Hybrid Accountants | How to Become a Hybrid Accountant

Hybrid accountants are finance professionals with top notch accounting knowledge and in depth commercial and operational awareness backed by the power of Information Technology.

 
Hybrid accountants are increasingly getting involved into more and more operations of an organization. Hybrid accountants are next generation accountants with perfect blend of arrays of both hard and soft accounting skills.

 
How to Become a Hybrid Accountant

 
To become a hybrid accountant, you have to firstly become a qualified accountant. A qualified accountant is a finance professional that is empowered by law to practice as an accountant. You may have all the experience in this world working in accounting and finance department but will still be limited in scope.

 
You cannot for example audit a public company’s financial statements without first of all becoming a qualified accountant – not even a PhD in accounting and finance will help.

 

 
13 Required Skills and actions that will make one a Hybrid Accountant

 
1. Up to date with changes in accounting standards: accounting has been known as a subject that changes how things are done frequently. You need to keep updating your knowledge to be relevant even after qualification. That is why we have things like CPD/CPE to compel qualified accountants into taking action that will ensure that they are not rusty.

 

 

2. Following traditional IT and Fintech: to be a hybrid accountant, you must develop and maintain passion for both traditional IT and Fintech. To appreciate the importance of accounting in this fast lane time that we all live in, accountants have to embrace technology and always be on the lookout for any technological trend. You can never know too much in IT as an accountant.

 

 

3. Expanding horizon in strategy and entrepreneurial skills: businesses no longer want to hire a number cruncher as an accountant. What the corporate world now need is to hire a strategic business partner and in house consultant all in one accounting staff.

 

 

4. Embracing ecommerce and street knowledge: hybrid accountant should embrace e-commerce and be street savvy.

 
Businesses can only thrive when they are managed by people who are business oriented. A hybrid accountant would seek ways to add to the bottom line of a business and just wait to record things that have already.

 

 

5. Knowing the law: businesses cannot achieve potentials if there is no low and order. Laws are made to ensure that things go according to plan. A hybrid accountant must be conversant with relevant business laws and how changes in those laws will affect the activities of a business.

 

 

6. Big data Analytical skills: big data analytics skill is a must for any serious minded accountant who really wants to become hybrid in nature. There are many big data analytics tools out there that you can easily get your hands dirty with – it must not be hadoop.

 

 

7. IT auditing skills: paper accounting is almost a thing of the past. To become really efficient in auditing modern businesses, an accounting professional must equip him or herself with IT auditing skills and certifications. I strongly recommend CISA for every accountant.

 

 

8. Taxation and tax planning skills: tax planning skill is in high demand as companies seek ways to legally save on taxes. You don’t need to stop at the basic tax courses that you took while studying for your accounting degree or even when you are studying for your professional exams.

 

 

9. Risk management and Assessment: risk management and assessment skills are bread and butter of hybrid accountants. The business environment is increasingly becoming complex and full of uncertainties. Third parties are always on the look out to milk any uninformed business. Hackers on one end are trolling businesses for any eventuality.

 

 

10. Bankruptcy and insolvency management knowledge: the law made a place for accountants in bankruptcy and insolvency proceedings. The role of accountants in bankruptcy is enormous and only hybrid accountants are reaping from it. Read the above referenced article for more information on what you can do in bankruptcy as an accountant.

 

 

11. People management technique: we cannot really go far if we don’t know how to manage people. Regardless of where we find ourselves, people management skill is a must have. The good news is that we don’t have to pay a fortune to acquire this people management skill. A wise man once said that people manager gets it all.

 

 

12. Presentation skills: modern day businesses involve making presentations. Who is more qualified to make that business presentation in the boardroom other than a hybrid accountant? Accountants are business communicators and one of the ways of communicating is through presentation. Note that presentations can sometimes been done over a conferencing medium.

 

 

13. Ability to network: businesses are now going social so must accountants. Hybrid accountants are masters in the art and science of networking.

 

 

Opportunities are lost and won based on the kind of network that we have. We can network both online and offline.

 
Conclusion

 
Accountancy as a profession has come a long way. Each era presents accountants with unique challenges and opportunities. To remain relevant as accountants in this era where Artificial Intelligence is rapidly picking up skills that were once exclusively reserved for accountants, one has to match this AI force by picking up skills that AI machines can only dream of.

 
Until I come your way next time. Please leave your view in the comment box below.