Traditionally, education was delivered by paper textbooks in face-to-face classrooms and seminars. Today, due to digitalisation and then accelerated by the pandemic, people can receive forms of education wherever they are. The tech-enabled, online model that isn’t confined to the dimensions of a classroom allows for education to be offered at scale, often without sacrificing the level of interaction from students. Due to this, Edtech is a growing space within the UK economy and one that we’re proud to support through our clients.

We have experience working with both Edtech & SaaS companies, so we can offer a level of support dependent on what stage your business is at. Whether you’re an early stage startup looking to offer a Freemium model to build a customer base or an established company focusing on user retention. As well as the ongoing compliance, we can help EdTech companies automate their finance function that is efficient and produces ongoing useful metrics from customer lifetime value and churn, through to headline figures such as net profit. Just as you look to unlock potential with your users, we’ll look to unlock the potential of your business.

There has been a shift in recent years from high-street to online shopping and e-commerce is predicted to remain strong in a post-pandemic world. Better technology and SaaS platforms that enable businesses to sell, distribute and process payments for their products online have made it easier for startups to enter the e-commerce space. However, it’s also important that e-commerce businesses have a reliable accountancy and finance function, whether in-house or external, that not only keeps them compliant but also helps drive the company forward.

Our experience in e-commerce allows us to use and advise you on cloud-accounting software, integrations and outsourcing options that allow you to operate efficiently and scale up. This ranges from advising on how to automatically aggregate sales and integrate this data into your core accounting system, through to options for international sales tax compliance. We’re able to provide timely management information that keeps you informed on your business performance and we can use our expertise to highlight financial KPI’s that are pertinent for e-commerce businesses such as your average order value. We’re always just a phone call away should you need to speak to us.

To read more about our retail specialism, click here.

Fintech was previously a sub-sector reserved for larger institutional finance organisations due to the technological, financial and regulatory barriers to enter. Fast-forward to today and this sector is a hotbed for new start-ups and an area of interest for many investors willing to help fund startups getting beyond these barriers to entry. Many of these startups are using technology to innovate payments, lending or other financial tools and processes.

As a Fintech, you’ll understand the importance of compliance, and we’ll be on-hand to support you with the ongoing HMRC & Companies House compliance. However, we also strive to provide added value on top of this, whether this is through outsourcing your finance function to us through to R&D claims, share incentive schemes and international expansion. We’re here to help our fintech companies scale and reach their potential.

Technology has been a driving force in innovation and responding to evolving consumer trends within the food industry such as the increased demand for home deliveries, more ethical foods and alternative/substitute ingredients. Technological advances have ranged from consumer apps offering meal kits and subscriptions from restaurants to smart appliances and the Internet of Things (IoT) improving kitchen technology all the way to blockchain being used in supply chains.

If you’re a start up or growing foodtech business, we have the experience and expertise to support your business as it grows. We understand the sector and can provide a range of accountancy services to help you navigate it, from the essential compliance services to outsourcing and value-add services, we can help you flourish.

Digitisation in the insurance industry is a growing trend due to evolving consumer demands. Where some larger incumbent insurance companies are slower to adopt technology, it has provided opportunities to smaller but more agile start-ups that utilise automation, cloud computing, big data and AI to provide value and offer support to consumers.

We have experience in working with start-ups in the Insurtech space and have supported them along their journey. Where our insurtech clients utilise technology and changing consumer trends, we ensure they also utilise other opportunities like tax planning, R&D claims and share incentive schemes as well as taking care of all the compliance work. Regardless of how far along you are, get in touch to discuss your business objectives and we can talk about how we can support you.

Technology is playing a huge part on the evolution of the legal industry, ranging from AI driven software that scans case law to using smart contracts stored on a blockchain. Many legal tasks can be complex and time consuming, but the space where legal services and tech overlap, may help transform and simplify these whilst still mitigating risk and retaining the foundational trust and integrity required.

As well as working with traditional solicitors and law firms, our tech teams can also support tech companies working within this space, giving us a solid understanding of how companies in the sectors operate. We’ll take time to understand your business and advise on the services that we can provide to support you.

The UK’s life sciences sector is extremely important, both to the economy (worth over £94bn in 2021) but also to the lives that it aims to improve. However, it is a difficult sector to operate within due to its R&D-intensive nature, the fundraising requirements and the regulatory challenges that life science businesses face. Having a strong presence in Cambridge, one of the UK’s life science hubs, it is perhaps unsurprising that we have a life science specialism. We can support, regardless of your life cycle, from more embryonic companies that rely on grants to see them through their discovery phase to companies with established products to distribute.

From the more embryonic companies relying on grants to fund them through their discovery phase to companies with an established product to distribute, we can support you along the way as your accounting partner. It’s not just the ongoing compliance and outsourced finance function support we can provide, we can help with claiming R&D tax relief, navigating the fundraising journey, completing audit reports for grants such as InnovateUK, implementing share schemes and much more.

For modern businesses, their IT infrastructure and processes provide the backbone for their business operations, so working with the right partner for managed IT services can be crucial. However, the services for IT companies today can be very broad. Traditionally, core services may have included IT helpdesks, telecoms and more, but today’s IT companies could be offering supplementary or alternative core services such as digital transformation, bespoke software development and much, much more.

At The Smart Accountants, we have plenty of experience working with managed IT companies, from board experience through to supporting with exit planning and transactions. We can help you with automating your finance function and removing manual data entry. We can help with setting up management reporting that tracks bespoke KPIs and metrics to help you understand how each business function or contract is performing (see our guide here). We can help you retain key staff through share incentive plans. Ultimately, we can help in every aspect of accountancy and tax, but we also act as a key advisory partner to help your IT company reach its goals and ambitions.

Medical and health technology are growing industries and there are many innovative companies in the UK utilising tech such as AI, wearable tech and machine learning for medical, science and health advancements. However, high regulation and testing requirements can often mean these companies take time before a product or service can be delivered and a revenue can be recognised, so it can be a difficult space to operate in. Therefore, having an accountant that understands the common pitfalls and issues you may face is very valuable.

Having a presence in Cambridge, one of the UK’s medical technology hubs, we have built up an expertise in supporting medtech companies. From the more embryonic companies relying on grants to fund them through their discovery phase through to companies with an established product to distribute, we can support you along the way as your accounting partner. We understand the common schemes that will support you, from claiming R&D relief to using schemes to retain key staff or making your company more attractive to investors.

Over recent years, technologies such as AI and machine learning has come on leaps and bounds and is well-positioned to disrupt many sectors, even the most people-oriented sectors such as recruitment and HR. This makes the once niche sector that covers the overlap between technology and recruitment and HR a fast-growing one. These companies may be supporting in-house talent acquisition & HR teams, recruitment agencies or even the candidates themselves, but technology will be the driving force to their proposition.

We’re uniquely positioned to support these companies, through the experience of our Tech & High Growth team, but also our Recruitment team that supports over 90 recruitment agencies. We understand the requirements and pitfalls of both sectors, whether this is advising on the fundraising journey for a tech company or understanding the finance tech stack and processes of a recruitment firm. Between both teams, we can support you in growing your RecTech/HR Tech business.

Software-as-a-Service (Saas) is no longer emerging technology thanks to its rapid growth over the last 20 years establishing it as the norm for selling software, where today having to download software can feel like a relic for consumers. Many SaaS businesses have managed to scale their subscriptions rapidly through acquisition models such as freemium models, free trials, demos and referral schemes, making it an attractive space for high-growth startups.

As a SaaS company, you can be confident that we share the same values in using cloud-based software. We’ll use the best cloud-based accounting software and integrations to make your accounting and finance processes as automated and efficient as possible. This will always allow you to have access to real-time management information, which coupled with our personal expertise and advice on important SaaS KPI’s such as subscription churn and LTV, allows you to better understand your business performance and forecast your future runway.

Web 3.0, as the name alludes to, is predicted to be the third evolution of the internet. This next iteration is said to have a focus on decentralisation, which will be built on blockchain technology to allow the internet to be run and shared by users, rather than a single entity. Once viewed as science fiction, it’s also likely that the ‘metaverse’ will become more and more ‘real’.

It’s true that no one yet knows what web 3.0 and the metaverse will look like now, but there will be many tech businesses that will help shape this future and we’re keen to support them as their accountancy partners. One area that will likely be foundational to both web 3.0 and the metaverse will be cryptocurrency which is an area that we support our clients with. Our tech team works with market-leading software that connects all of your wallets and exchanges to help with portfolio tracking and tax reporting. Alongside our tax experts, we can advise you on the ever-evolving tax implications on the many different types of crypto transactions.