What footprints did you leave in 2018?

 As the saying goes: "Leave only footprints..." But footprints can tell an evocative story – of journeys made, interactions had, and impact created. At Spotlight Reporting, we had another year of leaving footprints, creating stories, building and nurturing relationships, and impacting lives in 2018.Our mission is to empower and partner with the progressive advisors of the accounting industry, and those that aspire to be. This keeps our 50-strong team very busy making footprints across the globe!

With an 8th year of being the most popular reporting and forecasting app in the hot Xero eco-system, we serviced more accounting, advisory and bookkeeping firms than ever before. We partner with all of the Big 4, many major mid-market networks and thousands of other firms of all shapes and sizes. More than 100,000 businesses now regularly receive Spotlight outputs and great advice alongside.

For a company founded in the quiet sea-side suburb of Petone, on the edge of Wellington harbour, this is a humbling impact to have. As an experienced advisor myself, I know the impact that business intelligence can have, particularly when married up with the empathy, experience and expertise that great advisors possess. Trusted advisors never forget that human interactions are key with software, as just one aspect of the experience.

Spotlight Reporting footprints are, in reality, miles on the road or in the air. We try and make each and every journey count – not just to be efficient and minimise time away from family, but also to reduce our carbon footprint and to act as a responsible, sustainable business. Thankfully as my wonderful Spotlight team has grown, the punishing personal travel burden has lessened, so I salute all of those who have travelled and represented for Spotlight this year. Chances are you’ve met one or more of us in your travels too.

At the click of a button, you can witness our Product journey this year. Massive releases to Forecasting, not to mention Wealth Reporting, Account Groupings the Cashflow Waterfall and design-led Report Cover white-labelling. 2019 is going to be even more exciting! You can watch my Product Roadmap session here. 

For our valued Spotlight Partners, we not only created a wealth of product enhancements and new features in 2018, but we wrapped over more human support and expertise around our offering. In our space, we were the first to engage Customer Success Specialists to work with Partners – some would say we’re still the only ones in our category to have industry-experienced Success team members proactively in the field. 

A full house for our Transform In Action! event held in Wellington (NZ)

It’s this team that not only gets hands-on with SuperVCFO subscribers, but provides a unique 12-step Transform In Action enablement programme. For a modest one-off charge, the adviser cohort at your practice can get trained and educated on providing kick-arse advisory services to clients. After all, changing clients lives us what it is all about!

Additionally, we beefed up our very experienced Education, Support and Training team for 24/7 human coverage. Our launch of Spotlight Certification has been hugely popular too. Expertise and support matters, so it was fantastic to see the team average a beefy 98% satisfaction throughout 2018.

Knowledge is power, and we offered other new ways for advisors to grow their knowledge during the year. OurAdvisory Advantage podcast series has proven very popular, as has my Transform! Advisory Playbook, now going into its third print run in time for 2019.

As 2018 draws to a close, I hope that you too have left some memorable footprints during the year.  From the Spotlight Reporting Team, I wish you all a wonderful, restful holiday season and look forward to sharing some journeys and highlights together in the new year!

Kind regards,
Richard