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10 Vital Tips To Master Project Management For Accountants

“With the number of tasks, deadlines, reports, and meetings involved in an accountant’s daily routine, it can be challenging to manage each one effectively by yourself. Here are some tips to better project management to help you get the most out of your day.”

As an accountant starting independently in my accounting firm, it was a struggle trying to satisfy my clients’ projects and ensure that all of their objectives were met efficiently with the traditional project accounting methods. However, learning how to properly manage projects helped me strategize and carry out tasks more successfully.

As a professional accountant, you need to master project management to ensure that your clients are satisfied. Accounting project management is a business method geared at ensuring that your client gets the desired result. At the end of this article, you’d be well equipped with the proper knowledge on how to master project management as an accountant. 

Why It is Crucial To Master Project Management as An Accountant 

A client’s satisfaction is the objective of every standard accounting firm. It is not enough to just handle financial projects; mastering project management is crucial as an accountant because it helps you plan your project’s budget meticulously. It also enables you to manage these resources in a way that meets your client’s requirements. 

For most accounting firms, one of the most significant issues faced is balancing multiple accounts, personnel, labor

expenses, invoicing and financial services at the same time. Frequently, there is bound to be an error and an unsatisfied client. However, mastering project management as an accountant helps manage your time, ensures all financial reports, financial data are carried out, processed and delivered at the right time. Also, learning the act of proper project management allows you to prepare and plan for failures or uncertainties. 

Finally, it is crucial to master project management as an accountant because it helps with accessible team communication and proactiveness among teammates. When there’s easy communication, team collaboration becomes easier to carry out projects, especially when a project management software is used. 

Common Challenges That Accountants Face When It Comes to Project Management 

For the longest time of time, I had issues letting go of my timesheets. This was because I used them as a billing measure based on the hours put into a project. I soon discovered that it wasn’t the right way to manage my projects, as it was a struggle trying to get the work done before the deadline and even when I met the deadline, the client wasn’t always delighted. 

Letting go of timesheets is one challenge accountants face when it comes to project management. Assigned tasks are given out to accounting managers without an estimated time frame, and it becomes difficult to keep up with tight deadlines. Other challenges accountants face when it comes to project management include not having a clear project idea, low budget, lack of project management software for accountants, technical issues, increasing client’s demands, setting unrealistic milestones, and low level of accountability among the team members. 

10 Tips to Help Accountants Master Project Management 

People get certifications to become professional project managers. It wasn’t very comforting trying to take the project management position for my firm, but with the proper knowledge, I was able to become a successful project manager. If you’re an account stuck in a fix on how to properly manage your projects, here are ten tips to help you master project management 

  1. Meet With All Account Managers and Team Members 

Meeting with account managers tasked with handling a project is essential. You can discuss the best project accounting methods to employees, project costs, cost estimates, how the workflows would be and its integrations among account managers. This helps with having a thorough project scope and project management plan. Your team members are also given an opportunity to contribute to the project scope and their roles in achieving desired milestones. 

  1. Create A Defined Project Plan 

Using a project management account software won’t be helpful if you don’t have a defined project plan. Unnecessary changes midway into the project might make it difficult to meet project milestones. Instead, ensure all account managers contribute to the planning of the project to avoid further change. An easy way to create a defined project plan is to set KPIs with your planned project goals and ensure all activities are in line with them. 

  1. Make Communication Easy

A critical tip in effectively mastering project management as an accountant is making communication easy between team members. Regular check-ins help to ensure that the project is being carried out smoothly and as planned. Create an open communication flow that allows your team members to talk about issues they may be encountering during the project. This makes it easier to find solutions to project problems sooner. 

  1. Have A Backup Plan 

To ensure your project management plan is going well, it is essential to have a Plan B. Stay ahead of your situation and be able to be in control even in times of project crises. Even though my project is going successfully, I always like to ask myself, “are there really no problems I’d encounter with this project?” Be ready for anything. In cases where your team members encounter a problem, find a quick solution to that problem rather than making a big deal, throwing the whole project plans into chaos. 

  1. Track And Review All Project Tasks Daily 

Tracking and reviewing all project tasks daily is one step towards mastering efficient project management. As an accountant, dealing with financial projects isn’t something to be taken lightly. Tracking and reviewing all tasks allows you to monitor the progress being made, as well as to notice and correct all errors that might have been made. You know 

  1. Document Everything Done 

From the process of creating a project management plan to assigning and monitoring project tasks, you need to document everything that’s been done. This is great for record-keeping and helps you review all that has been done after the project has been completed. It also makes it easy to create a template that can be used for future project management plans. 

  1. Regularly Ask For Client’s Input 

The goal of mastering accounting project management is basically to satisfy the client and hit project milestones. After being given a project to handle, you still need to ask for the client’s input on how they’d specifically want the project to be to avoid differences in delivery style. This is especially important to note when you are dealing with a client who’s indecisive or quite difficult. It makes it easier to align project management activities with their demands. 

  1. Focus On Achieving Client’s Objectives 

As an accountant, focusing on what your clients’ need is a great way to properly master project management because it becomes easier to streamline your project accounting methods and project management techniques to suit and satisfy your clients’ needs. Make sure your team members who are assigned accounting goals also work in a way that emphasizes and implements the client’s objectives. 

  1. Evaluate Team Performance

One quality of a good leader is evaluating the efforts and performances of his team members. As an accountant, assessing and appraising the performance of your team members during and after an accounting project has been submitted is essential. 

Once the accounting project has been completed, evaluate your team’s performance by noting project plans that weren’t achieved and work with your team members to ensure that future projects are delivered according to procedures. This makes your team members more aware of what to do and become successful project managers themselves. It also gives them the needed boost and motivation to do better and work in line with project plans and budgets for future project transactions. 

  1. Use a Project Management Software 

Nowadays, project management software is trending among accountants. These task management software are online tools used for working and tracking hundreds of work projects simultaneously and give you an idea of how to manage future project transactions. You can use the Jetflow Workflow project management accounting software because it is a flexible project management tool suited for accountants to help them become more productive and reach resource management milestones. 

Jetpack Workflow makes it easy for accountants to effectively carry out projects by allowing you to create and handle project tasks, create to-do lists, Gantt charts, access your Gmail, help you manage your project’s budget and adequately organize your schedule using Google calendar. 

A fellow accountant, Monica Hodgson-Daniels, CPA, who’s the owner and CEO of Garnett and Gold Financial Corporation, finds it extremely useful using the Jetpack Workflow software. 

It’s been amazing. I love Jetpack Workflow! I love Jetpack Workflow! We left a clunky system, and now that we’re set up, I no longer miss deadlines. Now I have a bird’s eye view of what’s going on in my firm, so I know what my team is doing and what the status and updates are for our clients.”

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