Being confident and able to make good business decisions are two of the most important skills to enhance your career and make you a better manager and accountant.

However, with so much uncertainty it can feel very difficult to make decisions in the current climate. In addition, being confident does not come naturally to everyone, and decision-making is a skill that needs to be developed, whether you are at the start of your career, or you are in charge of a practice and are making decisions that will affect your employees as well. The inability to plan ahead and the uncertainty has also knocked people’s confidence.

At the Future Finance Conference Conference Online in June 2021, a key session looked at Mastering confidence and decision making in finance. Duncan Brodie, Managing Director at Goals and Achievements and Andi Lonnen, International trainer at the Finance Training Academy talked through the practical steps that AAT members could take to become more confident decision makers.

How to make the best decisions in your business and life

They shared their own real-life experiences as well as reflecting on confidence in terms of where the industry is now, and how it will be moving forward in the future.  

Before setting up Goals and Achievements in 2006, Duncan Brodie spent 25 years in accounting, internal audit and risk consulting roles in the private (PwC, EY and TSB) and public (NHS) sectors. Andi Lonnen is a fully qualified FCCA accountant with many years’ financial experience to Commercial Finance Director level in addition to being a qualified ILM trainer.

“You don’t all sudden wake up one morning and be really confident on something,” Duncan Brodie says. “As finance professionals we can be quite self-critical.  To gain confidence you need to reflect and ask what you can learn from the situation. You should also cut yourself some slack and acknowledge that you are a human being, and not a machine.”

“A lot of finance professionals are tired and overwhelmed with everything that they have had to deal with,” says Andi Lonnen. “From a mental health point of view I think people can feel a bit less confident just because they’re so tired, and it can simply be just taking a step back and taking that bit of a break to just breathe again. Remember you are good at this, and you are making a contribution.”

She recommends keeping an achievement diary in which you record praise, completion of successful projects and record when a piece of work went well.

“Every time you finish a project or a piece of work, put it in this diary, whether it’s electronic or paper. When you are having your days where you have a drop in confidence, you can get your diary out and lift yourself back up again and get back into an energised productive confident place again. It sounds such a simple thing but it works.”

How to make career decisions in a time of uncertainty

Duncan Brodie says that in terms of career, which may have been disrupted by Covid-19, it is important to keep the long-term focus. “Technology means we may have to learn new skills and adapt and grow but technology is not going to take things over the human side of things,” he says.

“AAT encourages professional development, and make sure there is breadth in your development. Don’t just learn about the technical stuff. Try to get involved in projects that go beyond finance because you learn about the softer skills such as negotiating and influencing,” he says.

Andi Lonnen suggests you get out of your comfort zone and go ahead with difficult tasks. “That’s where all the magic happens,” she says. “That’s where confidence is built, so don’t worry about doing things that you find difficult. Learn to be okay with that.”

In terms of decision making, she says that procrastination can be caused by fear of making the wrong decision or being blamed. When you are trying to make an important decision it is crucial to have all the right people at the table – something that is more difficult right now in the remote environment. She suggests you create a Risk Register to identify of key risks are.

“When you are making decisions look at the risk of that decision going wrong, and what would impact be? Ask yourself what is the worst that could happen, what is the biggest risk? Is that acceptable to me? What would be the impact of not making a decision, what is the risk to your business of not doing anything?”

She says that once you have made a decision and are implementing it, you should make it work. Building these skills that will put you in a good position wherever you are on the career ladder in finance.

The keys to better decision-making

Here are five steps to becoming more confident in your decision making.

1. Know how and why you make decisions

To have confidence in your decisions and to be able to defend their robustness to others, it is vital to understand the personal process you go through when making a decision, says Carmel Moore, leadership consultant, director of The One Moment Company and a former EY Tax Partner. 

“What kind of decision maker are you? Do you follow your heart, head or gut?  Do you start out from instinct and then apply checks and balances?  Or is it the other way around?  Do you feel you need to gather ALL the facts first before you can decide?”

2. Take your time to make decisions

In working life, the crux of our professional expertise is the quality of our decision-making, says Carmel Moore. Although somehow implicit in our professional training, we are never explicitly taught the process of how to make good decisions with ease. Clear decisions save time, foster collaboration and are the core of sound risk management.

“There is a common misconception that making decisions QUICKLY is a good thing.  It may be.  But knowing when a decision is complex and needs time and collaboration is equally valuable,” she says. 

3. Take a step back and examine the process

Dr Aaron Turner is co-founder and senior partner at One Thought, a performance coaching company. He works with a broad range of clients across diverse sectors, which includes professional services. One Thought clients include, Microsoft, Publicis, Dishoom, Allen and Overy. The One Thought programme helps leaders get clarity of mind. This clarity then allows them to make better decisions and feel more confident.

“When we work with clients who are struggling with confidence, the first things we do is take a step back,” he says. “We help them to understand that feeling confident is a symptom of a clear state of mind, available to anyone in any situation. If you feel stressed or anxious you are feeling disturbed thought. it could be a sped-up mind.”

This is when thoughts are flying through your head at a hundred miles an hour. It may be agitation or insecurity. Making good decisions is almost impossible in these situations.

4. Gather the right data

It is important to remember that we make decisions throughout every day, often without realising, but some decisions are harder to make than others, says Liz Sebag-Montefiore is director of 10Eighty and a career coach. 

“When making business decisions, it’s important to make sure you gather enough data, avoid making decisions when emotional, conduct a reality check, and challenge your assumptions,” she explains.

5. Communicate your vision

“Once you have made your decision, the next stage is to communicate it to everyone affected by it,” says Liz Sebag-Montefiore. “It is important to get everyone engaged by explaining how you reached your decision. The more information you provide about the projected benefits, the more likely people will support your decision.”

It is also important to discuss your risk analysis to evidence that you have carefully considered the risks. Allow people to be involved in the implementation and welcome their input even if they are pointing out flaws in your plan.

Further reading

Isabelle Wilkinson of the Journey Further Book Club – a community for time-pressured, ambitious people who want to continue lifelong-learning, has the following book recommendations for building confidence:

• How to Own the Room by Viv Groskop – This if for anyone who would like to learn tips and tricks on getting their voice heard, and public speaking (particularly women, as the book does share lots of tips on how to be heard as a woman).
• Sabotage by Emma Gannon – In her most recent nonfiction book, Emma Gannon examines why so many of us self-sabotage. The book is a short but informative read that offers solutions and ways to look differently at what is really holding us back.

From fast-forwarding take up of virtual client meetings and paperless processes, to boosting usage of automated bookkeeping tools, Covid-19 has triggered a marked increase in digitalisation in the financial services sector.

American body the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants believes that “accountants and finance professionals around the globe have learned many lessons about how to embrace digital transformation” as a result of the pandemic.

And Craig Moore, director of CJM Associates in Staffordshire, agrees.

“The accountancy world has been transitioning into a more tech-focused, cloud-based approach for many years,” he said.

“But the challenges faced during the pandemic have escalated the need for accountants to embrace technology and use it to their advantage.”

So let’s take a closer look at how Covid-19 has changed the accountancy sector, and highlight some of the digital tools helping bookkeepers, tax advisers, and auditors do a better job.

The pre-Covid status quo

Not all accountants were racing to digitalise their operations pre-Covid-19.

While big companies were already investing heavily in technology – with KPMG, for example, earmarking $5 billion (£3.6 billion) for tech investments in the five years from 2019 – figures suggest that many smaller firms were quite happy to stick with more traditional practices.

In early 2019, a report from technology provider Sage found that only 35% of accountants in the UK thought their firms were “early adopters of technology”, with the majority only spending on essential tools.

The “pandemic effect”

When the pandemic hit, accountancy firms faced a raft of unexpected new challenges, the first of which was usually to find a way for their employees to work effectively – and communicate successfully with clients – from home.

As for companies across the country, video conferencing tools such as Zoom therefore became indispensable to many accountants’ everyday operations. So it should come as no surprise that Ofcom’s statistics show the number of Zoom users in the UK shooting up from 659,000 to 13 million between January and April 2020.  

Within the finance sector, cloud-based accounting software packages also became an immediate must-have. “Having already moved to more cloud-based financial systems was a big help once we had to start working remotely due to Covid,” said Dairin O’Donovan, operations finance manager at Shell Energy Retail Ltd.

“We were working towards becoming a paperless office for environmental reasons; when the pandemic started, that happened overnight.”

The longer-term view

Even though restrictions are now easing, the repercussions of the pandemic continue to be felt, with many accountants expecting at least a percentage of their meetings to remain virtual post pandemic.

“Replacing many face-to-face interactions with online meetings has made it easier to get hold of colleagues because they are at their desks more,” O’Donovan said. “It has also made it easier to find the balance between what needs a meeting and when an email will suffice.”

Many accountants also expect to keep using automated bookkeeping tools such as Xero, Freeagent, and Quickbooks, while cloud-based inventory management systems such as Brightpeal and Cin7 are tipped to enjoy on-going success.

This shift will offer various benefits, including that companies prepared to integrate remote working into their business models will be able to scout talent from a much wider geographical area.

Greater digitalisation can bring greater risks, however. Employees working remotely are more likely to be targeted with scams such as “phishing” and “vhishing”. So companies may have to spend a bit more on online security training to avoid leaks and breaches.

The hi-tech future

As well as escalating take-up of technology within accountancy, the pandemic has triggered a wave of new development.

So what technological solutions might be helping accountants do their jobs in a few years’ time? At the big accountancy firms, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that can manage day-to-day business activities such as client and project management, procurement, and human resources is a major focus.

At Deloitte UK, for example, chief financial officer Donna Ward has been working hard to avoid the pandemic derailing the rollout of software group SAP’s latest ERP system, which uses artificial intelligence to improve business processes.

Across the industry, more companies are also expected to sign up to cloud-based Customer Relationship Management software programmes designed to streamline client services.

And elsewhere, audit analytics tools that can turn auditing into a continual process – rather than an end-of-year one – look set to become more common over the next few years.

In summary

Love them or hate them, the digital tools that have helped the financial services industry through the pandemic now appear to be here to stay.

“It’s really now a case of being left behind if you fail to embrace technology in the workplace,” Moore said.

As we ease out of the pandemic, hopefully for good, the key is therefore to stay open to change, and take advantage of the tools best suited to your business and your clients.

Further reading

• The future of accountancy will have digital at its core
• Start marketing your business with these 3 tools
• 4 things that could reshape the future of audit

This content is brought to you by Xero.

The origins of Manchester-based James Scott date back to the 1980s. The firm serves a range of clients in the North West Area, covering individuals, family businesses, owner-managed businesses and large commercial groups of companies with a turnover up to around £10 million.

James Scott provides a full-service offering, taking care of all compliance filing requirements, bookkeeping, management accounts tax advice and strategic planning. They aim to set themselves out from the competition by providing a value for money service, with regular client touch points creating a strong working relationship.

Ten years of cloud working

The firm was one of the first to use cloud accounting software in the UK and signed up as a Xero accounting partner in 2011. Over the last few years have been transitioning the bulk of their clients to Xero and encourage all new clients to take it up.

Matthew Taylor, one of the two partners at the firm, lists Xero’s 800 plus add on partners as integral to servicing clients’ needs. These software partners, which integrate directly with Xero, add extra layers of functionality bespoke to sector-specific clients’ needs.

Citing the example of e-commerce, Taylor references A2X, a Xero add on partner which connects to third party e-commerce platforms to pull in and reconcile sales data. Taylor says: “Amazon settlements are notoriously difficult to decipher and A2X’s integration with
Xero does this for you. It saves a load of time and also works with eBay and Spotify.”

This has been particularly useful during the pandemic when the practice saw a surge in sales from many of their e-commerce clients.

Switching to Xero Tax

James Scott started to make the move from their desktop-based accounts production and tax software to Xero Tax in March last year, and are now switching their clients across for their respective year ends. Taylor lists the main benefits from the switch as being a complete end to end workflow in one piece of software:

“You have your bookkeeping software which produces right through to Companies House and HMRC within the same software suite. Previously we had to extract and import the data into separate accounts production and tax software. Xero Tax has really smoothed that workflow
out.”

Minimal training

Rather than undergo the free training materials provided by Xero Tax Taylor preferred to dive right in to see if he could get to grips with it instantly. He says: “The software is fairly intuitive and takes you through the process in an orderly and reasonable way. Understanding the processes behind final accounts and corporation tax returns is enough knowledge to understand the flow of Xero Tax.”

While Taylor believes there is “no substitute for getting your hands dirty” other staff members in the office went through the Xero certification process to build on their knowledge.

The firm now plans to use the efficiency gains from Xero Tax to take onboard new clients and focus more on growing the e-commerce side of the business. If you’re an accountant or bookkeeper in practice, sign up to the Xero partner programme and access Xero Tax. You’ll get the tools, resources and dedicated account management to help get your practice and clients set up for success. Visit www.xero.com/xero-tax-partner to get started.

Join the Xero partner programme.

This content is brought to you by Xero.