At the end of May, the UK’s largest event for accountant and finance professionals takes place—Accountex London. Across two days, you have the chance to discover new products, hear keynotes from leading experts, and network with more than 7,000 peers.

To make sure your valuable time is not wasted, you must take the time to plan ahead, determining what you want to get out of the event and how you will go about it.  To help you, we asked those who have been there and done it already for their best insider tips.

Plan for success

You are investing a full day, or possibly two, of your time, so it’s so important that you maximise your investment. Make sure you plan for success.

Before you go to Accountex, write down what your key objectives are. Decide what you want to get out of the event. If it’s knowledge, be specific and identify what you want to learn and where your gaps in knowledge are. If it’s technology, outline what systems you need or what processes you can improve.

Determine what you want, what success looks like to you and plan accordingly. If you go into this event with a plan, you will get a return on your investment.

Wayne Schmidt — Karbon

Take a systematic approach

We have attended Accountex the last two years and are set to be there again this year. It is always a busy two days, but the event has been awesome for the development of our business.

We take the following approach:

1. Identify before attending what areas of our business we are looking to change or improve.

2. Review the list of exhibitors and decide which vendors and people we need to speak to.

3. We review the list of speakers and sessions being delivered and we make sure that we highlight the ones we want to go and see. There is always at least two of us from the team, so if we need to, we can split up and share what we’ve learned afterward.