Episodes: Listen Now to The Successful Bookkeeper Podcast — The Successful Bookkeeper

EP184: Jamie Shulman - How To Sell Your Bookkeeping Business

Written by Michael Palmer | Mar 17, 2020 4:25:00 PM

Companies are bought not sold.

Our returning guest, Jamie Shulman, had that in mind when building the company, Hubdoc, he co-founded.

In 2018, Huddoc was acquired by Xero for 70 million dollars, so Shulman’s vision was fulfilled.

During the interview, you'll discover...

  • Why it's important to be comfortable with the inevitability of automation

  • Tips on how to seal the deal in a business sale

  • The difference between selling a business versus growing a business

To connect with Jamie on LinkedIn, go here.

To listen to his previous Successful Bookkeeper podcast episode, click this link.

TRANSCRIPTION NOTES

Michael Palmer (01:37): Welcome back to the successful bookkeeper podcast. I'm your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a fantastic one. Our guest is the co founder and co CEO of hub dock, a cloud accounting application that automates the collection of financial documents. Jamie Shellman, welcome back to the show.

Jamie Shulman (01:56): No thanks Michael. Thanks for having me.

MP (01:57): It's great to have you in. And we had a little chat prior to this conversation about when we first chatted, which was way back in the early days of when you're just getting Hubdocs started. And what a journey it's been now having being acquired by zero back in 2018. Congratulations. And, uh, I'd love to hear a little bit of your story and share with your listener what that's been like.

JS (02:25): Oh, thanks Michael. Yeah, it's hard to believe, I guess that was back in 2014 when we spoke. I actually remember it quite vividly. We had started the business originally in the consumer space. We thought we were going to organize documents and household, basically call it household data, but really hands on documents. And we started building the product and people, people really loved it. The idea of just being able to automatically have all of your key household, uh, bill statements, et cetera. But it turned out that despite the people loved it and used it, it really was more of a, I think we call it a more of a vitamin and a painkiller. And people were like, this is a great, this is a great idea, a great product. And then they just wouldn't, you know, use that. Um, uh, and, and, uh, and so we learned that it was in 2014 where we early 2014 where we realized that businesses is really where we should be and we kind of pivoted and then launched, uh, to businesses and ultimately to the bookkeepers and accountants market as fast as possible.

JS (03:20): So you and I talked right at the beginning. Um, so fast forwarding to the passporting to post acquisition with zero, it's been great. They've been even better than we imagined when we, and we can talk more about this, but when we made a decision to join the Xero family, you know, a big part of the reason was we shared a ton of values in terms of our brand, our customer for a trip first approach as zero, like Hubdoc. We all focused on the channels and speak on, on serving accountants and bookkeepers. We don't really spend a ton of time thinking about the end user does the small business. So brands are the same, are our customer first approach is the same or designing those as the same. And we treat people the same in terms of how we build employee base. And so it's been a joy and it's an 18 months. It's hard to believe.

MP (04:08): It's hard to believe. It seems like just yesterday the announcement came and shocked everybody and, and uh, and here it is 18 months later and your company is growing and there's, there's all sorts of great things happening. I, I think back to, I think Warren buffet said he buys the companies he likes to use, right? So if his investment strategy is, if it's good for me, it's going to be a good investment. Well, I think of of hub dock, I've been using Hubdoc since 2014 and I can't, it's one of those things where at the time it's like, Oh, this is kind of cool, but now I can't imagine living without it. It's such a fantastic product. Like it saves me so much time. Just a small, small organization, small company. But it saves me so much time and it works and it does what it promises to do. And it's built this, I've seen Hubdoc go from nobody knowing anything about how doc to it being kind of like people want to wear your tee shirts because they love your culture and your product so much.

JS (05:12): Yeah. Well thanks for saying that. You know, it's, it's funny Jamie and I think, you know, my business partner is named Jane as well. I mean I, you know, we, we, we came up with the idea originally because we had started and run and ultimately sold a previous business software business together and we found it extremely frustrating doing the books for the business so that, that was between 2007 and 2010 2011 and it was just frustrating. We were using desktop software. We would shuttle key financial documents, like statements and checks and invoices and bill to our bookkeeper who would then input them and then send us back a file and Franklin and, and checks to sign. And so it was really the idea of scratch your own itch, but at the same time we saw that consumer need and we're chasing that down and then we in the wrong area, which was consumer, but it wasn't clear there was a business to start, which is often the case with startups, but we've, we feel great about how people adopted it and I think we just got super lucky in terms of the timing because a, this content of automation and having machines do data entry, it was just starting and we kind of were able to catch the wave early scram.

MP (06:18): It's a remarkable, remarkable. Now for you, what's it been like having grown a business and you said you, you, you've done this in the past, but I'm assuming that this is a, Oh, it was a larger acquisition for you. What was it like to get that deal done? To see that business grow and then be acquired?

JS (06:37): Yeah, it felt great. Candidly, we'd never started the company or our previous company with the intent to be, you know, to be acquired. I think that'd be a challenging thing to do when you start a company from scratch for those that haven't done it. Yeah. You can imagine it's super hard because you really don't know if it's gonna work out and you have a bunch of sacrifices in your life you're making. And so our belief when you kind of have to be all in, and so we were building what we thought would ultimately be hopefully a sustainable, you know, profitable cash generating, you know, independent business, you know, that was delivering an amazing product or service to customers. And also, you know, delivering an amazing employee experience to our people. And that was kind of the goal going in. However, you know, being a SAS software business where, you know, customer acquisition needs to be funded early on.

JS (07:30): And we were building out, you know, a pretty challenging product, at least our developers were, you know, we needed to raise capital. And you know, as many people know that you need to raise capital and now you have investors, that does change the game of it for a business owner. If you're now you have a stakeholder who's invested in your company, you know that there's a return to expectations that would exist there at some level. And so as you're growing a SaaS business like that, until you actually start generating cashflow and you do have a continued need for, for capital, you're always thinking in the back of your head about a need for a potential exit. Cause at some point, if there aren't investors or your existing investors don't want to continue that fund, you'd have to find some way to liquidate, which would typically be through a sale or I, you know, maybe going public for some.

JS (08:12): Uh, and so your eyes are open along the way. And so we, we early on as you know, um, partnered with all the GLS, or at least we're here in Toronto. So the key ones being, you know, intimates QBO and zero and Sage and our, our two principal partners were, were QBO and Xero ran two and zero and they were incredible partners for us, help us grow our business. But I think at the end of the day, you know, as you stated, it's about customer love and, and we somehow were able to build something that despite we still see flaws at every day and it's not a perfect product and we're constantly trying to improve it. It's, you know, we see we're as frustrated as anyone with the, you know, what needs to be done. But despite all that, we did see quite a bit of love. I think that was just a product market fit concept of we just recognize that we had something here that customers were really finding with solving a pain point for them.

JS (09:05): And so when it got to 2018 just to tie to your question, we were in a position to, to raise quite a bit of capital, like a large sum of money, that kind of stuff on the gas and really grow the business. On the other hand, we had had quite a bit of interest from zero and maybe from others. And so we were faced with a choice and it turned out the decision to sell was even better than we thought for host of reasons. But the biggest one is I just think about how we're giving opportunities to our employees. Now we're part of a much larger organization globally and we know our employees going all over the world, Zealand, Australia, the UK and South Africa to get opportunities to work. And then also we have access to zeros. You know, they've got North of 2 million small business customers despite the fact that Israel is not yet a as dominant in North America as it is everywhere else everywhere else, or when he's this hero around the world, it's North America where there's a into it is quite dominant, uh, and has earned it. And so, um, we're quite pleased with what's transpired for employees and, uh, and for our product to get access to all those customers.

MP (10:11): yeah, it's, it's, it's remarkable and congratulations on that. And again, it, it always is one of those personal delights. When I see people build something cool, build a business, you know, you're creating jobs, you're, you're having fun, you know, it, I admire it and I, I'm sure our listener does as well. And, and being a user of the product is, is always great as well. It's like, Hey, this is cool. This saves time for me. This is I think why so many people love, uh, the Jamie's and, and love we've built. You've saved people so much time. You've made value in the world and, and, and, and then you see it being evaluated and getting the money for that value. Uh, so pretty, pretty cool story. And that brings me the question of selling a business. You've done this, this is not your first time. What would you recommend to other business owners that might be thinking of selling their business?

JS (11:07): Yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. I mean, you just mentioned the content of product, market fit and customer love. Uh, to the extent just on the, if one is in the software business, which is, it may be different than being in the bookkeeping or accounting, but this it just finding, you know, a pain point for your prospects, your customer then you can solve. And then if you can find, you know, a big enough market there that's the key for accounting and bookkeeping. What I find is similar, how you just described what we're doing, you know, if one is offering a really compelling service to customers, let's say small businesses getting their books done and making them feel, you know, secure their business. Like they have a handle of the financial situation and their then a forecasting of growth or where they're headed, that's extremely valuable.

JS (11:57): And so that would lead to the content of customer delight, customer love. I know we see with a lot of our customers, the accountants and bookkeepers who serve their clients that they're, you know, they also achieve that level of customer or I guess it's client love and it's great to see that. So that's like the key piece when you're looking to sell a business or grow a business. It's like you need, you just need to find your place in the world with customers. But I would say if one's focusing on the idea of possibly selling, you know it's important, we learned this a little bit the hard way and maybe later than we could have, but the idea of measuring your traction, like really understanding why you're growing, where you're growing, how you're growing, is it predictable growth? I think what buyers often look for, you know, are not only what do you have today and how you've built that historically, but also like what, what are the prospects of it if someone's looking to buy your business.

JS (12:44): That leads me to a higher level point, which is being a bit older. I've got the [inaudible] that I used to be an attorney. I don't know if you knew that Michael used to practice law in Toronto or there in San Francisco and so it leads me to this Connor, which is like businesses are basically bought, not sold. Now, people heard that expression before. But you know, really it's about someone buys a business as opposed to going on to try and sell it. And so, uh, I would say for people that might consider when they sung a business, starting to develop relationships with, you know, potential prospective purchasers would be very important. So in our case, we had these relationships in particular with Intuit zero and we thought about that early on. We weren't necessarily gunning for a, you know, an acquisition, but we developed relationships across the board at every level in the business so that when the time came that that incident zero, they might've thought of, gosh, maybe be willing to purchase hub doc.

JS (13:39): They're people that technology, we were already a known entity, people are on the business, would have known that. So that would be an important thing. And the final thing that I'd say is, is something I've learned over the years, it's become even clearer, is that everything is about people, about individuals, like one by one. And so we've grown our business from the two of us up to but 130 people when we got acquired, it's still growing and we look back on it and if we've had any success whatsoever that without seeing within our control, it's really I think then about the people and about really focusing early on on every single hire, which means you know how you, where you identify and locate candidates to how you interview them and who you hire. Because most people end up hiring more people in your business and then it allows you to kind of build the culture and the Diastat within your business that you know becomes desirable thing. A purchase area that's editing too is just thinking about your people, thinking about potential acquirers as well as you're measuring how you're doing and focusing on the customer. Love that. That kind of comes into my head.

MP (14:38): That's great advice. And I think many there, there are many bookkeepers that think about selling their business and, and the, the advice around businesses are, are bought, not sold as is very valuable. So who do you want to have potentially buy your business, who would be a likely buyer and then nurturing those relationships early on. Fantastic advice. I'd love to hear a little bit about your take on what you've learned about bookkeepers in their business because you did mention you spend more time thinking about how to service and keep the bookkeeper user, the person who's actually doing the books and and versus the end user being business owners that are pulling this, this information up into up into the cloud. What have you learned over the years about bookkeeping business owners?

JS (15:32): Oh, that's an interesting question. I mean, something that I've learned about as we've been thinking about this for years and I'd say also we, we've happened to come along and between 2014 and today you are, we're at a time, which is in a way, I'm going to sound dramatic here Michael, but I'm, in a way, it's like a once in a generation opportunity for people offering bookkeeping and accounting services, but my dad, he used to be is an accountant, but he used to practice as an accountant. He's now moved on to other things, but I remember, you know when desktop software came out, I think that was in high school, that was 30 something years ago the software emerged and I think it feels like here we are now in a, I'm going to call another once in a generation opportunity where you know, automation is emerging.

JS (16:16): So it's Cod software, it's automation and I'm extremely bullish on the accounting of bookkeeping space despite the fact that I think you'd hear out there probably some doomsday scenarios in some of those. But I, I just believe that it's a giant time for opportunity. So what have I learned? I feel like I've learned the value of an advisor. I think it's no different than I'm on this automation thought in my head. I find it no different than maybe doctors, you know, like the radiologist that people say now, you know, x-rays and MRIs get read by a machine where I think that enhances the value of the doctor, delivers, you know, the diagnosis and helps you, you know, relieve symptoms and, and get your health on track. It's, I feel like it's similar in that way where I find that the accountants and bookkeepers that are, you know, less or that aren't resistance to change but are comfortable with change and the inevitable, the inevitability of what we're seeing now with, uh, with automation.

MP (17:10): I, I think what we've seen is, and it's a bit of a, a bit of selection bias. You can imagine a lot of our customers are comfortable with the inevitability of automation and technology. And so when they get there, they realize how valuable the human element is. It has a, as I've said, I think it's even more important now in a world where behind the curtain, so to speak, machines, computers are doing more. Whether it's reading the xray or whether it's, you know, reading receipts and bills and invoices, pulling out data from them and maybe even shooting just almost perfectly creating a financial statements. I think the value of the advisor becomes increased and, and one can obviously charge more for that service as opposed to the data entry of the past. So I guess the, the, the point I'm coming to is I'm learning that this industry is more and more adopting what's happening in the future.

JS (18:00): And it's, it's exciting because, because the needs, you know, they're still going to be small businesses. I think more and more the numbers a year or 90 plus percent of the, of the economy, at least in North America and small businesses and people running, you know, pet stores and restaurants are, and software businesses aren't necessarily interested in or capable of really understanding their potential. And so I think the, I've learned that accounts are bookkeepers are more resilient and willing to adopt change than maybe people would think or that we hear about. And that's big. That's probably the big one I see. Because with technology automation, it changes all the time. Like software, it gets up updated. SAS software gets updated daily, weekly, monthly. Uh, it's not like you buy a CD every few years and automation is just getting better and better. So having the ability to understand or hire people who understand what are the future's going. It doesn't seem to be as scary as one might think for a, a somewhat traditional industry.

MP (19:00): It's refreshing. It's exciting. And I agree with you having spoken with many who have embraced technology and the the opportunity that comes from that. And and also being a user, we're all users of technology and often I'll be sitting there using some piece of software and wondering my goodness like, eh, it changes so often it does new things all the time. And to think that at some day there wouldn't be a role for somebody to actually make sense of all of it is, is just kind of crazy, right? People think, Oh, we're going to be all out of jobs. I mean it's just the job changes the time. What you do with your time changes. And, and the ones that are embracing that are finding that it's delighting customers, they're delighting their customers more often and they're actually able to spend time on things that are more valuable to business owners. And, and so it's exciting. And your technology is one of those pieces of that puzzle which has removed an incredible amount of wasted time that where does that time go? Well, it goes into other things, hopefully more valuable things for the business owner and for the ones that have to work with, with those records in that information.

JS (20:11): Yeah. You know what's interesting about it, just as a quick thing to add to that, it's so true because as I'm thinking about our previous business, again, kind of 29,011 so not that long ago, you know, what was frustrating us was we didn't have a sense of how we were doing because the financials wouldn't get done until weeks after month end and it often wasn't done because we were getting them the necessary data, the answers to questions that documents they needed in order to produce the financials. So that's going back same nine, 10 years we eh, but even for many businesses, it's still the case. You just have to know how you're doing it. It wasn't, and that's frustrating. Now imagine a world today in the way of doing bookkeeping and accounting. Imagine if it truly was more automated, where you could almost in real time know how you're doing.

JS (20:53): Imagine that forecast and you could do in the handle you that one your business. Now you wouldn't as a business owner be able to manage all that. But that service of delivering kind of real time financial management, real time forecasting, we're not there yet, but that would be really powerful. And as you say, it's still a critical service. It's not going away. It's just, it's just done better. And, and when it's done better, you can often, you know, charge more for it. And, and so we, we see all the time from our customers, uh, not that it's about this, but that they can make more money delivering a better service on spending less time doing it. So it's like, that's a win, win, win.

MP (21:30): Well, it's a win, win, win. And it's exciting. So I think the, the, there are the doomsday people who write those doomsday articles, which do create a buzz and people, you know, read those, read those articles and they get a lot of buzz. But the refreshing story is that there's an a lot more in the deeper part of the stories. There's so much opportunity and we're really, as you say, at the very, very beginning of all of it. So embracing the technology and understanding the technology is, is the way to go. And I, and that's one of the things I've, I've, I've also, uh, thought that your organization has done a good job of, as is being involved in associations, communities like the Institute of professional bookkeepers where you're, you're there. It's not about, Hey, we're just a big company. You're there, your people, you've invested in having education and outreach and making sure people understand how to best use the tools. And I think that's also a part of why people feel like you're part of their family is because you, you put that forward.

JS (22:29): Well thanks. And I think, thanks for saying that we do feel that way. And um, I mean, we've always believed that speaking to and being close to customers is how you build the product in the first place. How you iterate on it. Now you've learned to make it better. And then I'd also say that, you know, we joined zero, now a Hubdoc zero an hour one by the way, I don't know if you saw the announcement, this isn't really a applied but it's, we just announced that hotdog is now going to be free with many of the key zero plans starting in mid March. And so zero embraces that customer he posts as well as as a product. There's work to be done. We're still kind of helping them to the journey of being more startup like and, and have even more more of a ground floor, uh, focused on customers.

JS (23:11): But what's nice man is just being genuine and real with customers in a way where if they say, Oh, I don't like this about your software or a competitor does that with the software, and you say, well, they should be easy, you should probably use the competitor until we get our act together and provide you that feature when you start being genuine and real and completely transparent with customers. We did that at hub dot. It goes a long way to earn trust and credibility. And then when you, you know, and loyalty because as far as I'm concerned, there's no other way to be. And so I appreciate you saying that.

MP (23:41): Well thank you and great and some great points. And I think that's in terms of our listener to take, take that advice, which is, is being transparent and, and you know, when there are issues or if there are challenges is to share them, let people know and also let, let people know the roadmap. You know, that's uh, you know, we're not good at this, but we're working on it. And, uh, here's where we're, we're good and here's where we're working on it. And that's exciting. I did hear the news about zero offering Hubdoc and, and again, like it's 2014. It's a not that long ago and now here a whole 2 million users are potentially going to have access to, to your product and, and be able to have that process in their, and their business and create a lot less friction for themselves and for, uh, the bookkeepers and accountants who have to deal with that information. So it's remarkable.

JS (24:37): Yeah. Thanks. No, it's been fun.

MP (24:40): No. Last question would be, uh, around where do you see the future going for the industry? We've talked a lot about all the great things that have happened and w, you know, it's almost like we're living in the future all the time, driving around and, and you know, flying cars. But what's tomorrow look like in your eyes or, for hub doc or for the industry. I think the industry be interesting to take, get your take on the industry.

JS (25:09): Yeah. Um, and we, we touched on those a little bit there, but I would say, yeah, I mean, I do believe that, you know, this isn't, uh, machine learning and AI are artifacts and especially in the, in, in something like, uh, accounting and bookkeeping, you know, we're seeing it add real value. And so I think I, I'm going to refer to AI AI as automation. I really feel like it's enhancing the world of bookkeeping, both, as you said, for the service providers. They get into bookkeepers, but also for their clients to small businesses. And I think automation like that. For example, hub dock, you know, the simple example is we, we automatically pull in chief edge documents, goal statements, receipts, invoices, et cetera. And then we extract key data from them like vendor and date and the mountain Dew data, etc. And then pull that data in and, and contextually, uh, publish it into, uh, your GL like a Xero or QBO, uh, and create the entries and attach documents.

JS (26:07): They're all all in one fell swoop. And so I think that automation is really going to be an enabler for the service providers, for the accounts and bookkeepers to provide as I set up a better client experience over time. And, and I think what I said earlier, but I think the human element of relationships and making you feel comfortable and helping them feel like they're, they're taken care of in terms of their financial side of their business will be super important. I just think that that's exactly where it's going. And we were, we're to some extent helping lead the charge on that. And I think, you know, the compliance work, there's some aspect of that where people who've done, you know, just data entry or just, uh, chasing down documents that that piece is, I think it would be the piece that would be going away.

JS (26:53): It has gone away. But the reality is, is learning the next set of skills to offer and listen kind of the human component, which is interpretation of the financials and how people are forecasting and understanding their business. And think of the issue is that's not that hard to learn. It's not, it's not super easy. It's not, you know, but it's certainly a skill but it's also absolutely learnable and it's, it's something we've learned at how dark. A bit of a side note that we've hired a lot of experienced people over the years, not necessarily our data scientists but, but the rest of our business because we've learnt that with the internet, if someone's a learner and has curiosity and is resourceful, uh, you can learn pretty much anything on the internet. And that might include reaching out to peers who are doing this well. So in, in, in Canada we often mentioned live CA.

JS (27:40): Chad and Josh are friends of, of Hubdoc in front of ours and you know, they are always available to help other accounts and bookkeepers learn some of what they've done in terms of building out a modern and highly successful accounting and bookkeeping practice. And so that idea of if what isn't yet at a stage that you're comfortable with the next stage of beyond God entry in the more compliance work, but with the advising and the piece that involves emotions and the human element is quite learnable out there. And frankly I think pure bookkeeping, right? You guys help from after from I mean difference, it's not more and so I think that's where the future's going, which is a bit, it's going to go back towards the relationships and the human element and less about the, you know, I need this from you and your doc from you. I need to pump out a financial statement for you because that's going to be more and more automated.

MP (28:38): Really, really interesting. And I love the take. I think that's a great piece of advice. When people are hiring, they used to look at, you know, are these people resourceful? Are they learners? Are they going to look with their hands and find what they need? That goes a long way because there's a wealth of information out there. I mean people, people often ask me even, they're like, well how do I do this? And I, I instantly just Google it. It's like, and guess what? 99.9999% of the time the answer comes up almost first time. So you don't even have to look that far. But you have to have that curiosity and that kind of mindset I guess to to go and do a search and look a little deeper to find the answers. And, and that, that's the exciting piece today is you can go anywhere, you can do anything, you can learn anything with, if you have the desire to do it. And I think with what a hub doc is doing with their company, and I think that's a piece of your, your culture as well.

JS (29:41): But good advice for, for, for those of us with kids, my kids are teenagers now. You just watched them as they grow up. You know, I've caught my daughter in the garage, you know, fixing their flat tire ever on a bike. Not a complicated endeavor, but I hadn't taught her. But of course YouTube was open on her phone to cider. And so it's just, it's a silly example, but you really can learn anything. And so I know at hugged Hubdoc, we had someone in early 2017 with hired to do data analysis and he was just a rock star, just an unbelievable person that's super smart and capable. And, uh, at that point we ended up needing someone to run our sales team. We asked them, you know, our sales team, he said, I've never done sales before, but you know, it wasn't hard to Google SaaS, you know, software sales and you came across Saster and a bunch of blogs and, uh, the resources out there that he instantly became instantly tell him a little bit of time became, uh, you know, probably the best sales person I've met. And when I was interviewing a lot of people in Toronto. And so yeah, I just, I'm just, I'm just jumping on and I ended up on point, which is people shouldn't be scared to Google things and go down the rat hole of learning new skills because that's how a lot of us do it.

MP (30:45): Yeah, it's real. It really is remarkable. And, and your story of your daughter is, is one that, that I, I think back to my early days, how did, how do we actually get anything done? Uh, right. I mean it's, it's amazing the, the ability to just get any piece of information and, and deep, deep, deep knowledge around how to do something. It's remarkable. And then that last bit around, and going back to the question of what, what does tomorrow hold? I think that from my view, it, there's so many pieces of a puzzle and I don't think anybody's trying to do all of the puzzle. You know, there's Hubdoc, there's zero, there's other pieces in the industry. And then if you think of an ecosystem of a business in the financial end of a business, there's so many different pieces that go into that. The compliance is maybe shifting to what are the tools are you using, are those tools working appropriately, efficiently, and are they telling the story that you're at that's important to your business. And so that, that perhaps is what that technology is providing is a faster way to tell that story to, to the unuser the business owner and make sure that the story is the right story that they want to be hearing around growth and, and the health of their business.

JS (31:57): Exactly.

MP (31:58): Jamie, this has been fantastic. It's always a pleasure having you on the podcast and uh, and thank you for building great software and great tools for, for the industry. And, and again, on behalf of all of our listeners, uh, for coming in and generously sharing your knowledge with us.

JS (32:15): Oh, thanks for having me. I know I appreciate the opportunity to chat and I don't know how we would do this, but did they sent anyone else? Anyone wants to talk more or hear more, reach out. I'm always available. But I appreciate it, Michael. It's always, it's always great talking to you.

MP (32:28): Thank you. Thank you. And for those that don't know hub dock, where the heck have you been? Go and test it out. Try it out. It's incredible blow. It'll, it will blow your mind. And as if you are not familiar with the zero suite, take a take a test drive, go and have a look. They're fantastic technology out there and you should be always, I think it was when my father Jamie said, you always want to make sure you know the job of all the people that are working around you so you can assist them better and just be in the know. So whether you're using QBO or a Sage, you know at least have a general understanding of what's going on with these other softwares so that you have that, that knowledge and it will help you down the track. And with that, we wrap another episode of the successful bookkeeper podcast. To learn more about today's wonderful guests and to get access to all sorts of valuable free business building resources, you can go to thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com. Until next time, goodbye