As part of a new interview series, Matt Hyde, Director of Recruit121 and FinTech Awards Wales, talks to a whole host of professionals in and around Wales’ thriving FinTech Sector.
This week Matt caught up with co-founders and co-CEOs Boris Diakonov and Eduard Panteleev from ANNA (Absolutely No Nonsense Admin).
1. Can you provide an overview of what ANNA (Absolutely No Nonsense Admin) does and how your services benefit fintech companies and other businesses?
Eduard: ANNA (Absolutely No-Nonsense Admin) is a pioneering AI-powered business account and tax app that provides an affordable faff-free solution for small business financial admin. We’re very pleased that it’s now used by more than 100,000 SMEs across the UK. By our calculations, our customers can save around £1,800 a year by using our business account and +Taxes instead of using an accountant. That’s not bad!
2. How does ANNA integrate technology and innovation into its services to simplify admin tasks for small businesses?
Boris: With a lot of mobile-first financial service apps, you just get banking. Whereas ANNA has created an experience that feels more like having an accountant in your pocket – It’s our groundbreaking AI that makes all of it possible.
Machine learning means the app can process text commands in natural language into “skills”. That means that most tasks – from creating and paying invoices to setting up Direct Debits and downloading statements – can be done through ANNA’s in-app chat function. Just ask for an invoice to be sent to a regular payee and it gets done instantly. The app will also chase invoices until they're paid, which is a real help with cash flow.
Because over 80% of queries are handled by the AI, it frees up ANNA’s 24/7 customer support team to respond to more complicated requests in under a minute, so our customers always get the support they need.
3. What role does ANNA play in supporting the growth and efficiency of fintech companies, particularly in the context of administrative challenges?
Eduard: When you’re running a business you end up spinning a lot of plates – you do your own marketing, PR, sales, accounts and fulfilment. We wanted to take the boring financial admin tasks away from our customers so they could spend more time doing what they love. No one starts a business so they can spend their weekends doing the books.
ANNA +Taxes can take care of sorting and categorising transactions, categorising receipts for expenses, syncing invoices with transactions, chasing invoices until they’re paid, calculating VAT, running payroll and pension contributions and keeping a ‘smart pot’ for Corporation Tax that automatically sets money aside. In short, it does a lot! You can even file your tax return from the app.
The app isn’t just about helping businesses to stay HMRC compliant but also about running the business in the most tax efficient way possible – for example, calculating the best director income split between salary and dividends.
Customers get all this without an expensive accountant’s bill and hours spent doing financial admin.
4. What future trends in admin and financial management do you anticipate, and how is ANNA preparing to address these trends while continuing to support workplace excellence?
Boris: ANNA aims to be more than a business account – its service is a one-stop-shop for small business owners to establish, manage and grow their business. With the help of AI and machine learning ANNA is already automating large amounts of admin work for its users. The next step in this journey is to not only assist in simple tasks like bookkeeping and invoice management, but become a fully fledged AI accountant and advisor to business owners.
Because of ANNA’s unique chat interface it can leverage and understand the unique circumstances customers face on a daily basis – essentially the AI ‘learns’ how their business runs. ANNA’s true potential will be reached when this information can be used alongside financial insights to help customers navigate their business finances more efficiently. With smart suggestions and help resources as well as an AI that can complete complex objectives rather than just tasks, ANNA will become essential in helping small businesses run in an organised, optimised and efficient way.
‘Future’ ANNA will allow directors to spend even more time focussing on growing their business and have a greater understanding and more control of their finances. Their accounts will be analysed in real time and they’ll be able to ask questions in simple language and get bespoke answers based specifically on their business.
The potential is huge – that ‘accountant in your pocket’ is just going to get smarter and more useful. ANNA's goal is to support businesses worldwide with its cutting-edge technology and user-friendly platforms. The more advanced our tech becomes the more capability there is and the more potential to deliver on a huge scale while still maintaining our exceptional customer service. That’s the plan anyway!
5. What motivated ANNA to sponsor the Best Place to Work category at the Fintech Awards Wales 2024?
ANNA is really proud to be a good employer of happy people. Our customer support ‘chatters’ in Cardiff have been with us for an average of 2.5 years, which really bucks the national trend. In a lot of customer support roles the staff barely last a year. And unhappy employees would rarely make happy customers.
The happiness of our team is something that’s really important for us at ANNA, so it seemed very fitting to sponsor and give the Best Place to Work award.
6. How does this sponsorship align with ANNA’s mission and values, particularly in terms of workplace culture?
We try to do things a bit differently when it comes to building a positive culture. For example, the customer support team’s metrics for success are mood-boosting rather than high pressure. We look at how many ‘jabs of joy’ they dish out. That just means giving vouchers to cheer up customers if they’re having a bad week – or just because it’s Friday and the sun is shining.
So far this year we’ve given out 1,665 jabs of joy – usually as £20 Uber Eats vouchers. So far a whopping £33k-worth of meals have been sent out, giving our CX agents a chance to inject an unexpected moment of pleasure into a customer’s day. How rare is that in life?!
When we recruit CX agents, our promise is: come in and learn the basics, and become amazing at what you do, then build on that – the opportunities to try new things and learn different parts of the business are there for the taking if you bring the right attitude.
We offer flexible working and there’s a great list of benefits too, including an annual travel allowance for holidays, private medical insurance and lots of perks and benefits from Perkbox. The most popular perk we now have is the continuous learning grant which we get to spend on anything that develops us personally or professionally. Some of the team have used it to learn how to drive, or use a sewing machine. Both are great life skills to have!
7. Why do you believe workplace culture is particularly important in the fintech industry, and how does it contribute to a company’s success?
Boris: It’s not just about the workplace and how people talk to each other in meetings or in the kitchen, it’s about how people talk to each other in Slack as well – especially as workplaces are increasingly remote these days.
Culture is not only about being nice, but also about being efficient and working together efficiently – true talent thrives in an efficient environment. We sincerely believe that happy employees can make our clients happy – not just in customer-facing roles, but across the business.
Eduard: Culture is all about how people resolve conflict and prioritise resources. It’s not about ‘being nice’ it’s about how people go about achieving the goal they’ve all agreed to achieve.
8. Finally favourite book you have read and why
Boris: I just read Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life by Richard Rohr – it’s about how to get old wisely. It’s very insightful.
Eduard: The most recent one I read would be Dubliners by James Joyce. A classic.
