Overview

Most conversations about AI in accounting are about the back office, and most of them promise the same thing, which is doing the work you already do slightly faster. That is worth something, but it rarely shows up in the fee. Time saved on compliance work tends to refill with more compliance work at the same rate. The place where these tools genuinely change a practice is at the client boundary, in the difference between a client who feels processed and a client who feels advised.

This session is about that difference. Reece Bailey has spent ten years in sales and marketing and now helps scale Fintura, which builds practice management and compliance automation software for South African accounting firms, so he spends his days watching what practices actually deploy rather than what they intend to. The session is honest about where these tools fail, starting with the confident and wrong answer almost every practitioner has already been given, and it is clear that they have no place in forming a technical position. It is a working session rather than a demonstration. Attendees map the real contact history of one of their own clients, find the gaps, and then build a reusable practice context block, which is the single thing that separates generic output from something that sounds like their own firm. They finish the hour holding an asset they will use for years and one client communication they could send that afternoon.

Webinar Content

• The confident wrong answer. Why general purpose AI tools produce plausible and incorrect technical output, what is actually happening when they do, and the line that should never be crossed in a professional practice
• Efficiency is not the opportunity. Why time saved on compliance work rarely reaches the fee, and why client attention is the variable that changes both what you can charge and whether the client stays
• The relationship gap. Most practices have a genuine relationship with a fraction of their client base and a purely transactional one with the rest. What that costs in fees, retention and referrals
• Diagnose, live: map every occasion your practice contacted one real client over the last twelve months, and what each contact was actually about
• Reading your own map. Separating transactional contact from valuable contact, and identifying the moments where there should have been contact and there was not
• The three client jobs worth delegating. Responding to client questions faster and in your own voice, reaching clients before they have to ask, and explaining numbers to people who do not read financial statements
• Why prompting technique is not the lever. The reason accountants get generic output is missing context, not poor wording, and what that means for how you approach these tools
• Build, live: your practice context block. Constructing a reusable description of your firm, your clients, your voice, your service boundaries, your filing calendar and your non-negotiables, so that everything you produce afterwards starts from it
• Before and after comparisons showing identical requests run with and without a practice context block, using South African practice examples
• Build, live: writing one real client communication that fills the highest value gap on your own map
• Guardrails. Where these tools must not be used, what client information should never enter a public tool, POPIA considerations, and why the practitioner remains professionally responsible for anything issued under the firm’s name
• Your thirty day plan: three client touchpoints you will add, and how to make them recur without depending on memory, with separate tracks for sole practitioners and firms with a team

Preparation

 Attendees are asked to arrive having chosen one client to work with, and with a free general purpose AI account open. Both live builds also work on paper for anyone attending from a phone or on the move.

Takeaway pack

A blank practice context block template, three worked examples at sole practitioner, five person and twenty person scale, a set of ready prompts for recurring client engagement tasks written for South African practices, and a one page guardrail checklist.

Competencies Developed

On completion, attendees will be able to:

1. Explain in practical terms why general purpose AI tools generate confident but unreliable technical output, and identify the categories of work in which they must not be relied upon
2. Distinguish between efficiency gains and client engagement gains, and evaluate which of the two is more likely to affect fee levels, client retention and referral activity in their own practice
3. Audit the contact history between their practice and an individual client, and classify each contact as transactional or value adding
4. Identify the gaps in a client relationship where proactive contact would have been valuable, and prioritise those gaps by likely commercial impact
5. Construct a reusable practice context block covering firm profile, client base, tone of voice, service boundaries, compliance calendar and professional non-negotiables
6. Apply that context block to produce client facing communication that reflects the practice’s own voice, client base and South African regulatory environment
7. Assess AI generated client communication for accuracy, tone and professional appropriateness before it is issued under the firm’s name
8. Recognise the confidentiality, data protection and professional responsibility considerations attaching to the use of AI tools in client work, including what client information should not be entered into a public tool
9. Construct a measurable thirty day plan for adding recurring proactive client touchpoints, appropriate to the size and structure of their own practice

Underlying competency areas:  technology adoption in practice, client relationship management, professional communication, data protection and confidentiality, practice growth, professional ethics and conduct.

Presenter

Reece Bailey - CRO & Co-Founder, Fintura

Reece Bailey is a seasoned B2B sales, marketing and business growth professional with more than a decade of experience helping businesses build strong relationships, drive revenue and scale sustainably.

As Chief Revenue Officer and Co-Founder of Fintura, Reece leads sales, marketing and partnership development, with a particular focus on expanding Fintura’s reach across South Africa’s accounting landscape.

Passionate about helping accounting firm owners grow their practices, Reece regularly shares practical insights, strategies and free tips to help accountants attract clients, improve their businesses and scale with confidence.

Through Fintura, he is helping modernise the way accounting practices operate. Fintura is an all-in-one accounting platform that brings practice management, compliance and tax automation together in a single platform, helping accounting professionals streamline their operations and focus on growth.

Reece combines a strong commercial mindset with a genuine passion for supporting the accounting profession and creating meaningful, long-term relationships.

CPD

Attending this webinar and the successful completion of the online assessment will secure a certificate of completion for 1 hour of Tax CPD.

Event Investment

Free for Tax Technican, Tax Practitioner, Tax Accountant CPD subscribers and Practice Packages. Not a CPD subscriber yet? Click here to register now.

• Regular price: R230.00
• Group booking discounts available when you register for a group.

Payments & Cancellations

• All payments must be made by EFT or by credit card, at least 3 working days before commencement of an event.
• Kindly note that should payment not be received 2 days after the event, legal action will be taken
• Proof of payment will be requested at registration, if payment does not reflect on Tax Faculty's bank account.
• Cancellations:
  • Only written notice of cancellation will be recognized.
  • If the cancellation occurs more than 4 working days prior to the event no cancellation fee will be charged.
  • If the cancellation occurs less than 4 working days prior to the event a 100% cancellation fee will apply.
• Delegates who book and fail to attend will be liable for the full event fee.
• Tax Faculty`s liability in the case of an event being cancelled will be limited to a refund or credit of the event fee.
• Please click here for the full terms and conditions.