Whether you are a CFO, investment banker, financial management professional, or a financial analyst, you will use a wide variety of tools to for number crunching on a daily basis. These could include budgeting and expense tracking tools, mid-level accounting software like QuickBooks, Sage, and Zoho, tax-based platforms and number-crunching tools like Quicken and TurboTax, or financial analysis tools for comparative financial statements, ratio analysis, benchmarking analysis, etc.
Enterprises would also use more complex software like Oracle NetSuite ERP, cloud-based accounting software like FreshBooks, Tally ERP, to name a few. Your work profile may require you to do a lot of online research and work on multiple files simultaneously.
You need the right device to help you maximize your productivity while number crunching, analysing business-critical financial data, and multi-tasking.
Let’s delve deep into what device you need as a finance professional.
Finance professionals need a device with a moderately-powerful processor, decent amount of RAM, a keyboard with dedicated numeric keypad, large display, large and fast storage and extended battery life. You don’t really need a dedicated GPU as finance workflows hardly use it. But if you are planning to connect an external hi-res display, it might have some use. In addition to these finance-relevant, primary specifications, you might also need an excellent connectivity suite for facilitating stable internet connections and quick data transfers. Also, you should look at a lightweight laptop for managing finances on the go.
Recommended Specs
Professionals end up using the laptop for multiple other aligned processes and, therefore require a powerful specs sheet.
| CPU | 11th Gen Intel Core i7 or Higher |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Xᵉ Graphics or dedicated GPU |
| RAM | 32 GB or Higher, ECC Ram Suggested |
| Storage | 1TB M.2 SSD or Higher |
| Display | FHD (1920 x 1080), 15.6 inch screen |
| Keyboard | Full-size, backlit with programmable keys and separate numeric keypad |
| Battery Backup | At least 8 hours |
Finance professionals need moderate to high-end computing, and should therefore choose a reliable device that can help them stay productive. For those at the upper end of the financial services spectrum, like traders or financial analysts, budget should be secondary. They could opt for a mobile workstation class notebook as it would not only give them ample computing power and mobility but reliability and security as well. Traders may even need to add multiple HDMI screens to the laptop. They can consider one of the HP ZBook series, like the Firefly G8 Mobile Workstation PC, which has an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 CPU, 16 GB RAM, Intel Iris Xᵉ Graphics, and 1 TB M.2 SSD. There’s even a dedicated NVIDIA T500 (4 GB GDDR6) graphics chip to help connect multiple displays. The ZBook series can support up to 12 displays per system.
For others, it depends upon the kind of work that they have to perform. They do however need a laptop that provides reliability and security to ensure that they don’t lose important financial data. One of the Probooks or Elitebooks from HP would fit the need very well.
Conclusion
Finance professionals need a reliable machine with ample computing power and security to enable them to work on numbers in peace without worrying about data loss. For them, data loss is directly equal to financial loss.
Check out https://store.hp.com/in-en/default/hp-business-offers for some good deals by HP.
