Train the reviewers before the agent posts a single journal. An accountancy firm should give every partner and fee earner the shared vocabulary first, certify the seniors and managers who will approve the agent's drafts, run the agent in shadow outside busy season, and widen it only when reviewers' decisions and the agent's certification both stand up.
What should the order be?
Accountancy work has a natural review chain: a junior prepares, a senior checks, a manager or partner signs. An agent slots in as the preparer, which means the senior's check becomes the main control. Train in this order:
- Everyone: the shared vocabulary. Depth, the four verdicts, provenance, why certificates lapse. Partners need this to sign off on risk; juniors need it because they will work beside the agent.
- A readiness check. Test the team on those concepts in their own setting before choosing the first agent. How to run an AI agent readiness assessment in an accountancy firm gives the steps.
- Seniors and managers: reviewer certification. They will approve held reconciliations, draft journals and client queries.
- One builder. Usually the practice's systems lead, who writes the agent's brief and reads its certification results.
- Shadow, then widen. The agent drafts; reviewers decide; nobody relies on it until both are proven.
Do not run the shadow period in the weeks before a filing deadline. Reviewers under deadline pressure approve too fast, and the habits they form there stay.
What must reviewers learn?
Four things that are specific to accounting work.
Where each figure came from. An agent drafting a bank reconciliation should draw on the bank feed, which is a sealed record from the system of record. A supplier invoice that arrived by email is external. A reviewer must see that difference at a glance, because an external document cannot authorise a payment and should not settle a reconciling item on its own.
What the agent is not allowed to do. The firm's own limits will refuse some actions outright, such as filing a return or posting above a set value, and hold others for a person. Reviewers must know which is which, so they do not mistake a refusal for a fault.
How to decline with a reason. "Wrong" teaches nothing. "Miscoded: this is a capital item, see fixed asset policy" improves the next draft and leaves a useful record.
The red lines. In most firms: anything touching client money, anything filed with an authority, and client due diligence decisions under the firm's anti-money laundering procedures.
What stays with a person?
| The agent may | Stays with a person |
|---|---|
| Read ledgers, bank feeds and prior-year files (depth 1) | Judgements on estimates, provisions and going concern |
| Draft reconciliations, journals and client queries (depth 2) | Approving any journal above the firm's limit |
| Post routine coded transactions within limits, once certified (depth 3) | Filing any return or statutory document |
| Prepare a payment run for release (depth 2) | Releasing payments from client money |
What should you prove before widening?
Moving an agent from drafting journals to posting them is a step from depth 2 to depth 3. Ask for three pieces of evidence before taking it.
First, the agent's own certification on the firm's cases: Attest replays it against real client files and scores every answer, and depth is earned from that evidence, not switched on. Second, the reviewers' record: a run of their real decisions, marked, with no missed red line. Third, a partner who can reconstruct one decision from the agent's filed verdicts without help. If any of the three is missing, stay at depth 2.
An example
Take a hypothetical 40-person practice adopting an agent for monthly bookkeeping clients. In the first month the agent reads bank feeds and drafts reconciliations for 50 clients while 6 seniors review every draft. Disagreements go into a weekly calibration. In month three, with the seniors certified and the agent certified for routine coding, the practice lets it post transactions under a small value for those clients, and seniors review only held items.
The law firm version of this sequence, with its own red lines on privilege and client funds, is in how law firms should train staff before deploying AI agents. The AI agent training plan template for accountancy firms turns the order above into weeks.
Questions people ask
Can a firm start using an agent before anyone is certified?
At depth 1 and 2, yes, because a person sends or posts everything. The limits are set out in can accountancy firms use AI agents before staff are trained.
Should partners take the reviewer track?
Only partners who approve agent drafts directly. Most need the vocabulary and the ability to read the record, which Pryme Intelligence Academy's free Foundations track covers.
Who should own the training?
The partner responsible for quality, with the systems lead. The wider guide to training teams for AI agents explains why the process owner signs off assessments.