Consulting Boot Camp for Accountants

By Joao Ernesto Cumaio and Helder Jossai

This book helps you to gain skills that are essential to navigate in the business world as a consulting and accounting professional the same time, either employed or not, with or without the famous CA specialization in the accountancy arena. The book defines in chapter one the consulting and the accounting and goes further by showing many accounting specializations that any graduate in accounting, either in the technical level or from college, can choose to pursue as his career. It also describes the accounting firm architecture, and deepens in the business development and technical process that consulting accountants need to succeed in business, either as intrapreneurs or as entrepreneurs. This book is also useful for anyone willing to open a consulting business.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joao Ernesto Cumaio
• Release date: Dec 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005536954

Joao Ernesto Cumaio

Cumaio, Joao Ernesto, BBA, is currently working as Assistant Manager at I2A Consultoria e Serviços, SA, a consulting business in accountancy and taxation, based in Maputo, Mozambique. He is a founder of Refresh Consulting Institute and he conducts trainings in consulting, freelance as technical writer and business developer. He already has experience in writing accounting policies and procedures and a book, reconciliations, financial reports (local GAAPs and IFRSs) and teaching accountancy.After the conclusion of the technical level of Accountancy and Management in2001, he accepted the position of Junior Credit Manager at SOCREMO, which was a Micro-finance institution in that time. He also had opportunity to work for the Ministry of Finance as an Accountant in the area of reconciliations and reporting. He had opportunity to participate in the preparation of the State General Account and the Quarterly Reports of the State Budget Execution for five years. During that period, he worked as a freelance Accountant in closing accounts of many private companies in part-time basis. Then he moved to Kumbeza, Ltd as an Accountant and Consultant, and worked there for five years. During that period, he obtained his current qualification as a Bachelor in Business Administration from the Management College of Southern Africa (MANCOSA) in 2007. He received a short time assignment as Assistant Management Accountant in a British global company named AgDevco and four years assignment at Xinai Ltd as a Manager Tax and Accountancy. He also has three years teaching experience, as Accountancy and Applied Accountancy (it can be said computerized accountancy and taxation) for IEG.

Book preview

CONSULTING BOOT CAMP FOR ACCOUNTANTS

Inside this Book

Business Architecture, Business Development, Plans, Processes, and Guidelines

First Edition

CONSULTING BOOT CAMP FOR ACCOUNTANTS

Inside this Book

Business Architecture, Business Development, Plans, Processes, and Guidelines

First Edition

All rights reserved. This Book shall only be distributed, copied or printed with the consent of the owner or author.

© 2020 Joao Ernesto Cumaio

Associated Editor: Helder Jossai

ISBN: 9781005536954

Printed in the United States of America

To all people I love, I wish you success

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Definitions

Chapter 2: Attributes and Ethics of the Consultant

Chapter 3: Consulting Business Architecture

Chapter 4: Consulting Business Process

Chapter 5: Business Development for Consultants

Chapter 6: Internal Business Environment Analysis

Chapter 7: External Environment Analysis

Chapter 8: The Strategic Business Plan

Chapter 9: The Business Plan

Chapter 10: The Marketing Strategies for Consultants

Chapter 11: Becoming Trusted as Consultant

Chapter 12: Entry and Diagnosis and the Business Proposal

Chapter 13: Time Management and Consulting fees

Chapter 14: Customer Account Management

Chapter 15: Balance Sheet Reconciliations Procedures

Chapter 16: Fuel your entrepreneurship mindset

Bibliography

About the Author

Introduction

Congratulations. You are reading this book because you made a choice - the right choice. You may be reading this book because you are fresh graduate in accounting or business. Or you have years of experience in accounting or consulting. Or because you are to plan for your startup, either a consulting startup or in other areas of business. Or even by simple curiosity. Be sure, this book will help you answer the questions and doubts you have.

In the United States, for example, the unemployment among fresh graduates is around nine percent as per the position of statistics in September 2020. The other figure that exists is called underemployment which means that college graduates are working in jobs that do not require their level of education and is estimated that accounts for thirty four percent of the total graduates. It might be that business and accounting graduates are also in these statistics. This is only example. It happens everywhere in the world. You take years studying, but not finding the job of your specialty or even none. How can anyone facing this dilemma overcome it?

This book helps you to gain skills that are essential to navigate in the business world as a consulting and accounting professional the same time, either employed or not, with or without the famous CA specialization in the accountancy arena. The book defines in chapter one the consulting and the accounting and goes further by showing many accounting specializations that any graduate in accounting, either in the technical level or from college, can choose to pursue as his career. You have many options for working on what you took effort to study.

The ethical conduct and respect to other people is emphasized in the entire book as companies hire not only your expertise, but also your personality and attitude, as you can see in chapter two. In chapter three you will have opportunity to visit an accounting firm virtually, where you will see and learn about things that you probably did not know before. The following chapters, from chapter four to chapter fifteen will cover the elements of the architecture of the consulting business, with emphasis to the business development process and the consulting in accounting process and guidelines. Finally, in chapter sixteen you will see how you can feed yourself on the entrepreneurship mindset in order to achieve your career goals. Please enjoy the book.

Chapter 1: Definitions

We will start by providing definitions of consulting and accounting. You will also read about why there is a need for consultants specialized in accounting and the various kinds of jobs that the accountants can perform.

What is Consulting?

There are some elements that can help us define consulting. First, the person that exercises consulting shall be an independent professional. His aim is to help the management of the client organization to achieve a set of goals previously defined. He also helps the client by providing solutions to their problems. He uses the knowledge he has, to provide recommendations or specialist work.

Therefore, the Consulting can be defined as the specialist work provided by an independent professional with the aim of helping the management of the client organization to achieve a set of goals previously defined providing solutions to their problems by means of using his knowledge to give recommendations or assist with specialist work.

From the definition can be seen that the primary assumption for exercising consultancy is to possess knowledge or expertise of certain profession. As this book is about consultancy exerted by the accountants, it is important to remember the definition of the accountancy profession.

What is Accountancy or Accounting?

Some firms state that they provide bookkeeping services.