Name: Career Lab: Skills for the new era of accounting
Uploaded: 2026-02-05T00:16:03.411Z
Duration: 1 h 8 s
Description: Career Lab: Skills for the new era of accounting

Transcript for "Career Lab: Skills for the new era of accounting": Over the past year, we've leaned in with students, teachers, and employers across the nation to understand what it takes to launch a career as a modern accountant. Today, we'll share what we've learned so you can be in control of your future. The Career Lab brings together thought leaders at the cutting edge of the accounting profession. We'll also touch on free training, certification and resources available to you. Today's Career Lab will arm you with the knowledge, confidence and skill set you need to get started. So with that, welcome. My name is Jacqueline and I lead training and certification at Intuit. I'm joined here today with three friends, entrepreneurs and leading accountants who are at the cutting edge of the profession who will share their insights with you about how to get started with your career. So with that, let me welcome Roman, Nayo, and Chris. Roman, let's kick it off with you. I'm happy to. I'm Roman Villar, founder of a firm called Full Send out of Boulder, Colorado, and we provide accounting and data consulting services for small businesses, typically venture capital backed, private equity or family office backed. We have team about 17 people and, we are super excited to participate in stuff like this. Amazing. Thanks for being here. Okay. Niall, over to you. Hi, I'm Nayel Carter Gray, the owner and founder of First Step Accounting, where we make accounting a little less taxing for small business owners all across The U. S. I am based out of Baltimore, Maryland, and we typically work with what I call hustlepreneurs, typically going from full time employment to full time entrepreneurship and that journey in between. I do have a team size of about four and we range from the East Coast all the way into Texas. So in Central Time though. Nice. Perfect. Okay, Chris. I'm, Chris Maxey and I'm the CEO of Prefix Accounting and we work with independent restaurants and hotels throughout the country. And we have a team of about 17. We're distributed all across the country. So three very different firm types, three very different people, very different stories. Really excited to dig in and learn more about why accounting? This Career Lab is for students who are learning accounting. And so they're in this, like learning about accounting theory and debits and credits. And sometimes it's hard when you're a student to understand what's my career path? You know, where do I go from here? So, Groman, tell me more, what has your career path been like in accounting? What got you from being a student to full send? Yeah, it's a good question because I had no intent to do accounting, at all. And my accounting professor at the time, he said, listen, if you do finance, you'll have a great career in finance. If you do accounting, you can do anything. I had no idea what that meant at that point in time, because the only options that were available to me or what I perceived the only options to be available to me were audit or tax and with four large firms. And from there, I went into the public accounting route, did not go big four, but went a regional route so that I could work with small businesses. And so I could get an end to end perspective on how small business operates. And I spent about seven years doing that in financial audit and then transitioned into a sales role, selling accounting services. So I got into sales and business development for about four years before starting my own firm about three and a half years ago. So it's been kind of a journey to go from not being an accounting major all the way through to entrepreneurship. You went from working in a more traditional firm doing audit to sales to then entrepreneurship. What did you learn along the way? These are really different roles. Yeah. When I took my job in sales, it was a $0 base salary, a 100% commission role. And yeah, it was not ideal, quite risky for a risk averse accountant. For one reason or another, it opened up a door for me to learn another angle of how to apply my accounting services in a different capacity. And so I kind of took a leap of faith to step into a sales role and sell accounting services to connect with small business owners on what are the problems that they face? What issues are they going through from an accounting and finance standpoint? And then trying to identify what solutions existed with the firms I was working at in a sales capacity and how could we serve them better? And so I had no idea that that type of career path was available to me. At that point in time, my career in public accounting as an auditor doors were opened. But now from a hindsight twentytwenty perspective, I think back when I was in college and I was like, wow, I had no idea that that kind of opportunity existed for somebody with an accounting degree. So that was a really, really good experience that gave me a far better perspective on just the entirety of a small business and how small businesses operate, after gaining some of that sales experience, applying the accounting and finance experience and seeing kind of the end to end process of small business. Well, Naya, let me turn to you. Tell us about your story. How did you get into accounting? So, I was always good at math. And in my mind, I went to high school. I chose a high school because I was going to be a corporate lawyer because I'm very argumentative and will defend my position to no end. But the person in charge of that program told me that you need a lot of English. And I was like, ugh, spelling, not my jam. And so, accidentally stuck me in accounting. And I had two years of accounting in high school and absolutely fell in love. In high school? In high school. So, I immediately went to college and just majored in accounting. And being Black and kind of from the hood, I've always had a side hustle. So, in high school, I got my first job and prepared my own tax return and discovered, hey, you can get a refund. So, I charged all my friends $25 to do their taxes. So, I've been actually doing taxes for thirty two years. And so, that's how my side hustle started. Once I graduated from college, I actually had an internship at a local firm. Discovered that you all wanted me to do audit. Audit was never my favorite class. So, I went private industry with accounting. Started within construction and then ended up in healthcare accounting. I worked for a hospital as well as a large imaging center. And then realized that being somewhere at somebody's desk at 08:00 just probably wasn't the best fit for me because I'm not a morning person. And so, during the recession of two thousand and eight, I got laid off and decided, hey, let's take this little tax firm that you're building on the side and go full time with it. And so, we've been in business full time now for over ten years. Still here, bills are paid. Awesome. Maxing out my four zero one contributions. So, it's always an exciting day when you can say that you're profitable and you're working to help the client that you once were. And so I choose the type of clients we serve because I was that hustler who would have loved an accountant to kind of help and guide me and help me grow. And I was like, well, I know all this stuff, so why am I not helping the businesses that I know and love so much? Helping those entrepreneurs really pursue their talents and their passions full time. And that advice is really soothing to them because they're nervous, they're scared. Roman's the riskiest person I've met in my life, taking a job with zero pay. But essentially, when you start a business, that's what you're committing to. And so, you know, you want to go full send. And that's what we try to help them do. I think you're hitting on something so powerful, which is that your role as an accounting professional isn't just providing clean financial statements. It's so much more than that. It's helping these entrepreneurs make really important decisions that inform the health of their business, their livelihoods, how they provide for their families. You're making a huge difference in your community. I try very hard. You know, I love when I say that we have clients that graduate from us. When they get to the point where they're talking VC backed, I'm like, Oh, we are no longer the firm for you. So, I love being able to hand them over because I know that I've done my job to get them to a point where the clients are like, we made $1,000,000 in revenue. We're thinking about going to find some equity. And I'm like, congratulations. Let me introduce you to Roman because he's going to help take you to the next level. So, it's all in the name, right? First Step Accounting? Yes. So interesting to hear from you both how pursuing this path of accounting services and entrepreneurship has enabled you to really blend your passions. And I know that Chris, that's very true for you. So tell us about how did you get started in accounting and how has that all led to prefix? So I actually, did not major in accounting. I actually said explicitly that I was never going to be an accountant. I worked as a chef. There's a statistic out there that the restaurant industry has one of the highest failure rates of any business. But if you incorporate somebody that has a financial background, that number converted from being the highest risk rate to one of the lowest. So restaurants are incredibly stable businesses if you know how to run it and if you know your financials. There's a lot of people that are out there that are missing either the industry experience of, like, how to run it. There's a lot of people that wanna do it as a hobby or as a retirement idea. We help lower the failure rate of the restaurant industry, and we help restaurateurs navigate an incredibly complex and dangerous investment. Earlier in my life, while I was working in the kitchen, there was a lack of conversation around numbers. And there was such a stigma talking about cash flow and payroll and what margins we should be hitting. There isn't a super high financial IQ, not because these people aren't incredibly intelligent, but because it's completely foreign. I realized that the people that I grew up with around in the kitchen also were missing that sort of understanding. And so I really wanted to be able to help raise up those people and be able to help them achieve their dreams by being able to open up restaurant. And in order to do that, they needed to understand the financials of how the restaurant worked. Most of my life, I've worked in a kitchen. And only until maybe about ten years ago, I felt the same feeling a lot of hospitality professionals feel, which is that we have to go out and get a real job. There's still that stigma. And so I wanted to get back to like something that still felt like I was like part of the industry, involved in the industry. So I ended up working for the accounting firm that did the books for one of the restaurants that I worked for. So that's the company that I'm still at now. We've built the entire company now around people that have either worked in the industry or were looking to make like a life shift. And so everybody has done something in the restaurant industry, whether it was just a busser through high school or worked for one of the best restaurants in the country, or were a GM or a chef, all of those people, everybody that is in the company is somebody that has lived that life. And for us, it's more of a mission, a calling to like help those people because I spent most of my life working in the industry, never having seen a profit and loss, what our food cost was, anything about what it's like to run a restaurant. And so for a lot of people like me that turned around and said, rather than saying, Oh, I want to go become an accountant. I want to go and open a restaurant. They're in the same place as me where they don't really understand like how the finances of it work. We really hone in on those independent restaurant tours and those people that are looking to like start their own business and be able to achieve the dreams that a lot of us share with them. Okay. So you brought up the term CAS. I think Roman mentioned it earlier as well. That may be a new term for some students who have surely heard of tax audit. What is CAS? How do you define it? Well, industry does love an acronym. So there's a couple of different acronyms for it. Client Accounting Services, and then also some people will call it client accounting and advisory services. So it's essentially doing the day to day bookkeeping like at the end of the day, we have to do a tax return. That's one day of the year, December 31, that we're pulling those numbers. The other three sixty four days of the year, there's a lot of work to be done. So we're pulling in all of the sales information. We're paying all of the bills, recording all the bills, make sure that they're accurate, looking at what the margins are, looking at what the cash flow is, helping them actually understand day to day where they stand. Because if you're only doing that at year end, you're only going to know how well you did that year on December 31. Right. The rest of the year, you have no clue. So it sounds like client accounting and advisory services really enables you to have a relationship with your clients. Do you meet with them monthly, weekly? What do those conversations sound like? If they're just opening up the restaurant, we're probably meeting with them every week. And then if they're more mature, operating, they've kind of leveled out, it's usually on a monthly basis. But for the most part, we're looking at like what the most important KPIs are for the key performance indicators are. For us, it's like food costs, beverage costs, labor costs, for the hotels, it's average daily rate occupancy. And then looking at like, A, how do we cut costs? How do we maximize those numbers? But at the same time, like how do we generate more revenue? And I think that for a lot of folks in accounting, we're very focused on cutting costs and not necessarily generating more revenue. And so I think advisory incorporates a little bit more of that into it. And so for us, like the restaurant industry and hotels are very trendy, right? There's like a new trend. It seems like every day, eater comes out with their newsletter and they list a new trend that is happening. And it's our job to look at those trends and be like, is that worth chasing? Is that a sustainable business model or is that just something that's going to be a flash in the pan and be gone next week? Like, I mean, like post COVID we were all talking like restaurant people were all talking about like champagne and caviar. That's gone. Now we're talking about like a fan, the way to fancy up Mac and cheese. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. Roman, you said earlier that you did audit earlier in your career. Could you give us a compare and contrast between audit and CAS? Yeah, it's like champagne and caviar and mac and cheese. Yeah, so in my days in financial audit, it was really helpful to me to have that initial foundation of understanding a balance sheet, a P and L, a statement of cash flows and what the end result looks like. But from an audit standpoint, you're looking at everything after the fact. You're looking at everything historically and saying, was this accurate? You're taking sample methodology testing on certain transactions throughout the year in higher risk areas. And so it's a really good kind of high level view to ensure the accuracy materiality of the financial statements. However, it was always in arrears and it was always one of those things that is certainly more compliance driven for a bank or an investor, things like that. Now from a CAS standpoint to Chris's point, the three sixty four other days of the year, there are so many rhythms that need to happen. And when I think about advisory that we provide, it is very KPI, key performance indicator oriented. It is very operationally focused of how do we help our clients operate more effectively to meet their goals. And that could be just setting up a better rhythm with better technology or how data flows between their sales team and their delivery team. We're spending a lot of time operationally with our clients to run better businesses. Whereas from an audit standpoint, you weren't really engaged with the client in that type of relationship. So, it's far more embedded type of relationship from a CAS standpoint than it was with Financial Audit. And clients hate to see the auditors coming. It's a whole different relationship. Right. But they love you. Don't, do they? No. My clients, I will say, of them love us. Every once in a while, we have to have tough conversations with them where they're not a little happy because we see that they're doing things that are leading them down the wrong path. So, being able to kind of humanize these things makes it a whole lot easier for the relationship. Relationship, right? I think that's it. You're not an accountant who's crunching numbers in the sort of old school way of thinking that you are a coach, a mentor, an advisor, and that relationship is very real. And a therapist. Therapist. Yeah. So, Roman, your firm, Full Send, offers CFO advisory and data science, which is pretty cutting edge. Like you really are championing a new way for CAS firms to show up. Can you like tell more to the students about how do you pair CAS with CFO advisory and data science? How do you think about the suite of services? From an accounting standpoint, we're aggregating all the numbers, we're putting it together in a really readable and digestible format. And then the CFO part is interpretation of that and translating it to action. So it's making our clients aware of their profit margin by category, by product, looking at their labor efficiency ratio, making recommendations on how their team members, should be moving amongst different projects that they have. And so the CFO lens is far more focused on trying to help the business owner make better decisions, not making decisions for them, but rather just giving them a better framework on how to decision make given the data that's available. And so it's a slightly different way to be thinking about how to utilize that data that's structured to be able to help clients a little bit more effectively. So Chris, you brought up this idea of KPIs earlier and helping your hospitality clients make better decisions through chatting with them about their KPIs. Do you find that it's easier because you serve all hospitality clients? I assume the answer is yes, but like, tell us about why do you serve, like focus on one client type? You know, it's called a niche. Yes. Like, what are the benefits of that? It's easier to select who you're hiring. Having folks that work, have worked in that industry makes it much easier to do the accounting. You understand the business that What you're are other niches that you see in this space? Like nonprofit comes to mind as one. Nonprofit. I mean, at this point, there is probably an accounting firm for every conceivable industry that is as broad or specific as, as you want to go. I mean, even within just, there aren't a lot of other folks that, have decided to take on the burden of working with restaurants, but they're out there. And then there's people that are out there that deal with dentists. There are people that deal with chiropractors, like it gets very, very niche. And, I think that's kind of the interesting thing about it. Like you can choose to either work with a different type of business every day or work with somebody that you're really passionate about working with. I saw a niche the other day of somebody who started a firm, a tax practice focused on individuals who had winnings from fantasy football leagues. Interesting. That was the focus. I didn't know that was even a thing, but there's a niche for everything. The one that I heard was there's a guy who focuses solely on grocery stores. Yeah. I was like the supermarket accountant. I love it. Love it. Well, I think why this is so important is because CAS enables folks to really combine their passions. Like there is a career path for the students who are watching, maybe thought tax and audit were the only routes available to them. There are so many paths out there. You really can meld the different worlds you've been a part of. When we were at a conference earlier this year, we met a student who has a cake decorating background. There is likely an accounting firm that specializes in bakeshops. Maybe she can talk to Chris. We're hiring. Yeah, Chris is hiring. Talk to him. Okay. Hot takes on why accounting is So, as a data person, I'm always trying to interpret data to identify signal, right? And so right now, you look across the landscape of accounting, there's a lot of external capital, a lot of private equity coming into the space. And so when I look at that data, it gives me a signal that there's going to be a lot of opportunity in this CAS space. And I think a lot of that is actually predicated based on historically accounting firms were centered around audit and tax, and they are one time a year events. The CAS department is focused on that ongoing relationship with the clients. And so a lot of investment is going into that across small firms, medium sized, large firms. And so from an opportunity standpoint, if I'm a student, I'm looking at CAS saying, there's a lot of money going to this environment. There's a lot of opportunity to continue to further relationship building there and provide a lot of impact and value on the small business clients you'd be working with. So I don't think it's a hot take, but if I'm looking at the data, that's where the signal is telling me to go. Okay. I'm going to switch gears. Now, earlier you talked about technology. Yeah. So, maybe a common misperception of accounting is, you know, the like sepia toned guy in the visor pouring over the general ledger, like 1930s style, and that is not the case. Like, clearly we can see technology is a central part to how you deliver client advisory services. Maybe something new to our student audience. So, like, bring us to basics. How do you use technology to deliver CAS? Oh, man. First of all, I call myself an app technologist. I love tech. As a Black accountant, it's important for me to show up in ways that are unexpected so that my community can say, Wow, there's another Black woman doing this. That means I can too. And then what it does is it opens them up to understand that they're not alone. And then they can feel part of a larger ecosystem because there's representation. There is also someone who is willing to show all the things that she's doing in a firm to help grow it. I am a tech enthusiast. I've seen technology grow over the years and I've really learned to embrace it because I knew I did not want a traditional nine to five lifestyle. I am a night owl and I love to travel. In order for me to be able to do the thing that I love to do with the business, I also needed to be able to do it during the times that I wanted to and from wherever I had internet connection. And so technology has really played a big role in that in finding schools that work from your smartphone or make life easier without having to have a full on desktop setup. When I was able to go out on my own and create my own firm, I knew that tech had to be at the forefront. Tech allows us to communicate better and faster, and it allows us to have that real time data access in order to understand what's going on at any given moment. Technology enables us to get back to the things that we're doing to grow our businesses has really also been a game changer for my clients because the ultimate goal is for them to do what they're good at and for them to let me do the thing that I'm good at. So, I am big on understanding how people use tech nowadays. Back in the day, we had full desktop computers and we're all sitting at the desk. Nowadays, everybody walks around with a mini computer in your hand, which is your smartphone. So, a lot of the times when we're looking at technology, we are looking at apps that are mobile friendly, and ways to connect with our clients using the ways that they communicate, which is mobile on the go, whether it's being able to use QuickBooks as our primary accounting system to do all the number crunching, to delivering these reports in a client portal that is very secure that shouldn't be able to get hacked by the hackers because we know the hackers be hacking and the scammers be scamming. So, we try to meet clients where they are. The other thing, we were talking about niches, right? Understanding that if you're working in a particular niche and there's software that's specific to those industries, If you know that software inside and out, it makes it easier for us to do our job as well because we work with childcare and we know a few of the childcare management softwares. We can pull the pull side of that thing real quick. We can send clients instructions on how to add us as users in order to pull the data from there and get all these wonderful insights. So, that also helps to streamline the work that we're doing every single day. You know, that's a hot tip for students as they prepare their resumes. If they've had jobs in college, in restaurants or childcare, think about the software that you use as part of that work and bring that into your hiring, your resume, like how you show up with potential employers, right? I agree. Yeah. We had a team member who we found out later on that she worked in child care. And I was like, why did you lead with that? I could have had you in a different role because you understand the language of some of the child care centers that we work with. Right. I know, but yes, share, share that information. Right. It can feel easy to minimize our experiences. Feel like, oh, this wasn't quite professional, but actually CAS is the language of business. So if you've worked in a business in any capacity, that's quite valuable. Yeah. Yeah. It's like frequent that like people will take, will remove all of their restaurant experience from their resume because they think it's not relevant. And now I'm reviewing resumes, looking for that experience and it's not listed. But like the same is true for every single piece of technology, Toast, Stay In Touch, any of those sorts of things. Like that is more of a difference maker to me than Google Workspace, which everybody knows these days. It's not a differentiator. That's the bare minimum, you know? Sure. Yeah. I love that you mentioned just understanding the experience because that does play a role into it. We have some clients that they don't want to meet, they don't want to talk, they just want to get you what you need, and they want to do it just from the device that they have in their hand. That's a great point because I think Yesterday's Accountant, like we served their local community, but today's accountant that maybe has a niche has the privilege to work across different geographies because you can. Everything's in the cloud. So I have the opportunity to travel quite a bit for my role, whether that's going to visit a client on-site or traveling to speak at a conference or participating in an advisory board. I am constantly on the move, have to stay connected, have to ensure that our clients are getting what they need, team is being serviced really well. Work is constantly happening in those moments where I might not be at my desk on my computer. I want to make sure that I can stay engaged and help people however I can. My father was an entrepreneur growing up and so I had this example day in day out of my dad working tirelessly waking up at 4AM working only to turn around and become a soccer coach at 3PM. He gave me this example of a way to run a business and also prioritize the things in life that were important. And so when I started out to start a company and start Full Send, knew that I wanted to prioritize not only for myself but for our team and to enable our clients with additional time and capacity and investment in the things that we all cherish in life. Whether that's family or going for a run or spending time outside it's just kind of core to who we are. And so we've leaned very heavily into the ethos of the things that drive you, the things that you're passionate about, and the things you want to invest time in personally because work is an enabler to help you pursue those things personally. We have this very lofty mission of elevating outcomes, which doesn't mean a whole lot unless you actually practice it. So for us, we want to elevate an outcome for our team, our clients, our community. Let me put this in a frame for our students. Actually, what are the skills that they need to start building and working on? Like, of course, knowing accounting theory, no brainer, obviously, right? We've talked about technology. We've talked about client communication. We've talked about analysis. Like, how do you think about for students just coming out of college, what skills do you want them to have? Oh, so one of the questions I ask in the interview process, it always throws people for a loop. What is your favorite app? And sell it to me like I've never heard of it before. So the ability to explain why you love something is key for me because I want to see passion. So if you are starting out, there's got to be something that you absolutely love and enjoy. Make sure that's a part of who you are and what you bring to any interview. Put it on your resume. So like Chris mentioned, you worked in a restaurant. Put that on your resume. You love that job. Highlight what you did there because all of those skills transfer into accounting in some form or fashion. And I also love to see people who aren't afraid to fail. I know we talk about failure as if it's something terrible, but the ability to take a chance and take a risk and then learn from it is a big driver for me to bring somebody on my team. That means you are eagerly as excited to fix the mess. You know, you make a mistake, we can fix it. Not unless you add a few extra zeros when you're paying somebody. Million dollar check But might that's really interesting and provocative because I think for lots of accountants, they are trained that everything has to tick and tie. Perfection is key, and that it's actually not okay to not know or to have to ask questions. But it sounds like, yes, okay, quality of work has to be there, you're asking for the opposite. Yeah, I'm asking for people who are willing to take a risk and also say, I think I messed up. I don't know how to fix this. Can you help me fix it? But I tried something. It's more about the try. It's the action. I tell my team all the time, the motto that I live by is, Do or do not, there's no try. That's Yoda, by the way. You know, there's no, I don't like the middle ground. It's either we did it or we didn't do it. And if we didn't do it, how can we do it the next time? How can we do it better so that the client is happy? And my team is starting to click. They're like, yes, okay, we can do this. So, Chris, I know you hire folks who are incredibly passionate about the hospitality industry. So, maybe tell us, you look for that passion. How do you then train them to do the job of an accountant and grow into an advisor? Yeah, so it's required that, folks, get their level one certification within the first month on QuickBooks. And then within the first six months, they need to have level two done. We also hire a lot of people that, have no accounting background. And so for those folks, we also, will have them do the bookkeeping certification. We also will have them, take, managerial and financial accounting. In a college? In a college setting. So it's really this learning journey where you help them build those skills so that they can grow in their career. Okay. I mean, Intuit QuickBooks Online certification, of course, near and dear to my heart. But Nayo Roman, like, is this valuable to you that someone has it? How do you think about this when you see it on someone's resume? So for me, it makes me believe that they know the products that we're using because I am a big proponent of understanding the fundamentals. Because when you understand how things are supposed to be, it doesn't matter which technology platform you put things in, then you'll understand what the output is supposed to look like. Look at the output. So, level one and level two near and dear to both my heart. Right? And so for us on that, we have our, our team, if they're not already level one certified, go through level one certification because all of our clients are on QuickBooks and the vast majority of the companies coming in to work with us are also on QuickBooks. It's just a core competency that I think is really important. And especially in the education realm, you're starting to move from theory to practicality. It's a really big shift because you're starting to take what you've learned and the theory behind accounting and now actually learn a way to practically implement this for other small businesses. So whether or not that's going to work with a firm like what we run, you can use it in another small business setting, whether you're working directly at the small business or starting your own company. And so having that certification for us is definitely a lens that there is a higher degree of practicality to the type of work that we do for our clients. Oh, that's such a, like, I feel like you just hit on the heart of it. Like CAS is this blending of accounting with technology, with business context. And so just having that certification shows, Hey, I, as a job seeker, a student, know how to apply accounting theory through the lens of this software? Yes. Well, we've just been talking about certifications, specifically the QuickBooks Online Level one certification, which is offered to pro advisors to help them get started using the Intuit platform. So I had the chance to get to know professor David Waite, who teaches accounting at Utah Valley University, and learn more about his approach to blending accounting theory with the hands on tech skills students need. David, I'd love it if you could share more about your approach to teaching accounting. Like every teacher, Jacqueline, I love transactions. I love to be able to help a student take a debit and credit and see how it fits into a financial statement. But it's got to be more than that. With all that's happening in AI, we've got to be able to help you move from just a transaction to an actual process, seeing the big picture and ultimately driving to the reports that help students or users make better decisions. Remember, CAS is business. I mean, those two are synonymous. Synonymous. And so as you look at this, you have to be able to see that the transaction by itself isn't enough. An accountant can't just be walk in, do a transaction, and walk off. You've got to be able to walk in, do the transaction, see the process, see the picture, see the report, and help them make better decisions. That's why we're partnering with Intuit, is we want to be able to help them see, these students see, all of you see. We want you to be able to see how those transactions ultimately lead to decision making. I think certifications build confidence. You can walk out to an employer and say, I've taken debits and credits, but also I'm certified, and I've done some case studies to back up that certification, because the certification that Jacqueline and her team have built isn't just about the step by step. It is pulling you out and helping you see the resources available to you as a professional. That to me was the reason why we leaned on the certification, and specifically one that is respected by the CAS industry. We wanted it to be something that everyone recognized. You get QBO certified and step out. I don't care what company it is, they know what you're certified in. Having an understanding of QuickBooks to meanings, you have an understanding of business. And as you understand business, it means it prepares you for any profession. You want to go tax? You're better off understanding QuickBooks. You want to go audit? Guess what you're auditing? Underlying business of things like QuickBooks. Having a certification like this prepares you for all all accounting industries. I don't care which one it is because it helps you understand how a transaction gets into books and how a process report decision making. Like, you see that. It's not just transaction. It helps you pull out and see that big picture. David, thank you so much for joining us on today's career lab. Thank you. I love being here. You heard from professor Wait how important it is to get a QuickBooks Online certification. So let me show you how to access the program. To start, head to the Intuit AccountantSuite webpage. If you haven't heard about AccountantSuite, it is your home to manage your firm, clients, and team all on one platform. If you don't have an account, click sign in to get started. I happen to already have an account, so I'll go ahead and log in. So here we are in my Intuit AccountantSuite homepage. I'll go ahead and navigate to apps and then click on ProAdvisor and ProAdvisor Training. This allows me to jump into ProAdvisor Academy, which is our home for all of the ProAdvisor training and certification programs. Once I'm in Academy, I'll head over to programs and navigate to the QuickBooks Online level one. I'm already enrolled in the program, so I'll click continue learning. But if you're not enrolled, you'll click enroll. And here we are. This is where the learning happens. Within the program, there's five courses. You can take these in the order of your choosing. At the end of each course, there's a short exam. To get certified, you'll need to pass all five courses and their associated exams. Or if you already have the knowledge, go ahead and toggle on the test out and you can take the exam in one fell swoop. Either way, you will earn your ProAdvisor Certification badge, which you can put on your resume, on your LinkedIn, anywhere you feel gives you that credibility. The program takes about eight hours to complete, which you can do at the time of your convenience. So no matter how you choose to get certified, just do it. This is what will give you a leg up on the job market. Okay. Lightning round to close this out. What is a hot tip you can give students to jump start their career search now that they're inspired to find a career in CAS? Oh, I'll jump on this one. So if you you should have a LinkedIn profile already. And if you don't, please set one up, connect with me. I will accept. I'll send you a message. Ask how it's going. Ask if I can help you. Set up LinkedIn profile, establish the about me section, establish a little bit of your work history, what your goals are, and then start to engage in the network. Start to reach out to your parents, your parents' friends, your friends and colleagues that have graduated before you, and just start to establish that network as early as possible. It will help immensely. I would say also, like, if you're like, we're all applying to a lot of jobs, right? If you're actually like really excited about a job, write a cover letter. It's fine if you have AI write it, but read it and like actually make sure that it like vibes with like who you are as a person. It makes a huge difference. Those, the jobs that have the cover letter on them. I read through them and like, it immediately is like a differentiator for me. Chris, can I ask a question on that? So if a student reaches out to you on LinkedIn and they say, Hey, Chris, I've worked in a restaurant for the last four years in school. I'm super interested in what you guys are doing. What would be the best way to connect with you or apply to work at your firm? Like how do you respond to that? Because it's kind of an informal way to connect with a firm in an area that they enjoy. It shows me that you want, that you want to work there because like nowadays it's so easy to just like carpet bomb, job applications. And so like, even like that informal way to do it, I always put them to at least get an interview. Right. If they made that extra effort, then I'm going to make that extra effort to like, make sure that you like get your shot at like, at the job that you really want. Same. That's awesome. Yeah. I've had interns call my office and I hired them just because they called. And I like, I'm an intern. I'm a student. I'm looking for internship. I'm a student. And I'm like, I love your initiative. I don't have a posting? Cool. Come work. Right. Yeah. So, initiatives for me is a big one. And if you're going to have LinkedIn, make sure we see your face. I need a profile picture. So, my biggest tip is always read. The devil is in the details. And so, a lot of the job postings will have some hidden gem in there that you miss because you didn't follow the basic instructions like name your resume, first name, last name, something, something, something. So, be sure that this kind of slow down and read all of the information. Reach out. I love this idea about reaching out to the owners and building your profile online. I am a micro influencer, so I'm not going lie. I'm going go look at your socials. So, make sure your socials are very clean. Or if not, so that some of your hot takes aren't quite upfront, But really, just think about who am I and who do I want to be and lean into that because I love people with personalities. So, yourself. We want your authentic self to show up at work. I love this. Don't be scared to stand out. Be yourself. Know your why and go full send. Yeah, commit. Roman, Nayo, Chris, thank you so much for being here today and for sharing your wonderful insights and intelligence with this student audience. We hope that you feel inspired to pursue a career in CAS. Thank you so much for being here with us today.