Tips to Advance Your Accounting and Finance Career

Every company needs accounting and finance professionals. This provides virtually endless opportunities to advance your accounting and finance career.

Whether you are just starting out or have many years of experience, learning from other professionals in your field is an effective way to advance your accounting and finance career. These suggestions may help.

Choose among these six tips to advance your accounting and finance career.

Find a Mentor

A professional in your field who has more knowledge and experience than you likely faced issues similar to yours. As a result, this professional can share their knowledge and provide insight to help overcome the issues that you might face. You can ask for advice and feedback to continue moving forward in your accounting and finance career.

Network

Build relationships with recruiters, hiring managers, company leaders, HR employees, and other professionals in your field. You can ask these individuals for ideas, advice, and guidance on your accounting and finance career path. They may share job openings with you, serve as employee referrals, or meet with you about opportunities that fit your skills, goals, and interests.

Learn New Technologies

Staying current on the use of technology helps advance your accounting and finance career. This includes enhancing your proficiency with Excel, using business intelligence tools such as Cognos or Crystal Reports, and understanding accounting systems such as SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, or Oracle.

Gain Experience in Different Fields

Invest time learning different areas of the industry to develop your accounting and finance career. This may include bookkeeping, preparing financial statements, financial reporting, internal auditing, compliance, or taxation.  Changing your job duties every 2-3 years lets you gain the knowledge, skills, and experience needed to stay competitive.

Become a Certified Public Accountant

Earning accreditation as a certified public accountant (CPA) shows you have high-level industry knowledge, skills, and ethics. This certification demonstrates your commitment to the field and ability to take on higher levels of authority.

CPAs are in great demand because they enforce higher standards for the accounting industry. These professionals perform highly specialized job functions that provide significant value for employers. This provides the potential for high salaries and growth for your accounting and finance career.

Focus on Specialization

Develop your skills in a specific area to advance your accounting and finance career. These areas may involve regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering (AML), Know Your Customer, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, or the rules related to capital adequacy and consumer protection under the Dodd-Frank Act. High-level knowledge and experience in any of these areas are valuable to employers.

Find a New Accounting and Finance Job

Finding a mentor and networking help you gain valuable guidance to advance your accounting and finance career. Learning new technologies and gaining experience in different fields help you stay competitive in the job market. Becoming a CPA or focusing on a specialization let you provide additional value for an employer.

Work with Casey Accounting & Finance Resources to find your next role. Learn about our job opportunities today.

5 Tips for Starting Q2 Strong

Starting Q2 strong involves capitalizing on your Q1 successes. You can use your momentum to continue moving the company forward.

You can use what you learned from your setbacks in Q1 to start Q2 strong. This increases the likelihood of achieving your goals over the next 3 months.

Implement these five tips for starting Q2 strong.

1. Capitalize on Your Momentum

Build on your successes from Q1 as you move to Q2. Balance your short-term urgency with your desired long-term gains. Focus on how your course corrections over the past 3 months can improve efficiency over the next 3 months.

2. Focus on the Future

Spend 10% of your time determining what went wrong in Q1 and 90% of your time planning for Q2. Figure out why you did not attain the desired outcomes and how you can do better going forward.

Focus on what you learned in the past 3 months that you can apply to the next 3 months. You might need to create systems and strategies or resolve process issues to reach your goals.

3. Analyze Market Trends

Pay attention to the trends that are impacting your industry. Focus on the internal and external factors that might impact your company’s financial performance in Q2. Adjust your plans to adapt to these changes for growth in your numbers.

4. Reassess Your Goals

Meet with your team to determine whether the goals set in January still are relevant in April. If they are, find ways to promote engagement to attain these goals. Otherwise, use the latest data and insight to adjust your Q2 goals.

5. Clarify Your Team’s Capacity

Use your team’s capacity to plan your Q2 goals. For instance, if your employees work 40 hours per week, their individual capacity is 40 hours. Therefore, your team’s collective capacity is 40 hours x your number of employees.

Ensure you leave at least 30% of open space for your team. For instance, if your employees work 40 hours per week, commit them to only 28 hours of work on reaching Q2 goals (40 – 30% = 28). This should allow adequate time for tasks that take longer than anticipated and for unexpected circumstances that arise.

Planning adequate time to reach their goals helps your employees fulfill their regular job duties and responsibilities while working toward Q2 objectives. It also helps prevent your employees from overworking to attain their 90-day business goals.

Get Help with Hiring

Capitalizing on your successes, focusing on the future, analyzing market trends, and reassessing your team’s goals help start Q2 strong. Being realistic about your team’s capacity should provide adequate time for them to fulfill their regular job duties while working toward their 90-day goals.

Let Casey Accounting & Finance Resources help with your hiring so you have more time to reach your Q2 goals. Reach out today.

Improve Retention by Improving Employee Health Benefits: What’s New in 2023

April is Stress Awareness Month, and “the number one stressor for HR pros is keeping top talent on board in a tough market,” according to a March 2023 survey from isolved. Keeping employees happy by showing them you care will be key to a company’s motivated team and ultimate success. Beyond the typical benefits, what are some of the newer trends? We’ll address that in this article, but first, let’s explore why there is a need to fortify your benefits offerings.

Employees Don’t Feel Cared For

According to MetLife’s “US Employee Benefit Trends” survey released in March, 42% of the 2,840 employees surveyed said they do not feel cared for by their employers. “Our research shows care is not only a differentiated driver of the employee experience – but also a proven workplace metric to measure employer outcomes, “ said Todd Katz, executive VP of group benefits at MetLife. “As the economy and the labor market remains volatile and workplace trends fluctuate, employers can’t afford to overlook employee care.” Caring for your employees is great for business and something employers can’t afford to ignore.

Two employee groups that are setting trends are Gen Z and women. Gen Z applicants are leading the charge on jobs with stability, a position where they can make an impact at a company that is socially responsible, and salary transparency. According to the latest Momentive/CNBC Women at Work Survey, conducted in February of a national sample of 10,278 adults, including over 5,000 women, the top reason women say they’re considering leaving their current role this year is for another job with higher pay (52%), followed by one with less stress (51%) and better work-life balance (48%). Women leaders are leaving their organizations at the highest rate ever, widening the quitting gap between women and men in senior roles, according to recent data from LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company. To give some context, for every woman stepping into a director-level leadership role, two are choosing to leave, says Alexis Krivkovich, McKinsey senior partner and an author of the joint Lean In and McKinsey “Women in the Workplace” report.

Where Can You Find “Differentiated Drivers” To Your Employees’ Experience

“Businesses always try to find the employees who are truly impacting the organization positively or have the potential to with the right people and programs,” said Amy Mosher, chief people officer at isolved. “When the job market fluctuates between abundance and scarcity almost weekly, developing driven people is a necessity.” So, let’s turn our attention toward focusing on some differentiated drivers.

First, ensure your leaders are setting an example of taking time for their own health and wellness. Employees will notice this and feel more comfortable expressing their needs for support. Also, consider some of the following resources and programs to add to your benefits package:

  • A user-friendly digital platform to access benefits and other resources, such as
  • Prioritize mental health and emotional well-being benefits.
  • Substance Use Disorder (SUD) prevention programs.
  • Flexible hours for doctor’s visits and therapy appointments, caregiving responsibilities, and parents attending their children’s functions and events.
  • Subsidized or complementary childcare or daycare.
  • Adequate support and improved professional coaching for employees to excel in their jobs.
  • Adopting pay transparency practices (Laws already exist in Colorado, California, New York, and Washington.)
  • Short- and long-term financial wellness programs at work and benefits beyond retirement accounts. These include: building emergency savings, budgeting to pay monthly expenses, resources for critical items like food and housing issues, improving credit, and student debt repayment programs.

Putting Your People First is a Win

Financial well-being in the workplace is inextricably linked to physical and mental well-being. These, in turn, can have a positive, measurable impact on your organization – both for retention and recruiting. Focus on holistic programs rather than a single component when creating programs that support a strong workplace culture for all.

What do your employees want from your organization? Call Casey Accounting & Finance Resources to see how we can support you.