The managers who sign off client work. In an accountancy firm, client managers and seniors approve the returns, payroll runs and adjustments that agents will draft, so they need training before the agent touches a client file. Partners, the compliance lead and the bookkeepers who review coding day to day come next. Everyone else follows once those reviewers are certified.
Why managers before partners?
Partners answer for the work, but managers are the ones who will open the held actions. An agent can code a month of bank transactions for fifty clients overnight and draft the VAT returns behind them. Those drafts land with managers and seniors first. If they approve without reading, the partner signs on top of an unchecked layer.
Partners still need training early, but a shorter kind: what depth means, why it is earned on evidence, what the record shows, and how to supervise reviewers they did not train themselves.
In what order should the firm train?
| Wave | Who | What they learn | Why now |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Client managers and seniors | The reviewer track, with practice on the firm's own client files | They approve agent drafts from day one |
| 1 | The compliance or money laundering reporting lead | The common grounding, plus how agent client checks are recorded | Client due diligence is often an early use |
| 2 | Partners | The common grounding | They set limits and answer to clients |
| 2 | Bookkeepers who review coding daily | The reviewer track | They clear the highest volume of held items |
| 3 | Payroll team | The reviewer track | Payroll moves money, so it starts later and at lower depth |
| 3 | Trainees and administrators | The common grounding | They work under certified reviewers |
What may the agent do, and what stays with the firm's people?
- Depth 2: code bank transactions, match receipts, draft returns, adjustments and client queries; a person approves.
- Depth 3: chase missing records and send routine reminders within set rules.
- Depth 4: submitting a return to a tax authority or releasing a client payroll; held for a named person.
- Stays with a person: every judgement and estimate at year end, every piece of advice, and every change to a client's or employee's bank details.
An example: a payroll change that came by email
Take a firm running payroll for forty small clients. An email arrives, apparently from a client director, asking for an employee's bank details to change before Friday's run. The agent updates the draft payroll and holds it, because an external claim cannot authorise a payment and the firm has made any bank detail change a red line.
A trained payroll senior calls the client on known details and finds the email was not sent by the director. An untrained one, under deadline, approves because the request looked routine. This is why the payroll reviewer is certified before the agent ever prepares a live run, even if payroll is a third-wave use.
How does the firm prove its first reviewers are ready?
A written test and a supervised period on real files. The reviewer's decisions on held items are checked by someone outside their team for a set period, with no missed red line. The firm can then make approval rights depend on a current certificate, client by client and depth by depth.
Timing matters. Train the first wave well before the busiest filing period, not during it. Agent certificates lapse after 90 days and a run that clears no depth drops an agent to depth 1 the same day, so the first-wave reviewers should also know how to finish a return by hand.
Start with a readiness assessment in an accountancy firm, then roll out the training across the firm using the AI agent training plan template for accountancy firms. The same logic applies to who in a law firm needs training first. The full approach is in training teams for AI agents.
Where the Academy fits
Pryme Intelligence Academy's free readiness assessment covers teams of up to 25, which suits the first wave in most firms. The report shows scores by concept, the gaps and the first agent to start with. Managers then take the Operator track, which ends with a two-week practicum signed off by a Pryme assessor.
Questions people ask
Should the firm train everyone at once?
No. Training people who will not see agent work for months wastes time and fades. Train each wave just before its agent goes live.
What about clients who do their own bookkeeping with agents?
Your reviewers should learn to weigh that work as declared until checked. A client's own agent output is not the same as a bank feed.
Do trainees need certification?
Not at first. They can work under certified managers and begin their own certification once they review client files independently.