Insider tips to get the most out of Accountex London
At the end of May, the UK’s largest event for accountant and finance professionals takes place—Accountex London. Across two days, you have the chance to discover new products, hear keynotes from leading experts, and network with more than 7,000 peers.
To make sure your valuable time is not wasted, you must take the time to plan ahead, determining what you want to get out of the event and how you will go about it. To help you, we asked those who have been there and done it already for their best insider tips.
Plan for success
You are investing a full day, or possibly two, of your time, so it’s so important that you maximise your investment. Make sure you plan for success.
Before you go to Accountex, write down what your key objectives are. Decide what you want to get out of the event. If it’s knowledge, be specific and identify what you want to learn and where your gaps in knowledge are. If it’s technology, outline what systems you need or what processes you can improve.
Determine what you want, what success looks like to you and plan accordingly. If you go into this event with a plan, you will get a return on your investment.
Wayne Schmidt — Karbon
Take a systematic approach
We have attended Accountex the last two years and are set to be there again this year. It is always a busy two days, but the event has been awesome for the development of our business.
We take the following approach:
Identify before attending what areas of our business we are looking to change or improve.
Review the list of exhibitors and decide which vendors and people we need to speak to.
We review the list of speakers and sessions being delivered and we make sure that we highlight the ones we want to go and see. There is always at least two of us from the team, so if we need to, we can split up and share what we’ve learned afterward.
When we arrive, we do a full lap of the exhibitor hall to see each stand, as sometimes the description in the brochure or online is not the only thing that the provider is offering.
Revisit our list of exhibitors after the first lap and select the ones that we know we want to go and physically speak to. We then speak with each one to learn and gather the details that we need.
After the event we set aside time to review the feedback from the exhibitors, look at websites, sign up for trials and then put in place the software/changes we select.
Go in with a 5-step battleplan
In this video, James Ashford shares his five-step battleplan to get the most out of Accountex this year. Find out why you need to:
Set goals
Set an agenda
Don't take business cards
Take action while you're there
Block out the Friday
He also lists his top speakers you must try to attend, as well as his suggestions for the exhibitors that you should check out—including GoProposal, who Karbon has just launched an integration with.
James Ashford — GoProposal & My Accountancy Place
Stop by the exhibitors you already know
Accountex is the perfect event to discover new systems and vendors that you haven’t explored before. But don’t discount those who you already know. Across the two days, try to stop by the vendors who you haven’t looked at for a year or two, to see how much their products have developed.
You should make time to visit the booths of those systems that you already use, and say hello to the people behind them. This is the perfect opportunity to ask questions about the product in-person and pass on any feedback or feature requests that you have. You might even get a sneak peek of some new product updates that haven’t been announced yet.
Andi Ancheta — Karbon
Free to attend, Accountex London is the largest exhibition and conference dedicated to accountants in the UK. The conference showcases solution providers, live demo sessions, and networking events. You can find out more information and register here.
If you are attending Accountex, make sure you stop by the Karbon stand (580) to learn how every team member in your firm can save 10 hours each week with our new approach to practice management.