How the F&A Academy accelerates the career growth of talented Bookkeeping Consultants
26 September 2024So you are a finance professional with a few years of experience in an accounting firm, as an internal bookkeeper, as an auditor, or in the banking field, and you want to advance your career towards financial control. How do you acquire the technical knowledge and soft skills needed to take the step to a job as a Financial Controller? By introducing the Finance & Administration (F&A) Academy, TriFinance has developed a tailor-made program for its consultants precisely for this purpose.
- The F&A Academy offers knowledge that can be put into practice immediately. For example, Willem used his training in Corporate Tax to set up more efficient processes at his client and drastically reduce tax return preparation time.
- Participants like Lissa and Michiel develop critical skills, such as optimizing month-end closings and automating repetitive tasks, which increases their impact on projects.
- The Academy boosts consultants' self-confidence and career development, teaching them to step out of their comfort zone and proactively bring new solutions to clients.
Although financial control is a bottleneck profession, there are no practical training programs that combine theory, process and system knowledge, as well as business partnering skills. That is why TriFinance created the F&A Academy for its consultants. This training program combines knowledge of regulatory requirements and bookkeeping insights with soft skills, and especially focuses on practical deployment.
Learn more about the F&A Academy
Curious to know how Bookkeeping Consultants Willem, Lissa and Michiel look back after successfully completing the two-year program?
Knowledge that can be used immediately
A key focus of the F&A Academy is the development of hard skills in a practical, application-driven way. For instance, Willem Rutten was able to immediately apply the Corporate Tax training to his project: “The corporate tax manager at the client needed support in setting up efficient processes to drastically reduce the preparation time for the tax return. A task that the training allowed me to take on immediately. This allowed me to ingrain the new knowledge and offer significant value to my project at the same time. For me, that's what the F&A Academy is all about.”
Lissa Van den Muysenbergh explains how she already had a lot of experience with monthly closings, but still picked up a lot of interesting tips from the training 'Closing activities and documentation'. “These tips have ensured that I can now handle monthly closings even more efficiently. Some of these tips include designating a person responsible for each task and mapping out the time needed to perform each closing task, as a lever to optimize the process.”
PowerQuery is something that comes in handy in almost every project and allows you to have a lasting impact with the client, even after your project ends. That’s something that gives me real fulfillment.
Michiel Verborgt, Bookkeeping Consultant
The PowerQuery training is another skill most participants have since been able to apply in practice. “By automating repetitive actions in Excel using PowerQuery, you can achieve significant time savings. It's something that comes in handy in almost every project and allows you to leave a lasting impact at the client, even after your project ends. That’s something that gives me real fulfillment,” Michiel Verborgt says.
- Lissa started her career in an accountancy firm, switched to TriFinance after a year and a half, and was able to immediately join the F&A Academy.
“Thanks to the F&A Academy, I was able to quickly acquire the knowledge and skills needed for my transition to my new position as a Bookkeeping Consultant. I now have much more confidence in my knowledge and feel stronger in my role as a consultant.” - Michiel initially worked as an auditor and in an accounting firm after his studies.
“I chose TriFinance because of the match with my ambitious growth path. Here, I get the chance to develop myself in diverse environments and find the finance function that truly suits me.” - Willem realized that his passion lies in corporate finance after starting his career in the banking sector.
“For me, the F&A Academy was the perfect way to deepen my knowledge and expand my skills as a consultant, allowing me to offer even greater value to the clients for whom I carry out projects.”
I now have more confidence in my own abilities and also dare to step out of my comfort zone to try new things.
Lissa Van den Muysenbergh, Bookkeeping Consultant
Skills that will take your career to the next level
As a finance consultant, in addition to having the right technical knowledge, you also need the skills to collaborate with different stakeholders. Presenting financial data is also an important part of the job. “That's why I found the training on presentation skills and storytelling particularly interesting,” says Michiel. “Thanks to the combination of various types of training, I was able to sharpen my knowledge and broaden my perspective. Now I have even better tools to tackle issues at my clients and spot new opportunities to add extra value. That also gives me more satisfaction in my job.”
Lissa also looks back fondly on the self-reflection workshop: “By reflecting on your motivators and strengths, you can make more conscious career choices. I now have more confidence in my own abilities and also dare to step out of my comfort zone to try new things.”
Thanks to the F&A Academy trainings, you get a lot of information on various topics. But it doesn’t stop there: the trainers also provide tips and documentation to help you dive deeper into the material on your own.
Willem Rutten, Bookkeeping Consultant
Added value of the Academy approach
“Thanks to the Academy, I’ve taken training sessions that I might not have chosen myself or thought I didn’t need. In hindsight, these sessions turned out to be both interesting and relevant,” Lissa continues.
As a participant in the Academy, you take part in 10 training days spread over two years with the same group of fellow consultants. Additionally, there are several events through which you get to know each other better in an informal way. This helps create a community within the Academy that strengthens and inspires each other.
“Thanks to the F&A Academy trainings, you get a lot of information on various topics. But it doesn’t stop there: the trainers also provide tips and documentation to help you dive deeper into the material on your own. This means that when you apply the training in practice, you can always refer back to the training materials and look up additional information. For me, that's the biggest added value of the F&A Academy,” concludes Willem.
Read more about the F&A Academy