• Lee Murphy, Owner at Pandle


• 05.12.2016 09:26 am

Financial IT speaks with Lee Murphy, owner of Pandle about the impact of cloud computing on financial services industry and the most efficient cloud based bookkeeping software.

Financial IT: How cloud computing is impacting on the financial services sector?

Lee: Cloud computing impacts financial services in many ways. The biggest in my opinion is collaboration. A few years back accountants would receive a Sage backup file or a spreadsheet for a previous year. They would make changes and adjustments in order to create financial statements which were presented to the clients to approve. By the time the clients had sight of their profit and other KPIs they were out of date. These days clients and their advisors can work on financial data at the same time. Due to automated bank feeds and other advances this data tends to be real time or close to it, meaning that the business owner can make quick decision based on meaningful and current data.

I believe this collaboration has improved the relationship between clients and advisors and have in some cases meant that role of an accountant has progressed from number cruncher to that of a mini F

Financial IT: How does Pandle deliver the solution?  What are the key challenges and opportunities of applying your solution for the customers?

Lee: Pandle delivers a collaboration solution with the use of various tools. As Pandle is in the cloud, it can be accessed by multiple (and unlimited) users at the same time across any device or location. Pandle also offers additional tools such as a remote login which enables advisors to connect to their clients PC and show them how to solve a problem, etc. Pandle also has a chat function for further collaboration and will alert users, and their advisors, of potential errors within the data entry.

Financial IT: Can you mention the use case of your cloud solution?

Lee: All businesses are required to keep financial records which should be presented in a certain format. Pandle can be used by the majority of small businesses to make this process quick and simple.

A typical use case would be a contractor starting out in business. The contractor will need to invoice their clients, record their banking transactions and pay their VAT and PAYE bill on time. Pandle facilitates the entry of this data (some of which can be automated) in order to keep it in an acceptable format for Companies House and HMRC, whilst providing useful information for the business owner such as how much he/she owes, their cash flow position, and their profitability in order to take a dividend, plus much more.

Financial IT: In your opinion what trends, issues and challenges are there in cloud accounting sector? How does your solution address those challenges?

Lee: The biggest challenges are complexities in the tax system. As each new complexity is added other features within the software are affected, as the tax system is so intertwined there’s a ripple effect in the sector. As complexity increases it’s much more challenging for software vendors to provide users with an intuitive solution that they can use accurately.

We address these issues by really focusing on the user experience. We avoid jargon and use plain English, we also follow the user’s workflow and disallow certain entries being made so that the user has less chance of making errors. We also have very intuitive notifications to help guide users to make accurate entries.

Financial IT: How do you evaluate Pandle in terms of market competition? Can you name your key competitors?

Lee: Cloud accounting is becoming very competitive. There are key players in the market who are taking market share very quickly, such as QuickBooks Online and Xero. Although we are a competitor we are aiming for a different audience. Where QBO and Xero focus on adding as much functionality and integration as possible, we focus on small businesses and ensure our solution is as simple and intuitive as possible. Our target market do not typically fare well with more complex solutions, and they usually end up having to pay a professional to rectify all of the errors they have made. There are not too many competitors who are as focussed as we are on this issue but Kashflow and Freeagent are probably the closest.