Prioritize value
Analyze business processes and identify high-value opportunities to improve productivity, capacity, client service, profitability, and employee experience.
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Full-day professional learning program · 8 CPE
Microsoft Copilot for CPA Firms
Move from scattered artificial intelligence experimentation to a practical, responsible firmwide adoption strategy, complete with prioritized use cases, governance guardrails, and a 90-day implementation roadmap.
8 CPEPractical professional education
1 dayFocused, intensive program
6-partAdoption framework
90 daysRoadmap participants build
The challenge facing CPA firms
Experimentation is easy. Enterprise adoption requires a system.
Most firms have explored Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, or other generative artificial intelligence tools. The harder work is deciding where artificial intelligence belongs in the firm, how to measure value, and how to protect client information while preserving professional judgment.
This program addresses the questions that determine whether Copilot becomes an isolated productivity tool or a sustainable firm capability: which workflows to prioritize, what success should look like, who owns governance, and how pilots should move from exploration to standardization and scale.
“Is your firm ready to transition from experimentation to standardization?”
The day is designed to help leadership teams replace unstructured experimentation with a coordinated approach to workflow redesign, training, measurable objectives, governance, and implementation.
What participants will be able to do
Turn Copilot capabilities into firm-specific action.
Match tools to work
Evaluate Copilot capabilities across Microsoft 365 and determine practical use cases for accounting, tax, audit, advisory, administration, and client service.
Improve output quality
Apply prompt-development, grounding, reusable-prompt, and prompt-management techniques to produce more accurate and reliable work.
Redesign workflows
Move beyond one prompt at a time by breaking complete processes into tasks that can be assisted, reviewed, approved, or automated.
Govern responsible use
Assess artificial intelligence-generated content for accuracy, reliability, confidentiality, professional judgment, acceptable use, and verification requirements.
Launch a roadmap
Formulate a 90-day Copilot adoption roadmap with governance responsibilities, pilot initiatives, measurable objectives, and implementation milestones.
The program journey
Six connected decisions move the firm from curiosity to controlled adoption.
Build the business case
Understand the generative and agentic artificial intelligence landscape, identify the firm’s business drivers, select meaningful opportunities, and define realistic success measures.
Establish the Copilot ecosystem
Explore Copilot Chat, Copilot inside Microsoft 365 applications, organizational information, specialized agents, and agentic artificial intelligence.
Develop and manage better prompts
Use role, audience, objective, context, examples, constraints, authoritative grounding, output structure, and quality control to make prompts reusable and dependable.
Redesign complete CPA workflows
Evaluate repetitive, research-intensive, document-intensive, and communication-intensive activities while preserving human review and approval where they matter.
Set responsible-use guardrails
Address confidentiality, security, hallucinations, professional skepticism, verification, transparency, disclosure, and firmwide acceptable-use standards.
Create the 90-day roadmap
Identify sponsors and leaders, select pilot initiatives, choose initial participants, define measurable objectives, and establish 30-, 60-, and 90-day milestones.
Full-day agenda
A structured day that builds from strategy to implementation.
Introduction and program orientation
Objectives, speakers, participation tools, and the plan for the day.
Objectives, speakers, participation tools, and the plan for the day.
Establishing the Business Case for AI
Artificial intelligence landscape, business drivers, barriers, opportunities, benchmarks, and case studies.
Artificial intelligence landscape, business drivers, barriers, opportunities, benchmarks, and case studies.
Establishing Your Copilot Ecosystem
Copilot experiences, Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 applications, agents, and case studies.
Copilot experiences, Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 applications, agents, and case studies.
Prompt Development & Management Best Practices
Prompt design, authoritative grounding, connectors, prompt libraries, and quality control.
Prompt design, authoritative grounding, connectors, prompt libraries, and quality control.
Lunch
Thirty-minute break.
Thirty-minute break.
Powering Excel with Copilot
Practical application of Copilot to spreadsheet analysis and productivity.
Practical application of Copilot to spreadsheet analysis and productivity.
Redesigning CPA Workflows with Microsoft Copilot
Move from isolated tasks to complete, repeatable processes.
Move from isolated tasks to complete, repeatable processes.
Responsible Copilot Use, Professional Judgment, and Firm Governance
Guardrails for accuracy, confidentiality, accountability, and appropriate use.
Guardrails for accuracy, confidentiality, accountability, and appropriate use.
Creating Your Firm’s 90-Day Microsoft Copilot Adoption Roadmap
Leadership, pilots, measures, education, and 30-, 60-, and 90-day milestones.
Leadership, pilots, measures, education, and 30-, 60-, and 90-day milestones.
Wrap-up and next steps
Evaluation, implementation priorities, and continued learning opportunities.
Evaluation, implementation priorities, and continued learning opportunities.
Adjourn
Program leader
John H. Higgins, CPA.CITP
John is a strategic technology advisor to the accounting profession who guides participants through a practical framework for developing a Microsoft Copilot adoption strategy.
The program combines firm strategy, workflow analysis, hands-on applications, professional judgment, governance, and implementation planning so participants can translate Copilot capabilities into initiatives their firms can manage and measure.
Program questions
What to know before attending.
Is this primarily a Copilot feature demonstration?
No. The program includes demonstrations, but its larger purpose is to help a firm decide where Copilot can deliver value, how workflows should change, what governance is needed, and how to launch controlled adoption initiatives.
Do participants need advanced artificial intelligence experience?
No advanced preparation is required. General familiarity with Microsoft 365 and basic familiarity with generative artificial intelligence tools will help participants gain the most from the day.
What will participants leave with?
Participants leave with a practical framework for evaluating use cases, building stronger prompts, redesigning workflows, managing risk, launching pilots, and developing a 90-day Microsoft Copilot adoption roadmap.
How long is the program?
The agenda runs from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM and includes two breaks plus a thirty-minute lunch.
Bring a practical Copilot adoption plan back to your firm
Move beyond experimentation.
Contact Higgins Advisory, LLC at cpe@cpacrossings.com for event details, registration information, or an in-firm presentation opportunity.