This tax season, accountants are facing challenges in what is already the most difficult time of year for the accounting industry. From understaffing across the board to tax guidelines changing, 2022 could be the most frustrating year yet for many accountants.
Currently, accountants are required to manually enter information into digital ledger systems, which could take days, weeks, and in some cases months. What if accountants could cut out the time it takes to enter information manually into digital ledgers, and instead put that time into more pressing tasks? For many accounting firms finding themselves overwhelmed and overstaffed, automated technologies that seek to alleviate the manual entering for financial reporting could be the lifeboat they need.
Recently, Insightful Accountant caught up with Wayne Chang and Jeff Seibert, co-founders of the company Digits. Previously, serial entrepreneurs and angel investors co-founded Crashlytics, a company acquired by Twitter for $100 million because of its groundbreaking tech. Through Digits, Wayne and Jeff are building an incredible, entirely new ecosystem of software never before created for accountants.
Check out our conversation below that gives a sense of how and why Digits was started, and the incredible offering the company’s technology brings to the accounting industry.
What is Digits? What led you to start the company?
The core technologies within accounting have been largely stagnant — it's dated and hasn't changed in decades. As a result, the accounting industry has been starved of true innovation. Digits is building an incredible, entirely new ecosystem of software never before created for accountants. Built by some of Silicon Valley's best and brightest, the velocity in which we've been able to ship and iterate an entire suite of products for our customers is truly mind-blowing.
In building companies ranging from startups to leading consumer product at Twitter, we were forced to spend more time outside of the core product, with one of those areas being accounting. It was time-consuming to get any financial answers we were seeking. Every time we asked a question, it required teams of people to pour through financial information from many different sources and manually calculate and analyze it to complete the picture and answer our questions.
We believed the tools existed to solve the complexity of the accounting industry. When we realized it wasn’t, we set out to build the technology.
How do you describe the value you bring to the accounting field?
Imagine if accountants could run millions of calculations in real-time to discover the most-impactful insights and trends for their clients. Or create fully customizable financial reports and executive summaries—that’s infinitely explorable and instantly shareable with clients. We’re not merely putting fresh paint on old technology and making it faster; we’re creating an unseen world and a new way of empowering accountants.
Accounting has the potential to become one of the most exciting fields of the next decade. There will be a seismic shift when the industry truly starts to innovate and build Apple-level products.
In what ways do you consider currently available digital ledger systems to slow down or hinder the work accountants do?
All current ledger systems are historical, and require manual data entry to maintain. This means simple things like proactive alerts are impossible. For the first time, Digits’ technology enables proactivity and the ability to do things that no current software can do. We're releasing products harnessing AI and machine learning technologies that improve the day-to-day work of accountants.
This adoption goes beyond enabling faster reporting, ensuring customizable detailed reports with the essential information connected directly to the specific client's needs. Our mission is to build incredibly powerful software that saves accountants time, makes their clients happy, and is a joy to use.
Why are technologies such as AI so critical for the accounting industry?
AI for the accounting industry will improve accountants' workflows while also guaranteeing faster reporting for clients who rely on financial reports to make critical business decisions. Imagine there was a technology that genuinely saved accountants time - allowing them to just drag and drop information a client needs into a report rather than spend hours trying to calculate data.
How could technology and faster financial reporting help currently understaffed accounting firms or small businesses?
What if financial reporting software allowed accountants to save tremendous amounts of time, increase client happiness with immersive reports they actually want to read and grow their bottom line? Digits is creating the tools to do this. For the first time ever, accountants can create dynamic documents that let clients explore their finances, visually and intuitively, from a high level down to granular transaction details—all in one place. For understaffed accounting firms and small companies, this could be the difference between overall business success or failure.
Imagine if accountants could run millions of calculations in real-time to discover the most-impactful insights and trends for their clients.
Give us a snapshot of the accounting market today. What are seeing out there?
The tools made for accountants are dated and cumbersome. They are supposed to help them tell a story for their clients, but today that story is confusing and tough to communicate. As a result, when business owners look at a financial report, they don’t know what that story is and have to try and decipher it. Digits is solving this by building Apple-level technology and tools for the accounting industry.
Where do you see accounting’s future if the right technologies are put in place?
Accounting has the potential to become one of the most exciting fields of the next decade. There will be a seismic shift when the industry truly starts to innovate and build Apple-level products. Accountants, when empowered by these next-generation tools, will be able to do more in less time, generating more revenue for their clients and themselves.
Meet the Founders
Jeff Seibert is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor who was recently named one of Insider’s "Top 100 Seed VCs." Seibert co-founded Crashlytics (acquired by Twitter for over $100 million), co-created Fabric (acquired by Google after reaching two billion smartphones), and, before that, co-founded Increo (acquired by Box). His latest company, Digits, is setting out to revolutionize business finance. A self-taught programmer, Seibert released his first app at the age of 13, long before he led the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders seminar series at Stanford University. Driven by a desire to solve problems, build solutions that matter, and protect the privacy and security of end-users. Seibert has invested in more than 60 other start-ups and recently starred in the Netflix phenomenon "The Social Dilemma," which was nominated for "Best Documentary" at the 2021 BAFTA Awards.
Wayne Chang is a serial entrepreneur and investor who’s been named one of Forbes’ Top 50 Angel Investors and one of "40 Under 40" by Boston Business Journal. Chang’s ability to meld psychology and strategy has led to magical product and design experiences that have scaled to more than seven billion devices. He co-founded Crashlytics (acquired by Twitter for over $100 million), co-created Fabric (acquired by Google), and won an Emmy Award as a producer on the environmental documentary "Chasing Coral." A college dropout, Wayne has been awarded an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Throughout his career, he’s been involved in more than 80 start-ups and 24 exits, resulting in $40-plus billion of value created. His latest company, Digits, is backed by $32 million from Benchmark and GV and is setting out to revolutionize business finance.
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