***First posted on Tanya’s Bookkeepers Bootcamp Facebook page and Transcribed for our blog
Tanya : Hey, everybody in Facebook world, we are back with a very familiar face to many of you, I hope. Kinga from Stamped.
Kinga : Hello.
Tanya : Yes, so some of you may know Kinga from her other venues, but Kinga, for those who don't know you're at Stamped now, or don't know what Stamped is, let everybody know a little bit about Stamped.
Kinga : I'm really excited. I love Stamped already, that's why I made the jump as we like to all recall. So, Stamped is really cool. It's a really cool concept. So it's actually a tech-enabled CPA, and what we specialize in is year ends. And on top of that, what we specialize in is expediting them in a faster time than the average accounting would be able to do it. And the way we do that is by using our own proprietary software. So, we're able to use our own CPAs, as well as our own program to get the year ends out in time. So we do T2s, compilation engagements and financial statements, and the odd review here and there depending on how busy we are, which is busy lately, which is a great thing.
Tanya : That's awesome.
Kinga : It's a really cool concept, and everyone we talked to about it seems to be like, what? Where did this come from? Because year-end has never been a thing in the tech sphere. It was just kind of known that bookkeepers pass off the year ends to accountants, and I'm done. And this way bookkeepers can keep that work in-house. They don't have to pass off their clients, they don't have to deal with a million different accountants because each client maybe has their own accountant, and yeah, so and accountants we're not trying to steal all your business. Hold up before anyone says that.
Tanya : That's right because accountants can use the services too.
Kinga : And they do, actually. So many accountants use us just to offload some work and maybe even help their clients if they don't offer that specific service. And yeah, busy times, busy seasons, busy clients. And you know, we can always help if we need a T2 or a compilation in a fraction of the time.
Tanya : Absolutely, and Stamped has actually been around in Canada for several years because Simon and I first met Pre-COVID, and then all of a sudden they come back around and I'm like OK. I was in the right mind frame. I think it was also the way that Kinga explained it was a little different than the way Simon explained it.
Kinga : Well, Simon has a little bit of a language barrier. He translates things really funny sometimes.
Tanya : Yeah, for those of you who don't know Simon, he's from Quebec. He's French, right? Absolutely wonderful person, you see him, you just want to go up and give him a great big hug. He is just always smiling and like, nice and huggy. And it's absolutely great, I've seen it. I have yet to, unfortunately, get to use it just simply because of the fact that we've offloaded some clients. We haven't brought on any new clients in probably a year and a half, and we are now going back into growth mode. And this is great because if clients don't have an accountant if they do have an accountant that they want to use, great. If they don't have an accountant, so they're just incorporating, they're just whichever, this is the perfect opportunity to keep things in-house. It can go through a lot quicker and it's almost, it's not quite because there are certain laws, but it's almost in a way white labeled to us is it not?
Kinga : The plan is it will be, there will be the option to do that, but because a lot of these require a CPA to actually sign off on it, and submit it, we can do that. There are options to not really communicate much with the client unless it's a compilation engagement of course, but most of it can go just through the bookkeeper. So the client kind of has this hands-off, just signs one or two things, and is done.
Tanya : Exactly, and that's what I meant with the kind of white labeled with that. Now, if the bookkeeper is uncomfortable and wants the accountant involved, you can have them involved in those conversations.
Kinga : Absolutely, and we have our own online software as well, which is kind of cool. So, it actually connects with all of the accounting software that we currently all use. And you can actually communicate in the app through the Stamped AI website, and you can invite whomever onto the page and you can actually see the status, the progress reports, and who's actually working on the file. And then if anything's needed, anything's missing or anything needs any fixing, you actually communicate through the app, so everything's kind of in one place, but you can also have whoever's on the app. So your accountant, your bookkeeper, or the actual client if you'd like to have them involved.
Tanya : That's awesome. So, for those people out there that I know are asking, I do know what the answer to this question is because Kinga did say that the CPA does have to sign off on it. So they do have to sign in engagement directly with Stamped. But for the billing, we also have the option that we can take care of the billing, so we can bill the client instead of you billing the client directly. So again, it's still a little bit more white labeled in that aspect, or maybe not in white label but maybe full service might be better.
Kinga : Yeah, and it's kind of neat how we do it as well because we offer volume discounts. And bookkeepers, you guys have volume, in most cases, it's very rare that you have one or two clients and so, we do offer that volume discount that you can offset and even profit in the end, right? However you choose to bill your clients, is how you choose to bill your clients, but yeah, we do offer volume discounts. So yeah, that's always an option as well.
Tanya : Yeah, that's great. I absolutely love all of that. You also, and I know this from previous conversations and I hope it has not changed, but you guys also for some clients that maybe are using some obscure software or still working in Excel, we can take the Excel working papers and upload them directly from there.
Kinga : That's never going to go away.
Tanya : Perfect.
Kinga : Especially because of desktop clients and like you said, a lot of people are still working in Excel and there's, I mean if they're not going to change then that's fine. We can just work around that and make anything work. We see it all the time.
Tanya : Yeah, exactly. So very versatile with that and that's great. So, now, the big thing, of course, they started in Canada, they were in Canada. You guys have now just recently been proved for the App Store for the US, correct?
Kinga : Just the QBO App Store. But yeah, we're approved. We're in the App Store. Unfortunately, we couldn't actually get a booth at QB Connect here. We weren't in the App Store then. But yeah, it was about a month ago when we actually got in. So we're super excited to be in it. We don't particularly work in the US right now because we do have to get all of the certifications to different States and all that fun stuff, but we are in the App Store to kind of get that ball rolling.
Tanya : Yeah, that's awesome. And I also do want to clarify too that you're not using outsourced offshore CPAs. So if we're in Canada, a Canadian CPA will be working on the Canadian files. In the US, a US-designated CPA will be working on the files in whichever State.
Kinga : Yeah, and that's kind of the goal. We wanna make sure that everything is by the book. Sometimes we are too meticulous and that's kind of been a laughing point. But, I mean, it's your books, right? You wanna make sure everything is on point and then if you come back next year, it's less work, right? So it kind of works out pretty well. We actually just got Neil Blue on board. So he's actually going to be heading up our operations team. So that's kind of a fun announcement that we've been kind of getting out there. But we do have CPAs all over Canada. And we're really excited to grow, and we're always looking for more so if you're looking for a job.
Tanya : That's awesome. Now I'm gonna have to ask Neil, like, what happened. That's a whole other story.
Kinga : He's not working as a CPA, but he's actually just overseeing the operation.
Tanya : That's awesome, and for those who don't know, yeah, Neil knows his stuff. He and his father coned an accounting firm in Edmonton. And Neil is awesome, he knows this stuff.
Kinga : He came in with a bang. Let me tell you, it was like day three and we have the whole process changed. Like, well, welcome to Stamped.
Tanya : That's awesome.
Kinga : He's great. We're really excited.
Tanya : So there's no booth. So you've got to look for Kinga, she's wearing the Stamped shirt. Simon is walking around too. Do you have anybody else from the team here?
Kinga : Just the two of us. You know, Vegas isn't like cheap guys, not in this economy. But if you do find us, we have a great campaign going around. It's called Plant with Stamped. We're super excited about it. You can actually go online on our Stamped page on Facebook and there's a URL that you can click, and we will plant a tree for every accountant and bookkeeper that signs up. But if you are at QB Connect in Vegas, find me or Simon and all you have to do is scan this barcode on this card, and we'll plant a tree on your behalf. We're working with Tree Canada, which I keep telling myself to remember to say. We're not going outside of planting trees ourselves. Tree Canada is planting trees so for every person that actually scans the barcode, one tree.
Tanya : I think that's awesome, and as soon as I saw that, I knew Kinga probably wouldn't get the email because she was traveling, but I had to respond and go, I love that. In place of swag, there's that social aspect to it. I think it's so important. So many more of us these days are aware of that. And of course, we have the social aspect which they are part of our puppy campaign. I do believe her puppies have already been rehomed, so that's great. But definitely Stamped is part of the, I think we're just over fifteen $1500 which is being donated from you know where to Beagle Freedom Project, and we're just over $5000 for the year from the three major conferences from you guys. And of course, Stamped is part of our online scavenger hunt. So make sure that you go on, do that. Everything that you find through there or answer correctly is one entry. One entry for lots of prizes, and one of them is an iPad. So who these days doesn't want to have an iPad to be able to work mobile, right? So thank you so much. Thank you for being here.
Kinga : No, thank you, I love doing this with you.
Tanya : I love the Plant was Stamped. I absolutely love that. So make sure you guys come by, check them out, and be ready for when they're launching in the US. The Canadians, get out there, check them out. It's absolutely a great opportunity for both bookkeepers and accountants. So not saying, bad to the accountants, because what happens if you're an accountant and you don't have enough clients to be able to hire a full-time accountant? You're doing all the extra work.
Kinga : You're not sleeping.
Tanya : Outsource it. Outsource it to somebody who you know is a true Canadian CPA following the standards. Absolutely brilliant idea. Alright, so just before we wrap up, is there anything else you wanted the folks to know?
Kinga : Plant a tree.
Tanya : There we go.
Kinga : Let's do this. Let's plant as many as we can. It's worth it. It's a great cause.
Tanya : It absolutely is. Alright, well, thank you very much everybody have a great day, and we'll see you around.
Kinga : Thank you.
Until next time,
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