Latest / Difference Makers Podcast / Young Difference Makers: Excel is eating audit, and Christiaan Coetzee brought the fork!
Transcript
- 0:00Christiaan Coetzee: The thing I'm taking away from me from One Young World is number one, not to be afraid to share your story.
- 0:08Christiaan Coetzee: Everybody has gone through something significant, and there's somebody else going through a similar situation, and you telling your story will inspire them and will drive them to achieve what they need to achieve.
- 0:25Christiaan Coetzee: Hi, my name is Christiaan Coetzee.
- 0:28Christiaan Coetzee: I am the CEO and co-founder of the Auto Toolbar.
- 0:32Christiaan Coetzee: I'm also a member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and the 2024 top 35 to 35 overall winner.
- 0:41Christiaan Coetzee: My journey towards becoming a chartered accountant started from my teenage years in that I've always wanted to get into entrepreneurship and understand business.
- 1:05Christiaan Coetzee: At the same time, I wanted to also get tertiary education, but my family couldn't afford it.
- 1:12Christiaan Coetzee: And so Saikar had the opportunity for me to go and do my articles straight after finishing high school and then study part-time.
- 1:21Christiaan Coetzee: And for me, this was an opportunity to tick both boxes as in get that tertiary education in and at the same time see hundreds and hundreds of different businesses and how they operate and talk to those directors and entrepreneurs to understand and learn from them.
- 1:36Christiaan Coetzee: So that's what got me into chartered accountancy, and it's been an invaluable tool in my entrepreneurship journey.
- 1:45Christiaan Coetzee: Although there was an initial barrier of the profession creating a natural risk aversion, which is not something you want as an entrepreneur.
- 1:55Christiaan Coetzee: But as soon as you push through that barrier, you start to see that your knowledge of corporate governance, of uh accounting, the way you can read financial statements, the way you can identify risks at a glance, um, how those things are actually superpowers for entrepreneurs.
- 2:13Christiaan Coetzee: So there's two parts to how I am making a difference in the profession and in my community.
- 2:26Christiaan Coetzee: I think the first part is highly focused on the audit toolbar.
- 2:31Christiaan Coetzee: We serve audit firms all around the world, and I would sometimes get into a conversation with a five-person audit firm in Busaka trying to compete with a big four and finally being able to on very tight budgets because of the software we've created, right?
- 2:50Christiaan Coetzee: Uh, we did a calculation that that software has now saved a rolling 650 years of work in progress every 12 months across the African continent.
- 3:01Christiaan Coetzee: So it's a huge impact and it helps these small firms to grow and scale uh like never before.
- 3:08Christiaan Coetzee: So that's the one part.
- 3:10Christiaan Coetzee: The the other part for me personally is I am very passionate about entrepreneurship, and wherever I see it, wherever I find it, if I meet somebody where there's a flicker of light within them in context of building something big, I want to water it and I want to see it grow.
- 3:27Christiaan Coetzee: And so, as wherever I can, I'll spend time with young individuals to help them through the next 10 steps.
- 3:34Christiaan Coetzee: Even though I'm not where I want to be as an entrepreneur, I have proceeded quite far down the line.
- 3:40Christiaan Coetzee: So, somebody just starting out, there is a lot of value that I can offer, and I always try to.
- 3:44Christiaan Coetzee: I think what makes it extra special is that nobody is scared to have the difficult conversation, nobody keeps things superficial.
- 4:30Christiaan Coetzee: These conversations go deep within two minutes and and and we go all the way.
- 4:36Christiaan Coetzee: So that's been for me not only the biggest surprise, but the biggest value of being here is yeah, caliber of delegates.
- 4:43Christiaan Coetzee: I think again, in terms of any specific insights or lessons gained, it's not not so much specific speakers, it is an overarching message across the board.
- 4:59Christiaan Coetzee: I realize that I think I'm thinking too small in my day-to-day, and that's the message I'm getting off stage when I look at what other people are doing, when I look at some of the talkers at this at the summit, I'm thinking a hundred times smaller than I should be thinking, and that's what I'm taking away from this.
- 5:18Christiaan Coetzee: And so when I get back to the office, get back to my colleagues, we're gonna dial things up.
- 5:24Christiaan Coetzee: I think an example of what I mean by thinking too small is that I think it's that it's that fear, almost that imposter syndrome, that comes in when you go after an enormous firm, right?
- 5:42Christiaan Coetzee: Like you wanna take on uh an enterprise level client, and your default instinct is oh it's not gonna work because of this, because of that, because of that, and then you hear about somebody who's trying to raise funds hitting up the biggest leaders in the world saying you gotta pay these kids need to eat, right?
- 6:02Christiaan Coetzee: And I'm sitting there going, Oh, I don't wanna try and go after one of the big 10 or top six firms because A, B, and C.
- 6:10Christiaan Coetzee: I'm like, no, I'm gonna call them up and push through.
- 6:13Christiaan Coetzee: So a brief overview of the auto toolbar.
- 6:17Christiaan Coetzee: It essentially focuses on the place where an external auditor spends 80% of their time, which is Excel.
- 6:25Christiaan Coetzee: Uh, I feel that the big software houses has always overlooked this part of the process because the arguments are usually you can upskill yourself, and people do, some people do, some people don't.
- 6:36Christiaan Coetzee: But it is in terms of a business, it is the single most powerful lever that any business, any audit firm can pull is the Excel lever.
- 6:47Christiaan Coetzee: The audit toolbar plugs into Excel and it creates insane efficiency gains for an auditor working there.
- 6:54Christiaan Coetzee: I often say this that any business and other any other industry they would dream about having a lever as powerful to pull in their business as an audit firm does within Excel.
- 7:06Christiaan Coetzee: It's 80% of their cost of sale, and you can double that productivity in a day.
- 7:12Christiaan Coetzee: As somebody who works within the technology space, looking ahead 10 years is an incredibly difficult thing to do.
- 7:27Christiaan Coetzee: I often say that we can't forecast more than two years because you don't know how quickly this market's gonna change, and even two years might be stretching it.
- 7:36Christiaan Coetzee: Uh so on the technology side, I've no idea.
- 7:40Christiaan Coetzee: I've no idea.
- 7:41Christiaan Coetzee: Um, whatever it is, we are gonna be at the forefront of it, and we're gonna guide and hold our customers' hands through it.
- 7:49Christiaan Coetzee: Um, in terms of where I'd personally want to be, I want to spend more time within education, mentorship, um, and just really driving the freedom and value of entrepreneurship across South Africa and potentially Africa as well.
- 8:07Christiaan Coetzee: My advice to other people wanting to make an impact, it might be different depending on where you are in that journey, but I would say don't be afraid to tell your story because your story could inspire many others.
- 8:33Christiaan Coetzee: Do not lose your work ethic wherever you are, even if you're sitting in corporate right now and you're dreaming about a project that you want to build, everything you do, everything you do every single day will contribute to that.
- 8:45Christiaan Coetzee: So, whatever you do, you're busy doing it, so you might as well do it absolutely excellently or leave it.
- 8:53Christiaan Coetzee: And when you start building, everything starts with revenue.
- 8:59Christiaan Coetzee: Now, if you're building an MPO, that starts with funding.
- 9:04Christiaan Coetzee: If you're building a startup, it starts with revenue, and forget about the noise and everything that goes around it.
- 9:09Christiaan Coetzee: Your job is to make cash exchange hands, and then everything else will flow.
- 9:16Christiaan Coetzee: The thing I'm taking away from me from One Young World is number one, not to be afraid to share your story.
- 9:26Christiaan Coetzee: Everybody has gone through something significant, and there's somebody else going through a similar situation, and you telling your story will inspire them and will drive them to achieve what they need to achieve.
- 9:39Christiaan Coetzee: The second thing I'm taking away, and I think this is probably the biggest thing, is not to think too small.
- 9:46Christiaan Coetzee: You can always do a hundred times bigger and more than what you are doing.