Sam announces the change of name of the podcast from ‘Conversations with Sam Dean’ to ‘In Demand Accountant’. There's a couple of reasons for this, which Sam covers in this episode, as well as what Covid-19 has highlighted for our industry over the last few months.

Sam interviews Damian Scodella, the Founder and Managing Director of Square Penny. Damian explains the difference between traditional bookkeeping and Square Penny’s proactive financial administration approach, outsourcing vs. offshoring and which Damian prefers, as well as how this leads to more efficiencies for accountants and business owners.

Sam covers the rules, structures and boundaries to implement in your practice and in your workday to get more efficient and effective with your staff and your clients. She also explores the conversations you can have with your staff and clients at this time, as well as the conversations you need to be having with yourself.

Sam has a brilliant conversation with Bruce Coombes, the CEO of QuickFee. This is a very uncertain time but it's also a time of great opportunity for accountants and business advisors to really serve their clients. The value and power of conversation with your clients right now is so important, but you also need to get paid.

Sam talks about the impacts on the accounting and advisory industry, as well as on our clients, of the coronavirus pandemic. She explains why your physical and mental health needs to be the number 1 priority right now, and how that enables you to respond better in business. This is a marathon not a sprint.

Sam covers resource planning, the starting mindset and the different roles you need. She explains the accountability strategies that can be helpful and tips for execution going forwards, plus the common mistake the happens to many when they get too busy that makes this whole process fall apart.

Sam Dean covers the third stage of the workflow. Sam explains what the helicopter review is and why you need it, as well as what you need to cover in the job debrief meeting that you need to have. She also covers the opportunity meetings and importance of reframing our conversations with our clients.

Sam covers the second stage of the work flow. This is around processing jobs and making sure you are establishing the mindset and the systems to create more efficiencies in this stage. Sam explains the steps in processing a job, the power of the finishing mindset and the importance of getting accountants doing accounting work and having other staff do the rest.

Sam kicks off a series based around the Renovate Program, which is all about helping create space in our firms and getting a super efficient at what we do every day. What she is going to talk about over the next four sessions is all around the job processes for End of Year work, which still takes up about 85% of our work, so it's this area that accountants need to get super focused on.