This month saw the inaugural Advisors' Assembly bring clever insights and valuable networking to accountants in Australia's major east coast cities. Read on to get the wrap-up on how it all went.

What was Advisors' Assembly 2024 all about?

Earlier this month, Fathom and our partners at The Gap, Access Accountants and Dext hosted a community-focused event series. We encouraged accounting practitioners, advisory experts and industry leaders to join us and their peers at top locations in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for a special one-day educational event.

The aim? To equip modern accountants to serve their clients and become an even more integral part of their business success. Speakers at Advisors' Assembly were charged with probing the challenges to executing business advisory and sharing processes that have helped them master it. Attendees got an unfiltered look at the challenges these speakers faced, how they overcame them, and the learnings they’re applying for the future.

The key things we made sure Advisors' Assembly could provide to attendees were:

1. Case studies: hearing from others who are doing it, and what they’ve learnt along the way
2. Actionable content: practical sessions, real-world examples, and proven processes
3. Connection: meeting peers, sharing stories and becoming inspired
4. Upskilling: this educational opportunity translated into earning CPD hours for attending
   

Why this event?

While there was a variety of content over the three days, the overall theme came back to the meaningful importance of business advisory services. Not just a box to tick in the modern business landscape, but also helping advisors to enrich client relationships while also doing deeply rewarding work. This is what advisory work means to practitioners, and that's why Advisors' Assembly was created.

There were many highlights throughout the event, but aside from the locations and the quality of the presentations, the engagement of those who attended was inspiring to be a part of. There were lots of fantastic questions from the audience across all three cities, so we'd like to thank attendees for really leaning in!

Key takeaways from Advisors' Assembly 2024

Whether firms are just starting out or have been providing advisory services for decades, each firm's journey is distinct, yet they all share a common goal: fantastic clients, top talent, and work that ignites passion. It was clear from the crowds in attendance that Australian advisors have all of these in spades, particularly a passion for providing the best service possible for their clients. 

We've included some nuggets of wisdom from the panel discussions:

"Build a team around you; consider what you have capacity for, what you can delegate, and charge your value"

"Ask good questions of your clients from the outset, so you can prepare a good scope and prevent too many write-offs"

"Tax planning time is a great time to have conversations with existing clients about business advisory work"

"Creating capacity is one of the biggest challenges firms face when starting an advisory function 'you’ve only got one bum, you can’t ride two horses'"

"It’s not going to be perfect – just get started somewhere "

And some of the next steps that our attendees are planning to take:

"Set expectations upfront"

"Critically assess the services I wish to provide"

"Get out of the 'compliance vortex' and back into advisory"

"Define my service cycle"

"Review client base - what more can we offer and who doesn’t fit our client scope anymore?"

For those who attended Advisors' Assembly, we think The Gap's Brad Turville summed up the next steps from here in a fantastic way:

Of all your many notes taken, circle the top two and go and implement.

Even the 1%ers.

We hope you all enjoyed the insightful content provided, as well as the opportunity to reconnect with old faces and meet new ones. Where will Advisors' Assembly take us in 2025? Watch this space!

Thank you to everyone involved!

Fathom is proud to have over twelve years of experience in helping advisors and businesses alike make sense of their numbers to make informed decisions. We hope to continue this momentum for years to come, with Advisors' Assembly being part of Fathom's commitment to help provide clarity and confidence.

On behalf of our event partners, Fathom would like to give a special thanks to all of the fantastic speakers who lent their talents to the events in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. We enjoyed excellent panel discussions hosted by Amanda Gascoigne, Lielette Calleja and Andrea Roberts, and heard from an amazing array of experts: 

Tyler Caskey CA, TheBeanCounters
Steph Hinds CPA, Growthwise
Dan Osborne CPA, CATS Accountants
Katie Lin, Nexia
Jarrod Morris CA, Pitch Labs
Nicholas Perrett CA, Yarra Lane Group
Warrick Maddocks CA, Dot Advisory
Darren Van Zyl CA, Elements Advisory Group
Karen Ng CA, MGI South Queensland
Tracy Johnson CA, Walker Wayland
Morgan Wilson CA, Creditte
David Boyar FCA, Change GPS
Viv Brownrigg FCA, Brad Turville FIPA and Mark Jenkins CA, The Gap

In addition, the venues – Botanic House in Sydney, The W Hotel in Melbourne, and The Calile Hotel in Brisbane – who provided the perfect backdrop for each of the days.

Lastly, a special thanks to all of our wonderful attendees who really filled the room with personality and clever, engaging questions! You all made it such a blast and we hope to see you all again next time.

To view the full gallery of photos, visit our Facebook album.

If you have any questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. Please reach out to Fathom at any time by sending an email to support@fathomhq.com