Moving up in your career can be tricky, especially in an evolving field. Emerging technology and the growing need for people with specialized skills are also making it harder to keep a job or be a sought-after hire.

In the world of accounting and finance, you need to know how to use the latest digital tools for accounting and auditing. You also need creativity and business savvy to grow your firm or practice and make smart financial decisions for your clients.

Accountants and finance professionals who keep up with the changing trends stay competitive. Here’s how having digital skills, creativity and business sense can help your career progression and raise you above the crowd.

Hone your digital skills to advance.

Digital skills can boost your work performance and the success of your firm. With the right combination, you can improve your productivity and accuracy to create better client experiences.

Forbes reports that technology has fundamentally changed “crunch time,” when accountants closed off a great deal of time to prepare for and run audits. Modern accounting systems provide all the necessary data, including client feedback, in real time.

Technical advancements can affect numerous occupations, not just the accounting and finance profession. Because of how fast things change, keeping up with new technological trends in cybersecurity, robotic process automation (RPA) and data analytics can give you a competitive edge.

CPAs must leverage technology to speed up routine tasks and make more time for analysis and data-driven discussions and decision-making. Digital tools that provide automation can improve your workflow and productivity. Having digital experience can also help you stay current on accounting procedures and trends, improving client services.

Use creativity and innovation in accounting.

Creativity and having a knack for new ideas are two top skills for accountants. You already have the technical knowledge to understand financial statements. But if you want to keep moving forward, you’ll also need to transform your expertise into novel solutions that help your firm and clients.

According to Business News Daily, creativity and innovation are not the same things, but they are related ideas, and you need both to be successful at work.

One way to encourage innovation is to take an original tack. Innovation, not creativity, generally drives business growth and new developments. Still, innovation can only happen when you allow your creative mind to flourish.

There are resources that show you how to unlock your creativity and imaginative thinking in ways proven to work. These resources can enable you to release your imagination and overcome obstacles, leading to better job performance.

Have good business acumen and management skills.

The right mix of business know-how and management skills can help you further your career progression in accounting.

As an accountant, you need to understand your client’s financial needs and the business world in which they work. By developing good business sense, you can help organizations save money and make more money. That makes you an invaluable asset to any accounting firm.

Knowing how businesses work and how the different financial parts of a company interact can help you stand out from other job seekers because you can offer more informed advice on complicated financial matters.

Learning about managing businesses can also help you move up in your career by helping you make better decisions and quickly find opportunities for growth and development.

Using a business continuity management (BCM) tool can help you build a foundation for business knowledge and reinforce the essential ideas, direction and methods for running a business.

Taking the time to learn about a company’s operations, strategic goals and how each team member fits in allows you to think strategically and provide choices that will benefit the organization in the long term.

If you want to hone your digital, creative and business acumen skills for career progression, you’ll benefit significantly from additional designations and certificates. Completing certificate programs shows you have more to offer than just the knowledge and experience to handle finances correctly and precisely.

To find out how to stay on top of the finance profession visit our website.

Artlcle by William Carter Jr. M.F.A. Content Writer