Three years on and SA practice is All In on the benefits of FYI
It’s been three years since Aly Garrett, founder of All In Advisory, onboarded with FYI to enhance the efficiency of her practice. Since then, her firm has taken the industry by storm, earning recognition as Start-up Firm 2020, Boutique Firm of the Year 2021, and Xero Cloud Champion of the Year 2022. Aly was also named one of the Top 50 Women in Accounting 2020 and Partner of the Year 2023 at the Australian Accounting Awards. Two years ago, we interviewed Aly about her experience with FYI (find it here) and now, we are excited to share her latest achievements and how FYI has played a key role in her continued growth and success.
Safe to say, Aly and her team know their business. And by merging progressive people and tech, they’re helping clients to future-proof theirs. Having grown very large very fast, means the practice has had to rely on tech like FYI to do much more – to their advantage.
The more you lean, the more you learn
Aly’s team has leant in heavily to FYI since implementing it and today, see it as an integral part of the practice. “We’re in it all day, every day. It’s a key product for us. And because of the AI built in, it’s just going to get better and better, and eliminate a lot of those really repetitive admin tasks.”
Three years in, the firm is still discovering the platform’s capabilities. “Every time I talk to somebody about FYI,” she says, “they’re using it in a different way. And I’m like, ‘That blows my mind! Tell me how you’re using it that way.’ The thing about this product is, it’s far greater than what you originally go to it for. You’re going to find the benefit when you lean in to understand what it’s actually capable of.”
Saving precious practice time
All In Advisory has been using FYI to automate everyday processes for efficiency gains, like document capture and filing. “The time savings we’ve had in an FYI environment are truly around being able to locate documents – that they’re all in the one spot. It’s definitely helped with client service delivery. If a client asks, ‘What about this or that’, I literally know where to go. It’s not the client being on the phone for 10 minutes or, ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t find it’. Those are pivotal conversations with a client that really matter.” Every improvement counts. “Sometimes it’s those really small, minutia things that make a big impact,” notes Aly. “FYI helps with every single admin task that we have. These newfound abilities free up time to concentrate on higher-value services. All those little tasks and automations provide the greatest productivity in the long run.”
Easy integrations across the network
FYI is now one of the firm’s ‘fab five’ foundational products. “FYI integrates all the products we use in our ecosystem,” says Aly who calls the integration with FuseSign an “absolute godsend”.
“It helps us with efficiency, it helps us with accuracy. I don’t need to worry now something is signed, is it in FYI? It 100% is in FYI. Both (FYI and FuseSign) are built by accountants for accountants. So all those little elements that are really specific to an accounting practice… they’re a part of that product. That’s what I really like.”
FYI is also integrated with Xero Practice Manager (XPM). “XPM does jobs, but it doesn’t do tasks,” says Aly. “We were really struggling with that ad hoc stuff. One of the reasons we took on FYI was because of workflow functionality. We’ve now got every XPM job with a budget attached to it, next to a person with assigned dates with notes. That gives me oversight that I just cannot obtain through XPM. It’s certainly resolved one of the major pain points in my business.”
Consistent messaging without the effort
One of the key reasons Aly loves FYI?
“I really love the functionality whereby any of my team can draft an email, but I can see it and send it. So the client feels like they’re getting their contact with me or senior management. But really, we haven’t had to do all of that work. That’s been amazing.”
Maintaining the relationship with clients is key to Aly. “We’ve got a great volume of FYI templates for emails so we’re sending out really consistent messaging, which is super important to me.”
Reliability is just the beginning
When it comes to reliability, FYI ensures it’s business as usual for All In Advisory. Says Aly, “99.99% (availability) is absolutely accurate from our experience. It’s been a really reliable platform for us.” But she’s not done benefiting from the platform yet.
“We implemented FYI for a specific purpose, and it’s solved those problems. “FYI is the superhero piece of my accounting admin practice.” But now,” Aly wonders, “what else can I get from this?”
An investment in time and peace of mind
Asked whether she considers FYI a good investment, Aly considers more than just the figures.
“Return on investment isn’t just the amount that you pay. It’s about resolving pain points. It’s about creating efficiencies. It’s about feeling confident in the product that you’re using and that you have peace of mind. I definitely have, and I can tick off all of those items.”
She continues, “I know all the documents are in my system, that they’re not being lost. I know that it’s secure. I know that it’s consistent. And it’s providing us with efficiencies that we just didn’t have before. So my return on investment happened when I got my document management, and then everything else is just the bonus.”
When Aly was asked in 2021 if she’d recommend FYI, the answer was 100%. Three years on, we see 1 million per cent as sustained progress for this very progressive practice. If you want to learn more about Aly’s journey with FYI, you can read our previous case study here.
Invite your team to a live platform tour and see why firms like Aly’s are All In on FYI.