Here to talk synccess, Wise-Sync sits down with Jay Wong, Managing Director & "Head Geek" at Xyber Solutions, and one of our earliest adopters!
From helming the stormy seas of growing pains and ineffectual on-premise tools, to implementing the solution stack that earned him the title 'Soaring Star' as winner of last year's Speed of Financial Evolvement award (IT Nation Evolve), Jay shares his bold journey and why he finally feels set to scale...
Q: Jay, you're one of the earliest adopters of Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay -
Jay: Yes! We've been with Wise-Sync since the very start through all of the hurdles and challenges when Paul [MacNeill] was still running the place (and I'm sure he's still in the background somewhere).
Q: Yes, he is! Paul's now General Manager of Payments at ConnectWise...
Jay: ...excellent! So, it's been a journey, and we're still on that journey, but we wouldn't be where we are today without automation and the Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay integration.
Q: That's why we do it! And a long journey indeed, you've been a Wise-Sync customer since 2015 -
Jay: Wow! Has it really been that long?!
Q: Sure has! And it wasn't long thereafter that you became a Wise-Pay customer?
Jay: So, we joined Wise-Sync first, and then as for Wise-Pay - we were previously with QuickBooks Desktop (QB). We moved from QB to Xero, and then in Xero; things were all over the place! At that time, we were using Ezidebit direct debit -
And the problem we had was, every time licensing numbers would go up and down, we'd have to submit a manual document to get them to change each client's direct debit amount.
Back in those days (this is pre-2015), we would sign up a client for $50/month for example, we'd submit paper; send it to them to increase one license and if they were to offboard another staff member, we'd then have to submit another piece of paper; get the client to sign it, send it back, then send it to Ezidebit and then, they would change it... it was just a lot of work.
Q: Sounds exhausting!
It was! But then we came across Wise-Sync to help sync to Xero. Initially, we had a lot of pain integrating Wise-Sync with ConnectWise [PSA] and Xero because we were a small company at the time - our chart of accounts wasn't set up right; there was no best practice, things were all over the place.
Q: If we had to describe you, Jay, we'd say you're the epitome of a true adopter; you're constantly on the lookout for innovative solutions and as soon as you identify a potential challenge within the business, you're fast to implement the solution you believe will fix this.
Would you describe yourself in this way?
Jay: Almost too enthusiastic! And then all of my staff start rolling their eyes at me (laughs) saying "Oh, slow down! We can't change everything because you've got a bright new shiny object that you can play with."
Yep, I definitely do get excited with new technologies, I definitely know when I see a promising product that can change our processes, and I don't mind spending the money on tools to automate human processes.
When speaking to a new prospect, I do tell them to expect 9-12 months of pain while we sort out all of your IT problems before we're able to look at all of your business processes -
Because at the end of the day, your value with Xyber Solutions is not just fixing your IT problems (you could find a simple break-fix company to do that); the value with us, is to look at what new technologies are out there to drive automation to the business that you're in, in order to save you time and money - you just pay a little bit of money, transfer the risk to a third-party that hopefully knows what they're doing, and grow from there.
Q: Amazing, Jay, it's so refreshing to speak to a Managing Director that carries the mindset of a CTO, in that you're constantly on the lookout for solutions that can drive that greater overall financial and streamlined operational efficiency within the business -
Can you tell us a little bit more about Xyber Solutions?
Jay: Sure! I founded the business in 2008 by myself (like a lot of IT companies), and very quickly, burnt out; I slept in the office, even brushed my teeth in the bathroom outside of the office! At that time, I was sort of sharing half the office with a client, and as I started to burn out, I engaged a young college student to help me -
We were two people for two to three years until I burnt out again. I then started to go through the process of recruitment; along there, I discovered PSA automation through ConnectWise where we found ConnectWise had a lot of structure - we then grew our team to three, then four (we're at six staff members at the moment) - 
We all have our ups and downs but at the end of the day, we come to work, we love what we do, we solve other people's problems to the point where they don't have any problems -
And then we start looking at what problems they have internally in the business (it doesn't matter what business they're in) and then we look at technology solutions that we can implement to drive that change internally; that's where they really see the difference - that's where they really see the value of IT.
Q: Did that business growth and expansion resound your company's implementation of Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay?
Jay: It did help, but where Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay helped the most, was with our internal bookkeeper. Prior to this, we had a bookkeeper come in weekly/fortnightly as we started to get really busy, and they would do things manually -
But having Wise-Sync in place to sync to Xero, and then having the Wise-Pay integration to have the agreements auto-reconciled; obviously increased the efficiency of the processing of all these invoices to the point where we actually outgrew the existing bookkeeper. We then engaged a new company that focussed on forecasting, budgeting; and around about that same time, we got into HTG, which is amazing, while becoming a member of ConnectWise's Evolve Peer Groups. From here, we restructured all of our financing to align with the best practices set by SLI (Service Level Indicator) benchmarking.
So, at that time, we made all of these important key changes; that was about three years ago - and it was a great time because we can see the difference between the IT companies that are less operationally mature compared to where we were and where we are now -
And Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay is certainly an integral part of that transformation.
Q: Incredible. And Jay, are there any other tools that you're using as part of your solution stack?
Jay: We use a number of tools to streamline and automate our internal business processes; most aligned with the Connectwise Suite of products, and we're part of both HTG and Evolve peer groups, which is all great for us -
We don't want to be a giant MSP, we want to know all of our clients and for them to know us; just to come to work, and to enjoy a happy workplace rather than having to come to work just because you have to come to work.
Q: That's awesome, building quality relationships with partners is definitely what it's all about.
Jay, are you able to now backtrack to your business day-to-day before automation - and tell us more about what this journey looked like without these tools?
Jay: I guess in the early days because it was small, everything was one or two-person; when it's one or two-person, it's quite easy to do invoicing yourself - you sort of know what to invoice, how much to invoice for, etc., and it's organised chaos - everything lives in Outlook, everything's tagged, everything's labelled, everything's prioritised -
I run by the zero inbox principle, so there are a few things that need to be prioritised but going way back when we were just one or two users -
When I looked at how to move beyond Outlook for emailing support systems into the ticketing world (in those days, it was Tigerpaw, [Datto] Autotask [PSA] and ConnectWise), I first went to Autotask because it was in the cloud, and at that time, ConnectWise wasn't in the cloud -
So that was all part of our early journey, and in terms of financial understanding - there wasn't any because again, you don't know what you don't know, you don't break up your chart of accounts; you just put everything into one basket, and then hopefully there's still money left in the bank at the end of the month (after not paying yourself)!
Q: Wow! Not paying yourself?! Obviously, this would've been a huge motivator in the shift that followed, but what was the ultimate turning point for you -
When was it that you decided "enough's enough," and changed your business structure which inevitably, grew your business from just yourself to the 6+ full-time staff that you now have?
Jay: It's great when it's one to two users because you know everyone, you're hands on with everything, there's very little structure and everything's in your head...
Do we keep the little ones so I can continue to service them? Or do we work with the bigger ones to see what the growth is like and to see whether or not we can embrace the change?
I've always been one that likes to be in a less comfortable state because when you're too comfortable, that impedes progress in growth and challenges. So, the moment I get a little bit comfortable, I go, okay, well, what else is out there? So, I made that very difficult decision to go with the larger clients and see what they're like -
And then it becomes about more of an understanding of their business; their business process and what they need in terms of technology; to better help them drive efficiency within their business.
So, rather than a break-fix, we went toward an MSP model.
Q: Congratulations, Jay, for sticking it out from then until now (and we're sure you're not brushing your teeth in the office anymore, well, we hope not)!
Jay: No, definitely not! Well, look, times have changed now and I suppose (I was actually explaining this to my team the other day), that I tend to make less decisions than before but now, the decisions that I do make have far greater consequences than before, so I take a little bit longer to make them.
Previously, you just go with the feel and just do whatever feels right. Now, you might have to phone a friend or engage a mentor, or call the lawyer first (laughs)!
Q: And what role does automation play in helping you to make those bigger financial decisions?
How is the data that you receive from Wise-Sync/Wise-Pay in helping you to make these choices?
Jay: It provides consistency in what we're able to project when it comes down to financial forecasting and budgeting; we know what we currently have, if we want to be at a certain revenue, at a certain EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization), if we put on one or two clients at X amount per month - we know whether or not that's going to put more stress on the team -
Q: Amazing, Jay, just to reiterate - you switched from Autotask [PSA] to ConnectWise PSA and from QB Desktop to Xero -
And how long after this switch until you implemented Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay?
Jay: Not long! It wasn't long after it because once we went into ConnectWise, we had agreements in place -
And once we had agreements, we were doing it manually; my bookkeeper was manually reconciling and we were getting clients to do the manual EFT payments (the scheduled payments) but the problem with that was, some of these didn't include descriptions so we wouldn't know who paid that $50 (for example) because it would just come through as $50 with no invoice reference numbers -
It was causing a lot of confusion for my bookkeeper to reconcile, so that's when I started looking at automation to manage agreements and direct debits. That was when we went with Ezidebit but found it wasn't flexible enough; we already had Wise-Sync so then we implemented Wise-Pay to store credit card and bank details for auto-reconciliation; it really works hand-in-hand.
Q: Amazing, Jay, that's quite the transformation! If you were to backtrack again, now to when you were using QuickBooks Desktop, what were your overall business processes like and how did your day-to-day look?
Jay: Back in those days, QuickBooks was Desktop (on-premise), so I would issue invoices; I would send the accounting data to the bookkeeper who would then reconcile whatever was in the bank account (because there were no bank fees at that time), and once reconciled, she would then send it back to me before I could issue another invoice.
There was a lot of manual handling of the data file within QuickBooks Desktop -
And then Xero came along, and that took away the data emailing back and forth and streamlined the actual input of invoices. We were generating invoices manually in Xero rather than in ConnectWise because there was no sync tool back in those days; so we were issuing invoices out of Xero, and that was totally fine but then there was no sync to ConnectWise.
And by the ConnectWise blueprint, you're supposed to have a single source of truth, you're supposed to have it in ConnectWise... then we said, "Well, okay, in order to automate and systemize this, we need ConnectWise to be the single source of truth," and it had to be the point where we issue invoices -
We told all of our clients, we explained the new process, and how this would be more efficient moving forward. From there, we started using CW to issue invoices, which is where Wise-Sync came along - we knew that's what we needed for the systems to match up.
After our clients were happy, we started to realise it was taking our bookkeeper a lot of time to reconcile the monthly agreement invoices that were sent out of ConnectWise with the payments and the bank fees that came through in Xero; we had identical invoices with no descriptions because sometimes the bank fees wouldn't pull the descriptions back into Xero, and so there was a lot of back and forth...
So, then Wise-Pay came along to solve that problem. Wise-Pay was implemented; we gave clients a chance to put in their credit card number or bank details, and gave them an agreement. That automated the reconciliation process for the agreements, which really saved us a lot of time.
Q: And roughly how long was this financial admin taking?
Jay: At that time, we were also issuing invoices out of QuickBooks, so I used to put aside a day per week, and then I'd also have the bookkeeper come in for at least half a day each week. But when we implemented the right tools, the time spent rapidly decreased to the point that we outgrew that bookkeeper and I wasn't dedicating a day a week anymore -
We then engaged a new bookkeeping company to come in on a contractual basis, where we started to really focus on forecasting (that was a lot later down the track) -
Q: Once you implemented Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay in 2015, can you recall how that transformed your business and your overall state of mind?
Jay: Initially, very stressful (laughs) because you're offloading a lot of the financial stuff to a platform - and at that time, it was all very new -
And then once the Wise-Sync process was defined in the company, it was a relief to be able to just pass it onto a platform that I know is going to work; and be able to free up my time, and also the bookkeeper's time to do other things, really.
Q: What do you appreciate most about the solution stack that you use, and could you imagine your business now without it?
Jay: Not at this size. I think a lot of companies are mindful of cost (we all are) but I guess it depends on your priorities -
Some people want hypergrowth and they don't care too much about the profit; all of the money goes back into growing the company (marketing, all that sort of stuff) but for myself, I think it's important that the work environment is why I want to come into work every day; it's not toxic, it's friendly, it's aligned with our culture, values and beliefs, and more importantly, our clients are very similar - so, they resonate with myself and my staff, we talk on the same wavelength and all that sort of thing -
I don't know how to say it but that's essentially what it comes down to.
Q: What do you appreciate most about Wise-Sync?
Jay: I think Paul's a visionary, he's done very well post-Virage; he has managed to identify a gap in what people need and being able to give -
Like Steve Jobs, if you can give people something that they don't know they need, then you're already ahead of the game.
And shout-out to Bec (Paior)! She's helped us from the very early days, not just with support, but with our overall business processes as well; she's definitely an asset to the organization and I'm so happy to see she's still around!
Q: Magnificent. So, Jay, now we have to ask, what do you appreciate most about Wise-Pay -
And how has having automated payments increased cash flow in your business?
Jay: Predictability - it allows us to do budgeting, it allows us to do forecasting, and also I think it takes away the friction between the clients having to find the time, along with having to manually do the EFT, and send the receipt or remittance advice (especially for the recurring amounts that are smallish amounts now that everything's subscription-based). 
So, Wise-Sync adds onto that and extends the capability by storing people's credit cards - we, as MSPs, don't need to worry about PCI compliance and storing people's details; we pay a small fee to you guys, you guys manage it, and it ticks all the boxes from a compliance point of view -
I guess, it just simplifies our life. And also, one other thing, if the clients don't pay any sort of ad-hoc invoices, or they forget to pay, a very simple outstanding statement to the client to say "Hey, you know you've got a small outstanding invoice, is it okay if we use your stored credit card details?" And they just say, "Yes," and we just process it on our end -
So, the responsibility sort of comes back to us and doesn't take up more of their time; we want to make it easy for people to pay - you should use that as a tagline (laughs)!
Q: How has having a streamlined cash flow process with WisePay helped grow your business?
Jay: Previously, we were using an EFTPOS terminal and having to punch the numbers in with people's credit card numbers.
WisePay takes away the time to reconcile, and provides structure when it comes to the payments and how to allocate what to where; it also takes away the worry of mistakes and processing manually.
Now, WisePay also helps us to comply with our insurance, so that we don't have to store people's credit card numbers.
Q: From my rough calculations, Jay, you're saving at least one day a week from invoice and payment automation -
How are you interacting with the tools?
Jay: I don't interact with the tools (laughs)! Because the system is already in place, this is then passed onto my team; so my office admin has been trained up so that she can input credit card details, bank details; she can manually process a payment - she has the authority to do that (on the authority from the client).
There's a good summary page on any sort of errors with pricing, expired credit cards - all of that sort of stuff, so that she's empowered with the task to ring up the client and say "Hey, your credit card is expiring (or it has expired, can you provide an updated expiry date?" or something like that, so that it is offloaded to a resource to free up my time to be able to pick up other things rather than just chasing up credit card numbers and all that sort of stuff.
Q: How would you describe the level of support you receive from the Wise-Sync team?
Jay: Incredible! Love it!
They are extremely responsive; I had a quick query yesterday evening around 9pm, I wasn't expecting your support team to even respond at that time but they did! I think the support is really, what always kept me with Wise-Sync.
Q: With respect to product innovation, how would you describe Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay in the role they play in keeping financial alignment in your business?
Jay: I think what it brings to companies without any structure financially, is a framework for the financial team or the business owner because they're almost forced to look at how to separate according to best practices during the implementation -
So, for an owner that doesn't understand financial speak, it's a whole new world; but what it does do, is open up possibilities to analyze the data once it's put into the right buckets -
Just having the solution in place almost forces the owner to mould the financial aspect of the business to how Wise-Sync works, and then once you see how Wise-Sync talks to ConnectWise, then you'll stop invoicing out of Xero and do it from within ConnectWise, which opens up a whole new world: Invoicing out of ConnectWise.
Q: If you had to casually pick three words to describe Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, what would these be?
Jay: Structure, simplicity, and accountability.
Q: Jay, as you're one of our longest-standing customers (you were here prior to Real-Time Sync and our New Payment Experience; back in the days when you actually had to click a button), what's your whole experience like now -
And how has this evolution helped make your day-to-day life easier?
Jay: I think what you guys do really well, is take the community feedback very well and very strongly; I think Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay was not big enough to ignore us. You guys were at a stage where our feedback helped shape the company to where it is today.
Being one of the early adopters, there were a lot of challenges (no doubt), there was a lot of pain (no doubt) but more importantly, how you guys responded to the challenges that we had - the solutions that you implemented to solve these challenges... that's exactly why people stay.
It's no different to us providing a service to our clients if it's rosy and there are no problems; the client wouldn't really know the difference between us and another MSP but if there are problems - I think what defines a good MSP from one that is maybe just break-fix, is how they handle the situation; how they turn it around, and how they prevent it from happening again -
Because at the end of the day, the client is not a tech guy - they just need to know what happened; why you needed to fix it, and how do you fix it to prevent it from happening again - those are the three simple things... and I think Wise-Sync executes this very well.
Q: Amazing, Jay, that's what we continually work to hear. And your unwavering positive attitude is no doubt a huge part of why you were crowned a Soaring Star -
Congratulations on winning the 'Speed of Financial Improvement' award at ConnectWise's IT Nation Evolve in Melbourne last year! In your award speech, you made a pretty special shout-out to Wise-Sync -
In a nutshell, Jay, just how important is Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay to the financial performance of your business?
Jay: It provided metrics that I wouldn't have had without that structure - 
I'm also going to add, a big part of this, was financial education - and that is, also largely attributed to the ConnectWise Evolve group that I'm apart of, where Andrew and Kent were my two main facilitators, and they were just amazing.
Andrew and Kent sat down with me for one-on-one coaching on how to structure the numbers and what levers to pull because of course, you can put the data into the right buckets, but how to analyze and pull the levers - that is the next level of financial understanding that would not be possible without the Evolve group and these facilitators... that's definitely the other part of this (smiles).
Q: Phenomenal. And how did you discover Wise-Sync?
Jay: I'd attended IT Nation in Orlando a few times, and found there were a lot of solutions' pavilions that were only US-based. I started looking at what solutions were applicable to the stage of the business that we were at; and then obviously I found that a lot of it was still aligned to US banks, US currency, US everything -
At that time, there was a US-based invoice and payment tool but it didn't have an Australian counterpart. Then I came back to Australia and started looking for an Australian equivalent, started reaching out and did my research when I found Wise-Sync.
Q: And when you joined the Evolve group, Jay, were you a one-man band at that time?
Jay: No, we were three people - I had initially joined the Evolve online group, which didn't work very well. And then I was in IT Nation again in the US, and at that time, we were three and a half with part-time guys and they said, "Now, you're maybe at the stage that we can select you." They're quite selective with who they choose; they needed about 4-5 users and a real revenue to be part of the group.
So, I wasn't quite there but someone put in a good word, and they accepted me into the group. It's been onwards and upwards from that point!
Q: And what's Xyber Solutions' customer base like now if you don't mind us asking?
Jay: Not at all! So, our vertical is mining and mining sub-contractors, so we call them the cream clients; the bread and butter clients of professional services - your accountants, lawyers, etc., (like a lot of MSPs) -
But the other area where we've been approached to take on a number of clients, are the clubs; so not-for-profit organization's, and these are just from referrals - we're not specifically targeting them like mining.
Q: So, how would you determine the size of your company?
Jay: We're considered a small MSP, with 5-6 users, and we focus on retaining clients; we don't want to onboard ten clients a year, we don't want to lose ten clients a year; we might onboard five a year but we would probably lose one a year; so it's a very organic growth per year -
We have a long onboarding process, and a lot of it is getting to know the client really well in order to maintain that relationship.
Q: MSPs typically have one of two goals, which is to either grow to scale or grow to sell/merge. What would your primary goal be?
Jay: We're more grow to merge. So, on the backend of our last IT Nation Share, we've had more MSPs come up to us and say "Hey, look, we'd really like an operation in Perth. You must be doing something right to win that award, let's sit down and have a chat!" which is great!
We're not a "I don't want to be a hypergrowth company," that's not my end goal and of course, I don't want to be losing more hair than I currently am, but -
Q: Amazing, Jay, and that brings us to our final question -
Now that it's been more than seven years since first implementing the solution stack ConnectWise PSA, Xero, Wise-Sync and Wise-Pay, and you're empowered with the right tools in place, things are running well, and you're a lot more relaxed (no more sleeping in the office) -
How can you see the future of Xyber Solutions?
Jay: For me, the company will continue to grow organically, with the right team members and the right clientele. My plan is to promote from within; coaching and mentoring my team to step up both professionally and personally.
We're by no means ready to do that, but for the little time I do have to volunteer - that's what I want to do.
Q: Any final words for anyone reading this who was once in a similar situation to where you were? Perhaps they're thinking "Do I throw in the towel? I'm working overtime, I'm stressed, and I feel like I'm not getting anywhere," what would your practical advice be?
Jay: If you know what your purpose is, then you've got an overarching direction on which direction to head. And look, I see the company as a vehicle for me to change other people's lives -
And I started with changing my first staff member's life - giving him the opportunity to live in Australia as I was able to sponsor his VISA. So, without him contributing to the company, without myself having the business to be able to help clients help us - I wouldn't be able to help him change his life. 
So, you start off with one, and then once you find your purpose, you sort of go from there and find your way.
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