In this whitepaper, we explore the very specific needs of accountants in business. How do your CPD needs differ from your counterparts in practice? Find out why your CPD needs to be about more than just updates.
CPD Tailored for Accountants in Business: Why It Matters
In this whitepaper, we explore the very specific needs of accountants in business. How do your CPD needs differ from your counterparts in practice? Find out why your CPD needs to be about more than just updates.
In this whitepaper, we look at:
With many more of you now having to complete CPD, find out more on why you need to ensure it meets your specific needs. Recent changes in CPD regulations and why they have changed the game for accountants in business.
Your CPD needs to be relevant and broad-based. You need more than just tax and technical updates. But what should it include? Read our recommendations on the four key drivers of future success. The CPD topics that accountants in business need.
What type of CPD you should choose.
For it to add value to you and your business, you need CPD that is high quality, providing an immersive, engaging experience that delivers high retention rates and demonstrable changes in productivity and competence. Or why bother?
Why central provision is now the smart option for employers.
It saves money and gives businesses a tool to build a world-class finance team. It helps reduce staff turnover and makes it easier to recruit the best people.
Background When a major accountancy body like ICAEW tightens up it CPD regime, we tend to think about accountants in practice. But, it is among accountants in business that the more seismic change is already playing out. And your needs are very different from your peers in practice.
Accountants in business have always had widely varying experiences of CPD:
ACCA members, for example, have always been required to complete 40 hours of CPD each year, 21 of which must be verifiable. ICAEW’s old regime was much more lax, and most ICAEW members in business interpreted it as not really applying to them. Some accountants work for employers who recompense them for the cost of CPD or provide it centrally. Others have been left to fend for themselves. Our research tells us that less than half have enjoyed a contribution from their employers 1 .
But all this is now starting to change…
1 accountingcpd Getting to Know You Research, 2018 & 2024
What has changed? The changes in ICAEW’s CPD regulations mean that now almost all accountants in business are required to complete a specified number of verifiable CPD hours each year. All ICAEW members, not just those in practice, are now required to complete between 5 and 40 hours of CPD each year, a significant proportion of which must be verifiable. So, if you haven’t already thought about what your CPD will be this year, it’s time to do so. For employers, it changes the landscape completely. Many employers have been comfortable with their finance team claiming back reasonable CPD expenses, dealing with it ad hoc. This works fine when only a sub-set of your team needed to be able to demonstrate compliance. Now that both ACCA members and ICAEW members need to demonstrate completion, the ad hoc approach is an expensive mistake, both in terms of the monetary cost, and in terms of the missed opportunity. A central purchase can significantly reduce the overall cost of all those individual expense claims and enable you to turn your unseen generosity into a key employee benefit, which can help you to attract and retain the best talent. According to Lian Parsons of the Harvard Division of Continuing Education, 94% of employees say that they would stay longer at a company if it invested in staff development 2 .
Central provision is cheaper than the ad hoc approach and will be welcomed by the whole team as a solution to a problem they would each have to address individually.
But there is even more to it than that…
2 https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/why-is-professional-development-important/
Accountants in practice live or die by the currency and detail of their technical knowledge. If you don’t stay up to date with tax and accounting regulations, you are not competent to practice. As an accountant in business, you also want to remain current, but that may, for many, look very different. It might, for example, be much more important that you are fully briefed on the opportunities and threats of digital innovation in finance, than that you know every arcane detail of group corporation tax calculations – you can rely on your external accountants for that. Accountants in business are different We work closely with accountants in both practice and in business, and one thing is clear: they are very different. How? Both need a combination of technical knowledge, professional competencies and business skills, but the emphasis is different. If you work in business, you will know this, which makes it all the more frustrating when most CPD is focused on updates to the regulations, standards, codes and legislation.
This is a cause for concern for individuals and employers alike. If you are paying for CPD, either for yourself or for your team, you want it to meet your needs.
What’s worse, the mass of technical updates can often be of very poor quality. The ubiquitous streamed webinars, whether live or recorded, provide a largely passive experience. Driven by the need to keep accountants in practice up to date, they deal only with knowledge and result in low retention rates 3 .
A more immersive, interactive experience, focusing on professional skills and business acumen alongside accounting updates is essential for accountants in business.
3 https://www.educationcorner.com/the-learning-pyramid/
Your CPD Plan What should it include?
Every accountant’s plan will be different. It should address any areas where current skills or knowledge need strengthening and refreshing. It should also help with career progression, or, from an employer’s perspective, with filling gaps in skills and knowledge in the team as a whole. Even though CPD should be specific to each individual, we do still frequently get asked what topics to include, and despite not being able know every individual’s detailed needs, we do at least know what is most popular. Our success is based on our ability to predict what people need us to produce. For accountants in business, we base those predictions on what we see as the key drivers of business success and business change. If everyone in the finance team is good at what makes the business successful and you can cope with change on the front foot, then you will normally achieve your personal and organisational goals.
Your CPD Plan To stay on the front foot in finance, our four key drivers of future success, are:
Digital Innovation and AI Technology is changing the way accountants do their jobs, and it is doing so at an ever-increasing rate. This is only accelerated by the adoption of AI. We can either stay ahead of these developments and use them to place finance at the heart of our organisations’ success, or we can sit back and wait while it replaces us.
Credibility of the finance team
If the finance function is going to drive business success, then it needs to be taken seriously at all levels, and that involves everyone in the team being credible. If, by providing the right CPD, you can help your team to become more credible, you will increase the impact they are able to have and enhance their career prospects. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Focus on the business context
Accountants who can place their opinions and advice within the context of their organisation’s business realities and objectives will always seem relevant and aligned. Understanding what’s right for the business and what will help it grow to achieve its goals, will ensure that the individual accountants, and the finance team as a whole, are taken seriously as business partners.
Communication and influencing skills
Of course none if this matters if you can’t communicate effectively and take people with you. The ability to communicate formally and informally, in writing and orally, in person and remotely, and to understand which format is appropriate at different times, is critical to every accountant’s success. This is especially true for accountants in business, where no one will be impressed by your technical mastery alone.
We highlight these four areas of CPD because they are acknowledged by professional bod - ies and researchers as the key drivers of success. Get these right and you will be well on the way to achieving your own career goals, or to creating a truly world class finance team.
CPD to address your long-term and short-term goals Finally, for both employers and the accountants themselves, CPD provides an opportunity to address both short-term and long-term needs: In the short-term, as accountants in business, you will need to use your CPD time to equip yourself for new but immediate challenges in the business – a new role or project. Longer-term, you must look ahead at your career aspirations and ready yourselves for new challenges. Make sure your organisation is making the right decision when it comes to CPD provision. We are the leading provider of CPD for accountants in business. Get in touch with us, at accountingcpd, today to discover high-quality, engaging and cost-effective CPD that delivers results. Likewise, as employers you will also have short-term objectives for the year ahead, and these may generate immediate development needs. Looking ahead, you will seek to develop the best team you can – high functioning individuals who can rise to the challenges of tomorrow.
Nicola Dann manages the Strategic Client Relationships for accountingcpd who develop online CPD resources for accountants covering both technical and professional skills.
accountingcpd enables you and your colleagues to comply with the CPD requirements of your accountancy or tax professional body, but it is much more than that. We also aim to help you achieve your career goals, whatever they are.
Find out more about how we help accountants grow.
Subscriptions are available for individuals and teams. Find out more about team subscriptions: w www.accountingcpd.net/contact m info@accountingcpd.net O 020 7582 3309
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