Advancing Your Accounting Career: Mastering Technology Trends and Continuing Education

As an accountant, your clients expect nothing short of perfection. You must be able to meet high demands even in a changing landscape. That's not easy to do. Career advancement for accountants is at the core of your long-term growth. Having access to a simple and effective way to keep up with tax law, financial regulations, and compliance updates – which seem to change on a routine basis – is an option. As a business owner yourself, you know the importance of investing in accounting technology trends for your clients, but are you doing the same for yourself?

The combination of exceptional professional development, continuous learning, and the use of tech facilitates a better outcome for any accountant who’s ready to move their career forward.

The Value of Professional Growth for Accountants

You know tax law. You know how to balance your clients’ high expectations of finding profit where it’s challenging to navigate. Why should you keep learning?

When it comes to career advancement for accountants, it is critical to invest in your skills and knowledge in this fast-moving industry. Consider these benefits of advanced learning for accountants.

Improved tech skills

This is often one of the most important areas of focus for today’s accountants since accounting technology trends change so rapidly. You need to be able to hone your skills but also take full advantage of new technology that lowers your time demands. Automating routine tasks allows you to do more with your time without actually logging more hours. Tech tools for financial analysis and strategic planning are just some of the options available today.

Stay ahead of developments

The next benefit is your ability to remain up-to-date with standards as they evolve. The government’s law-making process has changed so much in recent years that there are more regulations and compliance matters to master than ever. 

The dynamic environment of the accounting field means you have to stay up to date on the latest developments. When you engage in online learning, career advancement for accountants becomes more effortless. A component of this is adopting new legal changes.

Professional Growth and Career Opportunities

When you take on continuing education for accountants, you propel your career forward. Once you master accounting technology trends, for example, you are more in demand of today’s organizations that can pay better rates or offer other enhancements for you. Whether you want an internal promotion or you’re after a leadership role in the company, you absolutely need to be at the top of your game.

How: Training Opportunities for Accounts Create Opportunities

When you focus on professional growth for accountants, know that you have numerous ways to learn. Consider these strategies to help you master Continuing Professional Development (CDP) for accountants.

• Enroll in a formal CPD course for accountants. For those who may not have been in the educational world in some time, this can prove to be a critical tool for getting caught up. Continuing education for accounts can include remote and hybrid learning environments. 
• Local workshops may be available. Tap into your local professional accounting association to learn about seminars or workshops that offer topics that are interesting and valuable to your career development.
• Invest in networking. This is often a focal point for accountants who are ready to advance their careers but need more access to opportunities. Keep in mind that professional networking also opens the door to educational opportunities, including learning about new strategies, methods, and programs.

You can find courses for career advancement for accountants rather easily. Local organizations and even larger colleges and universities can also be supplemental help. The key here is that you absolutely need career advancement for accountants no matter how many years you have under your belt – and it really does not have to be a challenge to achieve them.

There’s Another Problem: Accounting Technology Trends

When we think about continuing education, we often think about industry updates for accountants, like courses on tax law or corporation compliance. Yet, a huge area of importance for today's accountant is monitoring and staying up to date on accounting technology trends. 

Consider the  most important tech advancements in the accounting field in just the last decade or so:

• Cloud computing: Your clients no longer bring in files and ledgers in a book form, nor do you have to upload data from their computer system. Instead, it’s in the cloud. That’s exceptional because it speeds up real-time reporting. Yet, mistakes here are costly, including security breaches.
• Remote workforce: There are numerous benefits to a remote workforce, but without the right tools to manage it, your accounting practice could be hurting (and could be both losing money on opportunities and on overspending on labor costs). 
• Forecasting tools: There are so many outstanding opportunities to advance your forecasting today, using data from far more data fields and opportunities. However, if you do not know how to efficiently use the most up-to-date forecasting tools, that limits your success.
• Data security: Perhaps one of the most important accounting technology trends in demand today is an accountant who understands mitigating risks related to data loss, cyber security, and related factors.
• Automation: There is often still a desire to calculate figures yourself, but with so many automation opportunities available, accountants who are not using them are falling behind the industry trends. The key is to be able to master them.
• Artificial intelligence: While AI is working on mastering some of the tasks accountants need to do if you use the wrong tools or do not accurately verify that information, it puts your business at risk.

How Do You Master It All? Finding Time for Career Advancement for Accountants 

It’s easy to see how this can be overwhelming to an accountant who is already working hard to meet objectives. Yet, consider these tips.

#1: Find an opportunity for advanced learning for accountants that focuses first on technology enhancement. This will give you the tools and information you need to start implementing time-saving tech into the way you operate your accounting practice or career right now.

#2: Invest in the right tech that can streamline your accounting process and practice by giving you more time for the tasks you need. By improving efficiencies, for example, in streamlining workflow, time, billing, and invoicing, and client management, you spend less time doing the tasks that are actually meaningful to building your career.

#3: Get back to school next. With continuing education for accountants available in very specialized areas, there is no reason for you not to take on the tasks and education you need. With more time on your hands, thanks to technology tools, career advancement for accountants becomes an actual opportunity. 

Focusing on Building Your Future with Accounting Technology Trends 

As you watch other accountants move forward in their careers, you may be unsure what you need to do to get started. When you focus on accounting technology trends – including those that save you time, money, and frustration – you gain the opportunity to do more with your own time. Do you want to start your own accounting practice? Or perhaps you’re ready to have more time to travel.

When you master the latest accounting technology trends and then couple that with ongoing continuing education for accountants, you can achieve just about any goal you have.

Basil Practice Management for Accountants Can Help

As a one-stop-shop approach to communicating, storing important documents, and collecting unlimited e-signatures, Basil Practice Management for Accountants is the resource you are looking for. It includes comprehensive cloud collaboration software that allows you to work more efficiently and tackle more of the tasks you need and want  to grow your business. We pride ourselves on helping accountants affordably transform their work so they can do more without investing more time. Learn what Basil can do for you.