Building an international alliance of accountants
Contabi Alliance was launched one year ago at Xerocon San Diego. It is creating a community of modern accounting firms; professionals who are on the forefront of leveraging technology in their practice. The alliance started with a group of firms who share common values and the desire to build a network of culturally diverse accounting firms.
Contabi Alliance is an international association of Latino accounting professionals across the Americas. The mission is to nurture and lead the culturally diverse and bilingual Spanish/English speaking community of accounting professionals. We accomplish this by;
Curating educational content for members on the latest technology, trends, and process to help them add value to their staff and clients
Expanding and creating a international network in our private member community
Advocating the needs and best interest of our members to the technology partners.
During the last 15-months, the alliance has grown from ideation to over 40 members in 10 countries across the Americas including US, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, and Panama.
What we learned
With 35 countries in the Americas we have focused on the bi-lingual English/Spanish speaking markets and identified the leading cloud accounting apps for each country. While we are platform agnostic many of the early members outside the U.S. are using the global version of Xero and found ways to utilize the app in their respective countries with add-ons. One of the key compliance add-ons for Latin America is Facturante, an e-invoicing solution that Contabi Director Gonzalo Alvarez De Toledo helped scope and launch in the Xero Marketplace. We’ve witnessed peer-support as a valuable component of the alliance. It allows members to communicate their issues in their native language, be understood, and receive timely responses from peers.
Looking ahead
We plan to host various virtual and in-person meetups in cities across the Americas. We have an aggressive plan for memberships and partnerships growth, to provide our members with the best in class tools and resources. We are encouraged by the camaraderie and collaboration in the community; seeing members share referrals, best practices, and troubleshooting issues in real-time. We look forward to working alongside our technology partners as they embrace the opportunity to serve the Latino small business community in the US and across the Americas.
Since launch, Contabi has secured alliances with Xero, Gusto, Synkbooks, Azlo, Facturante, and others soon to be announced. We welcome others interested in supporting the community to contact us at info@contabialliance.com
