Multi-skilled for an ever-changing finance career with ACCA

By Nilusha Ranasinghe, 

Head of ACCA, Sri Lanka 

The standard dictionary definition of an accountant is a person whose job is to keep or inspect financial accounts.

But the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) says that this definition is outdated and should be so much broader simply because the accountancy profession has evolved, partly due to the global economic crisis of 2007/8.

Since then accountants have become much more than so-called ‘bean counters’ or ‘number crunchers’. People are increasingly turning to them to solve issues that before may have been outside of their job remit. They are now at the forefront of company operations and are depended upon both by the organisation they work for and the outside world.

For the ACCA, an accountant is a strategist, an expert communicator, a people manager, an advocate and an ambassador for all things finance and business. 

They are also champions of sustainability with an ethical compass set on doing the right thing. They deliver public value – acting in the public interest, promoting ethical business and supporting economic growth.

Accountants need to be at the forefront to make the most of available opportunities and resolve issues as more businesses, SMEs and entrepreneurs are turning to them for advice and guidance. In particular, business expects finance professionals to act as strategic advisors, helping organisations to create long-term, sustainable value. 

With ACCA, an accountant is a complete finance professional, who identifies risks and advises people on the right course of action to take. 

Over the last year, ACCA has been busy ensuring that its students and members have a wealth of opportunities available to them.

Most notable has been our partnership with the University of London to produce a Master’s program – the first of its kind in the world. It therefore gives both students and members the opportunity to combine their professional qualification with an academic one, broadening their wealth of knowledge that will be put to good use in their careers.

Later this month, our ACCA-X courses will begin, which are online open access. The first two courses are free, so it gives people insight into a finance career and the knowledge needed. Again this gives people the opportunity to broaden their skill set in a bid to become well-rounded accountants.

But it’s not just about the qualification and the education behind someone which makes them a complete professional in whatever industry they are in, it’s also the so-called ‘soft skills’, learning to communicate effectively with various audiences, some of whom are not literate in financial data. 

At ACCA we believe that this is a vital skill to have to be able to communicate in a simple, easy-to-understand way, so we have developed two e-learning modules for students and affiliates focusing on the people skills.

Updating our qualification and introducing new programs is a global process which ensures that an ACCA or FCCA member – Fellow of ACCA – has the skills, knowledge and competencies relevant to their career.

Rising to 

the challenge

These changes position ACCA members well to thrive in the emerging business context, to enhance their prospects as professionals and managers and bring them success in their careers.

Professionalism and ethics lie at the heart of the ACCA qualification. So our syllabus content is enhanced around governance, risk and ethics. Exam content relating to risk management, such as risk identification, control and mitigation, was recently updated and has been well received by students, members and employers. 

Diversity is also part of the ACCA syllabus, with greater focus on the requirement for more diversity on boards. Looking at the wider role of the accountant as promoting public value and being socially responsible, ACCA has added more focus to how accountants should describe and assess the environmental effects that economic activity can have in terms of an environmental footprint and other impacts.

Strategy and innovation are natural areas where an accountant adds real value. Papers in ACCA’s Qualification have been made relevant to the corporate sector and business leadership in terms of forecasting, budgeting, cost management and decision support, including pricing. The latest area to be added is the role and limitations of cost accounting in strategy development and implementation. 

Financial Management in particular has also been strengthened, with more content on developments in Islamic Finance. Our enhanced coverage now includes developments in this form of financing in sourcing business expansion and projects, explaining the rationale for its use and identifying its benefits and deficiencies. 

Corporate reporting is an important aspect of an accountant’s role and the landscape is changing due to shareholder and stakeholder needs. Greater coverage of the typical contents of a social and environmental report and the usefulness of this information to stakeholders – especially relevant in light of new guidelines issued by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) - are also included. 

This links to sustainable management accounting, where ACCA’s performance management exams contain key sections which support businesses in making sustainable and efficient use of resources through strategic planning, control, measurement and performance evaluation. 

Audit and Assurance has come in for a lot of criticism since the financial crisis of 2007/8, but ACCA stands behind the need for strong independent audits, and the value they ring for investors, stakeholders and the business itself. 

Case study approach

The ACCA Qualification places more emphasis on professional scepticism, which has been added to the relevant paper to reflect the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) code of ethics for professional accountants.

Importantly, the ACCA Qualification has also taken a case study approach. Using case studies means that a student can apply their skill and knowledge to a real and possible scenario. 

This case study approach was introduced in June 2013, when all seven of the ACCA Qualification Professional Level exams used case studies in their assessments - worth at least 50 marks, with some worth 60 marks. 

This provides in-depth practical scenarios for students to work on for these exams, all of which are examined at Master’s degree level. This means that students have to demonstrate skills which are highly sought after by employers and relevant for advisory and consultancy roles, such as the ability to assimilate and evaluate data; develop and use ideas; analyse and make decisions in complex and unstructured situations; solve problems and make recommendations and communicate findings to clients, experts and other stakeholders. 

As a professional body, we believe that studying to be an accountant means gaining a detailed understanding of what being a finance professional means. We do this in a way which ensures there are no half-measures or shortcuts – the only way to qualify is to do it the complete way to become a complete finance professional.