In 2015, Chang left the safety of his job to serve SMEs in the region who were traditionally underserved by larger accounting firms.
OA International Holdings founder likens real-time financial data to a crystal ball
Accountant Alan Chang is on a mission. He wants to help Malaysian small businesses and fellow accountants thrive with the right digital tools. “It’s important that businesses and accounting practices alike keep up to date with technology that can help them remain future-proof. Today’s accounting graduates are well-versed with digital tools, so if your practice is stuck in the past and still using Excel sheets and physical ledgers, you will struggle to attract and retain talent,” says Chang, Managing Director of OA International Holdings (OA).
Chang, 44, hails from Kota Kinabalu and studied at the Sabah Tshung Tsin Secondary School, where his love for accounting and finance began.
Upon graduating from the University of New South Wales, his parents insisted that he return home. “But I had other ambitions – I wanted to work in a big city with an international financial hub and gain experience”, Chang shared. He ended up landing a role at KPMG Singapore, followed by Mazars Singapore, where he stayed over a total of 15 years. However, Chang eventually realised that he wanted to do more than just audit big corporations and noticed that there was an opportunity to provide high-quality accounting services for SMEs, a sector often underserved by larger accounting firms.
Returning to homeground
In 2015, Chang left the safety of his job and started his CPA practice in Singapore – OA International Holdings. He had one goal: to serve SMEs in the region who were traditionally underserved by larger accounting firms. He was determined to provide them with high quality service and the support they deserved.
Chang eventually realised that he wanted to do more than just audit big corporations.
Soon after that, Chang expanded his practice to Malaysia: “It was a natural choice to ‘balik kampung’ in the end. Malaysia boasts a large population and huge number of SMEs. I wanted to bring my practical experience to help fellow Malaysian entrepreneurs thrive”, he shared, adding that OA is a Malaysian Digital Certified Company and a member of the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) network.
Changing the game with cloud accounting
Adopting new technology can be daunting for SMEs, but it drives efficiencies that businesses need to remain competitive.
“We take pride in being much more than the average ‘sit-behind-the-desk’ accountants. Our team takes pride in helping SMEs digitally transform, from auditing which areas of the business need to be streamlined and recommending appropriate digital tools to addressing their specific needs.” says Chang. He shares that constantly upskilling his team is a priority, recording over 100 hours of training last year to all 35 of his staff in Singapore and 16 in Malaysia.
OA shares that most of their clients previously come to them with boxes of paper receipts, after years of manual bookkeeping, unaware of the digital tools available to them. OA helps them implement a seamless accounting workflow, through Xero, their cloud accounting platform of choice.
OA is one of the early adopters of Xero since 2012 and has been able to increase efficiency, centralise clients’ documents, improve their client experience, and gather better financial data.
Chang says another appealing factor about Xero is that its ecosystem is continuously growing.
“One of the great things about Xero is that it’s user-friendly and allows one to work from anywhere, anytime. Whether you’re on holiday, in between events or meetings, all you need is a steady Internet connection, and you can approve invoices, check your financial status, and access real-time data. It makes life easy and saves us a lot of time which can then be used more effectively for training and spending quality time with our clients, giving business advice.”
Chang adds that another appealing factor about Xero is that its ecosystem is continuously growing.
He says: “There are thousands of apps out there synchronised with Xero. Some of our clients have even applied as a solution provider for Xero. We see this as a very healthy community that’s always evolving. When we first joined, there were only a few apps, but we have seen this number grow over the years. Some apps that come in handy for us are Payroll & HR, e-Invoicing, POS, Bank Feeds, Bank Reconciliation and Hubdoc, for example.”
Entrepreneurs want to see their businesses grow and become sustainable when they launch a new business. “Having real-time financial information is like holding a crystal ball. When you know how much sales you have made, how much expenses you have incurred, and what happened last year during this quarter – you can anticipate the future. With Xero, you can do all of that.”
For more information about Xero, click here.
