CPA Australia: the CPA Good Practice Guide

About our entry

We're entering the CPA Good Practice Guide under the Supporting category. We recognise that the knowledge within our membership is one of our strongest assets. The concept underpinning the guide is to enable the members of CPA Australia to access their combined intellectual capital. It shows the importance we place on giving members access to knowledge and on enabling them to exchange what they know with each other.

This entry was constructed in the same platform as the Good Practice Guide - a wiki. Along with giving our members the tools to connect and exchange with each other anytime/anywhere, our organisation is committed to ensuring we do this ourselves.

The Good Practice Guide wiki was launched in the Asia Pacific region in August: see some of the press response

Who is CPA Australia?

CPA Australia is one of the world's largest accounting bodies with a membership of more than 117,000 finance, accounting and business professionals across the globe. Our international presence continues to grow in terms of representation on international bodies and influence in the profession globally. Our members work in more than 100 countries around the world.

Find out more: About CPA Australia and our members

What is the CPA Good Practice Guide?

The CPA Good Practice Guide is a collaborative initiative between CPA Australia and our members. The first step in the creation of a CPA Australia wiki of member-generated content, the aim of the guide is to provide members with a comprehensive array of tools, procedures, templates and checklists that can be applied to day-to-day business situations.

The guide has been designed with two main objectives:

• To provide CPA Australia members with ready access to examples of good practice that can be quickly and simply used in their daily work
• To capture the collective knowledge and experience of the CPA Australia membership globally

The concept for the Good Practice Guide was initiated by the members of CPA Australia themselves. Their aim was to provide value by accessing the knowledge of members and documenting good practices for their benefit.

Originally launched in Australia in 2007, the guide and its content has been reinvigorated in a wiki-based platform in 2008. Along with the Australian resources, it features content from Asian organisations, members and regulatory bodies. Currently the guide consists of over 150 resources covering a wide range of topic areas with content sourced from individual members, corporations and regulatory bodies from Australia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

View a short demonstration of the Good Practice Guide -->

How does it work?

The guide is offered via a SocialText wiki that has been integrated with CPA Australia's website. Members enter via a customisable dashboard that highlights the key topic categories available and provides helpful information management options including:

• Whats new: updates the latest changes to the guide or create an RSS feed to get updates delivered
• Announcements and links: easy access to key topics
• Watchlist: allows user to keep track of specific pages important to their work

This wiki format allows users to comment directly on any page, begin a conversation with other members related to the information on the page, or post an update or suggestion for improvement. The guide has been structured to allow users to easily find information with related themes linked by tags. Additional tags can be suggested through the comment function.

Member review groups have checked all existing content for relevancy and ease of use as 'good practices'. Recognising that good practices evolve and change, the development of the Good Practice Guide is an iterative process based on use and feedback from members. In the current version of the guide the 'What else would you like to see?' page provides a space for members to suggest topics, resources or improvements that could be included in the guide. Members or organisations can also submit new resources via an email. The submissions are then reviewed by a committee of CPA Australia members and additions are made as appropriate.

The guide will continue to grow through member feedback and contributions.

Where to next?

The format of the guide allows the natural growth of information and good practices through the continued contributions from CPA Australia's 117,000 members worldwide. The existing platform provides the flexibility to scale the guide as the scope and number of contributions increases. In future versions members will be able to contribute directly to specific sections. The ultimate goal is to create a community-generated and managed repository of knowledge available for the benefit of all CPA Australia members.

Find out more: How the CPA Good Practice Guide delivers value to our business