How K-Fin Financial Services runs a growing practice from one base with Fintura

My name is Ernst van der Westhuizen. We are K-Fin Financial Services. We based in Plettenberg Bay. I am the company owner and director and we serve uh small and medium enterprise companies as well as individuals to maintain uh their financial affairs as well as to understand their businesses. Uh we focus on especially the advisory side where we really want to add value to businesses not only filling in your VATs and your tax compliances.

Can you tell me um how you were running your practice before you implemented Fintura?

In the past we used Excel like most accountants start. you've got uh 10 clients and you still feel in control and then it grows to 20 and then 50 and then you realise um uh a lot of tasks on month end then uh gets missed. You've got weekly recurring tasks. You've got monthly, you've got bi-weekly, you've got every third month this needs to happen. And after a while your phone has got all of these reminders on and you've got various systems. you've got a notebook and after a while you just realise it becomes a bit out of control. So we started looking at other practice um uh software uh options um but most of our experiences always ender up on um it's just too tedious, too much information need it. just so I think that was the side that was a bit challenging um growing and making sure that your clients can trust you um by not missing deadlines uh and growing your firm at the same time became challenging. So we started looking for solutions and that's where we that's where we uh got introduced to Fintura.

Can you remember a specific moment that drove that or was it just continuous?

Well, a few a few times between half past 10 and 11 at night, it happened a lot to me. Um, we actually found a great solution from an American uh service provider but um it was limited to American clients. We struggle to find a seeminglessly all-in-one inclusive package that could cover um day-to-day management service but also keeping compliance specifically for um South African accountants. We couldn't find that system. Um and when we got introduced to Fintura, it just ticked all our boxes.

What was the cost of how you previously did it? Like what did that cost you besides missing deadlines? But was there a monetary value? Was there a time value? Like what was it costing you doing it the old way?

And if you have to actually look at the amount of time that you've missed where you could actually add value to a client, I think that's the cost that one can't really measure. the repeating emails requesting clients info uh and then you realise the client didn't return your email to go and search what was the last time when was the last time I had contact with this client um asking a staff member to do something but not following up you don't know when or where that task specifically is. So yes, I think definitely um it must have been a a high cost. Yes, we paid that American um supplier that we had. I think one user was 600. We save R6,000 per month. So it was a direct cost saving immediately.

Ok. How was the move to Fintura for you? What did you what was that process like? How did you feel during the move?

We got a lot of support. I think um the team really um supported us. I was I was impressed with um how effectively and quickly they assisted us. So when you move into a new system, it's always challenging. You've got old habits. You've got your ways of doing things and you got to learn a new system. And I think the team really did a great job to assist us moving from the old to the new. And it it's it feels like often when you um implement a new system, it's like an extra two hours beyond your day job that you have to invest in time. So we could really from the start on going see that this is a great team that we going to be able to work with in the founding partners of Fintura. And we really felt that they had our backs, you know. We really felt that they because they've been accountants themselves. They understand where if we ask a specific uh technical question, they understand as accountants, how do we think? How do we think and it was just amazingly like to see how they answered our questions really quickly and the other good is just on ground level. So yeah, it was brilliant.

Can you remember how long the migration took from the one system to the next moving the data over?

It took me a weekend. So if you really put your head down and you put it in um but um as long as you've got your data prepared, you've got your client information, specific client details ready and you've got it in the correct formats. Um but I'd say um if you lay the foundation and you get your structure ready before you go live um and get all team members on board and make sure they understand how the system works, then it can really go smooth and it shouldn't take longer than a month. I mean you can really do this in a month.

Can you walk me through something that you use day to day on Fintura?

A couple of things that Fintura has added since we joined is just for instance recurring tasks. Um that's amazing if you for instance in SARS you do a payment plan and you must now remember to load this specific payment every six months for a client because they got a VAT payment plan. For instance, getting that notification on the 25th of the month, please load the payment, you know. So, um that's so helpful. Um the tags you can put specific different um like for instance if if you have processes and there's different stages in your paralel process. Um if you have a oversight you've got 20 payroll clients, each one has got a different tag or each one has got a different step in the process. You can immediately see who's paid. You can immediately say is it with the client? Is it with my team? So Fintura allows us to basically take control of day-to-day uh activities and on a high level quickly see if you group your clients. This specific group, this specific task is in this specific stage. Um time management, who did what today? Um the time tracker is so simple. You just click a button. I'm starting to go and work. Ok. the phone rang. Now you just pause it quickly take a phone call and and continue, you know, or go make a coffee, pause your timer, come back, play it again, and continue working. So we don't bill specifically per hour, but it's good at the end of the month to see, listen, my team spent 36 hours on this client this month. Um, we our billing is not sufficient. For instance, I think um data is just as good as long as it provides information. So you can track all the time. You can have great statistics in a system if you don't analyse it um in the end. Um that's where the value comes from. So yes, we definitely picked up areas where certain clients got billed either too much or too little. So we realise some of our clients are really profitable and then you as an accountant can also decide listen I got to invest more in this client because he's paying a good fee. So let's give him something extra you know. So you've got clients um above threshold and then you've got clients below threshold. So it's always good to know um where your resources are being allocated to. So if it's a group structure you know you can charge more money on a on a beneficial ownership declaration for instance. Suddenly now Fintura you can group your clients and say listen this this is has got a trust structure for instance with a trust there's additional beneficiaries wait we're actually missing out on feing this people or feeing this client for additional beneficial owners so a lot of more oversight and and visibility on decisions that one as a practice owner needs to make every day is just helping us a lot if I can explain it like

Yeah. What would you say is your favourite feature in Fintura at the moment?

I would say the first time when I imported all of my clients and the CIPC information pulled in like all the registration numbers, the director information that was a bit of an eye opener. That was a wow moment like these guys are actually integrated with CIPC.

How since moving to Fintura how has that changed things for your staff for your team?

The staff members I would say for me as an owner is I'm at a place where they don't have an excuse not knowing what they should do. So I think from a staff perspective it's really easy to see what do I need to do today? Um you know so it's helping you organising your your work. very effective and that helps you also to enjoy your job if you just have to do crisis management the whole day. Um that's frustrating. No one enjoys working like that. So having a system that can just plan your day for the plan your week plan your month better. Um I think that's the big difference in staff um morale as well and I mean you can run this on 500 to 1,000 clients. It's the same as running it on 200 clients. As long as you've got someone that like I said pull the data and see who's working on what and if there's a reviewers the reviewer functions brilliant because now you've got some a second pair of eyes on and if someone signs it off as a reviewer then you know it's done. If you want to really talk about cost, I mean if you have got everything um synchronised in Fintura and compliance as well as the accounting as well as the tax as well as that as well as pay you earn you don't have to log into any system anymore. So you've got one base. You've got one base. It speaks. It pulls data. It pushes data between systems.

You've got one base in running your practice. I mean that that is absolute absolutely like perfect if where you want to be. If you invest time in a system, you want to know that it's a permanent thing. It's a long-term thing.

So I'm very glad that you guys um we can already see it's going to work for us. I mean every month you guys bring new features continuously and it's not as if it takes long to program it's continuous. So that's what we really appreciate. We can see there's growth there's new things being added and like you say perhaps not everything is for everyone but there's enough for for you to go and see what works for you and what not.

Can you describe Fintura in one sentence?

I feel it's a safety net where if you um I've got a lot of things to juggle and you miss something, Fintura is there to remind you that if that ball is dropped, Fintura is there to tell you listen I've got your back. So that's Fintura for me.

What is one uh piece of advice that you would give to someone who's considering moving to Fintura or busy moving? What is what advice would you give them?

Please cancel all your previous services and move to Fintura.

Perfect. I'll take it.