The name ‘Summa Tech’ has its routes in Luca Pacioli’s Summa de arithmetica, a late fifteenth century text on practical mathematics and accountancy.
Pacioli was something of a polymath, particularly noted for his thoughts that ‘without mathematics, there is no art’. We agree, and so we brought Pacioli along on our journey.
The art we want to take a look at today is the fine balancing act of creating a bespoke, adaptable solution to a widespread issue within the marketplace.
In our case, it is the requirement of accountancy firms for onboarding and client management solutions which enhance practice management.
Identifying a need
We were in a great position when it came to developing our solution, because we were addressing a challenge which we were facing ourselves at Carpenter Box– that client onboarding and communication was not well-served by our existing practice management product.
As with many commercial problems, it was clear that other firms were experiencing the same pain points.
From this starting point, we were able to develop, for example, our onboarding solution to reflect what Carpenter Box needed from an onboarding tool, including:
- Time-saving features and automations
- Accurate and secure data storage
- All onboarding and AML information in one place
- Error reduction and compliance support
By addressing the needs of Carpenter Box, we began to meet the needs of a much wider market.
This is where that artful balancing act comes in.
Balancing the scales
It’s relatively simple to develop a generic product which, on the face of it, addresses an issue faced by many accountancy firms, whether that be tackling slow workflows or keeping your data safe.
The challenge – the art, if you will – is delivering something which is both highly useable and adaptable to individual firms.
This is what elevates a product to a solution and what builds relationships with clients. It demonstrates that you not only understand their needs, but also that you understand them and how the product will be used in practice, not just how it could be used in theory.
What Pacioli’s words taught us is that both universality and personalisation are necessary to address the practice management issues affecting accountancy firms.
We have achieved this by thinking of our clients and theirs and considering the practical needs of the individual user. For our onboarding system, this means understanding what makes a smooth onboarding experience and incorporating this into our offering.
Want to see what we mean and get a feel for our solutions? Book a demo!