AAP Launches at Accountex 2022

Last week some of the team went the Accountex Show in Excel London . We were there to finally launch App Advisory Plus to the world. Although we first came up with and built AAP back in 2019 its official launch, like so many things, was postponed due the pandemic.

At Accountex we ran one of the theatres with a packed programme of 14 seminars and panels with representatives from major apps covering such topics as “The Ultimate Client Onboarding System” and “Effective Tools for Managing a Remote Team”.

Most of these were standing room only with people spilling onto other stands (much to the annoyance of those stand holders) but it showed the value of what we were doing.

We also had our own stand where people could try the site and across both we had amazing feedback, proving that there is a need for what we have created.

For those who don’t know AAP came about when we were trying to advise one of our clients which apps they should be using. The research took far longer than it should have done so we thought there must be a better way. Xero had its directory of apps through the Xero marketplace and Sage has its own but they only show those apps that work on their own platforms. No one had a site that allowed you to search for apps by business category, business case, app category and that contained apps that work on all the main software platforms. So we built one!

Since its inception AAP has grown and now covers 450+ accounting integrated apps across 40+ app categories and over 60 different business types. Registered users can also build their own stacks of regularly recommended apps and even create white label reports, putting their own branding on them, to share with clients.

The site is completely free to use for end users and its also free for the app developers to list their products on it. We make our money by building an audience of accountants and app users and then selling that audience to the app companies who are trying to sell to them via sponsored content and advertising similar to a free newspaper model. In the future we will be updating the site to allow for featured apps etc similar to the featured properties you see on Rightmove or Zoopla.

So a great but tiring few days and it has help build not just the AAP but also Farnell Clarke’s reputation in our industry so a great result all round.