Category Archives: Accounting

Accounting for Crypto

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The period leading up to June 30 saw the usual raft of end of financial year updates, special offers and reminders from equipment suppliers, business service providers, accountants, tax specialists and even the ATO itself.

Crypto is certainly getting a lot of attention in Australia at the moment.

First, there is a Senate Select Committee on Australia as a Technology and Financial Centre, including “opportunities and risks in the digital asset and cryptocurrency sector”. The Select Committee is also looking at ways to define and/or potentially regulate crypto assets.

Second, ASIC has launched a public consultation process on crypto ETFs. This follows a desire from the regulator for more policy guidance from the Federal Government on the “regulatory perimeter” for crypto assets.

Third, the CPA published an op ed on the need for more clarity in crypto asset accounting. Not just in Australia, but across the world of International Financial Reporting Standards.

None of this should be surprising, as governments, regulators, tax authorities, professional bodies and institutional investors are still struggling to comprehend this new asset class, and the technology that underpins it.

Do crypto and digital assets represent currency, commodity, real estate, software license, network membership, utility access, payment mechanism, store of value, financial security, or unique property rights? Depending on the design, use case and origination of a token and its economic properties, the answer could be “yes” in each case – albeit not all at the same time.

In my consulting work with Brave New Coin, I get to speak to clients on a daily basis about their own crypto activities – be they exchanges, asset managers, accountants, tax authorities, regulators or investors. A lot of the discussion involves education – helping them to make sense of the technology and its potential. Some of the time they are simply asking our advice about how to address a particular issue, or they need a recommendation for a custodian or broker. A few share the regulatory challenges they face, and seek our perspective in how to navigate them. Others need more technical help, in building software solutions, or with on-chain analysis and wallet tracking (even though “free” block explorers already do a pretty good job in that regard). While many simply need a source of market data and indices for price discovery and NAV calculations, or a process to capture and track the crypto equivalents of corporate actions.

If anyone wonders how we are doing to make the reporting of crypto holdings as simple as equities or fixed income assets, my own experiences suggest we have a way to go. Legacy accounting and portfolio tools struggle with crypto: for example, can they calculate to 8 decimal places? how do they deal with an air drop? and how do they distinguish between Ether and Ethan Minerals (both use ETH as their ticker symbols), or Cardano and Adacel Technologies (both use ADA). And if I am an accountant, auditor, financial planner or adviser, how can I make sure I understand my clients’ portfolio of crypto investments, if I don’t have the appropriate tools?

Next week: Goya – allegories and reportage for the modern age

Intersekt FinTech Pitch Night

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The opening event of the Intersekt 2021 Australian FinTech Conference was a startup pitch night, organised by FinTech Australia, hosted by YBF Ventures, and sponsored by Seed Money. The esteemed judging panel was drawn from a range of VC funds: Todd Forest (NAB Ventures), Nicole Small (Rampersand), Rohen Sood (Reinventure), Lynda Coker (SpeedSpace) and Lucinda Hankin (Grok Ventures).

The pitches in order of presentation (links are in the names):

Boulevard

A cloud-based share registry management platform for startups, founders and their employees. Designed to to be an exchange for unlisted securities, the platform also offers Investor Relations support and automated compliance solutions. Using Distributed Ledger Technology (which underpins Blockchain), the team are working with ASX DLT Solutions (responsible for the CHESS replacement) and deploying DAML, the programming language for modelling digital assets. They have also developed ASICLink, to automate company filings with the corporate regulator, plan to support corporate actions (including the verification of company financials), and are working with equity crowdfunding platforms. Boulevard has already on-boarded 30 companies, comprising 4,000 shareholders.

COGSflow

Describing itself as “Performance based finance”, this is essentially a merchant service offering cash-flow funding solutions for physical goods. This involves purchasing client inventory, and getting repaid on the sales performance. Using a funding ratio calculation as the basis of its credit risk model, the COGSflow will track sales data from the likes of eBay and Amazon (although both of these platforms, like PayPal, Alibaba etc. already offer SME financing of various forms). COGSflow will also analyze variable marketing and customer acquisition costs as inputs to its lending model, and plans to become a member of the Personal Property Securities Register (PPSR), as well as seeking B Corp certification.

Archa

Archa is solving the challenges many SMEs face when trying to access corporate credit cards – banks generally demand personal guarantees from owners or directors before they issue cards, and when they do the “product is awful”. As the pitch described it, many bank-issued corporate cards are really designed as “a line of credit to acquire air miles”. With a mobile app already in the market, Archa incorporates an administration and expense management solution. A major bug bear for many companies is managing corporate subscriptions – all those SaaS apps that are tied to individual employee cards; consolidating, renewing and cancelling those services can be time-consuming and painful. The account administrator can also manage each card’s credit limit. Archa itself has principal issuer membership with MasterCard. In addition to an equity raise, the team is seeking debt funding to offer lines of credit. Channels to market will include SME lenders, accountants and lawyers.

Sherlok

According to the founders, most people paying too much on their mortgages – based on their home loan rate. Because mortgage brokers have 60% of the market, and rely on trailing commissions, there is little incentive for brokers to help their clients find a better rate or provider. However, 15% of brokers’ clients are leaving each year. Sherlok is an SaaS platform that uses AI to help brokers reprice and refinance their existing mortgage book. Using a broker subscription model, Sherlok is aiming to offer “single click refinancing”, although there was some equivocation about becoming a virtual brokerage itself. The founders feel that mortgage broking is still a relationship based business, and requires a human touch.

Axichain

Axichain is building a blockchain-based agricultural supply chain – a digital trading solution for cross-border commodities trading, with an initial focus on red meat. The founders are addressing three main supply chain pain points – market access, paperwork and payment.
Axichain combines smart contracts, an escrow solution and traceability linked to legal processes. Overall, the platform envisages multiple products and revenue streams. The team are seeking both equity and debt funding, the latter to provide lines of credit lines.

Parpera

The meaning of “Parpera” is “fair wallet”. By that, the founders mean they want to offer a range of banking and related services aimed at SME owners, sole traders and freelances. This could include business registration and set-up, better financial insights, and access to smarter banking products etc. It will include card services, payments and invoicing. The plan is to target customers who are about to set up a business, and to promote the service at the start/end of the financial year, hence the intention to use accountants as a channel to market.

Next week: Monash University Virtual Demo Day

Startup Vic’s Professional Services Pitch Night

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For the first of Startup Vic’s monthly pitch nights for 2018, professional services were put under the spotlight. There is a public dialogue on the types and numbers of roles that will disappear due to automation (the professions are no different) and here were four startups seeking to engage in that conversation. Assuming that every industry and every occupation is vulnerable to disruption (and should be alert to the potential opportunities that presents), why should accountants and lawyers feel left out?

Image sourced from Startup Vic Meetup page

Myaccountant

With the promise of enabling users to lodge their BAS return from a smart phone, this app is aimed at micro businesses that struggle with bookkeeping and accounting tasks. Since accounting software packages do not support direct BAS lodgement (although expect this to change…), the app charges $39 per BAS, with no bookkeeping or accounting fees, and shares the fee with the accountants who do the lodgement.

The app is able to extract data from vendor APIs such as Expert360, Airtasker, Uber, etc., and connect to users’ bank accounts. Since launching in January, the app has generated 200 sign ups, with very little direct marketing or paid acquisition so far. The app is also aiming to achieve ISO 27000 (information security).

The panel of judges would have liked to have heard more about the acquisition strategy, and how the app deals with income and expense categorisation, different tax rates, zero rated items, and export sales etc. They also wondered about the competition, and overseas markets

Contractprobe

Developed by Neural Contract, this product uses machine learning to review contracts in 60 seconds. Using a scoring model, it rates documents according to established best practice and bench-marking, suggest sample text for missing clauses, and identifies problems found.

The service is available for ad hoc use, under a monthly subscription, or as custom packages.

According to the founders, the service can save 40% of the time usually spent on contract reviews. It offers a high level of privacy – the uploaded contract, report and transaction ID is deleted upon completion (although it wasn’t clear what records are retained for the purposes of clause analysis, data and analytics – including client profiling and user context.)

To reassure any lawyers in the audience, the product stills relies on human input to apply judgment to the choice of clauses, for example. However, a clear value of the review process is ensuring that phrases and key words are properly defined in the contract.

The judges wondered where this product fits in with open source documentation and pre-drafted documents, whether there are specific verticals more suited to this service, and what trust and liability issues might arise. Is it more of a “clause-spotter” rather than an expert system? How does it address statutory clauses, and the question of whether clauses are actually enforceable?

The service has about 40 clients, including law firms, and is now moving into corporate clients.

Businest

This product is designed to help with cashflow management, which the founders describe as an “iceberg” issue. They point to data that suggests 87% of SMEs have issues with cashflow.

Claiming to use AI to coach SMEs and accountants, the goal is to allow business owners to focus on what they do best, and move accountants from “compliance to advisory”. Applying its own algorithm to cashflow analysis, the service also provides training content to advisors.

Offering both SME and advisor pricing models, the founders have launched a pilot with MYOB. They also point to market research and commentary (CEDR, AFR, CPA, CA…) that indicates the market wants it.

The judges felt that the banks won’t rush to endorse the service (although under the open banking data protocol, they won’t be able to prevent customers linking their accounts) because they are used to the interest they charge on overdraft facilities and credit cards.

Brandollo

This is a marketing tech start-up, aimed at SMEs that struggle to access tailored advice. Targeting B2B clients, in the professional services sector,  with less than 80 staff.

Briefly referring to the use of AI and ML, the service claims to reduce marketing costs by 80%. It offers a brand gap analysis and makes recommendations, that can be implemented without external help. The process looks at execution issues, content requirements, and actual solutions.

Aiming for 200,000 clients in 5 years (currently standing at 200+), the main competitor is Benchmarketing. Brandello offers a freemium model, with a 3-tier paid-for service. They can connect clients to experts, provide a quote to execute and then take a commission on the resulting solution.

 

Based on the judges’ verdict, the winner was Myaccountant. While the people’s choice was a tie between Myaccountant and Contractprobe.

Next week: The General Taxonomy for Cryptographic Assets

StartupVic’s #Pitch Night for October

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The crowds are getting bigger, the list of sponsors is getting longer, there’s a new logo, and they’ve even managed to (sort of) fix the PA system. The Startup Victoria monthly pitch night is now a firm fixture on Melbourne’s Meetup calendar…

Image sourced from Startup Vic's Meetup page (Photo by Daniel)

Image sourced from Startup Vic’s Meetup page (Photo by Daniel)

As usual, there were 4 startup pitches, and I’ll comment on each in order of their presentations:

Next Address

This Ballarat-based startup has built a P2P website that offers “direct to market” property sales, removing the need for traditional estate agents. Recognising that the real estate sector is still ripe for some digital disruption, Next Address is challenging the commission-based fees and cost++ price markup on services that many estate agents charge their clients.

They have established an affiliate programme, and generated some positive media coverage, but have yet to complete any sales. Charging a fee of around $549 to vendors (there is a sliding scale), compared to similar competitors priced at between $800 and $2,000, Next Address is also offering a Facebook package.

I think it’s fair to say that this pitch did not come across as one of the strongest or most compelling presentations at these pitch nights (possibly due to some stage nerves?). There were also questions among people I spoke to about market traction, the customer acquisition model and the conversion process.

Given that there is a lot of competition within real estate listings and aggregation (often backed by major media companies), and given that many vendors still prefer to use the auction process, it was difficult to see how Next Address can cut through, unless they focus on a point of differentiation: geographic market, property type, price range, marketing support or add-on services.

However, the founders must be doing something right, as on the night they managed to attract the attention of a senior executive from a well-known real estate listings website.

DragonBill

DragonBill is an invoicing and remittance solution aimed at sole traders and micro businesses, which has featured in this blog before. The focus is on helping clients manage their cashflow and providing them with a level of financial literacy and education.

Since launching, DragonBill has found a substantial niche market among sporting clubs and associations, in large part because 50% of club members are also SME owners. They are continuing to build partnerships with accountants and are now starting to market themselves via co-working spaces.

Further ahead, there are plans to build some sort of superannuation offering, given that many SME owners and sole traders may not be making sufficient contributions to their personal funds. There are also regulatory changes in payroll administration following the roll out of SuperStream by the ATO.

The judges were interested to know what plans DragonBill has for international growth, and whether the platform can output financial and tax reporting for accounting purposes – both of which are under consideration. Meanwhile, DragonBill was recently shortlisted for an award by VISA.

Spee3d

In short, this business supports “3-D printing of metals at production speeds“. Using a proprietary “Lightspee3d” technology, the goal is to offer a low-cost, high-speed solution for full-scale production output, not just prototypes and medical devices. Primarily manufacturing in copper and aluminium 6061, current output is 100g/minute ( expecting to soon reach 250g/minute), and the maximum size is 300mm x 300mm x 300mm.

For the technically minded, the additive process is described as something like “bugs hitting a windshield”. It does not use any gasses, and deploys a “line of sight” process, meaning that some hollow objects are possible. The business has picked up a Bosch Venture Award.

Targeting products traditionally fabricated by sand casting, Spee3d is working with clients who have a preference for low-cost powders, initially within the university market, then the auto industry. They are also aiming at new products, and not parts manufactured from existing casts that have associated sunk costs. There was quite a lot of excitement around this pitch, judging by the number of questions it prompted.

Foddies

This startup is launching a fructose friendly food business, offering products, recipes and outlets (shops, cafes, catering) that can also appeal to people with other food allergies and dietary requirements. If, like me, you were unaware of the “Low FODMAP” diet,
it was researched and created in Melbourne (Monash Uni), and from my initial reading, it has some similarities with diets designed for people needing gluten-free, lactose free and low GI solutions.

Admittedly not the first to market, Foddies claims to be the first to develop a holistic solution, which includes a wholesale strategy for ready-made meals, a cafe franchise and an online store. Next, they plan to work with airlines and hospitals. Although building on their social media engagement, the biggest challenge, when asked by the judges, was the lack of public awareness or education on the Low FODMAP model.

From a personal perspective, I appreciate the importance of helping people with food allergies or intolerance to manage their condition through appropriate diet. But I can’t be alone in thinking that the higher reported incidence of these complaints may be due to multiple factors such as the increased use of chemicals in the environment (especially food production), the lower resistance in our immune systems caused by too many antibiotics, and our over-reliance on certain strains and varieties of crops. More research is called for.

So, after a very mixed bag of startup pitches, the winner was Spee3d, based on the audience and panel voting.

Next week: Richmond 3121