We thought the questions asked in the discussions area in our Crowdfunding Raise were superb so we wanted to replicate them here. Please let’s keep the discussions going and put forward your ideas to keep growing Crunch (and therefore your investment!)
Investor query (originally posted on Seedrs):
Hello, Congrats and well done for getting the business this far. Xero and Quickbooks already offer accountants a way to market their software without being responsible for the quality of the accountant. (marketing, referrals, discounts etc…) Your challenge is to attract accountants to the platform whilst ensuring a top quality service. Firstly, how will you attract accountants away from Quickbooks and Xero? Secondly, how do you plan to ensure that a consistent and high quality service is provided by these accountants?
Our response:
Fantastic question!
Yes the bigger players have got networks already which they very much need to keep driving in the business. You are absolutely right that they just sell software and have no responsibility for the quality of the work, and therein lies the big issue in the market.
Whilst there is excellent regulation from the institutes, such as the ICAEW and ACCA, there are no stipulations or controls whatsoever on service levels. An accountant can just not call you back, even on an urgent issue and that is exactly why I started Crunch; a dire experience with my accountant. Not all accountants are like that of course, some are outstanding, but what doesn’t exist is a modern day standard for getting callbacks, getting your Ltd accounts produced in a reasonable time or to meet consistently high quality criteria.
Crunch solves all these issues and whilst we are responsible for the accounting and tax work, we own our own practice (which has won us numerous awards) and own an accounting software firm so we know exactly how to deliver the highest quality work, at market beating service levels (our small business service can deliver these in 6 weeks!).
The biggest game changer was our third iteration of testing our Crunch Accountancy Network (CAN) and we perfected the concept of ‘service packages’; units of work for Ltd company accounts, self assessments or even more complex pieces of work for other specialists.
As we have an accountancy practice, we knew exactly how to find the highest quality accountants, how to undertake due diligence and we knew how to review the Ltd company accounts or tax work back in our Chartered Certified Practice.
We have also added an incredibly powerful team of accountants and tax specialists with our partners in Mumbai, to provide the ability to ‘flex’ in case of extreme loads and still hit the highest service levels and quality.
So there is no need to draw accountants away from Xero and Quickbooks, that’s just part of the mix for a traditional accountant, Crunch provides something they can’t; real revenue! We are making material changes to practices we select and Crunch becomes their biggest client.
So how is all this possible? It’s taken over 10 years of building both sides of the equation for Software AND Service. A groundbreaking platform (now version 2) and a truly gifted accountancy and tax team that were prepared to disrupt again to help build an unbelievably powerful network of experts.
The beauty of the platform is the sheer level of automation we’ve built in, it’s not just a Xero or a Quickbooks user software, it’s the backend system for the accountants and once they trial the system they are bowled over by how fast it produces a set of accounts.
To show you how far ahead we are from the pack, we launched full accounts production in 2013 and Xero launched this in March last year (2020) and Freeagent in August (2020). We launched the automated Corporation tax module (CT600) in 2017 and Freeagent launched this month (November 2021).
So as of January 2022 we’re 80% rolled out to the network and by March year end 2022, we’re fully rolled out to our network. We have a thoroughly proven process in finding the highest quality Crunch Accountancy Partners as I’ve mentioned and can get a practice fully up and running, trial, negotiation and trained in 6 weeks. For ‘flex’ situations as I mentioned we have our Mumbai partner operation and our own practice.
I hope that answers your question sufficiently.
Thanks,
Darren CEO & Founder
