rising compliance pressures.
  • Cloudoffis’ approach to fostering startup culture internally with hackathons and open innovation.
  • Vision for accountants to evolve into business analysts and trusted advisors, moving beyond data entry.
  • Viral’s reflections on attending leadership events and staying energised.
  • Plans for international expansion into the US, UK, and Canada.

Here are your key takeaways:

  • Automation and AI can free accountants from repetitive tasks, enabling more strategic advisory work.
  • Building contextual, seamless AI into workflows is key to improving both efficiency and client outcomes.
  • Collaboration with tech partners and embracing startup thinking drives ongoing innovation.

Cloudoffis began its journey by supporting SMSF auditors and accountants with automated workflows, work papers, and collaboration tools that drive efficiency, compliance, and standardisation across their practices. With over 20% of Australian SMSFs now audited through the Cloudoffis platform, Cloudoffis has become the trusted brand for more than 2,000 auditing and accounting firms across Australia.

In 2024, due to popular demand from tax teams looking for the same benefits their SMSF teams were experiencing, Cloudoffis launched Tax Sorted – a new AI-first tax work paper. Tax Sorted streamlines the preparation, review, and approval of tax work papers for both businesses and individuals, enhancing efficiency and compliance across the Australian accounting market.

For those looking to earn free CPE, be sure to head over to EarMarkApp and take one of my CPE-approved courses based on my Accounting Apps podcast!

Scroll down for a full transcript

This transcript has been generated and transcribed by AI

How has your week been?

Viral Kanabar

Week has been fantastic so far, Heather. Thank you for bringing us to this podcast.

Manish Sheladia

Thank you, Heather. Week has been great. Actually, we started with celebrating Mother’s Day, you know, kind of Sunday. In fact, I took my family and four mothers to his restaurant. That was fantastic to kick off the kick after, you know, week, yeah, it’s been great.

Heather Smith

That’s fabulous. Your friends are supporting each other’s other businesses as well. Fantastic.

Where am I talking to you? Where are you at the moment?

Manish

We both are in India right now. This is a city called Ahmedabad (on the western side of India), and you can see the weather difference, you know. We are half sleep, and you guys are probably cold out there. So yeah.

Heather

It is getting colder. It’s warm in my room, but it is absolutely getting colder. So before we dive into talking about Cloudoffis, I’d like to start by rewinding to your mid 20s and ask each of you.

What kind of environment were you growing up in, and what were the early influences that shaped you to who you are today? Can I start with you, Manish?

Manish

Wow, that’s walk down the memory lane. Fantastic. So, you know, I can recall my early days. I was very clear that I wanted to pursue computers. I just loved that subject. So when I graduated, you know, the first years were just to grab knowledge and understand how this whole thing works.

Manish

But then when I start getting into the depths of it, what really kind of was interesting is that brought me to lot of different disciplines of different businesses. So I get to work with lot of different industries. I would say my early 20s, late 20s and early 30s, I had a chance to work with so many different industries across the globe. I spent about three or four years, first in India after I graduated, and then I moved to the US. There I work with, you know, really big corporations, big companies, understood their processes, the kind of problems they were kind of solving. And imagine that 20 years old, working in a hot kind of environment in Silicon Valley. Everything is, you know, kind of buzzing around you. So many things are happening. Every day there are companies coming up, and they are going in valuation like millions, right?

Manish

It was so much buzzing, and that was very exciting time. But that also taught me a good lessons of, what are the principles of business, what is the real business versus what is kind of a bubble business, right? So these were my four, my formative years, I would say. That has set me up for rest of my career, where I could build companies and teams that really brought changes in the field that we started working in and, you know. I would say my 20s were really, really foundational of my career from that perspective.

Heather

Thank you for that. I like the term. I identified real and bubble businesses.

Viral, what was your environment like in your 20s, and how did that shape you, and what were the influences around you?

Viral

Yeah, no, like Manish, I probably am more of an accidental accountant. I happened to become an accountant, but then,obviously I fall in love with with accounting. But I’ve always looked at accounting is more than a practice. That’s why I always wanted to start something which is related to accounting, but lot more scalable.

Viral

This is where, in my early 20s, when, you know, it was too early even in Australia to talk about outsourcing. I started my outsourcing business back in 2006 where I used to kind of use DHL to send the courier to India to get the data entry done and bring it back. Now it’s quite fascinating to see from DHL to launching cloud office and having AI, you know, helping accountants to automate the, you know, the mundane tasks.

Viral

Obviously I’m qualified chartered accountant, you know, who has been into the public practice, understands the pain areas and nuances of what public practice accountants go through, day in, day out. I can feel that pain, and this is where you know my motivation comes from.

Heather

Thank you to both of you for answering that. You must see. Have seen some technology changes in terms of courier to India. It must have taken quite some time as well, like 2006 even in a courier, it would have taken days to get there.

Could you take us back to when you both first met?

Viral

Maybe I can start. So, you know, as I said, 2006 is where, you know, I wanted to start, you know, offshoring. So I ended up in the city in India. That’s where I met Manish, which, you know, he was really doing software outsourcing from the US at that time. And that’s how I kind of, you know, we caught up. And obviously, you know, he was running his technology business, and while I was building my account outsourcing business. And that’s how kind of, you know, we, we caught up. So we know each other since 2006, about 20, almost 20 years now.

What was that moment when you realised you’d work well together?

Manish

I think the chemistry was there, you know? I mean, it was just very easy to be friends, although meeting, I mean, we met for specific purpose, but it was very easy to see that, Hey, our lens really match. We liked to hang out together. And, you know, there were some social occasions. There were some common friends, and that’s how we kept on meeting. That kind of friendship grew quite a bit. So then when, you know, when I was kind of ready to branch out and do something new, he said, Hey, you know, there is a big market called Australia, and there is lot to be done over there. Why don’t we explore that? And that was something, you know, this whole Association started.

Manish

I was more focused on US and India at that time, but then he brought me to Australia.

Heather

Fantastic, fantastic.

Heather

So together, or maybe it’s Viral. You saw the need to create the business. What was the catalyst for that you want? You saw Australia was a market. You understood accountant pain points.

What was the catalyst for starting Cloudoffis?

Viral

No, I think it’s my passion to kind of, you know, solve the problem at the industry level, right? And this is where, you know, I was just talking to him, and we were discussing. One of the problems I identified was the very complex and very niche market, which is the self managed super fund. What we saw was that, you know, some of the, some of the parts of SMSF accounting was on cloud. But when you, when you talk about the auditing and handshaking between accountants and auditors, they were all kind of, you know, manual, PDF and Excel.

Viral

So you could see, you know, accountants having a fantastic experience while doing it in on, you know, let’s say Class or BGL, doing the accounting. But as soon as they finish that work, all of a sudden that experience would just go down to, you know, in Excel, in PDF. And I explained that problem to Manish. You know, hey, this is the problem. And he said, Look, I think we can solve that problem. And this is where, I think the first product, which is the SMSF audit automation, the idea was born.

Heather

So for our overseas listeners here in Australia, SMSF is self managed super fund, which is essentially how some Australians will choose to manage their superannuation or their pension, depending on what you call it in your country.

Heather

I did briefly introduced Cloudoffis at the start of the interview, but I’d like to throw over to you.

How do you describe Cloudoffis when you meet people? What do you say your business does?

Manish

See, our vision behind Cloudoffis is to kind of, you know, the name itself, basically, we want to bring cloud technology in offices, right? Across the board in different industries, the level of adoption of cloud and the automation varies. So the first industry we took is accounting industry. And within that we said, well, if you focus on SMSF, that’s a niche market.

Manish

Like what Viral was saying, There’s lot to be done. There is one portion where there is nothing really substantially exists. So there is a good opportunity for us to really, you know, build our team, build our processes, understand the market, gain that experience, and then really launch the bigger kind of automation and bigger problem solving for the larger industry, right?

Manish

From from that thought process, we started working towards building solutions for SMSF, and now, you know, we are doing pretty good in SMSF industry itself, and on top of that, now we have a really super product for our, you know, business services as well, right? So that’s kind of a vision of building software, cloud-based software, for industries and starting with accounting industry. That’s how we started.

Heather

Fantastic. Thank you for that.

Cloudoffis talks about creating a complete operating system for accountants. What does that look and feel like in the practice?

Viral

What I’m seeing even now as well, is that, you know, accounting practices might be using one tool for managing the workflow, another tool for preparing the work paper file. Then there is another tool we would be using for managing your ATO documents. And then you know you also have some other tools which you might be using for analytics and business insights and all of that, right?

Viral

I see all of all of them as a one connected platform where accountants are kind of, you know, managing their workflow, preparing their work paper file, managing the efficiency running there you know the ATO and ASIC’s documents on one platform. Contextually, data and documents needs to flow together wherever the accountants are, actually at any stage accountants are working. So this is where I think that there is a there is a great opportunity for Cloudoffis to actually become an an operating system for accountants office.

Heather

Thank you for sharing that. It does seem I first came across you your business at the BGL Reg Tech Tour. And those relationships and those partnerships with technology first, firms like BGL and like Class are really important, and I presume Xero are really important to you.

Can you talk about that and how you navigate and manage your partnerships?

Manish

Yeah. So we work in an ecosystem, right? So these are the players who have already solved one sort of problems. And what we are trying to do is to see if they have done a really good job of that, then how can we augment the remaining part of it. We strengthen somebody who has already invested in that product? And how do they get better ROI of not only that investment, but also the new one that they are we are bringing in. So all their overall efficiency and overall compliance level goes up.

Manish

Let it be BGL, Class or Xero, our mantra is saying, basically, how do you get, you know, kind of better returns of what you have already invested? In that process, we don’t ask them to do so many kind of separate things. That’s where Viral was saying, we integrate it in a such a way where it becomes like a single kind of operating system for you. You don’t have to jump through so many different places to be able to do a simple task, right? So I think that’s the way we actually are developing,

Heather

Absolutely. I was surprised attending that conference. How many different elements there were into that world, so that that was quite an interesting eye opener for me. So you have worked in practice, and you have, you deal with a lot of accounting firms, you sell into a lot of accounting firms.

What are some of the common growth obstacles you see accounting firms facing? And where do you think technology can play a role in easing that pressure?

Viral

Being an accountant, what I always see, accountants are time poor. So even choosing the right technology, and you know, even spending time to choose the right technology itself is the first challenge. The second challenge I see is that even though they know that they need to implement that solution, the implementation part itself, the executing, you know, the any new initiative also is quite of a challenge for most of the accounting firms.

Viral

This is where, you know, our philosophy comes in, that whatever product we have developed so far, has always been more of a plug in play. It doesn’t really require you to instal any files or any tools on your computer. It’s all cloud. It’s like, you know, spending half an hour to an hour, you would be able to learn. If I talk about tech sorted tax, accountants would be able to learn just in 30 minutes.

Viral

Because what we have done is that we have not gone away from the from the familiarity of, let’s say Excel, because accountants have been working in Excel. So how do we bring Excel and cloud technology together to give that better experience, not just in terms of the usability of it, but in terms of the automation, in terms of the AI and so and so forth.

Heather

I think in terms of you said so you talked about the first challenge that accountants have. I think the first challenge is even being aware they have a problem, and there’s a possible solution. Because I think that they’re sitting in spreadsheets. And I’m always kind of like, if you’re sitting in spreadsheets, oh, there’s post it notes all over your desk, there is a solution out there.

Heather

Hopefully through the education process of podcasts like this and other areas that people can have those conversations, I completely agree they are. They don’t have time. Accountants are very, very time poor. There’s more things dropping on them every single day, unfortunately.

Heather

If we fast forward a few years, what do you think the day to day looks like for an accounting practice that is fully embracing AI, the way that you are envisioning it?

Viral

I always tell my team member here, who are obviously in offshore, is that the data processing, entering data into the software, preparing the Excel sheets, or all of these days will go on very soon. I think accountants need to be more of an analyst, rather than just an accountant punching the data.

Viral

I think I can give you the best example of it is that if I’m an accountant and if I’m presenting the data to a business owner, traditionally, what we used to do was that, you know, we used to give them the comparatives of two financial years saying that, hey, your profit was, you know, 20% up, and your gross margin was, you know, 10% down, and all of that. I think those days are gone now. I think all of that information business owners normally would have on their on their mobile nowadays, right?

Viral

Accountants need to start rethinking how they can give more value-added service to their clients. I think it’s a great time for an accountant to really embrace the technology, because there are so much of a data available in the industry, where using the technology, bringing the data in a format it starts making lot of sense, so that accountants can help business owner to actually make the decisions, rather than just purely a financial decision making. So this is where I think even I would challenge the word account and accountant, because we are no longer just looking at the financial data. I think expectation is to look at the business data holistically and become a trusted advisor for the for the business owner. And this is how I would, I would look at accountants.

Do you have anything that you want to add to that, Manish?

Manish

Just, just to the same point, right? So, you know, I always think, like as a CPA, where is the value that you can bring to the table? You obviously didn’t go to the school to see how efficiently you file your documents, or how quickly you can actually extract information, and how quickly you can punch in your data in Excel. You are actually there to understand the nuances of business through finance, you know, through accounting, and then bring that value out to your customers. I think that’s where your time should be spent, right? Everything else should be, if it can be automated, if it can be kind of done, you know, in an efficient manner. I think that’s where you start being more an accountant, rather than just kind of, you know. I think the vision is, is that, how do we bring that efficiency through technology, you know, in this aspect.

Heather

I think we’ve got technology trying to help accountants be accountants and the tax office trying to throw more compliance over us, more requirements and more compliance and everything seems to be going faster and faster. But I completely agree, as you will know, artificial intelligence relies on data, and the accountants have access to vast quantities of data. If they can surface it correctly, they can just do some sort of make some really brave, fast, informed decisions.

I’m keen to know what is your vision for the future of Cloudoffis and for Tax Sorted?

Manish

So we continue to build on, you know, technology is our forte, right? And the domain knowledge is something that you know, he’s been working in that industry, and understand the pain points. So combine that and come up with the solutions that solves real problem. So we have first taken up the tax order. I mean, the the tax preparation side of things.

Manish

But if you, you know, if I talk about the roadmap of Tax Sorted itself, there are many things that are coming up, you know. We have just the first version out, but we are working on automating the ATO interfaces, right? So all your ATO requirements, let it be documents, the schedules, the due dates, right? All of that can be integrated within this platform. Then it has to sit really nicely within the workflow that is there within your organisation, right? So that basically is a completion of that particular, you know, business process.

Manish

Then this whole thing has to work within an environment, within an ecosystem which you are already in, right? So, for example, we already have integration with FYI Docs. So if somebody is already initiated on a FYI, you know your document movements happen automatically. Whatever your processes are to collect documents, we can pick it up, our AI can identify. It can understand that document. It can identify whether it’s the bank statement or it’s the ATO document. It can file it properly. It can attach to specific line item within your trial balance. So when you are ready to look at that, everything is already there, click of a button. It can extract information from documents, relevant information. It can, you know, bring data from your ATO, all of that. It can do automatically. And then, once your once your work papers are ready, the reviewer get the summary of what, what is there, what is not there in one clear, you know, dashboard, and then can drill into, drill into details as they want. So this is just one workflow that we have taken out now. As we go forward, we want to bring in the similar experience in everything else, and kind of complete that picture of automating the accounting office.

Manish

Then, once your once your work papers are ready, the reviewer gets the summary of what, what is there, what is not there in one clear, you know, dashboard, and then can drill into details as they want. So this is just one workflow that we have taken out now. As we go forward, we want to bring in the similar experience in everything else, and kind of complete that picture of automating the accounting office.

Heather

So listening to that, and your some of your solutions integrate and interface with the Australian Taxation Office, the ATO, I ask.

Just from a technology standpoint, what improvements would you like to see at the ATO for working with solution providers such as yourself?

Manish

I think so ATO has to be, obviously, you know, they have to be very secure environment and obviously, one of the experience that we have is that kind of channelling through, or kind of working through that the security requirements or the processes that they have laid out for people to really integrate is, very daunting, right?

Manish

I think the barrier to entry is pretty high. After that, you know, the kind of information that one can have, and one can actually automate that information is also something that one has to be really good at understanding and trying out and then, you know, kind of figuring things out. So I think just the interface of working with software could be better than what it is today.

Manish

But having said that they have it and we can use it, that’s a great plus. It brings in amazing amount of information upfront, which we can integrate in our solution. Using that data, we can automate and automate so many things intelligently, right? We can put things contextually where it is required, and we can guide our users to do the right thing at right time and save a lot of time for them.

Heather

I have just returned from Canada, and I went into the Xero offices while I was there. And you’re probably unaware of this, but some time ago, they, you know how Xero buys solutions. The only desktop solution they have bought is a, I think it was a product called Tax Cycle, and it’s a desktop solution. From Xero, you can go put your taxes in that and then upload it to their tax office, which still runs on a desktop interface.

Heather

Which it’s so interesting. It’s so interesting how you are sitting in the technology space. You’re evolving. You’re working globally. You’re like, bam, I’m in India, bam, I’m in the USA. Here, I’m working in Australia. And it’s like, we need the government officers to move with us while maintaining the security that you’re talking about. Because, again, the security issue is just constant. It’s nauseatingly boringly scary.

Heather

Viral, you recently wrote about attending an Isha Insight event, and in your post, you noted that many business leaders spoke about how practices like Shambhavi Kriya help them stay disciplined and focused.

Can you explain a little bit about the Shambhavi Kriya practice to our listeners?

Viral

I think the great, probably, lesson I have learned is that it’s like you know more if you want to do more things in your life.How do you do that? We all get tired, we go we all get exhausted. And so you know is that the limitation that, you know, we could only do, you know, certain things in our lives.

Viral

One of the biggest takeaway I could, kind of, you know, learn from there is to enhance yourself. So if we, you know, the focus is to, kind of, you know, if an individual focuses on enhancing his or her capabilities in the day to day, the natural capability of that person would increase to an extent where they can do wonders in their lives.

Viral

For example, if you see the you know, there are many world leaders, you know, spiritual leaders and business leaders, I always question, how can they do lot more than what I can do, what I can do, I think I’m doing a lot. But when you look at, you know, someone who is doing, you know, multi billion empire, how, you know, how is that possible? So that question I had, and I went with that curiosity, you know.

Viral

The answer I got is kind of, you know, to enhance yourself so that your inner capability is increased to the level where your activities can be multi fold. So, yeah, it was a, it was a, it was a true insight for me, and for many others in that room, you know. Having the similar kind of questions, many of them were at the crossroad of, hey, I’ve got the, you know, I’m a millionaire. I’ve got the lot of wealth, you know, I’m, you know, I’ve got a lot of businesses. My family is all fantastic. But then I’m confused, what do I do next in my life, right? I really don’t have a motivation of doing next in my life.

Viral

I think people were seeking real life questions in that session, It was quite fascinating to hear the stories from you know, much larger and much bigger, successful people. Talking about their problems and trying to seek the answers to that. SThank you for bringing that. I think it was quite exciting.

Heather

Thank you for sharing, Viral. We appreciate it. We always like learning more about people and the humans sort of behind the stories and it’s all different. There are all different elements that bring us to this point in time, aren’t there?

Heather

So Manish, I’m keen to know you were recently part of the Startup Pitch Fest at the Accounting & Business Expo and Cloudoffis won.

 

What did you take away from that A&B Expo event and the experience of Cloudoffis being named the overall winner?

Manish

I have been part of startup ecosystem quite a bit, so it’s always fascinating how the aspirations of the young entrepreneurs really kind of come up and talk about what they want to do and how they want to change the world. Well for Cloudoffis, obviously we were not a startup, but this was about starting a new venture within Cloudoffis, which is stack sorted.

Manish

Having that understanding of what is important for us to say when we are kind of pitching when we are starting. I think that helped us. And my colleague, Christan, actually did the great job of presenting that in that event. He was excellent in terms of laying out the problem statement that we are trying to solve for the tax, you know, for the accounting industry, the solution. The clarity in which he explained how we are solving those, you know, the the big problems for the accounting industry, within the tax work, paper space. And then the vision of how this is going to grow so that you can really look at this software and you can adopt that, right?

Manish

I think more than me, it was his performance. The way he explained it was the winner. And it is always great to see that people really understand the value proposition very quickly. And that’s the reason Cloudoffis won that award, because they saw the value of what tax ordered can do for them.

Heather

I do like how you you started that by talking kind of about the energy of the younger people who are at the startup festivals. And I do think that we kind of go through life and I’m like, I’m an old lady now, but I do find that there is so much you can learn from sort of being around young people. How they’re using devices and what they anticipate and what they’re looking for, and even like even how they’re operating, and the language that they’re using is quite interesting and inspirational, and there is a lot of energy.

Manish

If I can add to that, you know, part of our philosophy is that we put the biggest challenge to our youngest engineers. And we don’t put them under any kind of, you know, we don’t have boundaries for them. We give them the hardest problem and say, solve these problems. Look at the technology. Try whatever you want to do.

Manish

When some, you know, few things come together. Then we run hackathon. And you can see those kind of energies and the collaboration and the ideas and and, you know, the passion that comes out, which is how we can build so many good solutions, right? So I think channelling that energy, a startup energy, is really very important, and we have been able to do that.

Heather

That’s really interesting. So you’re channelling the startup energy back into the firm, even though the business has been operational, I think off the top of my head, over a decade.

How often are you running hackathons in the business?

Manish

We run two types of hackathon. One is the engineers hackathon, and one is the business users hackathon, right? So first is when we are building a solution which is a technology kind of challenge, so we call it proof of concepts POCs, right? That has no application defined.

Manish

But we know that if we get that thing right….For example, you know, can we get Excel to work on cloud without people really need, needing to download it, upload it, you know, and do that, right? So it’s the fancy of saying that, if we can do that, then we can bring that kind of experience to to our users, right? So things like that, or, well, everybody’s talking about AI and OpenAI. Everybody talks about when they say AI, it’s all ChatGPT or, you know, or things of that nature.

Manish

But in true sense, can somebody come up with AI and build it in our solution, in a way where the power comes in without people really realising it, right? Because that’s that’s the true nature of technology. So today, when you fly an aeroplane, you don’t think about motors which are actually running it. You know your experience is going from one place to another place in so much comfort. But the technology behind that is that, you know, somebody really designed that motor and put it there, which you don’t even realise. That’s problem solving. That is the real power of technology, which is exactly what we try to bring by throwing such challenges to our engineers.

Manish

Now, once they have developed something, then we bring in our business users, the domain experts. And we say, if you were to use this technology, how would you, you know? Where do you find problems in that? And they come up with heck lot of problems. So, you know, so there is always that demand, and then kind of creation again. You give them back, and they demand. So that cycle keeps on going for us, in our in our companies.

Heather

Very exciting. And I guess that young people don’t have the barriers or boundaries or this can’t possibly work in place. Older experienced people have, and I did laugh at your comment about the aeroplane and that we don’t think of the engines. The very first company I worked at was Doughty fuel systems that makes but it was many years ago, but I have a husband who loves aeroplanes, and he’ll say, okay, the wheels are from here, the engine, the landing gear, and have all those things listed down. Now you touched on ChatGPT, which is a large language model.

Is there any intersection between what the LLMs, as ChatGPT, are doing and the solutions that you’re offering?

Manish

AI has many facets, right? So, and then ChatGPT, it is one of the applications that is using AI. Or, you know, LLMs are one kind of types of AI, you can say. So, we’ve been investing in AI technologies since at least four or five years now. We have had team that always looked at, you know, what can we do with this technology?

Manish

What I can say is that first, it has been a moving target, right? So we are looking at specific problem in accounting industry and coming up with the solutions. The technology we use actually upgrades very fast. So we have to now realise that and say, Oh, now this is better, because, you know, this is something that has improved, or this is a completely new way of doing things. So let’s kind of redesign this thing and let’s redo that.

Manish

I think this journey has taken us so many iterations that we have now understood the nuances really well. So when people say ChatGPT and using ChatGPT as AI substitute, I think they obviously, you know, they are fascinated by something which is amazing. It’s, you know, let me put it this way. You have a friend, right? So if you ask anything to that friend, he will always come up with an answer. Now, that answer could be inaccurate, completely or partially, or it could be completely hallucination, but that person or that friend will always give an answer. Chat GPT is like that.

Manish

Now that person cannot be your accountant, right? Because it’s very risky, right? It’s risky because he may tell you an advice which is not appropriate. So in this context, when you are asking a question to ChatGPT, you don’t know whether that reference is coming from Australian accounting industry or British accounting industry or American accounting industry, unless you can really bind it in a way where it becomes very specific. So that’s just number one, right?

Manish

The second is that what you are asking could be if it is generic, probably it’s okay. But if you try to seek information or data very specific to problems on hand or the account on hand, then that’s not the right source to go. It’s like you know he can ask general questions to ChatGPT, and that’s wonderful. But when you want to use it in your business processes, something that you know people depend on for you know to you for their businesses, then you have to be very specific.

Manish

Security, accuracy cannot be compromised in that so that’s number one, right. Second while you are working on your business processes, if you need to go out and do something tight there, get that answer, come back here. I think that’s not efficiency. You are distracted. Because while you are there, you may ask something about, oh, what was the last movie of Russell Crowe also. So you are distracted, you know. Instead of saving time, you may actually lose time, right? So I think putting that contextually, where you require that data, accurately and succinctly is the power of bringing that AI technology within your workflow, which is what we do, right? I hope I answered what you are asking.

Heather

Absolutely. Thank you for that.

Is there any burning issue that you’d like to bring up with our listeners?

Manish

I think you know, like what you said, when you see somebody not moving from what they’ve been doing. I think it really affects us also. Because we know world is moving so fast and not able to explain somebody that well, there are ways to really do that and embrace technology and growth where you can become really good accountant. I think that’s our passion, to help customers to do that is what I think I would say.

Viral

Yeah, and I think that’s what we have done in auditing or in SMSF industry, right? I would say, in the last, you know, seven to eight years since we launched our first product in SMSF market. You know, I think we feel motivated when we look at the numbers and we can claim that almost 100,000 funds are on our platform, you know. We are actually being able to help the industry to solve the problem and make their lives better. I think, yeah, that motivates us to keep going.

How can people find out more about Cloudoffis?

Viral

They can simply visit our website, cloudoffis.com.au, and we obviously have a large team across Australia. They’re all fantastic people to reach out to.

Heather

Thank you so much, Viral and Manish, for joining me on the Accounting Apps podcast.