Archives: Agenda

• The capacity ceiling: Growth is increasingly constrained by delivery capacity, not demand. Exploring how leading firms are expanding teams sustainably without compromising quality or continuity.
• From outsourcing to co-sourcing: How firms are embedding highly-skilled South African finance professionals into integrated, high-performing teams aligned to culture, systems and ways of working.
• Case study: Scaling without added risk – how the Newtone x iSprout partnership delivers scalable, governed and seamlessly integrated capacity expansion without sacrificing culture, quality or control.

• Succession crunch: fewer future partners and rising buy-in hurdles are breaking the traditional ownership pathway.
• Strategic routes forward: buy/sell/merge/PE/alternative structures, what each option means for control, culture, risk and growth.
• Transition readiness: steps to take now, leadership pipeline, governance, de-risked client concentration, and a firm that can operate without key individuals.

• The £55,000 Spreadsheet: How manual Excel lease tracking hit the University of Oxford with a staggering audit surcharge and how “spreadsheet debt” stalls productivity.
• The Compliance Trap: Why complex regulatory shifts like FRS 102 trigger immediate data errors, intensive rework, and financial risks that legacy tools can’t handle.
• The Audit-Ready Fast Path: Practical steps to centralize lease data using AI document ingestion and read-only auditor access to eliminate friction, secure compliance, and completely wipe out extra fees.

• What “platform firms” look like by 2030: AI-assisted review and automated workflows as the operating system, removing manual bottlenecks and partner-dependent processes.
• The next core stack: unified data as a single source of truth, portals/self-service replacing email, predictive insights becoming a standard client deliverable.
• Competitive differentiators: AI-driven client engagement, mandatory digital ID, and cyber/security standards as selection criteria—how to prioritise investments now.

Chair & moderator: Mark McNee, Commercial Director, Acting Office

• Geopolitical fragmentation and the importance of global standards.
• Technology and artificial intelligence: challenges and opportunities, AI governance.
• Attracting and retaining talent, demographic change, and “Everything Needs Accounting”.
• Business resilience, sustainable organizations and long-term value creation.

• Practical AI Application: deep dives into how agentic workflows are embedded into data ingestion and reporting.
• AI that understands the engagement: how Caseware Verity connects your data, workpapers and professional judgment in one place.