BC Krishna
Editor's Note: This is another profile in our series of exclusive interviews with some of the accounting industry's leading executives and thought leaders.
The entrepreneur in him is well documented. As the founder of three companies that have defined or established new, multi-billion-dollar market categories, BC Krishna has always been on forerunner.
Before founding MineralTree, BC founded the bank fraud detection software company, Memento and FutureTense, a company that pioneered the content management category. With MineralTree, the enterprising CEO is leading the space as an Accounts Payable (AP) and Payment Automation solution provider for finance professionals at growing organizations.
In addition, he's also a member of the Federal Reserve Bank’s Secure Payments Task Force and Faster Payments Task Force, and is working with the Remittance Coalition to lead the creation of a B2B payments directory.
And if that's not enough, he's also making a difference at in the Greater Boston area by teaching courses for graduate students, undergraduates and high school students in circuit design and mathematics.
Insightful Accountant sat down with BC to get his insights on the changing accounting landscape and what today's accounting professional can expect from MineralTree moving forward:
What are your expectations for the accounting space in 2017?
In the past few years, we have seen a push toward all things “cloud.” In 2017, we'll see more and more accounting solutions more firmly established as cloud-based solutions. In particular, we should expect old, purpose built, on-premises legacy accounting/ERP applications to give way to more general purpose cloud-based solutions. These newer, more agile cloud based finance solutions will drive more technology adoption in the accounting/accounts payable space.
What are some of the things that accountants should be monitoring today?
The accounting profession has always cared deeply about the integrity of the services that they provide – ensuring that businesses follow good practices and try to implement strong controls. However, businesses are under attack from the outside – by fraudsters that implement weaknesses in security and controls. Accountants and accounting firms should double down on advising their clients about the risks they face and the controls they should follow to mitigate risk and limit loss.
Looking at the collaborations you had with companies like Visa and Ariett last year, what similar partnerships are on the horizon?
Our partnerships with First Data, Visa and Ariett are important to help us scale our business and increase awareness of the problem of inefficient AP. We will announce additional partnerships in the months to come.
How do these partnerships help today's accounting professionals?
They help us create comprehensive Invoice-to-Pay solutions that can be used by the accounting profession to offer new services (such as outsourced Invoice-to-Pay) to clients, but also to improve margins and increase incomes.
For example, our Invoice-to-Pay solution includes, as a standard feature, the ability for invoices to be automatically “captured” – thereby eliminating the need for manual entry of invoices in the Invoice-to-Pay process. This feature dramatically improves the firm’s margins, while also enabling them to serve more clients because of increased capacity.
What does your to-do list look like in 2017?
In a lot of ways, it is more of the same. We are an “agile” development shop that delivers between 30 and 50 software releases every year. This means rapid development certainly, but also the ability to rapidly respond to client requirements and industry trends. In 2017 we are responding by adding purchase order matching functionality for our QuickBooks users and cross border payments.
What’s the next "best thing" for MineralTree?
World peace? Seriously, we are excited about everything that's eagerly anticipated and actually happens. For us and for all around us. Specific to the MineralTree business, we are on track to reach a number of very exciting milestones in 2017 – stay tuned.