All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
All Aussie Accounting Adventures - Tech Edition
Intro Guide to Carbon Accounting Tech
In this episode, Amy and Jack kick off Season 4 with a deep dive into carbon accounting – the buzzword taking the business world by storm. They break down what it is, why companies need to care, and how regulatory and social forces are pushing businesses to step up their sustainability game.
Buckle up for a fun trip through the Xero app store as Amy and Jack spotlight tools that make carbon accounting a breeze. Whether you're an accountant or a biz owner, these apps offer practical steps to shrink your carbon footprint and boost compliance – without the headaches.
Ready for some eco-friendly tech adventures? Let's go!
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David Easton (@davidjeasty) | Insta...
Hey Jack.
Speaker 2:Hey Amy.
Speaker 1:How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm good. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm pretty excited we are back for season four. I'm feeling green, I'm feeling clean, I'm feeling pumped to be back in, and I think that's because of the topic that we're talking about today.
Speaker 2:I know, and also like four seasons who's still listening to us? What's going on? Are people still listening?
Speaker 1:apparently they are, which is you know. It shocks me as well. So yay to that. Thank you to everybody who does keep on listening into both our podcast and, obviously, the mum and dad podcast with Ali and Andrew. Um, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hell yeah. Thank you very much and, yeah, don't want to waste any of your time. So I mean, in terms of today, I know you said feeling fresh, feeling green, talking about something that's, I suppose, trending a little bit lately it is. Well, it seems to be coming up more and more, which is good, and I guess we want to talk about the future of accounting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hashtag carbon accounting.
Speaker 1:Carbon accounting.
Speaker 2:We're the experts on this right, Apparently.
Speaker 1:You know everything about it Apparently. We're the experts.
Speaker 2:I think a really good place to start on this, if you're okay with this, jack, is what actually is carbon accounting? That's a great question. I'd love if we had someone here who knew all about it, who could tell us. I think from my understanding right. So I think let's preface this entire conversation that both you and I aren't experts in carbon accounting Correct. The extent of it from my knowledge is. I know people who use some of these tools and who have done some carbon accounting.
Speaker 2:I've seen a few of the apps around over the last few Zerocons and Roadshows and bits and pieces like that and spoken to their teams a couple of times. But really my knowledge is quite limited. So this is kind of where I'm at with it. So if you're out there and you're listening to this and maybe you work at one of the tools who's doing this and you're like you guys need some education, please feel free to educate us.
Speaker 2:But what I understand it to be is basically a measurement and reporting of your carbon footprint or your emissions so that as a business, it doesn't matter if you're driving big trucks around that are you know that's pouring smoke into the atmosphere. It you might be working from behind a desk. But if you're doing business with a lot of those businesses, there's kind of an indirect footprint that you're creating um and so you know. That's kind of you know. I know I'm getting to the nitty-gritty a little, but it's about tracking all of that as from you so that they can meet their corporate social responsibility and environmental requirements, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And do we feel like this is mainly coming from the government? So those bigger corporates do we know anything in relation to the reasons why they are pushing this line? Like, I don't want to get into a huge political discussion over this, but I'm just more like is this coming from the global heads that are basically? Obviously there's a lot going on in relation to let's save our planet. I'm assuming that the big corporations wonder if they get any kickbacks from their governments based on this, which is why they're pushing it down the line.
Speaker 2:I mean I don't know yeah, I actually genuinely don't know if it's government-led. I mean, I know, obviously, from a dollar taxing perspective or dollar accounting perspective, there's obviously a lot of government-mandated requirements there. That's why all of us are in business, right as accountants. But I imagine it's coming, if it's not there now. But there's absolutely, I think, a pressure on the big companies from the market to be doing this stuff. So if it's not required, it's kind of semi-required just via people, general public.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say the social responsibility of the impact.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. So you know, obviously big companies get behind these things, and so I think it doesn't really matter of your own personal perspective on all of this, because I think you know there's going to be different people out there listening to this saying, oh, it's a. You know, I don't, I don't think it matters, you know, or I do, I really care about it. Either way, you know, I don't think that's what this discussion is really about, because, at the end of the day, if it matters to your client or it's a requirement for your client because they report up to a bigger business that they work with, then it matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, that's exactly it Like in order for them to stay in business. If this is one of their requirements, then you kind of need to know about it, basically from an accounting perspective, to assist them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I mean I think that's why you should care. If you're listening to this and I know we're not really probably helping, we're probably muddying the waters by not really having some of these answers, but I guess what we can help with is maybe to point people in the right direction. And I know we're the tech podcast here, so there's obviously the bigger matter around carbon accounting and what is it, but I suppose what we want to a little bit address today is that there seems to be kind of this new category of apps that are coming out to address this for businesses.
Speaker 2:So you know, if, if you were working with walworths and they were saying, hey, what's your emissions? Look like a few years ago, how would you figure that out? You know, like you got to go and manually go through a process, hire some expensive consultants to come in and figure out what your footprint is, and it's just overkill. So I think what these apps are trying to do is to kind of come in and say, look, we can integrate with zero, we can look at your transaction level data and we can then, I guess, create some estimates based on that who you're doing business with, the contacts, the kinds of bills that you've got to give you an idea of what your emissions might be yeah, is that?
Speaker 1:yeah? No, that's fair. And I I think you know there was a comment that I'd written in the notes when we were preparing for this episode, which is I was like, why should small businesses care about this? Like, is it just a big wank tank aspect of you? Know why we have to do this, but you know, if it wasn't a thing, then there wouldn't be apps out there that have actually been developed to support this thing. I think is the best way of saying it. So if there wasn't a need for it, then there wouldn't have been an app that was created. So there obviously is a need for it.
Speaker 2:And I remember being at Early Adopters Hub and a couple of these apps came to us then and were talking to us about maybe doing some research to understand the accounting market and, to be honest, in the early days of these tools I was skeptical. I was kind of like gosh small business owners.
Speaker 2:They're just trying to survive. This was just after COVID as well, so it's like I think they've got some other priorities on there. You know, don't get me wrong, I care about this stuff, but at the same time I was like gosh, small business owners just trying to pay the bills, trying to pay the payroll, and we're asking them to report on their emissions, but that's that whole supply chain thing, though right.
Speaker 1:So if they are that's right. If they do have a bigger business in their supply chain, or if they are part of the supply chain of a bigger business. Whichever, they need to care, unfortunately, in order to stay in business.
Speaker 2:Correct, so I think that's what I've learned is I'm like ah, it's not about them saying oh, I really want to figure out what my emissions are.
Speaker 1:I want to save the planet.
Speaker 2:Because obviously I mean there absolutely would be some businesses out there.
Speaker 1:I feel like we all have an instinctive level of care around, obviously not completely crapping on the world that we live in, right, like we all do care.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, and there's some businesses whose brand it is to be environmentally friendly Literally.
Speaker 2:Like if you're a sustainable coffee roaster who goes out and sources, you know, ethically sourced coffee beans and roasts them, and you're like, look, I'm doing all this effort to make sure that I'm ticking all these boxes. My customers are coming to me because I'm ethical, yep. Well, now I feel like this is kind of what I owe them as well. Is like that I'm doing, you know, my emissions reporting and I'm, you know, offsetting my carbon footprint and all this kind of stuff. It's like because that's my brand. But for a lot of small businesses, like Joe's Automotive Shop doesn't have a brand that's associated with emissions Correct, or you know anything to do with that. So then it becomes if you care about it personally, great, go for it, but your customers might not care, or, yeah, then it becomes the supply chain component. So, yeah, I mean, I feel like for a lack of understanding here. Hopefully that's somewhat.
Speaker 4:Yeah, like, I feel like this is your intro guide to carbon accounting.
Speaker 1:I say that with a big disclaimer.
Speaker 2:Big disclaimer. I, to be to be honest, if you're interested in this stuff or you're like curious about it, I can. I imagine some of the most educated people here would be the apps themselves.
Speaker 2:So if you can see through a sales demo and you can not just get sold to something that you don't need, but go to them and find out what they're doing. But they'll have done way more research than we have and done way more or understand the space, understand the regulation around it, understand all of this supply chain kind of conversation too, because it's going to be them who's researched it, understood the problem, understood the pain points, worked with customers to deal with it. So you know they probably have a lot of knowledge. So if you're interested to learn more, I would a hundred percent recommend just reaching out to some of these apps and having a chat to them, just maybe, even just out of curiosity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, and obviously this is not going to be relevant for all of your clients, but, you know, definitely keep your ear to the ground. In terms of those clients who do mention it, I would say, for the most part, it's more likely that the clients are going to tell you that there is a requirement for it. This is more giving you, you know, if they do have those conversations just a few tools in your arsenal to sort of go. Okay, I've heard about it. I kind of know a bit, a little bit. Where do I go to at least point my client in the right direction to, you know, solve some of their pain points?
Speaker 2:Yeah, agreed. So what if we take a quick break for some sponsors and come back and go through the apps that are out there and what they're trying to do?
Speaker 4:awesome idea I'm not sure if you're finding out there the number of clients that are looking for more and more services from accountants and one of the big ones, particularly when it comes to transitioning business structures, is valuations appraisals.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I completely agree with you, and BVO Pro makes it simple. It absolutely revolutionizes your appraisal and valuation processes. Andrew.
Speaker 4:It does, and what that means is you can be delivering fantastic, accurate, precise information and help your clients make fantastic decisions when it comes to big time challenges within their business.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, completely agree with you. Bvo Pro is the absolute go.
Speaker 4:Ali, I know that there's one thing you don't have a problem with these days and that is losing client data. Right, yeah, right, because you run content snare heavily through your business.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It is the easy, stress-free way to gather content and documents. It's also great for checklists.
Speaker 4:I love it, and it means there's no back and forth in terms of chasing things up. It means your team can get on with their job and do it, and your clients have a really good experience with it too, right.
Speaker 3:Yep Easy to use. They love it as well clients and team.
Speaker 4:It fits and ticks every box right. I guarantee you'll be content with contents there. Work faster and smarter thanks to high quality data that is expert, my friend.
Speaker 3:They have 80 algorithms that scan and audit your business data around the clock, looking for errors that is nuts and you know what's even cooler about it.
Speaker 4:This is like proper next level AI based stuff that they're building out as well. So this is doing things on a level that we can't even comprehend at times.
Speaker 3:Just for your practice management.
Speaker 4:It is the bomb Right, it's going to safeguard your processes and it's going to ensure you look like a rockstar with your clients and your team can get on doing the stuff that's most valuable. Expert. Your team can get on doing the stuff that's most valuable Expert, cool.
Speaker 2:So we've discussed so far kind of what is carbon accounting to, let's say, a minor level, yep, and so hopefully now we kind of understand. Why is it there? Why do we need to care about it as accountants and mainly for our clients, obviously. But what's out there? What's happening in the tech space? What? What are the apps proposing to do? Um, you know what are they trying to do or what are they executing on? What are the options that are out there? And, to be honest, I wanted to. I've heard about a few of these, I've spoken to a few of the teams, I've seen a few of them at events, but I wanted to go to kind of like the zero app store and be like what, what did they have listed? So they've actually got a new category in the app store called sustainability apps, so you can just go to the zero app store.
Speaker 2:Have a look at sustainability apps, and there's eight apps listed. So out of all the categories, it's probably one of the lightest on like if you get a reporting or something like that. There's probably like 30 apps there, but eight already in a relatively you know it's relatively early for this space.
Speaker 2:I think that's a good sign, as in we've got innovation here and one of the best things about the zero ecosystem is you've got competition, so you kind of get to pick and choose what works best for you and what price is best and what outcomes are best for your clients. Um, so the ones that stand out from my side that I've heard of before are Someday so S-U-M-D-A-Y. That one seems to be the one that I see the most online at events, I think they've got some sort of partnership with Xero to some degree.
Speaker 2:I've seen kind of some co-branded marketing come out at some point. I don't know what that actually looks like, or maybe it was just to announce an integration 'm not sure. Um, so, so there's them. There's trace, which I've heard about. They seem to have the most, or one of the most, reviews against their app. Carbon invoice is another one. Um, there's a few others here, but I mean, I don't know if any of those kind of stand out to you as kind of somewhere to start.
Speaker 1:We could probably start with Carbon Invoice. You know some of the reviews are actually pretty good. Effectively, carbon Invoice it, you know. It gives you an assessment of the carbon footprint of your business and then it gives you a monthly payment plan to offset those emissions as well, which is pretty cool. Which means that you know, like I know, that used to be a really manual task for certain businesses, so the fact that that can now all just be, you know, you connect it up in a couple of minutes. You've already got that information. That is a pretty cool little tool in my opinion. Yeah, sounds super simple to obviously help those businesses, and I guess it's one of those things, as you say, for those that need to report on those, but also those who have a genuine interest, social need and responsibility around wanting to offset. There's a payment plan associated with how you can actually go about doing that. So that's kind of cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that sounds quite like simple in terms of like how it works and the outcome that you get from it. It's quite clear, kind of plug and play, link stuff up or tell them about the information that you've got, or provide them a report or link through to Xero. I'm not sure if it actually integrates to Xero but I assume it does if it's on the app store.
Speaker 2:So then they pull in your information and basically figure out from that what your situation is. Okay, cool. And I think, if I'm not wrong, trace does something similar to that. So I think both Trace and Carbon Invoice have kind of taken that approach of link through your zero data. We'll basically review it and measure it, I assume somewhat automatically, and then provide you a report Carbon invoice seems to be a little bit further down the track of like and a payment plan to kind of offset that footprint. Don't get me wrong Trace people, if you're listening to this, please tell me if you do that as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, apologies, trace also seems to. It obviously identifies opportunities for you to make that as well. Yes, apologies, trace also seems to. It obviously identifies opportunities for you to make reductions as well. That's another thing that you know. Potentially both of them do that same functionality, but they do seem very similar in terms of what their capabilities are.
Speaker 2:And they've both got good amounts of reviews on the App Store for, you know, relatively young apps, so they're the two most popular in terms of reviews on the app store. And then you've got Someday. So Someday, as I said, is the one that I've seen the most of, and I think I got a demo from them at one point Good nice team at one of the Xerocons, and so that feels a little bit different. That feels like a carbon accounting ledger where you're pulling in all your transactions, potentially from zero, and you or you know if you're an accounting firm this is maybe like an offering that you sell to your clients are actually tracking, transaction by transaction.
Speaker 4:Yeah right, something along those lines, so much more granular.
Speaker 2:You know what kind of what kind of category is this transaction? What you know, maybe you've got subcategories and then those determine what are the emission levels for that specific transaction. So basically you're doing accounting, like you're doing reconciliations, and books each transaction that comes through to figure out then what's your total kind of carbon footprint or emission. So once again, someday team, please let me know if I've completely messed that up. But they've got a carbon ledger on there. That's kind of what they're talking about. So I think they're taking a different approach. That's how I understand it. It's not like click, get a report and then we can kind of go through and figure out how to offset that emission. It's actually like a ledger that then, I assume, provides some other reporting or more granular level reporting. Maybe it's more accurate for your specific business because you're getting to break it down at a transaction level.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there's a few benefits of that. They also seem to do a lot in the education space here. So they've got their someday academy too, because I imagine with all of this stuff it's relatively new. So as part of being a startup in this space, educating the market's going to be one of the biggest challenges. So they seem to be investing a fair bit in there as well. So, yeah, I suppose those three apps ones to have a look at if you're interested in this space um, there's others too.
Speaker 2:On the app, store so feel free to jump in and have a look at them. Yeah, I was going to say.
Speaker 1:The others that are on the app store are Greenlee, kogo, netnada, evaluate, neoeco. So you know if jump in, have a look at them. I think is you know, if you've got a deep desire and you know curiosity, jump in and have a look at some of these apps yeah, and so I guess.
Speaker 2:So I mean, we haven't even discussed this ourselves in terms of preparing for this, but in terms of a firm signing up to one of these and maybe using this or thinking about how do I wrap a service around this that says, hey, this is something that we offer in terms of our services but.
Speaker 2:I assume, this is kind of the direction that we're going, which is to say, not only will I help you do your financial accounting, I hope you do your carbon accounting. We do our monthly reporting or our quarterly reporting sessions, and I'll prepare not only your financial reports but your carbon reports. If this is a thing, I imagine this is part of a service that firms are going to be offering.
Speaker 1:It's a nice little additional niche those firms out there that are spruiking the fact that they're really good at doing Bitcoin clients that have got Bitcoin, for example, that kind of thought process. It's a bit of a niche in terms of different types of requirements for each client. So that's cool. I like your thinking there, jack.
Speaker 2:And I mean a lot of the bigger firms are doing this stuff right, and so you know, if you go on to these apps websites, they've got the, the brand, the big brands that they work with, like whether it's deloitte or whether it's rsm or whoever it is um, and I think that's because the big firms have, just like the big companies, they have that csr. They're trying to kind of make sure that they meet. So they're saying, oh great, okay, we need to get on carbon accounting quick, partner up with one of these tools. I don't know how many of their clients they're actually doing this for, but they're definitely saying, hey, we know this is something that we're going to have to be involved in, and I think that's the case.
Speaker 2:It's like, if you're listening to this, you can wait. You could be like three years, four years down the track and then suddenly there's some regulations and you know your hand is forced to kind of get into this. Or you can be one of the early adopters and say, hey, you know what, there's going to be a growing market in this. Like you know whether maybe now there's not much out there. Maybe I haven't had a client come to me once asking for this.
Speaker 2:But if you know, if you can kind of see the writing on the wall, it's just a matter of time before more and more people come knocking to say, hey, do you do carbon accounting, do you do carbon reporting? Then you know why not begin that research process now. And if you're listening to this, you're already. I mean you're beginning, so you know no harm in having a chat to these apps. And then I think, once you kind of understand what the apps do, think about how you can work a service around that. Yeah, be an early adopter. Yeah, do it. I mean there's not too much more we have to cover here. So I mean nice, nice, short one. But yeah, I mean hopefully that's good bang for your buck, it's been great to chat Jack, as always.
Speaker 2:Thank you Likewise. Thanks, amy, cheers Bye.
Speaker 3:Hey team. It's Ellie and Andrew from All Aussie Accounting Adventures here. I hope you really enjoyed this episode with Amy and Jack. What did you think, andrew?
Speaker 4:Oh, stunning as always, the two of them are brilliant minds and are brilliant communicators. So we hope that you have got some incredible learnings out of this episode and if you'd like to continue to follow us, make sure you check out our website. Find us on the socials You'll see Accounting Adventures, or look for All Aussie Accounting Adventures, wherever good stuff can be found, whether that's conferences, whether that's websites, whether that's podcasts or social media.
Speaker 3:Remember to share it around. My friends Like review. We love that stuff, so come on, join the adventures with us.