If you were asked to rank an accountant\u2019s skills in order of importance, you might not place interpersonal skills high on that list. But the ability to create personal relationships has now become indispensable, argues Director of AR Advisors Mark Giglia.<\/p>\n
\u201cCloud accounting has greatly reduced the amount of time we spend processing debit and credit transactions,\u201d Giglia says, referring to accounting programs, such as Xero and MYOB, where data can be stored and accessed online.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can now use real-time data to advise clients on their business performance and focus on reporting against our clients\u2019 key performance indicators.<\/p>\n
\u201cSolutions don\u2019t come from a spreadsheet. They come from creative thinking and a strong, close working relationship between advisor and client.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, interpersonal skills are the now the most requested set of skills for accountants across Australia and New Zealand, according to a study of more than 39,000 advertisements published in the Accounting Education <\/i><\/em>journal in 2018.<\/p>\n \u201cAccountants don\u2019t work in the background anymore,\u201d Giglia says.<\/p>\n \u201cThey need to be comfortable advising clients face to face.\u201d<\/p>\n Giglia has worked at Perth-based accountancy firm AR Advisors \u2013 an early adopter of digital advances in tax, compliance and cloud-based bookkeeping \u2013 since 1992.<\/p>\n Lately, under the leadership of both him and the other directors, the company has transitioned into new areas, including virtual chief financial officer (CFO) services offered as part of its gold or platinum business bundles.<\/p>\n This means AR Advisors will undertake a holistic analysis of its clients and provide recommendations as to how its clients can improve their bottom lines.<\/p>\n These services align with the latest industry insights by NAB in their 2018 Key Insights into the Australian Accounting Industry <\/i><\/em>report, which found that one in five Australian small-to-medium enterprises want additional help with their business strategy, and advice on financial future and growth opportunities, on top of the services they already receive.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to work on strategies with our clients that will enhance their key drivers of revenue and build efficiencies in the delivery of those costs,\u201d Giglia says.<\/p>\n \u201cBy having people who can go beyond the numbers and work in collaboration with our clients to help them reach their objectives, we deliver greater client satisfaction, which in turn benefits our business.\u201d<\/p>\n Giglia, who is also a Director of Perth-based self-managed super fund business Altimus, thinks students who choose to study at Curtin will be well placed for a successful career in the rapidly evolving accounting industry.<\/p>\n \u201cMy accounting degree gave me a strong basis of knowledge to start my career in public practice.<\/p>\n \u201cI was also given the skills to become a self-starter, which have been very useful in my career. I believe that if you can motivate yourself to work hard, you\u2019ll achieve great results.\u201d<\/p>\n To ensure students build their interpersonal skills, Giglia thinks it\u2019s important students network with their peers and industry professionals.<\/p>\n \u201cA degree can teach you the \u2018what\u2019 but at the end of the day, a lot of business, especially when it comes to career progression, is about the \u2018who\u2019, as in your reputation and who knows about you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the era of cloud computing, accountants can\u2019t just spend their time crunching numbers, argues Director of AR Advisors and Director of Altimus Mark Giglia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":7817,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,49],"tags":[240],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-7816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-innovation","category-business-innovation-and-law","tag-datascience"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"Graduate snapshot","content":" Name:<\/b><\/strong> Mark Giglia
\nRole: <\/b><\/strong>Director of AR Advisors<\/a>, Director of Altimus<\/a>
\nStudied:<\/b><\/strong> Bachelor of Business (Accounting)
\nRelated: <\/b><\/strong>Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting)<\/a>
\nGraduated:<\/b><\/strong> 1990<\/p>\n","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"","qualification":"","link":"","description":"","faculty":""}],"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Mark-Giglia-WP-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Â鶹ֱ²¥"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 09:43:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7816"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=7816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}