CPDStore Ireland

May 04, 10:00

Driving Cashflows, Profitability and Value in your Firm in 2023

Speaker: Des O'Neill - OmniPro

In a business what matters most? In a business what are the drivers? In a business what is the outcome that we are really trying to achieve and what underpins those outcomes.

• Cash is king and generating steady surplus cashflow is what it is all about.
• If we are generating the cash in accounting business we are going to be profitable.
• If we are generating cash and we are profitable we will have a business of value.

In this session Des O’Neill is going to look at 5 drivers of Cashflow, Profitability and Value in Your Firm
• The Products and Services you Deliver
• Pricing those Products and Services
• Finding the right Customers to buy your Products and Services at the Price you are selling them
• Accelerating your Cashflow Cycle so you are pay as you go
• Developing the Systems and Processes to Leverage your Business

This session is for firm owners, senior team members and aspiring firm owners who want to develop a profitable, sustainable and leverageable self-managing firm

May 04, 11:00

The Wheel of Life – Exploring Work Life Balance

Speaker: Maura Dolan - LECI

Understanding and Achieving Life Balance is fundamental to enhancing professional performance and achieving well-being. In today’s fast paced, ever changing and complex world this workshop gives you a simple and powerful toolkit to manage your work/life balance and experience how to fit all the pieces of the jigsaw of your life together.

In this session, Maura Dolan will cover the following topics:

• Understanding what is work/life balance
• The importance of achieving work/life balance
• How to explore where you are at the moment and where you want to get to

By attending this session, you will learn the following:

• A simple method to explore what are your priorities and values
• An opportunity to clarify what is working well and what you would like to change
• A life-long tool to support you in enhancing your well-being which in turn enhance performance in all aspects of your life

May 04, 12:00

Understanding The Tactics and Techniques of Online Fraudsters

Speaker: Liam Lynch – L2 Cyber Security Solutions

The most recent report from the EU's Cyber security agency, ENISA, showed that Ransomware and Social Engineering are two of the top three cyber threats to EU based organisations. Cyber criminals leverage these to make a considerable amount of money from their victims. This can be through theft of valuable client data in the case of ransomware or taking control of email accounts and initiating payment fraud through social engineering. Accountants regularly store and manage valuable client data, which is highly prized by the organised criminal gangs. The threats posed by these gangs are constantly evolving, so it is important to keep up-to-date on the current tactics and techniques that are being utilised by them. Better awareness by staff, will reduce the risk of there being any downtime or reputation damage to the practice should they fall victim to something like a phishing email.

In this session Liam will cover the following topics:

• Understanding social engineerings
• Email account takeover protection
• How conversations (email or texts) get hijacked
• Payment fraud prevention
• Resisting ransomware

By attending this session, you will appreciate the evolving nature of cybercrime and what new tactics and techniques are employed by the organised criminal gangs. You will also receive some simple steps that you can implement to improve your practice's protection from the criminals.

This session will be most beneficial to owners and senior management in a firm.

Course Level: This session is non-technical and delivered in plain, simple language.

May 04, 13:30

The Bare Facts of No-Bull Marketing!!

Speaker: Terry Harmer – NLC Training

In this session Terry Harmer will cover the following and go through a few rules and some handy tools:

• 9 Questions Business Strategy
o Eric Reis Lean Canvas - a model for you and your clients.

• 8 P’s Marketing Plan
o What are they and how to use them effectively?
o Where Marketing meets Client Service

• Put your SWOT to work!
o Using a Dynamic SWOT analysis to create a Marketing and Business Development strategy
o More than one way to go.

• Are you delivering value... or are you delivering what your clients value?
o Your Client Value Proposition
o A compelling reason to choose you.
o Reassess your Value.

By attending this session:

• You will have an understanding of the basics of laying out a simple marketing plan for your practice or business. if you already have one in place it will prompt a few questions that may facilitate a re-engineering of your approach to the market.
• You will be able to employ tools and approaches used in lean and agile to examine things from a fresh perspective.
• It takes a new look the SWOT analysis and moves it from a simple list to a dynamic planning tool.
• The client value proposition is often misunderstood, and this element should direct you to answering the question "what do you, do that your clients really value?” it's usually not about preparing their accounts.
This session will be of most interest to You or any member of your team responsible for growing your client base, developing new approaches and services, or anyone who feels it may be time to refresh your marketing strategy, or create one if there isn’t.

Course Level: Foundation / Intermediate

May 04, 14:30

Succession Planning: How It Works, Why It’s Important

Speaker: Yvonne Clarke - RBK

How well prepared are you to cope with the loss of a key manager or employee? How often do you and your management team discuss succession planning, career progression and upskilling current staff? At a time of low unemployment, the race is on for good professional talent particularly in the Financial Services Sector, and the recruitment market is scarce, leading to business owners and employers being concerned about their talent pipelines for critical roles.

Yvonne Clarke will cover the following topics during this session:

• What is Succession Management?
• What are the Benefits of having a Succession Plan – Both Employers & Employees
• How it Works - Planning for Succession
• Succession Management Plan
• Why It’s Important – The Dos and the Don’ts of Succession Planning?

Having a succession plan is crucial for every business – large and small. A robust succession plan means you’ll not only be future-proofing your business, but also be showing your current high-potential employees that you value them and that they have a strong future with your organisation.

This session will be of particular interest to All managers, employers, and business owners.

May 04, 15:30

Credit Management, Accountants, and our Economy - How Can We Help?

Speaker: Tracey Westell – Pecunia (2016) Ltd

Businesses have had a turbulent time over the last 5 years with one thing and another. Covid, War, supply chain issues, energy crisis, cost of living to name a few, and now a new Banking crisis, blockchain, CDBC and Crypto unfolding before our eyes. What will be the outcome of this in the future for us all?

After all, if your clients have been on the receiving end of all these problems, and are struggling to make ends meet, seeing their business decline, what are you able to do to help? If there is not enough cash, you are looking at a client’s slow demise, and loss of employment for those working in that business as well as a loss of a client for your practice. Multiply this as the numbers of insolvency increases and the impact on the economy would be detrimental to our society as a whole, not to mention the loss to your practice.

So, how can credit management specialists and accountants possibly help those businesses/clients through this chaos? Easy, by collaborating towards the same goals. The Survival, stability, and growth of those businesses.

This session will look at proactive solutions you, and your practice can deliver to your clients, as well as all the benefits of partnering and collaborating with credit management specialists for your own practice as well as your customers and their business.

I do hope that you will engage in this session and would like to hear of any ‘case studies’ you may have that will resonate with other accountants in practice.

In this session, Tracey will be covering the following topics:

• What is your understanding to what Credit Management entails?
• What are the differences between what an accountant undertakes to a credit management specialist?
• What are accountants and credit management specialists’ goals to make their clients a success?
• How can we work together, and why should we?
• Can we please be friends?

“By attending this session, you will learn/understand/be able to identify what true issues your clients may be facing now and in the future. How you can help and who would be best to collaborate with, to help assist your client to gain every opportunity to scale and future proof their business and yours”.

This session will be of most interest to Accountants, Auditors, Tax Advisors, Funders and anyone in practice that has a business client base.

Course Level: Foundation / Intermediate