The Accounting Practice Essentials
Registering for The Accounting Practice Essentials at CPD Fest 2025 couldn’t be more straightforward. We have three packages for you to choose from – 8 hours, 16 hours and 24 hours of CPD – allowing you to customise the event to your own specific needs. Once purchased, pick ‘n’ mix the topics of most interest and relevance to you from any of the sessions running across the week of CPD Fest 2025.
CPD Fest Packages:
The 12 Gifts Of CPD Fest
Over the coming weeks we are going to give you advance access to hugely valuable extracts from the note packs The CPD Fest & The Essential Advisors’ Mix.
With The 12 Gifts of CPD Fest you will get guides, financial statements, checklists, tools, tax papers, letters of engagement and reports all the way up to and including the kitchen sink!
Registration for The 12 Gifts Of CPD Fest is free, quick and straight forward and you can do so here:
Event Details:
Session 1: Where to Start? Understanding and Implementing AI
Time: 09:00 – 10:40
Speaker: Marie Toft – Emotionise AI
Artificial Intelligence is transforming every aspect of finance and accounting — from bookkeeping automation and audit analytics to forecasting and client advisory. Yet many accountants feel unsure where to begin, what tools are reliable and how to ensure compliance. With the EU AI Act coming into force, accountants must now understand both the opportunities and responsibilities that come with AI adoption.
This session is designed to help accountants — at both senior and junior levels — understand the rules, manage the risks and lead AI change in a way that protects client trust, ensures compliance and builds long-term value.
Discover how AI is transforming and disrupting the accountancy profession, what are the opportunities and what are the risks, how to ensure compliance and build trust and most importantly, how to understand that AI is a HUMAN transformation as well as a revolutionary technical change.
This webinar is delivered by CEO & Founder of Emotionise AI, Innovator & Lecturer Marie Toft. Emotionise AI has trained AI in emotional intelligence to improve customer support and employee engagement outcomes. Her team was one of the first to start working with Open AI in Sept 2021, over a year before ChatGPT was launched. Marie is also an AI Consultant, Trainer and Researcher and is working with Trinity College Dublin as an Adjunct Teaching Fellow, lecturing in AI Leadership for companies.
Marie Toft will cover the following topics during this webinar:
- Learn how AI adoption increases your value to clients, your firm and your career.
- Discover how to safely gain productivity and efficiency benefits from AI tools.
- Understand how the EU AI Act affects accountants and financial data.
- Learn the ethical principles and risk frameworks for responsible AI use.
- Explore change management techniques for successful firm-wide adoption
By attending this session, you will:
- Understand the core types of AI used in accounting and their real-world applications.
- Be able to identify safe, high-impact areas to pilot AI within your work or firm
- Learn a simple framework for measuring ROI from AI projects.
- Understand the EU AI Act, Responsible AI, Ethics and Governance and how they apply to accounting practices
- Learn how to manage organisational change when adopting AI systems.
- Gain the confidence to engage clients and teams in responsible AI implementation.
This session will be of most interest to:
- Accountants and auditors (junior and senior).
- Finance managers, controllers, and CFOs.
- Tax advisers and business consultants.
- Practice owners seeking to modernise workflows.
- Compliance or risk officers in finance or accounting firms.
Course Level: Foundation
Session 2: Copilot in Excel: Transforming the Way Accountants Work
Does Your Business Really Stand Out?Time: 11:00 – 12:40
Speaker: Alan Murray – Computergaga
Copilot in Excel represents a new way of working, using natural language to perform tasks that once required advanced formula knowledge or manual effort. In this session, you’ll explore how Copilot can support every stage of your Excel workflow: from cleaning and preparing messy data, to producing reports, and writing formulas. You’ll see how Copilot helps you explain calculations, perform routine Excel tasks, find solutions to complex Excel problems, and generate insights faster — all while staying within the familiar Excel environment.
Alan Murray will cover the following topics during this webinar:
- How Copilot in Excel works and what makes it different from ChatGPT.
- Using Copilot to receive clear, step-by-step guidance to complete common Excel tasks and solve Excel problems.
- Cleaning, transforming, and organising messy data using Copilot suggestions.
- Writing, explaining, and improving formulas — from simple lookups to complex calculations.
- Analysing and visualising data through summaries, charts, and insights generated by Copilot.
By attending this session, you will:
- Understand how Copilot in Excel can assist with common Excel tasks.
- Learn how to use natural language prompts to build formulas, clean data and generate reports.
- Gain confidence in interpreting and verifying AI-generated results.
- Discover practical use cases to boost productivity in your day-to-day work.
- Be equipped to identify where AI can add the most value to your team.
This session will be of particular interest to accountants, finance professionals, and business analysts who use Excel regularly for reporting, analysis or client work — and want to learn how Copilot can streamline these processes.
Course Level: Intermediate
Session 3: Does Your Business Really Stand Out?
Time: 13:40 – 15:20
Speaker: Chantal Cornelius – Appletree
In today’s competitive market, standing out is no longer optional – it’s essential. This one-hour, workshop for accountants explores actionable strategies to ensure your firm becomes the standout choice in your industry. By addressing marketing and sales from a strategic perspective, you’ll discover how to attract ideal prospects, convert them into loyal clients and foster long-term relationships that secure your competitive edge.
As an accountant, you’re constantly balancing the need to grow revenue with delivering value to clients. But are your current strategies truly helping you stand out? This session will challenge you to think differently about how you promote your business. You’ll leave with fresh insights and tools to make your firm the preferred choice over competitors.
What You’ll Learn:
- Marketing Impact: How to stop wasting money on ineffective messaging and focus on marketing strategies that connect deeply with your preferred prospects, delivering a higher return on investment.
- Understanding Buyer Psychology: Why traditional Unique Selling Points (USPs) no longer work and how to align your strategies with how clients make buying decisions – focusing on the emotions and experiences they seek.
- Holistic Approach to Standing Out: How to apply differentiation strategies across your firm, ensuring marketing and sales work seamlessly to set your business apart.
Key Takeaways:
- A framework for creating marketing messages that resonate and convert.
- A deeper understanding of what motivates your clients to choose you over competitors.
- Practical tools and exercises to apply immediately to your practice for lasting differentiation.
This interactive and practical workshop is a must-attend for accountants who are ready to rise above the competition and position their firm for sustained success.
Session 4: Fortifying the Firm: Navigating Modern Cyber Threats & GDPR
Time: 15:40 – 17:20
Speaker: Liam Lynch – L2 Cyber Security Solutions
In today’s digital economy, an accountancy practice’s greatest asset is its data and its greatest vulnerability. Cybercriminals are no longer opportunistic hackers. They are organised criminal enterprises specifically targeting Irish Accountants for the wealth of sensitive client, payroll, and financial data that you hold. This session is crucial because the threat has evolved beyond simple viruses & poorly worded phishing emails to sophisticated, AI-powered scams and crippling ransomware attacks. The benefit of attending is moving from a position of uncertainty to one of strength. This course will empower you to safeguard your practice against financial loss, navigate your critical GDPR obligations with confidence, and ultimately fortify your reputation. By demonstrating robust security, you will improve the value you provide, securing not just your clients’ finances, but their trust.
Liam Lynch will cover the following topics during this presentation:
- The Modern Threat to the Irish Accountancy Practice
- The Human Firewall
- Your Digital Keys to the Kingdom
- The GDPR Connection
- The First 72 Hours
By attending this session, you will:
- Recognise the most pressing cyber threats targeting Irish accountants today, including AI-driven scams.
- Implement practical, high-impact security controls like Multi-Factor Authentication and modern password policies.
- Understand your specific legal responsibilities under GDPR in the context of a cyber incident.
- Confidently apply a step-by-step plan to respond effectively in the critical first 72 hours of a security breach.
- Enhance your practice’s value and client trust by demonstrating a robust and professional approach to cybersecurity.
This session will be of most interest to accountants in practice, tax advisers, auditors, practice managers, and business owners who want to improve their cybersecurity and GDPR readiness.
Course Level: Foundation
CPD Course Speakers
Des O'Neil - OmniPro
Having worked for a number of years in practice, and with one of the profession’s regulatory and support institutes, Des co-founded OmniPro to develop tools, techniques, products and services that make accountancy more profitable and rewarding.
Des is passionate about bringing innovation to the accountancy profession and enabling accountants to achieve what they want from their careers and business. His core belief is that when empowered to achieve their best, accountants can deliver transformative results for clients.
Today, OmniPro has a multi-million-euro turnover, and its operations span the areas of practice support; practice development; company secretarial; tax and legal; corporate finance; continuing professional development and online information products.
As managing director, Des’ focus is on strategic development and expansion of the group as an internationally recognised professional and personal development brand.
ProfitPro is the newest company in the group, and Des has developed a practice management blueprint, designed to help principals and partners build less stressful, more profitable and more rewarding practices, aligned to their business and life goals.
With unique insights on the accountancy profession, Des speaks regularly at national and international fora, on practice development, auditing, accounting, company law and regulation. He is a frequent commentator on the impact of new legalisation and technology on the work of accountants in practice.
He holds qualifications from the ACCA Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, CPA Institute of Certified Public Accountants and ACIS Association of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators.
Terry Harmer - NLC Training
Terry Harmer is a Member of the Institute of Training & Development (MIITD), a Fellow of the Sales Institute of Ireland, (FSII), a Member of the Marketing Institute of Ireland, (MMII) Member / Qualification, is a Licensed Practitioner of NLP, (NLP
Prac.), holds qualifications in Business Administration, a Certificate in Training & Continuing Education, (1st Class Honours, NUI Maynooth), ROI Impact, Measurement, (training on training evaluation and transfer of skills to the workplace)
Terry delivers City & Guilds and QQI certified courses and a portfolio of training programmes ranging from a half day to over a year in duration. He is on the Enterprise Ireland Mentor panel, and has been working and training with West Offaly Training and Offaly Local Development Company (West Offaly Partnership) since 2001
Terry Harmer has worked with 22 LEO’s (Formerly Enterprise Boards) since their inception around the country, delivering training on Sales, Marketing, Business Development, People and Management Skills. His engagements for those LEO’s have been with new and established businesses delivering training and operating as a mentor.
Marie Toft - Emotionise AI
Marie Toft – AI Innovator, Founder, Consultant, and Trainer
Marie Toft is a pioneering AI innovator, founder, strategist, and communications expert, bringing a rare cross-disciplinary perspective to AI education. As CEO and Founder of Emotionise AI, one of Ireland’s first startups to work with OpenAI in 2021, Marie has hands-on experience building AI models, including leading the creation of the world’s first domain model trained with emotional intelligence at its core.
With over four years of experience building and leading AI engineering teams, Marie combines technical expertise with her background in journalism and communications—having worked with BBC, RTE, and SBS Australia—and her training in psychotherapy. This unique combination enables her to translate complex AI concepts into clear, actionable insights that are accessible to leaders, non-technical professionals, and policy influencers.
Marie’s work focuses on human-centered, emotionally intelligent approaches to AI adoption, strategy, and leadership. She specializes in making AI engaging and actionable, helping organizations implement AI responsibly while navigating its ethical and societal implications.
Alan Murray - Computergaga
Alan Murray is an experienced Excel trainer and Microsoft MVP. With over 23 years of experience as an Excel trainer, he helps users build confidence and expertise in Excel and Power BI – empowering them to solve problems, automate tasks, and work more efficiently.
Alan is the author of the ‘Advanced Excel Formulas’ and ‘Advanced Excel Success’ books and has a YouTube channel – named Computergaga – with 118,000+ subscribers and over 50 million views.
He organises the London Excel Meetup group to provide a community event for professionals to network, share, and develop their Excel skills.
Alan loves showing people what’s possible with the tools they already have. His training approach is relaxed, practical, and always focused on the needs of the people in the room. Everyone should feel confident using Excel and empowered to ask any question – no matter how simple or advanced.
Chantal Cornelius - Appletree
Chantal Cornelius left the corporate world in 2000 to set up Appletree Marketing. It was the second best decision she’s ever made.
Since then, she’s filled her time helping hundreds of service businesses, including accountancy firms, to grow their businesses. Her marketing advice is straight forward, practical and down to earth. She’s written three books and the third one all about StandOut Strategies – how to really outshine your competitors – was published in October 2024.
Chantal is a Fellow of the PSA UK where she was National President for 2023-24. When she’s not speaking, training or handing out marketing advice, you’ll find her riding her horse, growing vegetables in her garden, or whizzing down a ski slope – but not all at the same time!
Liam Lynch – L2 Cyber Security Solutions
Liam has over 30 years of experience working in IT, originally as a programmer way back in the 80s before moving into networking, infrastructure and security in the 90s. He has worked with people at all levels and has the ability to explain scary technical topics and boring legal subjects in a language that most people can relate to and understand.
Liam founded L2 Cyber Security Solutions in 2016 and it’s maxim is #SecuritySimplified. This matches Liam’s desire to bring easy to comprehend, cyber security awareness to everyone. Liam specialises in helping micro, small and medium businesses, and charities, as they usually don’t have the in-house IT or cyber security support which larger corporates do.
L2 Cyber Security offers up-to-date, fun and easy to follow cyber security awareness training and GDPR awareness training. Since the HSE incident in May 2021, our cyber security assessment service has been very popular. We can also help organisations plan and prepare for the worst with our business resiliency planning.
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