What Accountex, Hg's write-down and Sage's CEO tell us about where accounting tech is heading

Indi Tatla, Ryan Pearcy and guest host Alastair Barlow are in the chair this week, with John Toon taking the week off. The episode opens fresh from Accountex, comparing notes on the talks, the vendors and what the arrival of a dedicated FD show on the floor might mean for the direction of the market. The Xero conversation is substantial, and not entirely kind. Alastair, who built his firm on Xero, gives a candid view of a product he thinks is well-intentioned but slow and lacking cohesion. The team work through a refreshed app navigation, Xero Coaches launching in the US, the new benchmarking tool built on Sift Analytics data, and the replacement of Xero HQ with Partner Hub from 15 June. Ryan's concern about Coaches is pointed: he does not want Xero going the way of QuickBooks Live, where Intuit's move into the advisory space caused serious conflict with the accountant community in the US. Alastair covers Socket's new feature, which ingests a call transcript from any note-taker and produces a first-draft client proposal with a confidence rating on each point. Indi is broadly positive but flags that AI note-takers still miss commercial nuance, so the 20% that matters most still needs human judgment. Ryan runs through the Intuit Enterprise Suite spring 2026 update: inter-company eliminations, enhanced board reporting, Workforce Elite for HCM and deeper WIP reporting for construction. The team read it as Intuit pushing hard into mid-market territory. Indi takes both Sage stories. On the expanded MTD IT agent she argues the tool's complexity partly reflects Sage's own fragmented product estate. On Steve Hare's AI trust comments, she goes further than the auditability argument: the real test will come when firms understand the margin implications of AI-native versus AI-infused pricing. Alastair closes with Hg Capital, explaining why HG Trust's share price fell even as its portfolio companies improved, and introduces Damon Anderson's a2z AI Accounting report: 300-plus apps mapped, with the argument that accountants' defensible position is liability absorption, future value sits in the orchestration layer between tools, and 80% of point solutions are barnacles on the whale. Also covered: Xero Ultra, launching in Australia in late June targeting the 20 to 200 employee segment. 00:00 Reflections on Accountex 2026 01:14 The FD Show, fractional CFOs and where the market is heading 12:14 Xero refreshes its app navigation 16:53 Xero is hiring coaches to onboard small businesses in the US 19:45 Xero launches industry benchmarking inside Analytics 24:16 Xero is replacing Xero HQ with Partner Hub from 15 June 25:43 Socket can now turn a meeting transcript into a client proposal 30:23 Intuit Enterprise Suite spring 2026: inter-company, board reporting and HCM 35:10 Sage expands its MTD IT agent with automatic client matching 41:40 Hg marks down its software fund by 9% as valuations hit a 20-year low 47:01 Sage CEO: accountants won't trust AI they can't inspect 52:41 Damon Anderson's a2z AI Accounting report 56:45 Outro