***First posted on Tanya’s Bookkeepers Bootcamp Facebook page and Transcribed for our blog
Tanya : Hello everybody out there in the Facebook world. This is Tanya Hilts from Tanya's Bookkeeper's Bootcamp and Cloud Business Services. And I am here today with Polly from Synder. And I said it right.
Polly : Yeah, you did.
Tanya : They have many apps. I absolutely love the business importer, so if you haven't looked at it, please go take a look at it. It is the best importing software that is out there, very intuitive. But we're not here to talk about that today. We're here to talk about the Synder side of it. So Polly, let everybody know that's watching or what's going to be watching this afterward, what is Synder? What does it do?
Polly : Yeah, sure. So, hey everyone. Yeah, as Tanya mentioned, we have plenty of different products. But yeah, today we are talking about Synder and it's the one that provides total accounting automation for businesses. Especially in the e-comm sphere or any business that has a lot of online sales. So, basically, the idea behind this is to connect all of your sales channels like Shopify, Stripe, PayPal, or Amazon. So, whatever it is you're using, and you're accepting your payments through to your books, like QuickBooks or for example, Xero. So, this whole thing will work totally automatically. So, you kind of set it once and forget it.
Tanya : Awesome. So first off, let me ask. And by the way, I'm sure the audience already knows that when I ask these questions, I most of the time already know the answers, but you guys don't. So Polly, why would I want to use Synder versus just doing a direct connection to Square or PayPal? What do you guys offer and how do you do that, that actually makes it better?
Polly : So, basically the great thing about Synder is that you can do multiple connections, or for example, for multiple clients if you're a bookkeeper or accountant who runs it for several companies. So, you can kind of have everything under one roof. And if for example, a business has five different platforms, three sales channels like Amazon, Shopify and I don't know, Etsy or something, and each of the systems is powered with some payment processors like Paypal, Stripe, or Square, or whatever they may be. So, Synder will kind of connect to all of those and grab all of the pieces of information about the sales, about the fees like the taxes, shipping, customer names, products, and how many items were sold. So, all of this information will go to your books. If you need it, you can have full control over the amount of data that is going to the books, but if you need, you can go really detailed synchronization from multiple platforms in one place for multiple clients if needed.
Tanya : Awesome, but I also want to point out that one thing too is, if we just connect our Square or PayPal, those who bookkeep know this, clients might not know this, or if you're newer into the industry, you might not realize this yet. What happens is when you're pulling that, you just get the amount that goes into the bank account. That is not what we have to report as income. Income is what was charged before the fees, not what goes into the bank account, because that is what was charged, less the fees. You have to pay taxes and report sales on the full amount. So, that's a big reason why we don't want to do that on top of pulling in from multiple sources because it does just sound so much easier to have one app do it all. Instead of having a whole bunch of apps or a whole bunch of connections because, when we're dealing with cloud accounting, connections can break. What if you mapped it wrong, and then you set up ten connections, and you mapped them all wrong? That's ten to fix. You only have one to fix now, right?
Polly : Yeah.
Tanya : That's awesome. So, how do things pull in? Because I know there are other apps out there, and I am going to just throw out here as a disclaimer, I am not high on eCommerce. I have two-weekend warrior eCommerce clients where weekend warrior-type things don't bring on a lot. So, I'm not going to mention any of the other competitors by name, and if I say that I don't think they offer and they do, that is just me. So please, anybody out there that's watching, I mean no offense. I right up front don't know. I do know about Synder. I have looked into Synder, and I do know about one of the other apps that again, I'm not going to mention the name, but what differentiates you guys I think is again, you have the option of pulling in a summary. Or you will have the option of pulling in the daily detail or the transactional detail, right?
Polly : So, basically there are a number of differences and we can kind of group them by, let's say business and pricing differences, and the functionality differences. So, from the standpoint of pricing, we really want to be able to accompany any business in the company and in their growth. So, we have plans, very affordable for like $9 a month for smaller businesses and the pricing starts growing and kind of accompanies you throughout your business growth. So. that's what we have in terms of the pricing and positioning because different apps have different goals and targets. So we have that. And the differences from the technical point, there are several different things. So, for the e-comm world, one of the big issues is that not every software connects to both payment processors and e-comm sales channels. So for example, you have Shopify and your orders are paid via PayPal. And many apps that will connect with only Shopify will have no idea about, what this is the commission that PayPal takes for the payment processing. So, what's great about Synder is that you connect both of those, and Synder will be able to join information without any duplicates and reflect correctly as Tanya mentioned before. So, your real sales, so you have both gross and net in your profit and loss. You are able to do the proper reporting later on at the end of the year. And yeah, another big difference is that you don't have to set up several accounts to do this, because some apps would make you set up several accounts and pay per each connection of each integration. So, we don't do that. Another reason to use it, and also this was one of the things Tanya mentioned, is to import data in several different ways. So, you have control over this, whether you want to just go with fewer details and let's say, put one journal entry, one summary for the whole day to the books, for client A for example, and for client B with different needs, different businesses. So, you want to put each individual sale transaction, each individual fee, and each individual transfer to the bank. So, you want every individual transaction with products and customer names to be located in your books for reporting, or any other purposes you might want to have. So, you can do that with Synder. So, it allows for both modes of synchronization, and also not every other software would do that.
Tanya : That's awesome. It's nice that you have the choice because some people just want to work from summaries, and some people want to work from the daily details, right down in there. And I just want to point out, and just highlight that you mentioned that you've got the smaller plans. That's really important to me because we deal with small clients and I would love to be able to use an app. But sometimes you just look and let's face it, our clients are still very price sensitive, especially as we're going into what they're expecting to be the Great Recession, I think they're calling it. We're expecting to go into that. Clients are looking for different ways, more clients are going online but yet, but they can't really afford to pay it because they're not big businesses yet. And that's what I love about you guys, that you have multiple different levels versus, here's our starting point. I think I know banking just as an example, I found out that one of the banks I used, and I didn't like using them, I just worked with them at the time, so I had to have a bank account with them to get paid. But what happened was talking to people at the bank side that I was friends with, I heard there were A clients, B clients, and C clients. You're A client, you've got lots of money invested with them. You're the big one that everybody wants. Your B client, you might have a car loan, you're getting there, your C client just has basic accounts. That's just somebody starting out and they treated the C clients worse. So, you've got those pricing levels, so you're $9 plan would attract those C clients. But guess what? There are people like me who say, if you don't take care of me while I'm a C client, I'm not going to give you my money when I'm an A client. I will be an A client, somebody else will get my money then. And I love that about you. And I just really wanted to make sure to bring that out, that people heard that, and I find that's a really big difference that I have seen with the eCommerce apps out there, that they are targeting larger clients but everybody has to start off somewhere. Everybody starts off small. So, I just want to say thank you to that, thank you to Ilya, thank you to the founders for keeping that, and, please try to keep sight of that. Have a small plan like you guys do, please don't ever change that because that's it, you will have those loyal bookkeepers and those loyal clients. But it goes up and I love that you guys have thought of that and you guys still have that. So, thank you for that. But you have said a few times that you don't want to do that to clients. You don't want to charge them for every connection, and I just want to get people to hear those words and what they mean. And again, you're thinking of the client instead of just thinking of your profit and loss as a company, so thank you for that. I know we talked a little bit about some things that are coming from Synder. So, what do we have that you can tell us that's coming on the road map or that's newly launched?
Polly : Yes, basically this daily summary synchronization thing was something that we launched just recently. So, we know people who were interested and using Synder previously and said like this functionality was missing. So, we invite you to kind of check it out. And we really focused on flexibility here to be able to serve different businesses with different needs, because obviously if you want to track quantities of the items you are selling in QuickBooks, if you're not doing this in any third-party app, surely you want to go with per transaction sync, but we also want to serve those who have different apps for anything. I'm a big client. I'm a business that really wants to have only total summaries for the day just to be able to reconcile. So, we really want to be focused on this, which is why the new functionality is there. Another big thing is the sales analytics module that now our clients also have, which kind of analyses your sales from different channels and also shows you a joined dashboard, just in one system and one source of truth from all of your sales channels. And you can also do drill downs and see which system performs better, and which location performs better if you sell throughout different countries. So that's what you can do as well in Synder, and we are about to launch more reports. So yeah, we're super excited about this.
Tanya : So that is business insights that again, I am not aware that is available with any of the other apps. Again, anybody out there using it, I don't know. But I've not seen it. But I don't think as far as what I've heard, I think that's something that's very unique and I know I was excited when Ilya and I first spoke about that and he showed me what was coming. I was really excited about that and yeah, as Polly said, you can drill down. I do believe it's on the road map or envisioned to be able to even start to drill down further and bring other parts in, to kind of know how you're advertising efforts are going. Again, that's in your mind as to how Facebook is going. So Facebook, you can see not just your Shopify, if you're selling on the Facebook ads, you can actually see how those are going, how many people are coming through that. Am I correct on that? Please say yes.
Polly : We have huge plans, surely we always prefer to be feedback driven. So, we will listen to the people who are starting to use this and listen to their needs in the first place. But yeah, the road map for this feature is huge. Customer cohort analysis, you can already do this now to some extent, but we really want to go detailed with this, and also marketing analytics so that you can really estimate your marketing efforts and see, are you actually earning running this or that marketing campaign, or are you actually earning selling this for that product because just the point that you're selling it doesn't mean that you're really earning something selling it. Because maybe you don't know your costs, you don't track this. So yeah, there are a lot of questions, a lot of interest about this feature and it's gonna be really, as the time goes, as we hear the feedback and we continue developing this, that's going to be a real game changer.
Tanya : And that's awesome and again, let's point out something that you just said to the audience listening, you said that you really rely on your customer feedback and I will say that is 100% true. When Polly and I very first met, of course virtually, we'd never met in person yet. So, we're going back several years, pre-pandemic, all of that, and when I started using the business importer, and this is exactly the same thing I've seen that has continued over to all sides because that is just such a strong belief of your foundation is that feedback. I gave some feedback on something on the business importer side, and I want to say that I think within 24 to 48 hours, it was something that you really couldn't do. We had a conversation or two, and it had to do with our Canadian taxes to be able to do that. And boom, it was done. You guys went with it and that was one of the reasons why I love you guys and I believe in you guys. And I know there's so many out there that again, that a lot of the bigger software companies don't listen to us. And I love to align myself with software companies that do. The audience out there, if that's important to you, you need to hear that as well.
Polly : As we go and as we grow and do not lose this, you know, no matter how many products we have, no many how big the development team gets, yeah, we really want to be feedback focused. That's a kind of machine accuracy, a human approach. So, that's part of a human approach, and that's our motto, and that's part of a human approach.
Tanya : Absolutely, and I love that about you. And it was funny when you sent me the email after, I think it was after I'd met Ilya. You're like, I'm not sure if you remember me. Of course, I do, Polly, of course, I do. May have been a while, but of course, I do. But no, I'm so excited to hear that you're still continuing, you're so with them, you're taking a much stronger role because I can see with everybody that I've met and spoken to on your team, that human approach. And I think that's a big thing of what we're looking for in the bookkeeping world is still that human approach because we're missing that. With some of the larger companies, we're just a number. So, I do like to make sure that's pointed out to people that I'm speaking to. I also do want to mention that of course, you guys are one of our sponsors for the Win a Bootcamp. So, for everybody out there, that's absolutely awesome that these guys are a sponsor as well. They are not here at CPB Ignite, for we are in Calgary, they're not here, but we are representing them. So, we have three puppies. If you want to talk about them at all, it's Synder S-Y-N-D-E-R is the app. Synder.com, correct?
Polly : Yep.
Tanya : Perfect, thank you, yeah Synder.com. But we do have three puppies as well. The little stuffy puppies to be adopted. I don't have one in my lap. If I say something loud enough, somebody's going to toss one over to me. And yes, if you haven't seen them yet, they're not real puppies. But they're cute little beagles. Here we have... This is not the Synder one, so I'm not going to show you that. But we have all of their hashtags and all of that so that we can make sure that you can follow the story of the cute little adopted puppy, who is very easy to look after, just with some love. And of course, so, because there are three, that's $50 from each so, $150 directly from Synder that is being sponsored and donated through me to the Beagle Freedom Project, which is very close to my heart as well. And people are loving the puppies. So, right after this call we will be out circulating, I and my team will have the puppies. If you want one of the Synder puppies, just come up and just say, Synder. That's all you have to do. Now, because they're not here, there is not normally a conference special if you're not here, but you guys are doing almost like a virtual conference special and not just to attendees here. It's everybody out there who's watching, and that's 10% off. And for how long is that? Is there a time period for that?
Polly : For a month, it will be valid for a month, and throughout the month you can subscribe with 10% off.
Tanya : Ok. That's awesome. So, it's Synder10. So, if we go and subscribe for 10% off, that gives me 10% off as long as I have that account, or as long as there's that pricing, or is it only 10% off for so many days?
Polly : It's for a year.
Tanya : Oh, it's 10% off for a year, okay perfect. So, 10% off for a year. That's absolutely great, on top of the fact that we've already talked about all these other good things. And you really do have to go in and see it. I did see it. Polly was one of the ones that were on a call with me where I got very excited about it, and I can't wait to connect it to my own account, but we were just getting ready for the conference, so it kind of fell down. So that is totally my bad. But yeah, you guys will be really excited too, to go in and see it. How could they book a demo, Polly?
Polly : Actually on the trial, there is a support in-app chat available to any trial user. So, you can just go ahead, and see if you have any questions. Go into the chat or you can also say that you need a demo and our specialists will organize you, even if you're on a trial. For once you subscribe, we have a separate onboarding program that will guide you through the demos, also depending on the number of transactions that you're having. So, because smaller businesses have simpler setups. So, it might not need that, but for companies with high transaction volume where you need to have a really sophisticated setup, just go ahead, you'll be having free demos, onboarding you, and making sure you're good to go.
Tanya : Awesome, that's great. So, what I would like to throw out there too for anybody watching. Of course, we are giving away the Win a Bootcamp, and if you were here I would tell you to go to their booth and take some selfies. But you can't. So, if you go to book a demo and take a screenshot of booking the demo, please black out your name and the email address before you go ahead and post it if you want. But if you go ahead and do that, tweet that out with #winabootcamp and #Synder, I don't know if that's the one that we're using or not, but #Synder, #winabootcamp, just a screenshot of the demo screen. You will get yet another entry into our Win a Bootcamp, which is for over sixty-seven hundred dollars in prizes as well too. So yes, so please do that out there. And again, this is available to anybody to go ahead and do that. Now, what countries do you service? That's actually another good question. What countries does Synder currently support?
Polly : Well, we were worldwide, so we have customers from Australia, and from Europe, and from the UK, but mainly that's US and Canada, so mainly these two countries. So, you're from there, just go ahead and just be sure that Synder works for your country, but pretty much any location.
Tanya : And you know what? If you're not sure, book a demo and let them know where you are, and they'll let you know that.
Polly : Exactly.
Tanya : Awesome, all right, well, that is great. I'm going to wrap this up. Again, thank you so much for taking the time, Polly, and thank you so much for the sponsorship. Thank you so much on behalf of the Beagle Freedom Project. And that is great. And the Beagle Freedom project, again, is just awareness. Look them up, bfp.org, absolutely amazing, amazing foundation. And they are trying to give beagles or all animals that have to live their lives in laboratories a second chance at life. So they are going in and liberating them. Of course, they work with the laboratories. They work with the government. They're not going in and stealing them. Nothing like that. They all work nicely together to help them be adopted so that they can spend the remaining years out. And Beagle Freedom project, for those in North America who are very well aware of the Envigo beagles, Beagle Freedom Project has been working with them as well. And I will just throw this out there. I haven't said this yet. I don't think about this, but Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, he might not be a prince anymore, but the Duke and Duchess of Sussex I want to say. Actually, their latest Beagle they adopted through Beagle Freedom Project, one of the Envigo beagles as well, too. And Meghan, before she even met Harry and she lived up here in Toronto, there was actually a beagle. And I want to say it was the Beagle Freedom Project as well that was found just lost in the US and they ended up getting them up here. And she adopted them up here, so it's an absolutely great cause. And so, thank you very much for that. Look up, Synder. Absolutely if you're here, come up again, we've got the Synder beagles. So, look for myself and my team. And, yeah, go to the book a demo page, take a screenshot and get that out for extra entrances. So thank you again, Polly. So before we hang up, is there anything else you want people watching to know?
Polly : Just to let them know our website, they know that they will be welcomed there and we were waiting for them. So, I guess that's the most important thing. And yeah, I mean we're just waiting for your support and have a good time folks.
Tanya : Awesome, so it's Synder.com, I will make sure that this is all put there. I'll have my team make sure that everything is in there on every social channel this gets shared out to. So, just look there for the link, and yeah, and that's great. So thank you so much for your time, Polly, and we'll talk to you soon.
Polly : Thank you, Tanya, very much.
Tanya : Okay, Bye.
Until next time,
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