Continued Professional Development (CPD) is mandatory for most accounting professionals, and is a terrific way to sharpen your skills, refine your services, and prepare for increasing digitalisation.

The question is, how do you find time in an already full schedule? This guide shows you quick and easy ways to up your CPD as an accounting professional.

To start with, look at your CPD requirements. If you’re part of a professional body (like AAT, ACCA, or ICAEW), you need to complete a certain amount of CPD to maintain your membership. Once you know how much you need to complete each year, you can divide this up into monthly or weekly learning slots to suit your schedule.

There are three different types of CPD learning – structured (active learning), reflective (passive learning), and informal (self-directed learning). You should use a combination of these learning types to meet your CPD targets.

Try a mix of resources including:

You can learn more about CPD formats and learning types on the official CPD certification service website.

Next, you’ll want to set some learning goals. While it’s true that you can simply pick CPD resources that are interesting to you, a targeted approach will help you acquire skills that are genuinely useful in practice.

Think about which skills would add the most value to your practice, team, and clients – then set goals that align with these things. For example, learning how to provide sustainability accounting services to help your clients with their environmental targets. This way, your learning can have a tangible impact on your practice.

Planning your learning approach early in the year means you can turn CPD into a weekly or monthly habit. Perhaps you only need to complete 30 minutes a week, once you’ve broken it down. That’s much more manageable than tackling 40 or 50 hours of CPD in one fell swoop.

Whatever your goals and schedule for CPD, use a tracking system to keep an eye on progress. This will come in handy if you have to declare CPD activities to a professional body. It doesn’t have to be complicated – a basic spreadsheet will do.

Practice workloads can change in a flash, especially during busy season. So you won’t always have the same amount of time for learning each week.

Embracing different learning formats can help you overcome this challenge. Look out for spaces in your calendar – those 15-minute blocks that are perfect for listening to a podcast or reading an article. Here are some ways to fit learning into your daily schedule:

If you can, set up a regular calendar slot for ‘learning time.’ Throughout the month, collect learning resources you come across and save them to a document or spreadsheet. Build a bank of dependable resources and learning providers so you never run out of things to study.

You might already be doing things that count towards CPD – so it helps to check the requirements. If you know you’re attending a conference, find out which talks count towards CPD and make a point of attending. If you’re using new tools or software to service your clients, look for tool-related courses or training that also count towards CPD.

Microlearning can be a particularly effective method for tools-based training (think five-minute tutorials that you can immediately apply to your work).

By combining formats, you can also make learning more exciting. You might discover certain methods work better for you than others (perhaps online webinars aren’t your style, but self-paced courses work a treat for your busy schedule).

A dose of external accountability can help you keep on top of your learning. Your practice team can be a source of motivation and encouragement, especially if your willpower slips.

Learning doesn’t have to be a solo activity. You can join group courses, teach and mentor each other, and share resources. Putting skills into practice is crucial for retention, so grabbing half an hour to show your colleagues what you learned can be beneficial across the board.

To get the whole practice involved you could:

When you or your team reach a CPD milestone, celebrate this in your practice. It’s easy to lose sight of how far you’ve come without regular touch-points and rewards.

By breaking down your CPD requirements into monthly or weekly tasks, learning becomes easy to embed in your routine.

Platforms like Syft Campus can help you build valuable practice skills and meet your CPD quota at the same time. Syft Campus courses, webinars, and live training can all be used towards CPD points (or CPE points, depending on where you’re based). You just need to hold onto your certificate, keep the course outline, and note the competencies covered and hours spent training.

For more tool-based learning that helps you build a healthy practice, check out the Xero certification. Discover how to get even more out of Xero for accountants and bookkeepers whilst delighting your clients with even better services.

Ebony-Storm is the Lead Freelance Writer for Xero. She is a freelance writer focused on business, technology, and work. You can find her words on SaaS company websites, publications, and in her email newsletter about freelancing.