RSM Singapore conducted a training workshop from 7th – 8th July 2022, for members of CPA Australia on the use of Python programming for accounting and finance functions. This workshop, conducted by Ow Ghim Siong, Deputy Head of Data Science and his team, offered participants an overview of how Python can be used to enhance their job efficiencies. Participants included former Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), senior Vice-Presidents (VPs) and finance managers.

 

RSM equipped participants with basic Python Coding Expertise 

During the two-day hands-on workshop, participants were exposed to basic programming concepts and the use of community-supported libraries to perform standard tasks such as reading data from various sources as well as processing, analysing and visualising them.

Through a series of guided practical exercises, participants learnt the fundamentals of coding and tried their hand at writing their own codes to perform a set of pre-defined tasks. All these exercises simulated actual tasks in the accounting and finance space.

 

RSM addressed organisations' pain points 

During the training, RSM Singapore also demonstrated several use cases of the tool to:

  • Connect to SQL databases hosted on a remote server, extract information from source tables and perform data analytics;
  • Enter information into web forms, control the website, extract key information and export them to a spreadsheet;
  • Perform fuzzy matching to reconcile descriptions between lists of invoices and bank statements;
  • Screen through email folders, download PDF attachments from relevant emails and automate the extraction of transactional data from the PDFs; and
  • Automate the generation of a one-page management financial report, based on trial balance inputs.

Through these demonstrations, participants were able to better appreciate the diverse capabilities of Python within the context of their job functions.

 

To find out more on how our data science team can assist you, please consult our specialists:

Adrian Tan 
Partner & Industry Lead, Technology, Media & Telecommunications 
T: +65 6594 7876 
[email protected]

Ow Ghim Siong 
Deputy Head, Data Science 
T: +65 6594 7586 
[email protected]