If you think Facebook is too personal and LinkedIn too general, maybe beansTalk is the social network for you—if you’re an accounting professional, that is. The network offers many of the features of other online social networks, but has been “custom-designed for Canada’s tax, accounting, financial planning and bookkeeping professionals“, according to a press release announcing the site. This means that discussions revolve around accounting and finance topics like International Financial Reporting Standards and tax compliance. The site also features blogs specialized for the network and from external sources.
Lucky for you, non-members can currently access all the available content (as far as I can tell) by logging in as a guest. For the moment, though, the site appears to offer little that couldn’t be found already with a quick search on Google, LinkedIn or even Facebook. Still, surely there is value in a centralized forum for Canadian accounting pros to ask questions, and specialized blogs on relevant topics.
Do accounting professionals need their own custom-designed social network? Are they really having trouble networking, staying connected and finding out about events and trends? I don’t know, but if you have an opinion I’d like to hear it.
Adam Gorley
First Reference Internal Controls, Human Resources and Compliance Editor
Accountants new to public practice & those practicing as sole-proprietors need to network – bounce ideas off peers and learn from experienced professionals.
The members only page on TaxBoard has an excellent discussion forum for Canadian Tax Professionals. On the forum, we also evaluate tax software & discuss practice technology issues, refer clients to other members and share great jokes to make tax season less stressful. Taxboard gives me free access to the collective knowledge & experience of members practicing in the field of Canadian and International Taxation.
I also find IACCOUNTANT and Taxboard very useful because the home pages have links to all frequently used sites for Canadian Accountants, thus eliminating the need for me to maintain a list of ‘favourites’.
Thanks for the comment Sujata!
I’ll look into the other communities you mention.
What makes these communities useful to you?
I have been a member CCH’s beanstalk network for almost a year. You are right Adam, the site is still evolving and does not presently have a lot to offer that cannot be found elsewhere.
Other accounting software makers like Intuit also have similar communities.
As a designated accountant, I have access to many resources. But the ones I like best & use most are
‘iaccountants.ca’-web resources for Canadian Accounting Professionals
‘taxboard.ca’ – a place for Canadian Tax Professionals to interact.
These communities were set up a few years ago by a group of talented accountants.