We believe accounting firms should be free from the cost and complexity of traditional IT.

The accounting industry has led the way as early adopters of cloud with Xero and other vendors delivering a new way of thinking. While the benefits are already measurable, this has outpaced traditional IT management and Australian accountants are left in the middle of conflicting strategies - ‘foot in both camps' yet to realise the full benefits that cloud accounting delivers.

Our purpose is to give accountants a straight-line, cloudward strategy and unlock the true productivity and efficiency benefits that cloud accounting promised.

Jamie Beresford

founder

Jamie has over 20 years in the IT industry working throughout Australia, UK and Asia. In 2002 he started Freshmethod to provide managed services for a range of industries, but soon identified a gap in services for forward thinking Accounting firms. His expertise covers cyber security, customer privacy, global communications, process and connection speeds and helping accounting firms overcome the challenges associated with highly dispersed teams. Freshmethod now employs over 50 staff, specialising in cloud technology for accountants.

Dennis Siebrecht

DIRECTOR

Dennis has a strong technical background as a Microsoft Certified Professional and over a decade of experience as IT professional working with servers, networking, cloud solutions and applications. Dennis joined the company in 2009 where he led and developed the Project Team/ Department and has since taken over as Freshmethod’s Chief Technical Officer, implementing thousands of solutions for Accounting clients. His unique skill set can investigate any IT situation and formulate the right strategies and solutions to suit.

How we add value

When an accounting team reaches 5+ employees, productivity and efficiency often starts to dip as billable staff are interrupted by IT issues, impacting their ability to work. This is when most firms choose to outsource their IT requirements, to remove the interruptions and frustrations slowing them down. For Freshmethod, that means delivering on these three core elements.

technical expertise

The technical expertise to make sure everything working, fast and secure. Under this technical umbrella includes desktops, networking and internet connections, servers (if applicable) and security.

The user experience

No matter how well your IT is managed, things inevitably break or change and people need help. We are set up to provide the best user experience if something should go wrong - from a broken monitor to a major server down requiring disaster recovery. In these cases, accounting firms rely on us to respond and resolve issues quickly.

Accounting knowhow

As technology continues to drive change to workflow, client demands and working user habits, Freshmethod provides access to the best industry technology and ideas to make sure the firm is on the front of the efficiency curve.

Expertise with over 100+ accounting apps

More information

Answers to some frequently asked questions.

Simply put, we manage IT for accounting firms. This includes a broad range of services from internet connection, email communication, VOIP, document management, cloud migration, accounting application integration, antivirus, cyber security and more. We provide and execute an IT strategy so our clients are benefiting from new industry technology efficiencies and ensure everything works together so you can get on with what you do best.

We’re different in a few ways.

Faster Response Times – We have the numbers to prove it. All our customer interactions are measured and tracked to improve our service to you.

Cloud Focused – While we do support hybrid and server based firms, we are a cloud native firm and we fully embrace technology change that improves productivity and efficiency.

Accounting Industry Experts – Our focus is 100% on accountants which means we understand your unique problems and the solutions that work for you. We are experts at managing and integrating accounting applications and we understand your workflow.

Our understanding of the Accounting Industry and the value each app provides means we are best positioned to provide an IT strategy that fits your firm. We work closely with app vendors to recommend which path to take at a pace that suits you. Our expert team can address specific cloud security concerns and make sure your IT is unified with the various systems talking harmoniously.

If you want to learn more about how we can help, it’s best to talk to one of our IT specialists.

Working with over 652 accounting firms and serving approx. 9000 accounting professionals across Australia and overseas - our service desk is scaled, meaning we have greater availability and resources on hand to answer your calls and emails.

Our service desk is open 12 hours a day, from 7am – 7pm, 5 days a week.

Our team is measured on a ‘fixed on first call’ percentage, which is currently sitting at 38%. Customer satisfaction has a net promoter score of 93. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it!

Our average call answer is 3 mins. For business critical issues, we promise to respond within 30 minutes and resolve your issue within the hour. Some incidents may require testing, research, problem solving or third party support before a solution can be found. We aim to keep our clients updated on the resolution plan progress in these circumstances and where possible, facilitate temporary workarounds to reduce the impact on your productivity.

Service requests are prioritised immediately as:

Priority 1 (Critical) – Major emergency – “Show Stopper”: e.g. loss of essential server/s or services affecting all users.

Priority 2 (High Impact) – A single or group of users are unable to perform time critical or important tasks, no reasonable workaround is achievable and this is affecting the Company’s ability to service its clients.

Priority 3 (Medium Impact)- A single user or a group of users have an issue with a program or service that is restricting their ability to work but it isn’t time critical or there is a reasonable workaround.

Priority 4 (Low Impact) – Any request that is not affecting productivity. This includes new user requests, or any issue that isn’t impacting on business continuity.

Priority 5 (Planned) – Scheduled, no SLA Any request that involves change of environment, advice or queries that fall outside of service, or needs to be planned and falls outside of the SLA.