2020: Celebrating our Community

2020 has been turbulent to say the least. On top of accountants and bookkeepers having to contend with lockdowns and isolation, they’ve also been on the financial frontline throughout all this time: helping their clients make it through the year unscathed (if possible).

However, despite the obvious challenges, bookkeepers and accountants around the world have done an incredible job at fostering a sense of virtual community with one another. You’ve shared advice on how to deal with the increased workload, provided tips and tricks for how to help as many clients as best as possible, and generally, offered much-needed support. So before we look ahead and begin planning for 2021, we first wanted to thank you and celebrate our community in 2020.

This year, we’ve grown our Facebook community to over 2,300 members and have started 500+ conversations. Over 78,416 of you around the world participated in our 436 webinars and 5 Facebook Live events. You’ve stopped what you’re doing, if only temporarily, to check in with like-minded accountants and bookkeepers going through the same thing as you. You’ve been on hand to answer each others’ questions and provide much-needed advice at an incredibly stressful time.

We’ve also pulled together to celebrate the good stuff. 2020 has taken an understandable toll on all of us, but the Practice Ignition community has still found time to champion those doing particularly sterling work. Our annual Top 50 Women in Accounting initiative is always unbelievably hard to pick, but with more than 800 nominations this year, it’s been even more challenging than ever before. That being said, we’ve absolutely loved hearing all your stories— and it’s been incredibly inspiring to see just how much stellar, innovative work women in accounting are doing all around the world.

Our partners have also made a massive impact on our community. Throughout 2020 alone, we’ve formed over 20 new partnerships with app partners, industry associations, and franchise groups. We became the sole engagement letter provider for a number of notable industry bodies and associations, including the ACCA, CPA Australia, CA ANZ and South African Institute of Business Accountants (SAIBA). Our platform was taken to the next level thanks to our most recent integration with Intuit Practice Management—and we felt privileged to hold a number of must-watch webinars with the expert Intuit Accountants group.

But that’s not all. We’ve also hosted over 12 major virtual events, including our Building A Modern Firm Xero Online Learning Day in the Americas, Australia, and South Africa. Our collaboration with the Diversified UK team on Accountex Virtual Summit UK & South Africa was an incredible success, attracting over 22,000 registrations (with 55% attendance on the day for at least one session). We worked closely with Gusto to not only provide rapid-response COVID-19 service templates, but to also set up a special People Advisory partnership—helping accountants and bookkeepers have an even more valuable impact on their clients.

With reams of new legislation being released on an almost daily basis, it’s been difficult to stay on top of all this new information flying around. That’s why we released a number of detailed guides in collaboration with our partners, such as our Fixed Fee Playbook that we created in tandem with Xero.

Our partners have allowed us to improve our product, add more value to our clients’ lives, and help those in need during unprecedented times. So from the bottom of our hearts, we thank you—and we can’t wait to continue our good work in 2021 and beyond.

It would be remiss of us not to mention our own internal community. From the early days of enjoying a Friday night get-together with the team over Zoom, to our fortnightly lunch video call catchups, we've come together as a team stronger than ever before.

We even went as far as launching an internal celebrations platform called Kazoo, allowing team members to acknowledge when their peers do a great job of embodying our Practice Ignition values. This has further fostered our sense of community and highlighted that even when you think nobody’s watching, your hard work and positivity will be rewarded.

We’ve also created more opportunities for our colleagues to ask the Leadership team questions thanks to our ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions. These sessions have allowed us all to quiz our Practice Ignition leaders on anything and everything, from our business direction and 5-year plan to what their favourite pizza toppings are.

Throughout 2020, we’ve welcomed no fewer than 46 new team members, 2 babies, 5 puppies, 1 cat, and 1 fish to our Practice Ignition family. We’ve also celebrated 2 marriages, 2 postponed weddings, and 3 engagements. From a business perspective, we’re delighted to have opened up a new office in South Africa—while in Sydney, we waved goodbye to our original home in Chippendale and have moved into a 530 square metre flagship office in Surry Hills.

Everything we achieve is as a result of our team’s hard work and dedication—so we recognise how lucky we are, and we’re proud that our team’s massive efforts have been recognised more widely, culminating in Practice Ignition being listed #33 in Deloitte’s Fast 50 and 7th in the AFR Fast 100.

It’s almost time to say goodbye to 2020. However, as we welcome 2021, I sincerely hope that our newfound community continues to go from strength to strength.

As we move towards 2021, our mission remains the same - to transform the way accountants, bookkeepers, and their clients work together. After all, isn’t that what community is all about: being together. Whether it’s a Zoom call, Slack messages, community groups, or face-to-face meetups, we’re definitely better together.

Have an incredible Festive Season and a Happy New Year - we can’t wait to see you all in 2021! To make sure you don’t miss out next year, join our Practice Ignition Community on Facebook.