Best Practices

Sponsored by Deloitte

The competition deadline for submissions expired Sunday, December 1, 2024 11:59 PM ET. 

Overview

Best practices are activities created and completed by a chapter to further specific goals identified by the board of directors of Beta Alpha Psi and by Deloitte LLP (Deloitte). These activities exemplify the spirit and purpose of Beta Alpha Psi and, if applicable, allow other chapters to emulate those activities.

Prize/Award

Mid-Year Meetings: 1st Place - $1,000, 2nd Place - $500 and 3rd Place - $250

Annual Meeting: 1st Place - $1,500, 2nd Place - $1,000 and 3rd Place - $500

Eligibility

All chapters are eligible to participate in Best Practices.

The following actions will result in disqualification:

• Failure to respond to any of the questions on the submission form
• Emailing your submission to your Chapter Advocate or the Executive Office
• All late submissions will automatically be disqualified

Award Process

To accomodate as many chapters as possible to present, chapters will enter their first and second choices of meeting locations to present. Chapter may only present and compete in Best Practices at one mid-year meeting.

2024-2025 Best Practices Manual

The top 3 teams from each category at the U.S. Mid-Year meetings and top 2 teams from each category at the Oceania Mid-Year meeting qualify to compete in the Best Practices competition at the Annual Meeting.

Deadline: May 31, 2025 11:59 PM ET

*Eligible presenting teams may submit their final abstract here. Winning chapters must notify the BAP Executive Office or designated coordinator of their intention to attend and compete at the Annual Meeting.

*Eligible Presenting Teams

• U.S. Mid-Year Meetings: The top three teams in each category
  Oceania Mid-Year Meeting: The top two teams in each category

Winners are determined by a group of judges made up of board and Professional Partners members. Judges act independently of any student, college/university, and chapter affiliation.

2024-2025 Best Practices Topics 

Theme: Leading with Purpose. Driving Change.

Leading with Purpose. Driving Change as a financial information professional means playing a vital role in shaping the economic landscape and influencing societal well-being. Your decisions affect personal and institutional finances, job markets, and economic stability. Acting with integrity and responsibility, you help build trust and create a positive impact on society. Your work today will have lasting effects, shaping the world around you and the future for generations to come.

Topics

Key points for all categories:

1. Why is this a “Best Practice” and how is this different from anything done previously?
2. The number of members and non-members involved in your program.
3. How much time was invested in the program (planning, promoting, execution)?
4. What were your expectations and goals for your program?
5. How did you determine you would measure success?
6. What were the challenges and how did you meet them?
7. How could another chapter replicate or implement this best practice?
8. Is this program new for your chapter or something that has been ongoing?
9. How is your chapter planning to sustain this program in future years?

Impacting Connections in Your Chapter 

Promoting community in Beta Alpha Psi is one of our strategic priorities. We are committed to building and engaging an interconnected membership empowered by a broader mixture of backgrounds and views to strengthen innovation, scholarship, social responsibility, professional development, and excellence.

Describe how your chapter developed recruitment strategies that reached out to a wider range of students. Your strategy must have gone beyond just a single professional meeting or panel discussion. What new strategies helped you achieve a feeling of belonging in your chapter for all its members? What groups did you reach out to beyond your chapter? What barriers did you experience and how did you overcome them? What was the impact on your chapter and its members and what did you learn from your expanded outreach?

Impacting Your Profession

The mission of Beta Alpha Psi is to encourage “the study and practice of accountancy, finance, and areas related to business analytics or digital technology.” An issue facing the financial information professions is the decreasing number of accountants, known as the “accounting pipeline” issue. Many organizations have shared their insights about this problem. However, very little input has come from students. As members of Beta Alpha Psi, you understand the importance of the financial information professions and can make a significant contribution to this effort. 

Describe a program that your chapter began to draw students into your chapter OR to draw students into the accounting major. How did you leverage your chapter’s professional relationships to accomplish this? If this is a continuing program, describe this year’s new innovations. What barriers did you experience and how did you overcome them? What obstacles did non-accounting majors have with the accounting profession and how did your program address those barriers? What was the impact of your program on the number of non-accounting candidates/members in your chapter OR the number of accounting majors in your business school/college? 

Impacting Your Community

Dedicating yourselves to meaningful community service is a fundamental element of Beta Alpha Psi membership. Community service plays a vital role in building a stronger, more compassionate, and interconnected society. As members of this distinguished honor organization of financial information professionals, you can leverage your unique skills to enhance the effectiveness and value of your community service endeavors. 

What service activities did your chapter participate in beyond your immediate campus boundaries? How did your service activities align with your business school’s/college’s societal impact goals? Did your chapter partner with other student organizations, community groups, or local businesses in your service projects? What impact did these activities have? How did you measure that impact? What barriers did you experience and how did you overcome them? How were your service activities communicated to your dean and your community(ies)?