Accountex 2025 Day Two: New mandates and real momentum

By day two at Accountex 2025, the conversation had sharpened. What once passed as deadlines, compliance demands, and rising client expectations now weighed down future-gazing. The crowd was more engaged, the questions more pointed, and the atmosphere more grounded in execution than exploration.

At the heart of it all: Making Tax Digital (MTD) and artificial intelligence. Not as abstract forces, but as operational realities forcing firms to rethink client relationships, pricing structures, software ecosystems and even recruitment.

MTD Moves from Compliance Headache to Business Restructure

The standout MTD session on day two—“MTD for Income Tax: Prepping Your Processes for a New Way of Working”—brought together Gem Malek from FreeAgent, Dayle Rodriguez from Kreston Reeves, Elliott Watson from FWD Accounts, and Richard Hepburn of Gorilla Accounting.

The panel was refreshingly direct: firms still haven’t assigned clear internal ownership for MTD. From client comms to quoting and execution, many still pass the baton or improvise on the fly. That has to change.

“You can have the best software in the world,” said Rodriguez, “but if your team or your clients don’t understand why it matters, they’ll fight it.”

Landlords were highlighted by Watson as the hardest cohort to bring on the journey. Typically long-standing and older, many “don’t see themselves as business owners” and have resisted digitisation for years. And yet, this was no defeatist panel.

Watson, in particular, pointed to an unexpected benefit of MTD’s quarterly rhythm: the potential to reduce the January bottleneck that has become a recurring source of stress across the industry.

Still, not every client will make the cut. Both Rodriguez and Watson spoke about being more selective—focusing their energy on clients who understand the direction of travel.

As Watson put it, “we’ve become a lot more ruthless.” Pricing strategies are evolving too. Firms are finally starting to align fees with friction. Paper-based clients, Rodriguez argued, should pay more.

And behind the compliance mechanics lies the bigger shift: a pivot to advisory. Watson used the example of missed VAT registration thresholds as a cautionary tale. “If they were on FreeAgent, we’d have seen it coming,” he said. This isn’t just about tax returns—it’s about visibility.

Carbon Accounting Steps Forward—Ready or Not

A separate session, “Beyond Spreadsheets: Carbon Accounting Moves to the Front Office,” shifted the conversation from tax to climate. Andrew Turpin of PEM and Aaron Westgate of First Intuition laid out a business case for sustainability services that’s less about ESG headlines and more about practical survival.

Turpin explained how PEM has begun offering carbon and ESG consultancy using tools like Simply Zero and Trace. But he was honest: once you start, the scope expands quickly. Gathering emissions data from suppliers remains a mess, and Scope 3 disclosures—while increasingly expected—are anything but simple.

Westgate highlighted the skills bottleneck, pointing to their pilot with 120 businesses and the reality that most SMEs, even those well-intentioned, are too stretched to follow through. But there’s a stick as well as a carrot. NHS procurement rules now require emissions reporting for contracts over £10,000. It’s not hard to see how this will escalate.

AI, Client Experience and the Platform Play

Technology vendors, meanwhile, used day two to unveil the next phase of their AI journeys—with notable differences in tone and tempo. In conversations with Accountancy Age, several leaders outlined what’s coming, what’s working, and what’s still being figured out.

Karbon CEO Mary Delaney said 55% of firms surveyed are actively shopping for a new practice management solution this year, driven by MTD, AI and staffing constraints. Karbon is positioning itself not just as a workflow tool but as an intelligence layer: automating email drafting, prioritising work, flagging pricing mismatches, and managing timelines end to end. “AI isn’t the challenge,” said Delaney. “It’s the solution.”

TaxCalc’s Andy North, by contrast, struck a more cautious note. “We’re not piling into AI,” he said, citing compliance risk and low client demand as reasons to hold back—at least in the core filing space. That said, the acquisition of Client Engager signals a much bigger push into practice management.

For FreeAgent, Stewart Hurd framed the company’s evolution as one of confidence. With over 65,000 accountant partners in the UK, the firm has shifted from education to enablement. Built-in MTD support, client comms templates, and new features like “Find & Fix” are helping practices stay in control as compliance becomes continuous.

Sage’s Chris Downing made a similar point. AI and MTD, he said, are happening simultaneously—and one will be essential to survive the other. From client segmentation to ledger anomaly detection, Sage Copilot is now positioned as an AI assistant, designed to unlock capacity and reframe the client relationship.

“Self-assessment is ending,” said Downing. “MTD is starting. This is a moment to rebuild how we work—and how we charge.”

The Payments Layer is Getting Competitive

Gavin Fell, Head of Sales at Apron, described his Accountex experience as “record-breaking,” with over 300 demos and 50 new partners in just the first day. Apron’s value proposition is sharp: replace the tangled mess of five finance apps with one that handles capture, approvals, payroll, and payments—soon to include client invoicing via their “Get Paid” feature.

Fell was also vocal about the need for better client segmentation. Too many firms know how many clients they serve—but not who they really are or what they need. Apron’s June roadshow aims to change that.

Meanwhile, Airwallex’s Tom Robinson emphasised infrastructure over features. Their spend management platform now spans local accounts, employee cards, real-time FX, and automated VAT handling—all designed to support global scale without multiplying admin. “Having everything in one place,” said Robinson, “is what resonates.”

Companies House and the Compliance Avalanche

New legislation also loomed large. Henry Vaile from Companies House confirmed the shift to software-only filing, alongside plans to publish P&Ls for small companies and reform audit exemption statements. A 21-month notice period will precede these changes—but make no mistake, the countdown is already on.

Mike Bevan from Credas noted that ID verification will become mandatory for new and existing company directors. Many firms, he said, are already implementing the checks ahead of the deadline. Credas has built its journey to match Companies House specs exactly, and is also preparing to launch a payments module for estate agents.

Bright, Xledger and Wolters Kluwer: Building the Bigger Picture

Ben Bishop at Bright reiterated that firms need “virtual teammates, not just tools.” AI at Bright is being used to automate onboarding, client comms, and data collection—all within a secure, auditable ecosystem.

With compliance burdens intensifying, Bishop said accountants are increasingly the custodians of regulation. Bright’s acquisition of TimeKeeper was framed as a strategic move to give practices better control over time as a billing and planning unit.

At Xledger, Laura Jolly spoke about real-time reporting and ESG integration as differentiators. “People are tired of spending a day on payments,” she said. “With us, it’s 30 minutes—and that time can go toward partnering on strategy.”

Their roadmap? Deeper ESG automation and even smarter reporting.

Wolters Kluwer’s Mohammed Sadit described the current wave of regulation as a tipping point for cloud migration. Accounts Submission Cloud and Tax Compliance Cloud are now live, with Practice Management Cloud arriving later this year.

AI is being used for benchmarking, anomaly detection and firm intelligence—but always ringfenced. “The concern isn’t AI,” said Sadit. “It’s how and where you deploy it.”