PayFit and Quantico Announce Learning Partnership to Bridge Accountancy-Tech Skills Gap

Hot off the presses: We’ve just gone into partnership with our friends at Quantico for the launch of an exciting new course. 

The FinOps Academy aims to bridge the gap between traditional accounting training and what today’s startups really need. 

Not only will PayFit sponsor one of the foundational modules - students will also get first-hand experience using our payroll software as part of the projects in this highly practical course. Let’s take a look at what students will be learning and what this means for the finance industry.    

Bridging the skills gap between accounting and tech 

The modern finance function requires a skills upgrade. It’s now commonplace for companies to want finance professionals who can code, analyse data and get to grips with things like automation.

This trend has given rise to a new, exciting field called FinOps. It’s where finance, data and operations all intersect to support today’s tech-focused businesses. 

But traditional accounting training continues to lag. It means graduates enter the job market unprepared and out of step with what real-life startups and scale-ups need. They’ve learned a lot of accounting theory. But now they’ve got to build real processes and systems to enable businesses to grow.

Dan Hully, founder of Quantico, is keen for this shift to happen: “I want to make that transition easier for other people and pass on the experience I’ve gained“.

Introducing the FinOps Academy

Enter Quantico’s new FinOps Academy.

A first-of-its-kind course dedicated to finance professionals in startups, its mission is to bridge the gap between traditional accounting training and what startup finance teams really need. 

The course is set to go live on September 28th and is sponsored by industry-leading software providers, including PayFit, Causal, Rebank and Pleo. Students can sign up for the course here as well as follow updates on social.

According to Dan, modules will cover all of the skills finance professionals need to succeed in the startup environment, including building a modern FinTech stack, managing financial databases and how to become a FinOps expert. Among other qualities and traits students will hone are how to create seamless processes, solve real-life problems and how to scale and lead a finance team. 

Students will apply everything they’ve learned to solve a real life FinOps problem for a fictional company using FinOps software such as PayFit.

The FinOps Academy is the brainchild of both Dan and course designer Sophie Conaghan. Sophie, a FinOps lead herself, puts it best:

“We learnt our FinOps skills the hard way by making mistakes and learning from them. So we wanted to share that knowledge with the next generation of FinOps experts so they don’t have to go through the same thing. Students will have access to practical guides, startup cloud software and obtain lifelong access to a community of experts.”