Have you ever had a potential candidate put on their resume that they know QuickBooks, but when you ask them questions about it, they really don’t know their stuff? Yeah, that has happened to me many times!
Education is one of our core values—educating our clients on how to read a financial statement, as well as investing in each team member to help them grow and develop a career path.
We have five levels of job descriptions at our firm:
- Account Manager Level 1
- Account Manager Level 2
- Account Manager Level 3
- Advanced QuickBooks Consultant & Trainer
- Senior Bookkeeping Manager
Each level has general qualifications—such as certification level—and responsibilities, including bookkeeping competencies, as well as key results areas to confirm success. Our senior bookkeeping manager provides opportunities for each team member to gain proficiency with each level, challenging them to move to the next level.
One of my favorite parts of working as a team is meeting remotely once a month. This team meeting is led by our senior bookkeeping manager. She creates an agenda, emails it out, and we turn on our webcams to talk about how to innovate and educate.
For example, this last month, our topics were progressive invoicing, the new sales tax module, QBO training recertification and getting clients audit ready. It’s great to see when the manager calls on another team member to lead a discussion, giving them an opportunity to grow in a leadership capacity!
I want our clients to have the BEST, and Intuit makes it EASY to provide our team members with quality training through getting certified. Having the basic certification is expected, but we place a high standard on education, so we encourage all of our bookkeepers to invest in themselves and get the QuickBooks Online Advanced Certification.
The videos and supplemental guides are high-quality materials that I could not produce on my own. We also mark our calendars for the “In The Know” monthly webinars to keep on top of the latest news. Another fantastic resource that Intuit provides is the set of QuickBooks Online tutorials. These are great to be able to send to a client that might be struggling with one piece of QuickBooks Online. Intuit makes us look good to our clients!
We are consistently learning and getting ideas on how to make our process better for our team and for our clients. Our team is smart. I rely on them and they have great ideas! It’s a team effort when it comes to creating a Firm of the Future environment. In my office, I keep a framed stack of old QuickBooks Desktop CDs. It’s a great reminder of where we were and how far we have come!
When you place a high value on education, your firm can be known as being the best place to work. High-quality candidates knock at your door because you have created fantastic culture!
Learn more about ProAdvisor certification here.
