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As a ‘veteran’ in the world of financial consulting Penny has learned many lessons throughout her 30+ years. In her latest position as Head of Customer Development for Sysynkt she’s combining her experience working both for the software authors of SunSystems®, various partners (including working closely with the authors of Q&A), and directly for her own clients with her passion for keeping customers happy. In the second of our ‘To Be Sysynkt’ series of chats we dig a little deeper into what success looks like according to Penny.  

Q1: Hello Penny — you officially joined Sysynkt in October 23 BUT you’ve been working with, and on, our XFMS solution in your consultant’s role at TouchstoneFMS for nearly 2 years. So, what intrigued you and enticed you to become a fully-fledged Sysynkter?  

David Singh from Touchstone introduced me to Sysynkt and Kalev almost two years ago and I had a real OMG moment. For me, it was like seeing Q&A for the first time — those old enough to remember that moment will know what I mean! My first thought was, “This is exactly what the SunSystems’ world needs — and everyone will want it.” That thought has not changed in the least and the more I work with Kalev and the team, the more excited I am.  

I am very pleased to be bringing the possibilities of digital transformation to the world of SunSystems companion products by joining Sysynkt. We have such a talented, young team with a truly innovative product that I know we'll go far - watch this space.

Q2: As with all startups there probably isn’t a typical-typical day — that said what are your key activities/responsibilities/tasks and what would 24 hrs in the life PP look like?

My first job every morning is to check the support desk. I make sure we have nothing outstanding and everything is progressing as it should. It’s also the last thing I do every day (often in the evening!). My days are taken up with speaking to clients, partners, and prospects about our projects and prospective projects and I spend time every day discussing product too. We are a tight-knit team, and we all bring our experience when it comes to shaping the product. It’s crazy but I'm passionate about keeping our customers happy and luckily for me Sysynkt makes that such an enjoyable task. It's refreshing to be working for such an innovative, dynamic company.

Q3: What does customer development and customer success mean to you and is there a difference between ‘development and success’?

It may be an overused claim, but I firmly believe we are only successful when our customers are happy. Making more customers happy is my number one goal every single day. In practice, this means implementing and running successful, efficient projects and also building positive ongoing relationships with our customers — we genuinely want to hear their pain points and do our best to solve them.  

You may not know this, but we go onsite to our clients twice a year and sit with the end users to get their feedback. This is a crucial part of keeping our customers happy and providing them with the user experience and functionality that makes their working life easier. The important thing is we are always doing our best and that our clients can see that. That is our goal right across our company.  

For me, customer success and customer development are inextricably linked. However, if I were to make a distinction a key part of my customer development role is around the product direction. Direct contact with our clients and prospective clients means I know what they are asking for and this knowledge allows me to influence product development. As we all know every request cannot be accommodated as a priority in a product roadmap, but as the customer advocate, I can ensure their needs strongly influence our product direction so that we continue to develop a useful and effective solution.

Q4: What in your experience are the three top mistakes companies make when looking (or not looking!) after their customers?

There are many mistakes I’ve been witness to but three recurring and inexcusable ones as far as I am concerned are:  

No. 1 Complacency. There are organisations who have been using SunSystems for 20+ years. Often these companies are sort of left to their own devices so long as the money keeps coming in. They often don’t know about nor get to reap the benefits of changes in the marketplace like Sysynkt.  

No. 2 Lack of innovation. I have been in this industry a long time and I know how slowly change happens in our marketplace. By this I mean change in both the products and actual innovations in technology. We are all accountants after all and generally quite a conservative bunch. However, this means we have not taken advantage of all that SaaS, cloud and AI brings. This must change.

No. 3 Ignoring the little guys. Often companies are focussed on the big or prestigious clients and deals and the smaller companies are presented with huge barriers to entry when trying to take advantage of new products and tools that come along. They end up stuck with ‘previous’ generations of products. Luckily, Sysynkt smashes these barriers with features such as our unlimited users model.

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Q5: How does Sysynkt’s software and the company structure make your job easier?

Truly out-of-the-box integration is a dream to work with. This, along with the clear and simple user experience and unlimited users, are the things that give me a thrill every time I use Sysynkt. It really is a joy to work with.  

Each team member has clear responsibilities and is also encouraged to bring their ideas and knowledge to all areas of Sysynkt – there are no egos. The biggest difference between Sysynkt as a company and other places I have worked is that we walk the walk. Everything is automated. All our tools are SaaS and cloud — even our projects are managed on a cloud SaaS platform that integrates with all our other tools. I love it.

Q6: There are currently six main modules offered by Sysynkt that customers select as they need them. Tell me in one sentence the module and your favourite/most useful feature from each…

Banking – This is easy. The suggested payment run listing attaching all the actual invoice documents you are paying is such a valuable feature.

Purchasing Invoicing – Audrey! The way the invoices are ingested, and the data is extracted is honestly so impressive using embedded AI.

Procurement – The way we can control at each stage in the workflow, which data is mandatory, what attributes are visible etc. You can raise a purchase request and not even know who the supplier is or how much the items cost.

Sales and Service – Recharges. You can tag any purchase (expenses or purchase invoice) as a recharge and choose to recharge at cost or with an uplift or at a different price then pick these items up on a sales invoice. It is really neat.

Expenses - Our mileage expense calculator. You can see your route on a map and work out your mileage expense based on HMRC (other tax jurisdictions are available) official mileage rates. Super easy and saves time and money.

Integration and Plugins – Microsoft® Graph. This tool allows us to integrate with Teams, receive PDF invoices from your mailbox without polling for them, and work with any MS product.

Q7: You mention SunSystems a lot on the website and in your marketing — is this the only ERP Sysynkt is compatible with?

So, Sysynkt was designed from day dot to be finance system agnostic. Of course, having been designed by SunSystems consultants, there are lots of features and functions that will appeal to SunSystems user. We absolutely have it on our roadmap to create connectors to other Finance Systems. Watch this space.

Q8: How do (Team Sysynkt) make sure you are not only listening to customers and partners but actually acting on their feedback?

We take this seriously at Sysynkt. Much of the functionality you see in the Sysynkt XFMS came from a user request. Remember, both Kalev and I started as SunSystems users and one of the worst things for us was for good ideas and critical feedback not to be acted on. As I mentioned before – the bi-annual visits we make to each customer is just one of the ways we show how serious we are about listening to what our customers need and have to say.

In addition, part of what I do is to research how we can satisfy our clients’ requests. For example, I have recently been looking at carbon footprint calculations for our Expenses module. This came from a client’s request about whether we could do it. It is now very firmly on our roadmap. We also listen to our partners. From our two recent training events we raised dozens of enhancement requests, just through having open and honest conversations with the partners that were present.

We believe in collaborative ways of working. Every day we have a quick stand up to see what everyone is up to that day, and we also have regular open sessions where anyone can bring their ideas or frustrations, plus highlight anything they have heard a client ‘complain’ about. We also make sure our developers get out and meet the customers and see for themselves how the product is being used. This is so important if you want to have a coherent, well-designed solution.

Q9: What five attributes make you good in this role and why do you think these skills are necessary (don’t be shy now Penny!).

In short, I have several decades-worth of experience in implementing and supporting SunSystems for large multinationals (especially in Oil & Gas and Hospitality) and smaller clients. I have worked for the software author, Systems Union, and also the creators of Q&A on product design and have transformed business processes at hundreds of companies over the years. The main skills I bring are:

• I am a born problem solver – I really cannot help myself.
• I am one of life’s doers, so this makes me pragmatic and energetic.
• Analytical skills. I am good at getting to the heart of a problem or teasing out a client’s requirements.
• I am a people person so (I hope) this makes me easy to work with.
• I value collaboration and communication right across the company.

Q10: You’re known as PP, Penny, Penelope and Lady P — tell me more about who you are, and what occupies you when you’re not bringing happiness to the world of Sysynkt.

I am based in Italy, with my husband and teenage daughter, where I have lived for over 20 years. We have an olive farm and in fact I am Italy’s only British, Female professional olive oil taster. It is my passion project (aside from Sysynkt of course). Farming keeps you grounded and teaches you to accept what life throws at you. I think this pragmatism is just as useful in my professional life.

I also co-admin a Facebook group of nearly 5000 British citizens living in Italy which helps people with their post-Brexit rights. That has been very intense at times but also very rewarding. We have helped hundreds of people since 2016 and we regularly meet with the British Consular teams in Rome and Milan and the European Council Citizens’ Rights team. Our group has also given evidence to many UK Government Select committees over the years. I have a strong sense of fairness and I think that is why Sysynkt and the ethos of digital inclusion really chimed with me.

Common months for ‘closing the books’ (year-end) are December and March — which means many companies have just completed or are working on making sure their company’s finances are in order  

As anyone who has ever been involved in this knows it is a stressful time with many finance teams finding themselves overworked especially when tracking down and matching invoices, payments, employee expenses — not to mention having to chase debts and ensure they are complying to the latest regulations while continuing to support the everyday running of a business.

For some businesses, the technology they have invested in means their finance teams can concentrate on the more complex issues and make better decisions (by analysing their data in near real-time) as they have automated many of the functions. But this isn’t the case for far too many.  

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DEI – Diversity, Equality, and Inclusivity

Promoting DEI is important to all at Sysynkt — and we don’t just mean concerning people! One way we do this is using our affordable software to enable digital inclusivity — which we see as making sure companies of all shapes and sizes have access to being able to transform and automate their finance operations and gain competitive advantages by doing so.

Software implementation costs and the scarcity of skilled resources plus the ‘user licence model’ have long been barriers to many businesses including NGOs, smaller companies, and startups being able to invest and benefit from software solutions that will make them more efficient and give them an opportunity to cut their overall operational costs.

In the challenging landscape of 2024, where many businesses are facing a tough start, it becomes increasingly crucial to create an environment that levels the playing field. Ensuring that every business has the best opportunity not just to survive but to thrive is of paramount importance. By reorganising and revamping finance functions using technology, companies can restructure their processes and procedures without having to completely replace their existing systems.  

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Advantages of Digital Finance Transformation

The advantages of automating your finance function are wide reaching including:

• Increasing efficiencies: automate the everyday, repetitive tasks so your team has more time to work on more complex or rewarding tasks (for them and the business) such as debt collecting, more 121 time with key clients and suppliers.
• Joining the Open Banking revolution: reach new customers, reduce late payments, manage real-time cashflow, access cost-effective finance, and streamline business administration.  
• Accessing your valuable and relevant data so you can make better and more timely decisions.
• Making life easier for your team and suppliers. Your people can upload and ultimately get paid for expenses from anywhere in the world—gone are the days of returning from business trips with a stack of receipts to sort through. With a supplier portal your suppliers can onboard themselves, open their invoices, orders and update or validate their details.
• Improving your carbon footprint.  

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Save money. Save the planet!

For too long companies have been tied into user licenses for complete product suites where underutilisation is rife. This not only wastes money but is contributing to climate change as everything needed to power emerging technology, for memory systems and data centres takes up masses of electricity the generation of which produces vast amounts of GHG (Green House Gas) emissions.  

53% of SaaS licenses go unused while companies use over 300 SaaS apps on average

‍(Ref: Productive, June 2023)

As Sysynkt was designed and built by consultants who wanted to stop such waste it was important to be able to offer unlimited users, the ability to select one or more modules—from banking to procurement to expenses—and to be able to give access to as many people as you need to, for as long as you want, and only pay for usage.  

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Technology Can Be Great, But People Still Matter

Even the best SaaS solutions won’t be effective if you don’t have the right team in place to help manage your business. No matter what the size and stage of your company is, you need to take a long hard look at recruiting the right people to ensure the financial health of your company.  

There’s an increasing trend (and demand) for chief revenue officers (CROs). To some extent they carry out the role of the more traditional VP of Sales but, according to Gartner®, “A chief revenue officer (CRO) is a corporate executive responsible for all revenue generation processes in an organization. CROs are accountable for driving better integration and alignment between all revenue-related functions, including marketing, sales, customer support, pricing and revenue management. They are also responsible for overseeing the strategy for profitable revenue generation over the organisation's long term.”  

When recruiting be mindful, as with filling all roles, that you employ a CFO or CRO that is the right fit for your business—if you are a startup or small company in the tech space going after a previous CRO/CFO of Google, Slack, or Stripe is probably not the best idea. The cost of such talent will of course be prohibitive but their skillset and mindset more than likely not what you need! You may also be better placed to recruit a CRO to help boost revenue alongside the CEO who can work with a strong accountant than invest in a CFO in the early days.  

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Four Key Takeaways

1. Becoming part of the digital revolution doesn’t mean throwing out your existing ERP or other finance systems. However, if you haven’t been able to invest in any finance technology you can leap ahead at a fraction of the cost and hassle with systems such as Sysynkt!

2. Save money and the planet by stopping paying for individual user licenses.  Ensure you are only implementing (and paying for) the modules you need – if you only have a few suppliers, you may not need to invest in a purchasing module until you grow.  

3. Like all things in life, all SaaS systems are not created equally. Do your research and don’t be fooled by ‘shoehorned cloud solutions’. Look for those specifically designed and built for the cloud with embedded AI that has a purpose. Then get comparative demos and costs...

4. Integration should not mean huge consultation costs, disruptive amounts of downtime, or a 12, 18 or 24-month project. Seamless integration should work smoothly with the existing system without inconsistencies whether on-cloud or on-premise.  

It’s time to level the playing field. We’d of course like to help you! For more info www.sysynkt.com

As we kick off 2024, we're delighted to introduce another efficiency-enhancing feature to Sysynkt — welcome to the Preview Email functionality.  

This latest addition allows you to effortlessly preview the email corresponding to your invoice document directly within the Sysynkt platform. Say goodbye to the hassle of toggling between your inbox and Sysynkt — now, with just a click of the 'View Email' button, you can seamlessly access and review the associated email alongside your other Sysynkt activities.  

Don’t be left behind in 2024— we are ready, able and eager to assist with your digital finance transformation, regardless of your company's size.  

If you’ve got a question or are curious to know more, let’s chat: hello@sysynkt.com

If you’re involved in finance, into fintech, have an ERP (on-premise or cloud) that is tedious to use, or are looking to make savings and improve efficiencies, you may be dealing with a few ‘Pains in Your SaaS’. If the answer is yes to one or more of these, the following article on what Kalev Kalamäe had to say—in the first of our ‘To Be Sysynkt’ series of chats—is a must-read.

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Q1: Hello Kalev—Sysynkt was officially founded in 2020 but you’ve been developing Sysynkt since 2016 - can you tell us a bit about your background and what started you on this journey?  

A: It’s really something that was gestating for a decade; I'm a techy person by nature so when I landed my first accounting role out of university and had to use Sun, I naturally looked for ways to make all the tedious processes easier. I built some fun little apps using macros and VBA that did niche jobs for us, but they were quite basic. David Shahinian at Forpoint introduced me to the world of companion products, which is where I really cut my teeth with the Sun ecosystem, it was a truly fun and worthwhile time, but maybe because I was younger than your typical consultant I started to ask why there wasn’t much innovation, particularly when I saw clients doing the same, tedious processes that I used to have to do. All along I was expecting that products and software would evolve, but they never did, so one day I sat down and started building a solution—Sysynkt was born.

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Q2: You mentioned you were frustrated—what from your experience would you say are your top three pains in your SaaS?

A: I certainly was frustrated—here’s why:  

1. We’ve seen a host of existing players launch “cloud” versions of their products over the years in a mad run to “tick that box” but there’s been a few common themes and pains that have ultimately meant that the whole experience has been less than ideal. Probably the most painful part is that the traditional player’s cloud offerings are simply just “ports”, simple web-enabled versions that ultimately just are the existing products with a new coat of paint. There’s been no innovation and the architecture is not fit for the 2020’s. All this means that the typical, modern user in a finance office expects modern speed and features that we get with all our other day-to-day apps, and that’s just lacking.  

2. Cost is also a big pain point, and that means a lot of things. With SaaS you don’t need to worry about infrastructure, maintaining servers or even the electricity! When it comes to patching and maintenance, SaaS does away with the need to schedule consultants to run patch updates—that’s if you can find a consultant that has any availability—with SaaS customers get immediate services and support. Put it this way: why is it that a 7 year-old kid can update all the apps on their phone with the click of a button, but finance systems need so many resources just to run on the latest version of Windows?

3. Innovation – or the lack of it – is probably my final pain point. The world is moving rapidly, and technology is changing all the time. In the SaaS world, we can tackle this head-on by building systems from the ground up in such a way that we can embrace new technologies, trends, and practices and importantly deliver them to customers immediately. This cannot be said of the traditional players who are typically on a much slower cadence, often constrained by design decisions made for their software decades ago, before the internet was a thing!

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Q3: It’s been estimated that a company with 1,000+ employees has between 150 to over 250 business process apps—of all the business process solutions on the market today —what makes Sysynkt different?

A: The number of business process apps companies have is unmanageable and unnecessary, especially in the Sun market where users must jump from app to app to app to do basic functions. Sysynkt gets rid of the need for so many separate single-function apps into a unified workspace, where modules and communicate with each other. The fact that we’re [Sysynkt] born in the cloud—true cloud—means that we can rapidly deploy to customers while also quickly respond to issues. And obviously the whole re-invented environment by its very nature is geared to embrace new technologies immediately.  

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Q4: I’ve heard you say that no company should be excluded from the advantages digital transformation can bring—what do you mean by this and what are you and #teamSysynkt doing to make a difference?  

A: This is really important to me. Our unlimited-user and volume-based pricing model opens up opportunities that were otherwise prohibitively expensive, especially in the NFP and SME space. I remember one horror story of a customer who could only afford licences for half their staff, so they started sharing logins, meaning that the whole point of control and audit was lost. With Sysynkt we want the question of users licences removed completely; why should someone have to fork out some huge amount for a licence for an employee who only lodges one or two expense claims a year? I like to think that we are democratising cloud finance systems by offering access to everyone at a fair price that reflects a customer’s actual usage.  

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Q5: You mentioned AI—well Generative AI—tell us more about it and the enigma that is Audrey…  

A: Our AI-Assisted Document Recognition Engine—or Audrey to her friend is fun, I like her a lot.  

She’s lots of things. When people throw around words like “Machine Learning”, “AI” and “OCR” typically they don’t know what it really means and how it’s actually used. Audrey is the recognition that there are lots of models and approaches that can lead to desired outcomes, because no two companies operate in the same way. Audry leverages the broader strengths of massive AI models to intelligently recognise documents before applying more nuanced customer-specific actions.  

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Q6: Open banking—can you tell us a bit more - is it secure and safe to use? How do you make sure Sysynkt helps to protect your customers' data?

A: Most of us are using Open Banking already in our day-to-day lives when we are paying bills or splitting dinner at a restaurant. The advantages of Open Banking are twofold—first is that it’s entirely API, so there's no need for file transfers, FTPs, and other clunky—and insecure banking—it’s consent-based, meaning that you're in complete control of the data; everything happens at the bank itself, Sysynkt never sees your credentials, but the consent means that we do the heavy lifting for you.

The best part is that if a new bank started tomorrow, you’d have access to it in Sysynkt tomorrow. No software updates, no file formats, it will just be there ready to go.  

Because Open Banking is still new, there’s a lot still to be implemented. Watch this space, particularly when it comes to things like Open Utilities, Open Billing and Variable Recurring Payments.  

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Q7: SaaS is one of the most important technologies in business success—what’s your prediction for tech developments in 2024—what excites you about Sysynkt’s plans/roadmap?

A: We’ve got a lot in our roadmap that I could talk about, but if I had to say what excites me the most it would be Passkeys. Yes, something as simple as logging in isn’t typically very exciting, but the adoption of Passkeys to me represents the industry-wide effort to secure people’s data and identity in a simple but secure way. If someone isn’t offering Passkeys as an authentication method in their applications by the end of 2024, then it will be a real indicator of how serious they are about security and innovation as a whole.  

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Q8: You talk about super-charging SunSystems - in no more than three sentences, how do you do this and can Sysynkt bring the same benefits to other ERP systems?

A: We make Sun fun again.  

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No, truly, we take pain out of the every-day processes that finance teams across the world are having to deal with when they could be spending time on more critical, value-add tasks. I hope people can see that Sysynkt is something written by Sun users, for Sun users. The fact that we’re true cloud and a new player means we are doing things differently, the days of “same old” are gone.  

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Q9: It’s a tough market for all businesses at the moment—and many tech startups are vying for funding. Why won’t Sysynkt be another flash in the pan?

A: We are different and here are four reasons why:  

1. We’ve been developing, testing and refining Sysynkt since 2016—plus it is a true-cloud system not a ‘port’ as I explained above in Qu2.

2. We are not competing for the limited VC investments—we have a backer and mentor who not only believes in Sysynkt as a whole but brings his decades of business experience to help us grow in a sustainable way. We see this as a major competitive advantage!

3. We’ve already got real-life customers with increasing daily transactions and a super healthy pipeline.

4. Last but not least, we have attracted not only a bunch of talented Sysynkters but also incredible consultants and partners… and as far as the number of SaaS providers—there may very well be a shakeout but the indispensable ones that truly add value—like Sysynkt ;) won’t go anywhere.

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Q10: When you’re not at Sysynkt, coding or travelling how do you like to spend your free time?

A: Ha, what’s free time? I hung up my rugby boots last year after being lucky enough to play alongside some great people; that was a really important activity for me over the last decade but now I'm using the extra time to enjoy local live music events or facetiming my nieces and nephews.  

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Got a pain in your SaaS? Want to know more about Sysynkt? We’re all ears and ready to help—send us an email and we’ll take it from there hello@sysynkt.com