CPDStore Ireland

10:00 - 10:50

AI for Marketing Content for Accountants

Speaker: Chantal Cornelius - Appletree Marketing Consultancy

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the way businesses create marketing content. Many accountants are still unsure where to start or how to use AI effectively, without losing their professional voice. As client expectations continue to grow and time becomes increasingly valuable, firms need to produce marketing content more efficiently, while maintaining quality and compliance.

In this practical session, Chantal Cornelius from Appletree Marketing will show you how to start using and make better use of AI in your marketing content.

Whether you are writing website copy, social media posts, emails, newsletters or client communications, AI can help you generate ideas, save time and create more consistent content. This session will help you understand what AI can and cannot do and how to get better results from the tools available. You will learn how to use AI to support your marketing activity. By attending, you will learn about practical techniques that can be implemented immediately, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your firm's marketing.

The following topics will be covered during this webinar:

• Understanding the opportunities and limitations of AI for marketing
• Writing better prompts to generate useful marketing content
• Using AI to create blogs, emails, social media posts and newsletters
• Editing and refining AI-generated content to sound like your firm
• Avoiding common mistakes and maintaining quality, accuracy and compliance.

By attending this session, you will:

• Understand how AI can support your firm's marketing activities
• Be able to write and use more effective prompts, to generate better content
• Learn how to save time when creating marketing materials
• Know how to review and improve AI-generated content
• Feel confident using AI tools to support your marketing strategy.

This session has been designed specifically for Accountants who want to make their marketing simpler by using AI, but who don’t want to get it wrong!

If you’ve started dabbling with AI for your marketing content, or you’ve not yet used AI in this way, this session is for you. Straightforward, down to earth and practical, with no jargon.

For over 25 years, Chantal has been working with service businesses, including Accountants. She helps them to focus only on marketing that works. She can do the same for you now.

Course Level: Foundation

11:10 - 12:00

The Future-Proof Practice: Balancing GDPR, Cyber Defence and AI

Speaker: Liam Lynch - L2 Cyber Security Solutions

As accounting practices in Ireland rapidly adopt automated tools and cloud platforms, the line between operational efficiency and catastrophic data exposure has blurred. "The Future-Proof Practice: Balancing GDPR, Cyber Defence, and AI" addresses the critical realities facing today's financial professionals.

Cybercriminals are moving beyond basic phishing, leveraging sophisticated generative AI to impersonate clients and bypass traditional controls. Simultaneously, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) continues to enforce strict accountability standards, and the ongoing roll-out of the EU AI Act brings new compliance obligations for the digital tools we use daily.

This webinar is vital for any accountant looking to protect their practice from financial fraud and regulatory penalties. Attendees will benefit from practical, up-to-date compliance strategies that transform security from a technical burden into a major competitive advantage.

Liam Lynch will cover the following topics during this presentation:

• The New Threat Evolution - How criminals use generative AI to orchestrate hyper-targeted financial scams (including deepfakes and business email compromise), and how to identify them.
• Proactive Data Governance under GDPR - Moving beyond basic data protection to implement active data minimisation, strict access controls, and transparent retention policies.
• Securing the Connected Practice - Critical defence strategies for cloud accounting infrastructure, third-party software integrations, and client-facing digital portals.
• Navigating the EU AI Act in Practice - A pragmatic, high-level look at the new AI regulations in Ireland, focusing on the mandatory "AI literacy" requirements for staff and understanding transparency obligations when using AI tools for client work.
• The Practice Rescue Plan - A practical, non-technical look at how to handle a data slip-up or system outage smoothly. We will cover the immediate steps to take and how to communicate transparently with affected clients.

By attending this session, you will:

• Understand the evolving mechanics of AI-driven cyber threats targeting Irish professional service firms.
• Learn how to map out a comprehensive data lifecycle that meets the DPC’s strict transparency and accountability principles.
• Be able to evaluate and mitigate the hidden security risks associated with third-party accounting software and cloud ecosystems.
• Develop a clear understanding of your fundamental obligations under the EU AI Act, ensuring your firm's adoption of new technology remains fully compliant without stifling innovation.
• Craft a straightforward, step-by-step action plan to handle unexpected data incidents or system downtime calmly, ensuring your client relationships and firm reputation remain completely intact.

This session is essential for:

• Partners, Directors, and Sole Practitioners.
• Practice Managers and Chief Operations Officers (COOs).
• Compliance Officers, Money Laundering Reporting Officers (MLROs), and Risk Managers.
• Audit and Tax professionals handling highly sensitive corporate and personal financial disclosures.

Course Level: Need to Know

12:20 - 13:10

Topic and Title TBC

Speaker: TBC

Course details will be available closer to the event.

13:50 - 14:40

Building a Continuous Improvement Culture: Implementing Kaizen in Finance

Speaker: Stacy Franklin - Founder and CEO of Kanso

Lean is a culture, not just a toolkit. This session explores how to embed Kaizen (small, daily improvements involving all staff) into the finance department. It includes setting up Standard Work for key tasks (e.g., reconciliation, compliance checks) to ensure quality and make problems visible.

Attendees will learn practical steps to foster a team culture where continuous improvement is the norm, not a one-off project, ensuring long-term efficiency gains.

Course Level: Intermediate

15:00 - 15:50

Topic and Title TBC

Speaker: TBC

Course details will be available closer to the event.

16:10 - 17:00

Performing at Your Best, Not Your Limit

Speaker: Edel Walsh - Edel Walsh Coaching and Consulting

Performing at Your Best, Not Your Limit is a practical CPD webinar for accountants, tax advisers and finance professionals who want to improve productivity without sacrificing wellbeing.

In demanding professional environments, it is easy to confuse long hours, constant availability and pressure with high performance. Over time, this can reduce focus, weaken boundaries, increase stress and leave professionals operating at their limit rather than at their best.

This session will help participants rethink productivity in a more sustainable way. Through practical tools and reflection exercises, participants will explore how to prioritise high-impact work, manage distractions, protect mental energy and recognise early signs of over-load.

The focus is not on doing more. It is on working with greater clarity, focus and sustainability.

During this webinar, participants will explore:

• The difference between healthy productivity and unsustainable overperformance.
• Common productivity traps for accountants, including multitasking, perfectionism, procrastination, poor boundaries and constant availability.
• A simple framework for prioritising high-impact work.
• Practical focus tools to reduce distractions and support deeper work.
• The early warning signs of stress, overload and burnout.
• How to create a practical action plan for performing sustainably over the following working week.

By the end of the webinar, participants will:

• Understand the difference between sustainable productivity and pushing themselves towards burnout.
• Recognise the habits and working patterns that reduce focus, energy and effectiveness.
• Gain practical tools to prioritise high-impact tasks and manage distractions.
• Identify early warning signs of stress, overload and burnout.
• Leave with a simple personal action plan to perform with more clarity, focus and balance.

Course Level: Foundation