The Effective Accountant 2026
Registering for The Effective Accountant at CPD Fest 2026 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 2026.
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: Time Management 3.0: Best of Human, Best of Technology, Finding You 180 Minutes a Week
Time: 09:00 – 10:40
Speaker: Des O’Neill – CPDStore, OmniPro, ProfitPro
Time Management 3.0 is the upgrade to Des O’Neill’s Time Management series for a working week where AI is a co-worker most of the day. In 100 minutes you will revisit the human fundamentals that still create the time (knowing your numbers, unique ability, the Not-To-Do List, diary zoning, protecting your energy) and for each one ask a single question: how can AI help me with this? You build the answer in the room with prompts and simple Copilot and Claude steps. You leave with a tally of at least 180 minutes a week, half from you and half from the machine, and a notes pack of mini guides to make it stick.
Time is still a choice, and time choices drive profit. In this 100-minute session Des O’Neill upgrades his Time Management series for a working week where AI is a co-worker most of the day. Half of your 180 minutes comes from changing what you do. The other half comes from handing work to a machine. Every tactic comes with the prompt and the Copilot or Claude steps that make it stick.
Time Management 101 gave you the 15 ways. Time Management 2.0 added AI to the conversation. Time Management 3.0 puts the two halves together.
The human half has not changed and never will: knowing the value of an hour of your life, working in your unique ability, the Not-To-Do List, zoning your diary, protecting your energy, sleep and exercise, and taking action on one thing at a time. That is still where the gains start. The technology half is new. For every one of those tactics you will ask one question: how can AI help me with this? Then you will build the answer. A prompt that audits where your week went. A companion that sorts your workload into automate, delegate and eliminate. A Monday check-in that protects your markers. A weekly Thinking Time partner that holds you to your 90-day plan. This is a session on becoming an AI empowered accountant, bookkeeper or tax advisor: AI as a thinking partner on everything and a co-worker most of the day. You will leave with a tally of at least 180 minutes a week, a human column and a machine column, and the notes pack to make both real.
Des O’Neill will cover the following topics during this session:
Part 1: Time is still a choice
Why busy is no longer a badge of honour, and why attention, not time, is the currency. The myth of time management: a thinking problem, not a time problem. Your self-assessment scorecard, 1 to 10. The deal for the morning: ten blocks, and ten times you ask “how can AI help me with this?”
Part 2: The 15 ways, each with a human move and a machine move
- Know your numbers and take stock. The value of 60 minutes of your life, and the inventory of what you do every day, week and month. Machine move: the Time Audit, where Copilot reads a fortnight of your diary and inbox and tells you where the time went.
- Unique Ability and the Not-To-Do List. Excellent, competent, incompetent and unique; automate, delegate, eliminate. Machine move: the Not-To-Do Analyst that sorts your list, flags what AI can take this week and drafts the delegation brief.
- Protect your markers and design the week. Sleep, exercise, mental and physical energy; working with your circadian rhythms; diary zoning (free, focus, buffer) and time blocking. Machine move: Copilot in Outlook builds and defends the zoned diary, and a Monday check-in prompt reshapes the week around your energy.
- Sprints, one touch and the daily AI habit. 30-minute sprints, getting things done, eliminating 30 wasted minutes a day, and the 15-minute daily AI habit. Machine move: AI inside the sprint, triaging the inbox, drafting replies, turning meeting notes into actions and summarising the document before you read it.
- WHO not How, habits and the 90-day sprint. AI is now a seat on your org chart. Reducing friction for good habits and adding it for bad ones. One thing, one quarter. Machine move: a weekly Thinking Time partner that asks the questions and holds the plan.
Part 3: Your tally and your ONE Thing
Count the minutes in both columns. Choose the ONE Thing that makes everything else easier or unnecessary. Commit to it before you leave the room.
This session will be of particular interest to:
- Firm owners and partners who want more time and better leverage, and who know the machine will not fix a diary they have not fixed themselves.
- Managers and senior accountants who are busy all day and finish the week no further on.
- Bookkeepers and tax advisors who want practical, secure ways to put AI to work inside the week they already have.
- Anyone who wants half a day a week back and the headspace to think, lead and live.
By attending this session:
- You will know where your time goes now and the value of every hour of it.
- You will have a Not-To-Do List with every item marked automate, delegate or eliminate, and a machine assigned to the first group.
- You will have a zoned diary that protects your energy, sleep and exercise as well as your focus time.
- You will have the prompts and the step-by-step Copilot and Claude mini guides to find 180 minutes a week and keep finding them.
Course Level: Need to know
Session 2: Beyond the Numbers 2027: Human Judgement, Machine Leverage, Better Thinking for Better Results
Time: 11:00 – 12:40
Speaker: Des O’Neill – CPDStore, OmniPro, ProfitPro
Great accountants think differently, and in 2027 they think with a machine in the room. In this energising 100-minute session Des O’Neill helps you step back from the day-to-day and sharpen the way you think, decide and lead. You will put Keith Cunningham’s Thinking Time, Black Box Thinking and Obvious Adams to work on your own firm, build your own advisory board (human and AI), and for each step ask one question: how can AI help me with this? You keep the judgement. The machine gives you the leverage. You leave with your 2027 one-page strategy, seven decisions made and the prompts to keep thinking clearly all year.
Success in accounting has always been about how you think, not just what you know. In this 100-minute session Des O’Neill shows you how to do your best thinking in 2027 with a machine in the room: you keep the judgement, the machine gives you the leverage, and it never gets the final say. You leave with your 2027 one-page strategy, seven decisions made and an AI advisory board you built yourself.
Beyond the Numbers in 2025 gave you the 7 Steps to Smarter Thinking. In 2027 the steps stay and the method changes. Every one of them now has a human half and a machine half. The human half is the thinking that cannot be delegated. Keith Cunningham’s Thinking Time from The Road Less Stupid: a chair, a pen, a question and 45 minutes a week. Black Box Thinking: surviving is not learning, so where did the friction, the gaps and the failures happen in 2026? Obvious Adams: doing the obvious thing while everyone else is being clever. Building your own advisory board. Protecting the markers that keep your thinking sharp: sleep, exercise, physical and mental energy.
The machine half makes each of those easier to do and harder to skip. A Thinking Time companion that interviews you and argues the other side. A Black Box Auditor that finds the pattern in your year and asks the question you have been avoiding. An Obvious Adams prompt that strips away the cleverness. An AI advisory board with four or five seats, built in the room, that you can put any decision to on a Monday morning.
This is a session on becoming an AI driven leader: AI as a thinking partner on everything, with human judgement in charge. It is not an AI course. It is a thinking course for a year when the thinking is the only part of the job that is still yours alone.
Des O’Neill will cover the following topics during this session:
1. Thinking is the superpower
The shift from compliance to curiosity. Why amateurs chase the spectacular and professionals master the mundane [CONFIRM: Tadhg Furlong story stays as the performance-mindset example]. Your business and personal satisfaction scores for 2026, 1 to 10. The deal for 2027: human judgement, machine leverage.
2. Thinking Time
Keith Cunningham’s Thinking Time: the chair, the pen, the question, 45 minutes a week. The highest-paid work a practice owner does. The questions worth asking. Machine move: the Thinking Time companion, which interviews you on your question, argues the other side and refuses to answer for you.
3. Black Box Thinking: the 2026 audit
Surviving is not learning. Where did client friction, team gaps and technology failures happen this year? The flight recorder, not the blame. Machine move: the Black Box Auditor, which takes the year’s wins, losses and near misses and finds the pattern.
4. Obvious Adams
Do the obvious thing while everyone else is being clever. Simple costs a fortune, complicated is free. Lies crossed out, truth circled. Machine move: the Obvious Adams prompt, which keeps asking what you already know you should do.
5. Build your own advisory board
Mentors, peers, a mastermind and the person who tells you the truth. Who sits at your table and who should not. Machine move: the AI advisory board, four or five seats (the finance director, the sceptic, the ideal client, the coach, the regulator) built live in Copilot or Claude and given the same question.
6. The 7 Steps for 2027, upgraded
Letting Go, People, Pricing, Business Development, Technology and AI, Personal Development (your markers), Execution. One human question and one prompt per step, worked fast in the workbook.
7. Your 2027 one-page strategy and your ONE Thing
Financial, operational, people and personal strategy, three projects and three objectives on one page. The January 2028 question: what would have to have happened for 2027 to be your best year yet? Your ONE Thing.
This session will be of particular interest to:
- Firm owners and partners who want to make better decisions about pricing, people, technology and growth in 2027, and to make them faster.
- Managers and senior accountants who want to move from reacting to the day to thinking about the business.
- Bookkeepers and tax advisors who face critical decisions every day and want a structured way to test them.
- Anyone who wants a 2027 plan on one page and the habits to execute it.
By attending this session you will:
- You will have a weekly Thinking Time habit and the questions and the AI partner to run it.
- You will have completed a Black Box audit of 2026 and named the pattern you are going to break.
- You will have built your own advisory board, human and machine, and put your first 2027 decision to it.
- You will leave with your 2027 one-page strategy, the upgraded 7 Steps workbook and the prompts to work it all year.
Course Level: Need to Know
Session 3: Robot-Proof: Building the Skills AI Can't Replace
Time: 13:40 – 15:20
Speaker: Terry Harmer – NLC Training
AI tools now draft reports, reconcile accounts, summarise legislation and even suggest advice. For accountants, that raises an uncomfortable question: which of my skills will still be valuable in five years? Most responses focus on “upskilling” — chasing the next technical qualification or software. This session, based on Dr. Vivienne Ming’s research in Robot-Proof, argues that no technical skill is permanently safe from automation, but a specific, learnable set of human capacities is.
Attendees will leave with a clear framework for identifying and developing those capacities in themselves and their teams, and a practical method for using AI that sharpens professional judgement rather than eroding it. For practices, this means a stronger advisory offering, better-developed staff and a more confident answer to clients asking what value their accountant adds when software does the numbers.
Terry Harmer will cover the following topics during this webinar:
- Why “upskilling” is a treadmill: what AI is changing in professional work and why no routine skill is robot-proof
- The five meta-learning capacities (cognitive, emotional, social, metacognitive and creative) that research shows predict long-term career success
- The hidden risk of “cognitive offloading”: how over-reliance on AI tools can quietly erode professional judgement
- The “Grad Student Model”: using AI as a sparring partner rather than a replacement for your own thinking
- Building “productive friction” into daily practice: simple habits that keep your judgement sharp and your advice defensible
By attending this session you will be able to:
- Understand why chasing technical skills alone is a losing strategy in an AI-driven profession
- Identify the five human capacities that predict career resilience and assess your own strengths and gaps
- Recognise when AI use is weakening rather than strengthening your professional judgement
- Apply a structured questioning technique to challenge and verify AI-generated output
- Leave with one practical habit to build into your own AI-assisted workflow
This session will be of particular interest to practising accountants, partners and practice owners, practice managers, team leaders responsible for developing staff, accountants in business and industry, and early-career professionals planning their development. Relevant to anyone using or considering AI tools in their day-to-day work.
Course Level: Intermediate
Session 4: Think Remarkable: Growth, Grit and Grace for Accountants
Time: 15:40 – 17:20
Speaker: Terry Harmer – NLC Training
As AI takes over more routine compliance work, clients increasingly choose, and stay with, the accountants who make a real difference to their business and who are good to deal with. Technical competence is now the entry ticket, not the differentiator. This session draws on Guy Kawasaki’s Think Remarkable and translates its three-stage model (Growth, Grit and Grace) into practical actions for accountants who want to stand out with clients, colleagues and their own teams.
Attendees will learn how to spot unmet client needs that could become new services, move good ideas into action, influence and persuade with integrity, and handle the moments that define a professional reputation: admitting uncertainty, apologising when things go wrong and negotiating fairly. The benefit to the practice is stronger client loyalty, a more distinctive advisory offering and a culture people want to join and stay in.
Terry Harmer will cover the following topics during this webinar:
- What “remarkable” really means for a professional, and why it is becoming a commercial differentiator as AI handles routine work
- Growth: developing a growth mindset, turning setbacks into learning and “planting many seeds” for career and practice development
- Grit: asking “Whose pain can I alleviate?” to identify new client services, and moving ideas beyond the “Eureka” stage
- Influence: practical persuasion principles and storytelling techniques to win support from clients and colleagues
- Grace: handling imposter syndrome, saying “I don’t know” with confidence, apologising well and negotiating so people want to work with you again
By attending this session you will be able to:
- Apply a simple three-stage framework (Growth, Grit, Grace) to your own professional development
- Identify at least one unmet client need your practice could turn into a valuable service
- Use proven influence and storytelling principles to win buy-in for your ideas
- Handle difficult professional moments such as mistakes, uncertainty and fee discussions in a way that strengthens rather than damages relationships
- Leave with a personal 30-day action plan covering one Growth, one Grit and one Grace commitment
This session will be of particular interest to practising accountants, partners and practice owners, newly promoted managers and team leaders, client-facing advisers, and accountants in business who want to increase their influence and impact. Particularly useful for those developing an advisory offering or moving into leadership roles.
Course Level: Intermediate
CPD Course Speakers
Des O'Neil - CPDStore, OmniPro, ProfitPro
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.
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.
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