OVERVIEW:
ACCA qualification is highly regarded amongst the employers for its ethical standards and productivity. Financial professionals are expected to be highly productive by managing their tasks, time and resources in a way that the quality of work is maintained. Below are the tips, and strategies for financial professionals to boast their work productivity.
SET CLEAR GOALS AND PRIORITIES:
To increase the work productivity of finance professionals the basic thing they need to do is set clear goals and prioritize them. Setting goals helps them to stay on track, keep things aligned as per their priorities, and meet deadlines. Finance professionals can break down key objectives into small blocks that are easy to manage and actionable tasks. These professionals should then prioritize tasks by using methods like the Eisenhower Matrix, this method enables them to categorize tasks in accordance to their importance and urgency. Make sure the goals you select are measurable, achievable, and relevant.
EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY:
Technology helps in making difficult tasks easier even for finance professionals. Automation tools like QuickBooks, Xero and specialized ERP systems helps these professionals to automate frequently repeated tasks such as payroll, financial reporting and invoicing. Data analytic tools (Tableau and Power BI) helps to generate insights and for real-time data analysis. Google Drive or OneDrive are cloud-based storage systems for enhanced collaboration and centralized documents.
STREAMLINE COMMUNICATION:
Finance professionals are advised to keep their emails clear and concise to avoid long and confusing emails. Develop templates beforehand to use in presentations and reports this practice saves time and helps in ensuring consistency. Team collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Trello make it easier to communicate amongst peers.
OPTIMIZE FINANCIAL REPORTING:
Set reporting schedules for financial reporting this helps in avoiding last-minute mishaps for example: monthly financial statements and weekly cash flow updates. Other than that finance professionals can also use financial dashboards, this helps in reducing the amount of time spent on generating reports.
TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES:
Use time management strategies like time-blocking, Pomodoro technique, and batch similar tasks to increase your work productivity. In a time-blocking strategy, you can dedicate a specific amount of time to work and make sure not to have any distractions during this time. Whereas in the Pomodoro technique, you will have to break work in intervals to maintain focus, an example of these intervals is 25 minutes of work followed by 5 minutes of break. Examples of Batch similar tasks are processing invoices and reconciling accounts, this technique helps in doing these tasks together to improve productivity or efficiency.
ASSIGN AND OUTSOURCE:
Assign daily routine tasks like data entry, low-level analysis, etc to junior staff or outsource it. This practice provides you more time to focus on tasks that need more attention. Finance professionals can also hire virtual assistants who can look after tasks like handling, and scheduling meetings, administrative tasks, and client communication. To lighten the workload you will need to put your trust in the team to handle specific job aspects such as auditing, tax preparation, etc.
CONTINUOUS EDUCATION AND SKILL DEVELOPMENT:
Finance professionals specially ACCA professionals are advised to stay updated with the changes in financial regulations, tax laws and industry trends to keep up with the industry. Explore new software tools as these tools helps in speeding up the process, doesn’t consume your energy and improve the quality of the output. Go for certifications like CPA, CFA, etc which helps in improving productivity of these professionals.
KEEP YOUR WORKSPACE ORGANIZED:
Keeping things in a structure makes it easy to achieve your goals. Along with structured goals, one also needs to keep their physical and digital space well-organized so that they are easily accessible when needed. You can also get help from digital task management tools like Asana, Todoist, and Monday.com to manage your tasks, deadlines projects, etc. Apart from that you can also use a document management system to keep files organized and updated.
IMPROVE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS:
Finance professionals are advised to make decisions driven by data and financial metrics such as ROI and NPV. As these decisions have high impact on the organizational performance hence, the professionals needs to follow proper financial data rather than intuition. To get multiple options while making complex decisions, an individual can also use decision matrix tools. These professionals can also introduce predefined guidelines for decisions like budget allocations, etc. These guidelines helps in making quicker decisions in relatable situations.
ENHANCE CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS:
To enhance and maintain good relationships with clients finance professionals can use Customer Relationship Management systems (CRM). These systems allows them to track and manage client relationships globally. Other than that they can also schedule periodic meetings to keep them updated and informed about the financial performance and concerns.
STAY WELL-RESOURCED:
Team collaboration is suggested so that the knowledge is shared amongst all, create professional networks with peers and mentors who can provide resources and advices when needed. Along with work concentrate on your health as well. Take breaks, manage workload, don’t burnout.
EVALUATE AND REVIEW PERFORMANCE REGULARLY:
Weekly reviews, Quarterly reflections and feedback loops helps a lot in assessing work progress, goal accomplishments and planning future goals. Feedback helps in the continuous improvement of an individual.
CONCLUSION:
Finance professionals can maximize their work productivity with the help of productivity tips given in the blog. By setting clear goals, breaking goals, setting priorities, embracing technology (tools, software, etc), streamlining communication, time management strategies, decision-making strategies, etc one can improve their productivity level. ACCA is a structured qualification, therefore, it is essential to follow a structured and ethical method of implication even in professional life. All the tips mentioned in the article can help Finance professionals to progress and be more productive.
