As Senseworks grows, customer insights have become an increasingly important part of our development process. A clear example of this is the cooperation with the accounting firm Adsum. In this interview, Pär shares how their feedback has contributed to the development of both the Analysis and Audit modules. We talk about concrete improvements, what makes feedback meaningful, and what he'd rather we focus on going forward.
You and your team have given us feedback several times, can you remember any occasion where you felt that what you lifted actually led to a tangible improvement?
Difficult with a specific example since I have had so much contact, but what I experience is that when we report bugs/bugs, you are extremely quick to feedback and fix them. The bug I first come to mind is where the program “removed” the enter stroke when writing in the actions, and after many complaints internally we took it with support and within 24 hours it was fixed.
How important do you think it is for a system vendor to listen to their users?
It's extremely important. We come from a previous supplier where we could not even contact the support but they contacted us when they had time, to then come to a supplier that receives feedback and feedback directly makes us feel seen and valued as customers.
When you give us input, what usually feels most urgent to influence?
New features are always the focus, but I also understand that such things cannot be solved in one fell swoop. There, however, I think that many times Senseworks already has the proposal in its roadmap, which shows that you are thinking ahead.
Otherwise, it is ease of use that is my focus when I give feedback, a function can be smart from your side but when I as a user test the function I may use it in a different way than you intended and then it is important for me that you understand that difference.
What do you think of our way of inviting dialogue and user participation, e.g. through interviews, roadmap discussions or beta testing?
As someone who immediately jumps on all the new features and teaches myself, I myself have appreciated the roadmap discussions as I have been able to pass these on to my employees and show how we will be able to use the program in the future to bring in positivism and to know that you are willing to develop and not stand still.
How do you see the balance between developing new features and refining existing ones?
It's always a difficult balance between development and refinement, but I think you always fix bugs that affect us as users and then come up with new features that add value to us in our audit. Since the product is new, I would like the product to continue to focus most of the focus on developing as it has only made our experience better so far.
Is there a feature in Senseworks that you think makes an extra difference in everyday life?
There are so many, so it is difficult to choose just one function. But the first thing that got me hooked on Senseworks was the ease of creating charts to make it easier to understand changes between different years.
My other aha experience was the note attachment which I also look forward to when it can be linked to a future memo.
However, one of the most recent advantages is the ability to integrate with Visma eEkonomi and Fortnox and with the help of this integration be able to link evidence/analysis to specific audit measures and thus increase the quality of our audit without spending more time.
If you were allowed to set the agenda, what do you think we should focus on in the development of Senseworks in the next 6-12 months?
My focus right now is on the exciting updates that will come in the fall, but if I'm going to dream, some kind of integration with AI could make a difference. That is, to be able to ask only a specific question in the program and then that the program produces an analysis that is best suited to get an answer to my question.
More realistically, my hope for further work is to improve small things in the user experience through clearer information and the ability to create your own standard texts.
How do you view your role as a customer, are you “just a user”, or do you feel that you are actually involved in shaping the product?
My attitude is that the more time I spend giving feedback, both good and bad, the more the program will work in a way that makes our audit improve, and I also hope that more users do the same so that it can become a product that all accountants can benefit from.
Finally, what would you say to someone who is thinking about starting to use Senseworks, but is not yet convinced?
What stuck in my head is a colleague with 2 years of experience who commented”I do better audits now“after only 1 month in Senseworks. I also feel that it is important to go “all in” to be able to understand the benefits and how you can then use the analysis part in your audit to get both a better analytical and a better substance-based audit.
Thank you very much Pär, do you have one last thing you would like to add?
I feel that the possibilities in Senseworks are endless and that the way I perform an audit has changed for the better after I started using the program. I look forward to a future together with Senseworks where we can support each other and do something good together.
Pär's commitment and willingness to contribute both ideas and honest feedback reflects exactly the kind of collaboration we at Senseworks strive for. It is in the dialogue with users like Adsum that our solutions become better, not only technically, but also in practice. When we hear that our users are actually doing better audits, then we know we're on the right track. We look forward to continuing to develop together with Pär and the entire ADSUM team, towards an even smarter, simpler and more value-creating audit work.
