What makes a good app? image

What makes a good app?

Ahead of Joiin’s spell as App Advisory Plus’s August App of the Month, the company’s Harry Symons explores what makes a good app, drawing on his experience as customer success manager at Joiin. A sprinkle of magic This isn’t a spoiler: nowadays, most accountants prefer to use cloud accountancy software. Market-leading accountancy software is so powerful that it delivers fantastic benefits, such as reduced costs and more efficient working methods.

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Posted byJoiin

Ahead of Joiin’s spell as App Advisory Plus’s August App of the Month, the company’s Harry Symons explores what makes a good app, drawing on his experience as customer success manager at Joiin.

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A sprinkle of magic

This isn’t a spoiler: nowadays, most accountants prefer to use cloud accountancy software. Market-leading accountancy software is so powerful that it delivers fantastic benefits, such as reduced costs and more efficient working methods. 

If you’re considering how to enhance the software you use, then any apps you decide to add-on must bring a healthy sprinkle of magic, something that isn’t already available within say Xero, QuickBooks Online, or Sage Business Cloud. 

Often there is a specific need not being met by such software packages, which leaves room for an app solution. 

The Joiin app solves the problem of how to consolidate multi-entity data. I love the magic it brings to this very specific, highly complex, time-consuming, and potentially error-prone task. 

Once you connect your cloud accountancy software to Joiin, it crunches the numbers and consolidates the data out of sight, within the powerful inner workings of the app. What you see, however, are things like a consolidated profit and loss and balance sheet, an impressive real-time dashboard and a great-looking group report to name just a few – all of which are bits of magic to make your working life easier.

Benefits-focused features

Downward pressure on accountants from clients is to offer more advisory services, which means finding more time to deliver such services. Similarly, accountants always need more time to grow their own client base and business. We all know that business growth takes time. 

Joiin targets time-saving features that let accountants build on their existing client base, develop new business for their practice, and spend more time being advisors than traditional ‘number crunchers’. This is achieved by giving our partners the platform they need.

Over the past year, two new features stand out: 

  • Multi-Client lets accountants manage their clients in specially created spaces within Joiin. With each client space, reports can be automated and easily shared, giving your clients real-time insights into consolidated finances and removing the burden of compiling and distributing a report manually.

  • Report Packs allow accountants to streamline reporting, automating the difficult task of building a presentable report and distributing to stakeholders, making all of this possible in just a few clicks. 

Multi-Client and Report Packs save accountants time, which they can use to focus on advisory services and business growth.

An app team with an agile approach

With the world the way it is now, you need technology that can respond appropriately. 

In the new reality of hybrid working, accountants need to overcome the twin challenges of collaborating better and delivering services remotely.

Joiin place a strong emphasis on ensuring seamless collaboration and remote working. For example, Joiin users get unlimited licenses, meaning your colleagues or clients can access and view reports within Joiin (see our Multi-Client feature mentioned above). 

At the same time, the platform is mobile-friendly, so it can be accessed on the go, wherever you are. 

An app team willing to collaborate

Joiin pride itself on being a team that works with its customers to deliver what they need and achieve mutual success. 

They proactively ask people what features they want and how they can improve. They gather feedback via customer support initiatives such as support tickets, emails, chats, and seminars. They then work closely with customers to deliver a product that has their needs at its core.

To date, Joiin has delivered nearly 300 product updates – driven purely by customer requests.

For example, earlier this year, they launched the dashboard, which is the direct result of customer feedback asking for a dashboard view. They acted and delivered a new feature that provides a highly visual one-page financial overview, meaning you can easily stay up to date with the metrics that matter most to you.

Joiin likes to say that they go against the traditional ‘built by accountants for accountants’ approach. Instead, our Joiin platform is 100% led by customer feedback.  

Rock-solid security

Security is something taken extremely seriously at Joiin. 

Already mentioned above is remote working. During 2021-22, hackers certainly took colossal advantage of changes to the working environment, which saw home workers less protected from attacks. Deloitte cites that 47% of home workers were phishing victims because of reduced network protection and unfamiliarity with new tech.

Joiin fully appreciates accountants must ensure that any app solution they choose is cyber-safe and reliable. Joiin understands this need and their platform is hosted on AWS servers, which provide outstanding levels of security and employ industry-leading best practice, meeting detailed global compliance initiatives.

Keep an eye out for Joiin in August, when the app is App Advisory Plus’s App of the Month. Click here to learn more and start a free 14-day trial with Joiin.

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