Sharada Bhansali – 2017 Most Powerful Women in Accounting Honoree
Employer: AccountantsWorld
Title: Co-Founder and President
Website URL: www.accountantsworld.com
Education (Degree/school): MA in Mathematics, MS in Industrial Engineering from State University of Buffalo
What opportunities do you feel women in accounting have now that they didn’t have when you started in the profession?
The percentage of women in accounting was pretty significant all along, but very few women were in leadership positions. The percentage of women in accounting has increased now, but more importantly more women are in management positions.
How important is work/life balance and what suggestions do you have for those who are struggling to attain this?
While there were times when I had not been able to keep my work-life balance as I would have liked, overall I am very happy with the work-life balance I was able to keep. I raised two children while I was running AccountantsWorld with my husband. There were times when I was very busy. At that time I focused more on quality of time I spent with my children then quantity of time. Many small things like all of us having dinner together helped me to spend more time with my family. The most important contributors to having the work-life balance for me are focus on quality and efficiency.
What is the most difficult part about being a woman in the accounting profession?
Public accounting has demanding peak periods of long working hours which poses difficulties for some women. Find a firm who allows the flexibility of working from home. Cloud technology enables accountants to work more efficiently from home using a flexible schedule than working in the office under a regimented schedule.
What is the best part about being a women in the accounting profession?
Professional accountants, male or female, are in general good with numbers. In the next few years, virtually all accounting firms will need to migrate to the cloud and work differently.
Real-time data access, real time collaboration with clients and mobile devices will have a profound impact on the profession. It has already started to increase the productivity of accounting firms. Now accountants are turning from being reactive ‘number crunchers’ to proactive trusted advisers in real time. That is having a positive impact on small businesses. I don’t see any other profession where they can make a greater impact.
How do you see yourself participating in shaping the future of the accounting profession?
My focus is to help as many accounting firms as possible to take full advantage of the opportunities presented by unprecedented advances in technology to revitalize their firms, raise their relevance and make their firms more profitable. I feel fortunate to be in a position to make significant contributions in this direction.
At AccountantsWorld I led the development of highly innovative solutions to change the landscape of two core services, payroll and accounting, by taking full advantage of the capabilities of the cloud. Our Payroll Relief is the first cloud-based professional payroll solution that has enabled accountants to offer highly profitable payroll services. Accounting Power is the first accounting system created exclusively for professional accountants to have stronger control over accounting, so they can better serve their clients, add value to clients’ businesses and raise their relevance.
Our primary focus now is to help accountants offer highly profitable Client Accounting Services. We have already added many capabilities to our solutions and continue to add more to make this a reality.
Looking back at your career, what would you do differently given the knowledge you have today and how can women who are entering the benefit from that knowledge?
I’m fortunate to have been a technologist. That gave me an opportunity to do what has the potential to make the most difference in the professional life of accountants and that’s what drives me to do my best to find new ways to use technology to give accountants capabilities to do better for themselves and their clients.
Learn more about the 2017 Most Powerful Women in Accounting.
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