This webinar showcases the next generation of AccountsIQ – designed to be more intuitive, more visual and more powerful for modern finance teams.

After a short introduction from CEO Nick, the session dives into four major areas:

1. A completely redesigned user interface and navigation, making it quicker to find tasks, customise grids, and move around the system.
2. New embedded BI dashboards that turn your AccountsIQ data into interactive P&L, working capital and performance visuals, with drilldown and dimension-based analysis.
3. A brand-new, highly flexible workflow approval engine for POs and invoices — handling multi-step, multi-approver and rules-based approvals without adding complexity for users.
4. Upgraded intercompany functionality, with clearer screens, visual imbalance alerts and simpler connection management for multi-entity groups.

The release is designed to make AccountsIQ even more accessible to organisations moving up from entry-level systems like Xero, Sage 50 or QuickBooks — without the cost and complexity of a full ERP.

What the webinar covers

1. Quick refresher: Who AccountsIQ is and where it fits

Nick opens with a short recap:

• 15+ years in market, 20,000+ users in 60+ countries
• Cloud-only from day one – no legacy on-prem baggage
• Positioned between entry-level tools (Xero, QuickBooks, Sage 50) and full ERPs (NetSuite, Sage Intacct, Workday, etc.)
• Especially strong for:
  • Growing, multi-entity groups
  • Organisations that have outgrown entry-level products but don’t want ERP complexity

Core value proposition remains:

• Automate capture and processing (AP inbox, bulk payments, bank rec, etc.)
• Free the finance team to spend more time on analysis and decision support
• Deliver one-click group consolidation and powerful BI reporting across entities
• Back it all with award-winning onboarding and customer service

He also shares customer feedback that neatly sums up AIQ’s niche:

“Our finance needs are more complex than Xero could offer, but it was hard to justify the cost of NetSuite.”

2. New user interface & navigation

CTO/co-founder Gavin McGahee walks through the new UI – described as the biggest single release since AccountsIQ launched.

Goals of the redesign:

• Make the product:
  • Cleaner and less cluttered
  • More intuitive for daily users
  • More familiar to people coming from other modern SaaS tools
• Support faster, smoother workflows:
  • Quicker access to common tasks
  • Easier movement between modules and screens

Key UI changes:

• New left-hand, horizontal navigation:
  • Hover over a module (e.g. Sales, Purchase, GL) to see all related actions
  • Active module is clearly highlighted
• Favourites bar:
  • Any screen or report can be “starred”
  • Favourited items appear in a top “Favourites” menu for one-click access
• Modern design system:
  • Consistent buttons, headers, visual hierarchy
  • Cleaner layout with less visual noise
• Improved grids and list views:
  • Excel-like behaviour (sticky headers, horizontal scroll, drag & drop columns)
  • Customisations (columns, order) saved per user
  • Actions (edit, approve, view, etc.) accessible right from the grid

Users can toggle between the old and new navigation initially, giving teams time to transition at their own pace.

3. New embedded BI dashboards

Next, Gavin unveils the new BI dashboards, powered by an embedded BI engine within AccountsIQ.

What they’re designed to do:

• Turn traditional reports (P&L, balance sheet, working capital) into interactive dashboards
• Surface the power of AccountsIQ’s BI dimensions:
  • Departments
  • Projects
  • Locations/regions
  • Any custom analysis codes you define

Dashboard features shown:

• Left-hand filters for:
  • Time periods (months, quarters, years)
  • BI dimensions (department, project, location, etc.)
  • Compare against budget, prior year, etc.
• Interactive visuals, including:
  • Charts and line graphs
  • Cards with KPI comparisons (e.g. vs budget)
  • Tables that support drilldown and slicing
• Drilldown support:
  • Identify anomalies visually
  • Drill further into detail within the dashboard
  • Export to Excel if you want to investigate deeper

What’s coming next:

• Ability to import non-financial metrics into AccountsIQ dashboards:
  • E.g. customer counts, occupancy rates, operational KPIs from other systems
• Combine financial and non-financial data to build your own KPIs:
  • E.g. revenue per customer, cost per unit, etc.

The dashboards are designed not just to look good, but to tell a story and help finance and management spot trends and issues quickly.

4. New workflow approval engine

Head of Onboarding Services Sinéad Brennan then demonstrates the new workflow approval engine, which she describes as arguably this year’s most important release.

The design started with an extensive discovery phase, recognising that:

• Approval needs vary hugely by:
  • Industry
  • Scale
  • Control environment
• As companies grow, they need:
  • More granular controls
  • Segregation of duties
  • Flexible multi-step approvals, without making the system unwieldy

Where it lives:

• Under Setup → Approver & Workflow you’ll see:
  • Approver Listing
  • Workflow Setup
  • Approval settings (e.g. for PO vs invoice flows)

Approver listing & substitutes

In the Approver listing, users can be marked as approvers with:

• Email, role, job title, and preferences
• A powerful new Substitute Approver feature:
  • E.g. Andrew is on two weeks’ leave and is part of several workflows
  • Set a date range and choose a substitute
  • All approvals that would go to Andrew are automatically rerouted
• This avoids:
  • Bottlenecks during annual leave or sickness
  • Needing to rebuild workflows just because someone is unavailable

Flexible workflow setup

In Workflow Setup you can:

• Create workflows by department, process or policy (e.g. “Operations PO Approval”)
• Choose which processes a workflow applies to:
  • Purchase Orders (POs)
  • PO invoices (invoices with a related PO)
  • Non-PO invoices (e.g. utilities, overheads)
• Configure auto-approval thresholds for low-value items

Each workflow consists of steps:

• Example: Operations department workflow
  • Step 1: Ops Team
  • Step 2: Ops Team Leads
  • Step 3: Ops Manager
  • Step 4: CEO & CFO

Within each step you can:

• Add one or multiple approvers
• Define rules that determine when that step applies:
  • BI code / dimension (e.g. department, project)
  • GL code (e.g. fixed assets vs OPEX)
  • Supplier (e.g. key vendors with stricter controls)
• Configure decision modes:
  • All approvers must approve
  • Any approver can approve
  • Manual selection by the processor at the time of submission

Additional rule types (e.g. items, categories, subcategories) are being developed to extend flexibility even further.

Operational experience & metro map

From the user’s perspective, in the PO/invoice screens:

• Each document has a clear Approval Status with a coloured badge
• Clicking the status opens a “metro map”:
  • Shows each approval step
  • Who approved, when and how
  • Whether a step was auto-approved or skipped due to thresholds
  • Where the document is currently sitting

This gives:

• A full audit trail
• Easy visibility for finance and auditors
• A very usable experience for everyday approvers and processors, despite underlying complexity.

5. Intercompany enhancements

Finally, Sinéad walks through the upgraded Intercompany module, especially important for AccountsIQ’s multi-entity customers.

New intercompany home:

• A dedicated Intercompany tab with:
  • Local company intercompany accounts
  • Connected company accounts

Key improvements:

• Clear, segmented grid showing:
  • Intercompany debtor and creditor accounts
  • Balances on each side of a connection
• Visual warnings for issues:
  • E.g. “unbalanced account” when the two sides of a relationship don’t match
  • Hover tooltips to explain why:
    • No matching connection
    • Currency mismatch
    • Unbalanced transactions, etc.

Connection management:

• Simplified creation of:
  • One-way connections
  • Two-way connections
• Ability to:
  • Connect existing intercompany accounts, or
  • Create the intercompany debtor/creditor accounts as you set up the connection
• Refined UX so that issues are visible “at a glance” rather than buried in detail

The overarching aim is to make what can be a complex multi-entity intercompany structure much easier to understand, maintain and reconcile.

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