Capium: the new way forward

What is the history of Capium? How was it founded? It was an idea that stemmed from sitting with an accountant after my first exit and seeing that he had loads of different individual software and was importing and exporting. My CEO Sanjay, customer success executive Dave, and I came back to him with the vision of putting everything in the cloud, of collaborating with staff and clients through one cloud platform to optimise the benefits of costs. We envisioned a platform that would get things done a lot quicker, in a much more collaborative environment. Once we got our compliance tools recognised by HMRC and Companies House, we entered the market and organically grew from that point onward. How does Capium support businesses? We support businesses by gaining the assurance of their trusted advisor to pass access across to them to collaborate, share documents, and have real-time visibility of the financial situation of their business as well as their individual tax, all through one platform. The idea was that we put the control back into the accountants' corner to put them in control so they can provide exactly what they deem fit to their respective customers. Certain business owners are more accounting literate than others, so our software allows accountants to take off certain features if they don't need it, because they're not aware or well versed with the feature. What tools and services does the software provide? Capium gives customers the ability to manage every aspect of their business or accountancy practice in this fully integrated cloud practice suite software. It offers services for bookkeeping, tax returns, payroll, practice management, company secretarial, AML checks - you name it. Capium removes the need for multiple subscriptions to multiple software, reducing costs and saving time. We offer a hub for businesses so that they are able to scan and upload their own receipts to help accountants achieve more with their time. We’re designed for practices of all sizes who want to join the digital revolution, become paperless and focus on making championing accountants. How can this benefit accountants with their day-to-day activities? Firstly, it's on-the-go with a real-time view of all the accountants' customers, deadlines and staff activity; the key is maintaining control. It's all about speed and keeping the cost down. Instead of increasing our costs by four to five times, what we're trying to do is automate the process more and fine tune it so that they can provide optimisation in their business unit. How has the software been received so far? In the initial stages, we first entered the market in late 2015/2016 when cloud accounting was relatively in its infancy. The age-old analogy of ‘if it's not broken, why fix it' came into play, but by 2017 the conversation changed. As people began to accept and adopt cloud-based accounting, we eventually grew to have over 1,700 accountancy practices that use the platform. Through them, we have served close to 500K businesses with tax submissions to HMRC. What makes your accountancy software different from others? We try to remain in the accountants’ corner as much as possible by looking at their pain points on a regular basis. Our software allows users to provide feedback and suggestions, and we take that forward to make sure accountants are heard. When mandates are introduced through the likes of HMRC, Companies House and government, they've not necessarily been listened to before things are legislatively put into mandate, so how we solve that problem for them is important to us. We genuinely want to champion accountants with the support of our software, to help them grow and make their lives easier. How does the software allow businesses to conduct training? Once users have gained access to the software, there are onboarding sections. They can follow various different steps, depending on what they have access to. There’s a library with a wealth of literature to go through, and we can also set up one-to-one sessions with our onboarding team if clients require further assistance, so they're continuously handheld throughout the journey. Additionally, there is an abundance of videos and walk-throughs in our support library which clients can follow in steps to gain practical guidance. We also have key prompts within the software itself to help provide guidance when carrying out first-time services. What is next for Capium? We have just taken an investment round of £3m, so we're now looking at the next step in the evolution of our journey, which is the scale factor. That’s the main focus for us right now, as is enhancing the bookkeeping service, with the vision of getting the data a lot quicker from customers to the trusted advisor. With the investment that's coming in, we are also now looking at trying to cater more services towards the mid-tier market as well as the smallest firms. We are starting to see more attention from the mid-tier market, and that's likely due to the price-driven factor and an increasing number of people starting to hear about us in the market space as time has gone on.