This episode is sponsored by Bookkeep. Learn more at http://www.bookkeep.com

 

Episode Summary

Are you still manually putting data into Excel? Do you want to get an accurate report of your financial health? Justin Hatch, CEO of Reach Reporting, joins the DM Disruption to talk about how they can help solve the pain points of data entry interpretation for your firm. Reach Report allows you to easily interpret all of your financial data, right at your fingertips. Listen now to learn how you can increase the financial health of your business, without spending valuable office time!

 

Show Notes

Justin’s Beginnings

Justin grew up in Canada, and was always fascinated by business and entrepreneurship. He started his first company at just 21, and then went on to develop a software company. He was able to be a part of some amazing opportunities, but said that he still didn’t feel as though he’d found his calling yet. At this point he relocated to the US, and sought the opportunity to solve a true pain point that he felt would help many business owners like himself. Because of his experience running his own company, he learned that data processing was a huge pain point for many businesses, and he wanted to develop an easier way for SMB’s to understand their numbers.

 

The Start of Reach Reporting

While other applications existed at the time Justin was developing Reach Reporting, he still felt that all of them were missing a piece of the puzzle that could solve a lot of data processing issues these companies were experiencing. Justin then realized that partnering with accountants would help them truly understand the financials of each business and would also help them interpret important data points to their clients.

 

We All Need Data Distilled 

Justin describes a time when he was working at NASDAQ and had to prepare a presentation for the Board of Directors. Amongst the board of directors, there was even a former CFO of NASA, and Justin says he was very nervous. He made sure he had all of his terminology down pat, as he knew the people he was presenting to were very intelligent. However, during the presentation, the former NASA CFO asked if he could simplify the data points he was discussing, and himself and his colleagues were having trouble understanding the complexities of what he was explaining. It was at this point that Justin realized that everyone, including NASA employees, need someone to translate complicated data to them—they need it distilled.

Justin and Dawn also discuss how, as a business owner, you don’t need to do everything. In order to make the most of your time, it’s important to automate many factors of your business, and Reach Report can help with that.

 

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Transcript

Dawn Brolin
Hi everyone, my name is Dawn Brolin, I’m a certified public accountant, a Certified Fraud Examiner, the president of powerful accounting, Inc, and the author of the designated motivator for accounting professionals. And I’m here to tell you, if you are not searching for applications that eliminate data entry, you are missing the mark. Now I found an app, it is called Bookkeep. Bookkeep solves for integrations between apps such as PayPal, or actually really payment methods or ordering systems like GrubHub, things like that Shopify, WooCommerce, the list is never ending, and they’re always adding on more applications. what is awesome about bookkeeping is that you simply connect your data file, whatever it may be to bookkeeper, and it syncs just use GrubHub, for instance, it puts in GrubHub income at the gross Mal, then it has expense accounts for GrubHub fees and so on. And so it allows you to not be data entering or hand keying journal entries for these types of systems. And it does it correct every single time. When I found that application, this is a conversation that I’ve had with my, with my staff for years and years, we don’t want to enter data. When I found bookkeep, we implemented it immediately, for every client who has either PayPal, or Shopify, or GrubHub, or whatever it may be, so that those transactions can go in on a daily basis, magically while you’re sleeping. And you have an accounting that is accurate, so you can make decisions. Are you selling enough GurbHub? Are the fees worth it? How much are you paying? And so many people were using these applications have no idea what it really cost them to run through those systems. And so bookkeepers solve for that as accounting as an accounting professional, I always tell my staff, I want books to be correct. And I don’t do not want you hand keeping a journal entry. If you find yourself hand keying a transaction, then you need to stop and find the solution. And I can tell you right now, bookkeepers, solving that for all of our GrubHub Pay Pal, again, Shopify, there’s many different apps that they sync with. It’s awesome. I recommend that you go take a demo today, because it’s so easy, and it’s super affordable. So go get them your designated motivator here, go check out Bookkeep, thank you so much for listening.

Hey, everybody, and welcome to the DM disruption. My name is Dawn Berlin, your host, I just love to help all of you, whatever I can do, just to infuse some positivity and motivation into your firm. That’s what I’m here for. And today I brought on Justin hatch with reach reporting, because he’s, I don’t know, first of all I met him is scaling new heights. Just a cool dude. My friend, Sean Duncan, he’s out of Texas great guy said, Hey, you gotta go check out what Justin’s doing. I’m like, bang, let’s just do it. It’s really all about being real, real about what we need real about what you know, what kind of can motivate us to maybe make a change in our firm with our processes and the you know, the technology that we’re implementing. And so Justin is here to talk about Justin to talk about how can reach reporting help you but more importantly, just to have some conversation, because it’s always fun. So, Justin, thank you so much. So tell us who the heck you are and why you’re so cool.

Justin Hatch
Yeah, well, thanks for having me on the show. I’m not gonna say I’m, I’m cool. Especially if I’m getting compared to anything like Sean. I mean, that guy that guy’s the best. He’s, he’s one of my favorite people. And I only ran into him at the trade shows. So Sean, if you’re listening, you know, you got you got somebody out there. It’s trying to be like you. Yeah, when I when I grew up, I’m gonna be like, Sean, you know?

Dawn Brolin
Maybe we all can be. I mean, he’s pretty tall after all.

Justin Hatch
I know. I know. I know for you. It’s a crazy story. So I was born and raised in Canada. I grew up involved in business my whole life. I started my first businesses when I was young. And then and I actually started a real business when I was 21. You know a bunch of crazy stuff and learn how crappy businesses and how you should never start one and it’s that’s a good idea. And then and then and then I get the bright idea to go start a software company. Yeah, that’s Yeah, yeah. So we’ll, we’ll get to that in a minute. But but yeah, we we started a business I had it for several years, I ended up going into oil and gas, became a VP. We went on to the NASDAQ i, we did some cool stuff. And honestly, it wasn’t for me, I was kind of, I was kind of getting the itch. And so we, we kicked out, but they brought me down here to the US. So, so I had been down here for two or three years and resigned from there and said, I’m out, I want to start a business. And so I sat down and I said, Okay, what is the thing? What’s the thing I want to do? And, and this was an interesting time, because we kind of accumulated a little nest egg, we added a few minutes and and we had some time to think, which which is a total fallacy, you don’t have any time to think it’s a total lie, especially if you’re starting a business. Don’t Don’t Don’t tell yourself that. But we took a little bit of time to think and, and I thought about, okay, what was the number one pain point that I felt when I was younger? When I was starting a business when I was operating a business, the pain point that we felt at the company I was at, in the oil and gas, what was the number one pain point we felt, and how to resolve that and it came down to data. And everybody at that point, you know, everybody I was talking to it, like rolled their eyes, because you know, this was 2015 There’s like a million of these BI companies starting up and and, you know, we were we’re throwing our hat in with like, Salesforce, and like Looker and Google like, again, come on. That’s, that’s, you gotta be crazy to do that. And yet, we knew we knew we had a distinct understanding of how real the pain was. And I didn’t know that everybody didn’t have that. And so we said, we said, are there other people out there that, that are also trying to really understand what’s happening in their business? What, what are their financials trying to tell them? And and we tried to create a solution that kind of automated that process. And what we found was, it went really well. Except we needed one more missing piece, there was this critical piece of the puzzle that was missing? And it was this this partnership with accountants, right, because we needed somebody who could come in and say, Okay, I see I see where we’re at. Yes, let me help you. And so it became this amazing relationship that we developed with, with CPAs. With CFOs. With bookkeepers with advisors with, with I mean, this the spectrum, right of people that are working with their clients, and we started to work with them. And we said, what do you need? What do you want? What would you like to see? And so they played a major role in helping us determine what the software was, and how the software worked. And and when we say this was created by the accounting industry, we mean it because because we frankly, didn’t know exactly what the accountant wanted. And so we, we relied on these, all of this feedback to say, Okay, now we’re going to work on this. Now we’re gonna work on this.

Dawn Brolin
Now, so when you I’m gonna bring you all the way back to 21 years old, I’m bringing it back. So you knew you wanted to? Well, first, you want to be in business for yourself, you’re thinking, Okay, I want to go out and start my own business. And then you found that your challenges were, and I’m guessing you tell me. Number one, I need to see reporting, so I can understand what’s happening within my business, the health of my business, those things, but you felt like you weren’t getting really what you needed. And so when you looked back and you reach reporting was born, you look back and said, as a business owner, I have these challenges, but then also, the business owner doesn’t necessarily know how to read them. So they need the accounting professional to say, yeah, they need this, but we also need to help them interpret it, which is a whole nother thing. Right?

Justin Hatch
Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And so that was, that was such a real pain that I actually still remember that vividly. Just thinking, why am I why do I have this box full of receipts? Why…when I got so my dad had a friend who was an accountant, that poor man, that poor man, I mean, I mean, he half the time he spent just trying to explain to me some of like, the dumb stuff. And I hadn’t gone to college at this point. I was like, oh, no, I’m 21 I’m, I’m way smarter than college and and you know, it took me a minute to figure out that I needed college in my life and and and so you know, there’s there was those those things that I was just missing? And I didn’t have I didn’t know how the things worked out. I didn’t know how the books worked and right and so for me, it was it was saying okay, how do we go to this, this poor fool and and help them but but the funny thing is this It wasn’t just me as a young 21 year old startup kid. This happened when I was at this oil and gas company.

Okay, yeah. So we had Florida, we’re on the NASDAQ.

We were on the NASDAQ like, and I still had executives coming to me and being like, Oh, if we sell this, then we’ll be be able to have enough revenue to pay for this. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That’s not how it works. Like, like, we’re missing stuff here. Like you got costs. I mean, I yeah, I get that you have, you know, 12 green bills, but you got debts to pay. But those those have those already are earmarked to pay off certain and, and there was so much that was missing. People didn’t understand contribution margin. They didn’t understand gross profit margin. I mean, legitimately, I think that’s a I mean, we’re talking about COVID is a pandemic, you wonder what a pandemic is? Yeah, people don’t not understand gross profit margin, like, like, there’s a world of people out there that don’t understand some of these cricket, critical principles in business. Right. And so then what I set out to do is say, Okay, how do I work with these phenomenal accountants, and provide something that is so digestible for the for the small business that even if they’re geniuses, right, it’s something that they can pull up, and they immediately get super valuable information out and boom.

Dawn Brolin
So okay, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna go back a little bit, you know, to when you were a kid, just not too far, not too far back. But think about right. Thinking about what Justin in maybe you didn’t even have this. Some people don’t. I mean, I had an epiphany at 16 years old, I was going to be an accountant, like, I just knew it. It was, you know, a teacher at school who said, we have one accounting class, and then we’re gonna say graduate 38 people, like it was tiny school, flopped down this packet and said, you’re in business. Go figure it out. Here’s your Ledger’s, they were all manual. So, you know, we back in the day, were actually learned debits and credits through, like, right, reading them out. And you know, putting the ledger together. So it all everything had a tie out. And I’m like, Oh, my goodness, this makes sense. I love it. So I knew that that’s what I want to do. A lot of people didn’t necessarily have that exposure. So when you were younger, like, what was your, did you like have like, I want to do this? Or, I mean, not, you know, you want to be a big football star who doesn’t want to do that? Right. But was there something that like, kind of helped pave the path for you to want to make a decision at 21? To be in business for yourself? Like, why did why why? What did that look like? Yeah,

Justin Hatch
That’s like a unbelievably loaded question. Especially as I like, unpack, like, like, what the all the onion layers of what makes Justin Justin. Yeah. You know, there was there was a couple things that I was very sincerely, I very sincerely wanted. One, I genuinely wanted to help people as well. Yeah, I genuinely wanted to make a difference. And I don’t know if that comes from, like, some childhood insecurities, or what, or if it just was something I was, I was born with, and I just, I just wanted to help out. Yeah. So I wanted to create something that could be used as a tool. That was really, really manageable. Yeah, I did not do well in, in my years up to high school. I struggled in school. Yep. And, and I, it was weird, because I couldn’t quite reconcile what intelligence was because I was, I was getting these grades that that I felt like didn’t match with how smart I was. I thought I was smart. And but these grades weren’t matching. I was it was it was really hard me You said we’re gonna get vulnerable talk about Yeah, let’s go. You know, so. So I didn’t have these these things match up. And yet, there was things that I knew that I knew that half of my instructors didn’t know, right, you know, just just the little streetsmart stuff. So So, what I what I said was, Okay, is there something I could do? And this was before, you know, ever reach was even a thing, but is there something that I could do to genuinely make something easier? So yeah, okay, help, but like, I want to simplify stuff for people, right? I had really cool experience later in life at the at the NASDAQ company. And I was sitting in front of Board of Directors, and I and when you’re sitting in front of a board, you terrified and I was presenting to them on on all this stuff that was happening in my department. And, and so when you’re when you’re terrified you you come up with this list of all these things you want to say and you you’d like you go to every big word, you know, so like, your, your vocabulary is suddenly like, you know, infinitely better that day, you know, like, like, you like pull on these things, because you want to appear really intelligent.

Dawn Brolin
And you can’t go like this. You can’t go a board of directors. You would not believe that shit. Like you can’t say that. Like that’s not usually what you

Justin Hatch
exactly like that’s that’s what I kept telling myself. It’s like, there’s no way They want to hear that, like, There’s no way. So I’m presenting and they’re like one of the dudes, they’re his. He’s He’s the former CFO at NASA. Okay? Like, I mean guy, no, like, these guys are insane, smart, like insane, like educated at Wharton, but he went to boarding school, like, so smart. So I’m presenting to them. And as I’m presenting, he holds up his hand, he’s like, Justin, Justin test. We’re just a bunch of old guys here. Can you can you explain it to us in a way that we can understand, you know, really distill it down for us? What just happened? Like, like what the so the smartest person in the world and documented proof that he is the most intelligent person in the world, just told me to simplify things. So I didn’t look at this and say, Oh, that’s tell tells me how intelligent, no no, when I looked at it, and said, was, this helps me realize that no matter who we are, we need to be distilling down information. Before we give it out. Yes, we have to distill it down, we have to and this will become our reach motto, we have to absorb complexity. So when the data flows through reach, we absorb complexity before we give to the next person. So I realized that that that day, that moment, that no matter who we are, no matter how intelligent we are, we need stuff distilled, because data is data is data and data takes calories. Yes, no, if you’re trying to increase your caloric burn, great. Put more data in your life, or maybe just, you know, go go grab a textbook, and you know, try to digest that. But But if if we’re trying to genuinely understand stuff, we need to be looking at it on an Information Level knowledge level, not the data level, like you know, just just because I can figure out where an IP address is, doesn’t mean I should, like there’s tools just because I can do all the math in my head or on paper, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t use my calculator, like we should be using the tools that we have the resources that we have at our fingertips, we should be simplifying stuff, so that it’s really easy to grasp.

Dawn Brolin
I love that because it’s as funny I just did like a I don’t know if it was a keynote for a company through zoom, which is always makes it weird. And you’re just sitting there, you don’t have to pay attention…

Justin Hatch
And they’re all on mute, so when you tell a great joke, nobody laughs!

Dawn Brolin
I’m laughing. I think it’s hilarious. Like, okay, I’ll come by myself. But, but it’s so funny you say that, because I said to them, you know, there are certain things that accounting firms have to recognize. And one of them is and we talked about in the book, reassessing your success. It’s like, why would you want to exactly your example, add things up in your brain? Why would you want to try to come up with a formula, and then use, you know, a calculator to do it or whatever, when, when those types of things can be automated. And that’s okay. Like, we don’t have to, like, I don’t think I’m cool. If I’m, like, 40, out of 140%, like the first of all, that’s the only kind of percentage I could come up with was, like, 102, over 36, you’ve logged on, I can’t do that division. So there’s getting a percentage. I think it’s around 34%. But I don’t really. So I feel like what you’re talking about with the tools that we have available to us, you’re exactly right, I don’t need to increase my brain capacity, and utilize caloric calories in my coconut. Because first of all, I don’t have a really big head. So I’m not trying to lose any weight up here. Because other areas, but um, it’s so true, it’s like, why not take it in, it doesn’t make it so that you’re not utilizing your brain in a way that you’re becoming unintelligent or less intelligent. It’s just that you’re utilizing and maximizing resources. And honestly, taking the minutia out of your brain and eliminating that will give you opportunity and space for more intelligence.

Justin Hatch
Right, right. Right. Right. And so then the opposite is also or the the the downline is also true, where our clients are in the same place. Yes, they could learn accounting like this, these people aren’t idiots like, they’re, they’re usually pretty intelligent humans. I mean, they founded a business they worked on it, they are they became an executive in or whatever, right? But just because we could present them with really hard to understand data doesn’t mean we should. So if we can not only use those tools to our advantage, to help us be better, or as levers to really leverage our skills, right. But then we also give it to them so that they can understand it in that simple way that became that was that I mean, obviously this is a far cry from what that 16 year old was thinking about. But it was it was really it those days that I started to say, Okay, what what would be cool is if we could do this, but then automate it. And, and that’s what our reach is all about right now is absorbing complexity, but really automating the process, right? We, we, we look at these at our, at our accountants, you know, with, with the heart eyes. And, and there was there’s this one lady and I pick on her all the time, she’s one of my favorite human beings. But she she was telling me about the reports that she built every single month. And she’s telling me how she did it. And she, because of the nature of the systems out there, you know, we didn’t even really have the fathoms they were they weren’t really a thing yet. And so what she was doing was, she was going into QBO, she was downloading the data into an Excel spreadsheet, she was manipulating in there, putting in charts and graphs, taking screenshots of the charts and graphs, putting them in Microsoft Word, and then putting her commentary in there and sending it to our clients. We said, This is ridiculous.

Dawn Brolin
I’m looking for a knife or a knife, stab myself, because that sounds terrible.

Justin Hatch
It is like, like, it’s legit. And, and she was telling us, you know, what, what her processes were like, and how she did it every single month and how she was able to kind of automate certain things because she left bodies of text in there. And we just thought, no, no, no. We said, we need to solve that problem first and foremost, because like once, like once you once you put the tourniquet on, then you can start dealing with like the small stuff, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, like, we got to stop the bleeding. And, and so we we first set out, we said, Okay, let’s do that. Let’s automate that part of it. Let’s make it so that whenever you log in, it’s updated with the new data that’s in QuickBooks, whenever you log in, it’s updated with the new month that we’re in. So not only is it in the new data that’s in QuickBooks, but it’s pulling the most recent last month, right, or even the current month, if you want share, let’s make it so that we can put in text but you can put numbers into the text like you can drop in like total income and have an update for you little things to to automate that. And so now we had the tourniquet on it. Yeah. Now we had the turn. Okay, so now we’re not hemorrhaging. Sorry. This analogy is like going to anybody that has a sensitive stomach, like I’m out.

Dawn Brolin
Most of our listeners, watch Grey’s Anatomy.

Justin Hatch
Okay, good. Good. So so we have this situation now we’re, we’re still, we’re still in rough shape. You know, we’ve been beaten up. But but now we’re not dying. Yeah. So now, what are the things that we can do to improve the quality of life at that point? Yeah. And that’s where we’ve started to have so much fun with reach. Because now we’re able to start saying, okay, okay. Now, what do you guys want now? And we’ll go out. And I’m not kidding. Like, we have lists of all of the things people are requesting and the things they ask for on a regular basis. And then we give each thing gets a vote, right? Every time somebody asked for it, and so then it gets bumped up or down on the list. Yeah. And, and so so we have, we have this stuff, where we’re now able to create things, where it’s no, it’s now satisfying that I want to really help out, I really want to make the world a better place, because now the audience is telling us even more, but now they’re telling us more luxuries. Sure. Now they’re saying, Oh, hey, you know, it’d be really cool if we could do this by class, but then have this come in from this project, and then apply it to this, but then I want every column to be this one, that’d be so cool. And then automate it, right and make it so that every month it stays live, so you’re not going in and updating it every single Blinken month? Well, that’s where it came from.

Dawn Brolin
Yeah, it’s all about and this is one of the whole point of the designated motivator for accounting professionals. And what we’re trying to do is to expose practitioners to something new and different. Now, yes, change is hard, we get that change is hard, when you really have to learn a new complicated system or a new tool or this and that, or maybe you do have some kind of complicated integration. And that does happen, it may be in some situations. But when you can literally plug something in to the data that’s already been populated, and take it out and make it meaningful, more than just a p&l and a simple p&l and a balance sheet that you can get from any accounting software. That’s, you know, those are not necessarily always the end result that we need, we need a bit more insight than that. And so, you know, I definitely find that firms are wanting to move out of the world of Excel and Word documents and PDFs and, you know, having to redo things month after month after month or whatever. One of the biggest things, I think, and this is Shawn would definitely agree with me, is from an advisory perspective. So for those people who are looking for reporting that’s meaningful and purposeful that can be that can cause a conversation with a client. And I think that that’s, you know, and I was talking about earlier today, you know, I find that a lot of bookkeepers and I think more in that area than anything is they want to hang on to their bookkeeping, they want to hang on to data processing. They don’t want to let it go, because they can’t imagine what else they would do. What would I do if I was not handling data entry, data management, and all of this, what would be my purpose while…

Justin Hatch
Then the fear that I’m disposable

Dawn Brolin
The fear of the replacement of people is real, the fear that what you’re doing now, five years from now will be obsolete, and you’ll have no purpose, it’s the total opposite of that. It’s the opposite. It’s that same old saying of when one door closes, another one opens. And it’s no different here, probably more prevalent than any, any other industry, in that, as growth happens, opportunity exposes itself and a lot of times, that opportunity will generate double three times as much revenue then it would doing what you were doing before. So that data entry information gathering, you know that, Oh, I gotta do this big Excel worksheet today. Like that’s it’s…

Justin Hatch
It’s going to be a thing in the past. It is it is.

Dawn Brolin
And it actually is already it is in many cases already. What we’re trying to do is help the practitioners understand that it’s okay to change. It’s okay to say to your client, hey, listen, I’ve got first of all, if you’re going to automate all your data, make the same money for doing nothing. I’m kind of a proponent of that. I’m all in. If I can make the same money, doing less work. I want more. Yeah, well, more money and less work. Yeah. So in order to do that, though, you have to implement tools within your practice that will allow you to have that automation so that you can use like you’re saying, Yeah, we want to, we want to be able to interpret the information for our client. But being able to have that at your fingertips and not having to manipulate it, which by the way, huge human error, huge human risk of error. Right, right, when you can automate it. And so, you know, that’s some of the motivation that I have to say, you know, like I was saying what I’m saying earlier, you know what, I’m leaving my office today at 2;30. You know, why? Because I’m going to practice I’m going to softball practice tax season, I don’t care. I’m going, but my, but because I’ve implemented the systems and the processes that I’ve automated certain things, but I also invest the time to implement them. Number one, yeah, yeah. And that’s, that is a necessary evil, you’ve got to invest. It’s not spending your investing time in your practice by…

Justin Hatch
In yourself, yeah. And one of the things that we’ve seen this, that’s been very powerful is for us to look at it and say, okay, yes, we can be very busy, we can do a bunch of busy work, often busy work is the stuff that gets automated first, right? Because because people are looking and saying, There’s got to be a way to to make it so that I will have to do this. So that busy work gets automated first. But what happens is in create, like, let’s say we have a client, they want some sophisticated report. And let’s say it’s not just a, they don’t want just a printout of the p&l and balance sheet they want, they want some hardcore thing on the 10th of each month. Well, what we said was, okay, now, people are having to go through, they’re having to create all of this by hand, and they’re having to go through, like you said, subject to human error and all that crap. But the problem the real problem is they’re spending so much time doing something they’re just going to have to do again next month. And so they’re actually do use the proper word damning themselves. Yes, they’re stopping their own progression. And, and they they don’t progress because because we have all this busy work so so the real value comes in when we can use this part. Yeah. And we can become use our minds and and and the things that we’ve learned and all the the the, the stuff we’ve been able to draw out of the data and then we can become curators of this. So so what what we say is create the report, once you send us a reach template, put your your own signature on it, make it make it yours, make it for your client. And then every month when you log back end, instead of spending all that time to rebuild the dang thing, which you’d have to do outside of Reach. This time, curate it, hone in on it and really narrow in on what’s the what’s the stuff that’s very valuable. Hey, I remember I had this conversation with my client last month it was this they mentioned this, I wonder if they would benefit from such and such a metric. Right? I’m gonna throw this in just to see what they say. They get a call three days later. What the heck. When did you put this in? This is gold! I didn’t we needed this years ago. Yeah. You mentioned something I wanted to what is going to make them never stop valuing you. It’s stuff like that. Absolutely. You can’t have. You can’t have some algorithms, some AI anybody that tells you that there’s AI that’s gonna be able to do that they’re delusional. 20 years, maybe, maybe, but but for the foreseeable future, we need to have eyes that can see stuff and see what’s happening. And then and then tell a story about it.

Dawn Brolin
Exactly. Now, so because we’re gonna, we’re gonna wrap up here pretty quick. But what I want to I want to hear from you, Justin, tell me about a client. And obviously, I’m going to name names, but a client success story that, because I think that we’re all motivated by different things, I don’t think I don’t think people are really motivated by money, people want to have money, let’s, you know, we’re not going to be idiots about it. But that doesn’t necessarily motivate me, I don’t get up in the morning and go, Oh, I’m gonna go make $5,000. Today, I get up and say, what are the things and this is reality? What are the things I need to accomplish today in order to be successful for myself, and successful for my clients? And that’s the approach that I like to take every morning is, Who am I going to, like, where’s that one, client, or interaction, maybe it’s not a client and interaction that I’m going to have today that I am going to absolutely make that person have a better day, in whatever capacity that looks like. So for you, in within your, within all of your stories of when you were 21 doing business, or you’re at the NASDAQ or company with the NASDAQ, or Reach Reporting now, where you found somebody who was just in a position that of they weren’t doing real well, and you came in and you were able to help positively affect them that day, or through the course of time or whatever, there’s got to be maybe one that’s…

Justin Hatch
Oh, I can’t even tell countless, countless stories that are similar to that. And you know, where where we are more than spoiled is, then they will go and leave a review. And they say the nicest thing like, like, they’re borderline like, like, like sometimes, like we’ve worked with a lot of people. And I mean, we were in the heart of COVID. Like, there was some there were some people that are struggling, we had some firms that shut down that we had to, we had to just be like, Look, you’re getting it for free, you’re getting Reach for free. It is imperative to us that you guys are successful. And and so when you can pay us great. And not for back pay, I mean for going forward. Great. Call us call us then, but until then, the software is yours. And we’ve insisted on on those kinds of situations. Because and not because it’s going to come back to like, like, we don’t…

Dawn Brolin
Yeah, I always taught my kid you never give to get.

Justin Hatch
Yeah, exactly. And it’s it’s so that’s such a crappy ulterior motive anyway, like, I mean, the limits here is that, like, you’re gonna have to hold it anyway. But but what we what we said was, okay, take it, use it, it’s yours. And, and, and the best part about that is, is the feedback, we would get, you know, people would come back, and then they would be very complimentary. And they would say nice things about this. And they say, Hey, you know, it would be really cool. And I haven’t shared this with anybody. But if you guys did this, it would be a game changer for this entire industry. And right, we’re all ears when stuff like that. But but that’s that’s aside from the question that you asked. One of my favorite stories was this couple, this couple of ladies running this amazing firm. It was it was amazing. And they were amazing. And they were they were super busy. So so they knew they wanted a reporting tool. But they found as they found this, when we go all the blank, we sucked. Like our software, like it could do cool stuff at the time. And it was it was really powerful. But there is so much more that needed to be done. So they had to be patient with us. But what we did was, we said to them, Hey, we want to work with you guys. We really were I mean, at the time, we also really needed desperately needed the money. And so we went to them, and we said we’ll do whatever it takes, we’ll do whatever it takes to get this. Well, the best part about that whole situation was they’ve been able to add clients like crazy, because once the processes are automated, then you can come in and when you have half an hour, you can actually delve a half an hour into the company. It’s not something right now. Okay, now you have a half an hour now you have to do this thing is going to take you three hours. I mean, if that’s not like a definition of what accounting is, is you have a half hour of time and you have to do a job that’s going to take you three like that, that happens constantly and so so we wanted to create a relationship with them where we can really genuinely help them. So they with the feedback with the stuff that they gave us with the stuff that we were able to give them and the coding we’re able to do. We’re able to create a solution that has made the software better for everybody that’s benefited us dramaticly but their firm has gone bananas now Here’s the crappy part, once they learned the software, they now know the software better than I do. So don’t call me anymore. So I don’t I don’t get to see them anymore. But but, you know, they, they, they use it constantly. They’ve automated their processes. And then when they call me and tell me about something, one of their clients said, That, for me, that’s like, that’s everything so so right? Because there’s no, there’s nothing about Reach Reporting on our reports, right? Like, like, the only person that knows that reach reporting even exists is the accountant. Right and right. So like, the clients not not know what it is, yeah, and so so. So it makes us so happy when the client comes back. And it’s like, You created this report for us. We’ve never seen a report like this. And we’ve never understood our business in the way that we now understand it.

Dawn Brolin
So for you, as as you can, as reach reporting continues to evolve and grow and grow. And that’s what I always tell people do not get involved with applications that do not continue to grow and grow and get better. And listen, take feedback, which is super critical. And obviously, you guys are doing that. For you. It was about we want to solve this pain point. Because I was in business. And I didn’t get this, I didn’t have this. I feel like it was kind of like when I was a kid, we didn’t have X, Y and Z. It’s like, so when you were a kid in business, you didn’t have this, this tool, right? So for you to be able to infuse a solution into a firm and watch the firm be able to take advantage of the tool and utilize it for the betterment of their clients. That’s what Reach Reporting is all about.

Justin Hatch
That’s when you go home, and you’re like, Oh, good. I felt good. Like, like we actually were able to like that’s a project where it’s not like a one deal. Right? Like, like, we don’t do contracts, we don’t do contracts, right? We say, Look, if this is providing you value each month, you stick with us. If this is not, then you better tell us by canceling. Yeah. Because because don’t you dare stick around just because we you know, we hit it off at a trade show, right? You know, we really want people to, and we never want to have people being forced. It was his whole contract part. Like we never want people to be forced to do the right stuff. Because they got suckered into it at the beginning. Sure. And so so we insist on constantly updating the solution. Now, what’s interesting is, as, as we’ve adopted, so so we actually, like we, you know, we’re growing like crazy, which has been so much fun. But as we’ve adopted a lot of dysfunctionality that opens up the door for some other companies to come in. Sure. You know, like, firms that deal with restaurants. You want to know, people that deal with real pain, is that 445 reporting? That is a nightmare. Yes. And so they said, there’s no reporting solutions, anywhere that can do that, can you help, and so we got something coming out, that’s gonna be able to really help, you know, so it’s that kind of stuff that that we love, because we just love building new cool stuff. And so you’re gonna start seeing some even, I mean, some incredible things coming out, as the next couple months, you’re gonna see some cool stuff. And then this next year is going to be phenomenal. So

Dawn Brolin
what would it be fair Justin, to say to the audience, I’m just gonna say it anyway, you’re gonna have to agree with me otherwise, whatever. So I would say, if you’re a practitioner, who is still living in Excel, for various more complex reporting, or, you know, the original accounting solution cannot give you the reports that you’re looking for specific reports, especially like in the restaurant industry, or contractors, or anybody, anybody who has these report any kind of complicated reports that you’re not able to do natively in an accounting solution, which is normal, almost across the board, unless you want to spend 100 Right here. They can say, Hey, Justin, here’s my report, this is what I need to do. They can give you feedback, reach out to you, Justin Hatch, and say, Hey, this is a pain point I need solve for this would help this industry or whatever, they can reach out to you. And that is that is a relationship that you would that you’re inviting, right?

Justin Hatch
Absolutely, absolutely. Like, in fact, connect with me on LinkedIn. Like, will I’ll put my money where my mouth is like, like, we just we do it all the time that we’re we, we insist on those types of relationships. We at first we were saying, Okay, let’s, you know, let’s make this for every business out there. Well, at that point, you have to be low touch, you have to be there’s just not enough of us to go around. But that instead once we started working with accountants, then they work with their clients. So they have the 10 100,000 You know, whatever. But you know, most of most of the accounts we work with are working with 10 to 25 clients, right that is such a normal amount and that is a fantastic amount. Yep. Because they’re able to service those clients with a phenomenal tool. But yes, have them absolutely have them reach out if there’s ever anything they want to see in the solution, or even if if they just want to, chew the fat tip, because we’re at that, too.

Dawn Brolin
Yeah, that’s awesome. So, so for those who are listening in, in the show notes, you’ll have all the contact information and be in touch with Justin. You know, again, it’s this whole podcast is about helping you as the practitioner, better your firm, because we know if we can help all of us be better, our clients can survive. And really, at the end of the day, we are their financial doctor, we are the reason that they stay alive only because without the analysis and the tools that we provide to them, they wouldn’t know where to go, where to look. And Justin kind of talked about that. So, Justin, I want to thank you so much for coming on today. It’s been a great conversation, I like I said, I mean, you were also in scaling new heights, and it was just really awesome to meet you. And, and your tool can consult for so much. So any last words, before we jump off?

Justin Hatch
You know, I love the industry, I didn’t know as a kid that I would be making a software, you know, because that’s a pretty geeky thing to do. And, and I and I didn’t know that I’d be in reporting because that’s, you know, pretty geeky thing to do. But I am having the time of my life, creating this. But really seeing what the industry can do with the reports, the report builder you know, it that’s the best part is seeing what you guys do once you get the tool because we can create some cool stuff. But then we only know you know this much about what’s happening in the industry in the market and stuff. When when we have the power hitters come in, like, like our accountants that are creating these powerful tool. It’s, it’s something to see it. It’s awesome.

Dawn Brolin
That’s awesome. Well, you’ve been awesome. So speaking of awesome, and certainly glad to have you and look forward to building relationship with you as we continue to move forward. And so thank you to everybody who’s listening and we’ll see you next time on the DM Disruption while we’re just going to keep on firing you up and helping you make changes and just making life better for you and your clients. So thanks everybody for listening. We’ll talk to you soon. Peace out. Peace

 

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