Microsoft Copilot for Accounting & Finance: A Practical Hands-On Training Webinar
Overview
Microsoft 365 Copilot brings AI into the applications where accountants already work, including Excel, Word, Outlook, Teams, and PowerPoint. Its access to organizational content can improve connected finance workflows, but that same access makes permissions, oversharing, source grounding, and verification essential governance concerns.
This app-by-app course clarifies the Copilot product family and explores Copilot Chat, Pages, Notebooks, Excel, Word, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint, Researcher, Analyst, and Agents. Participants will apply a source-grounded prompting framework to workflows from monthly close through board reporting and develop a practical plan for governance, adoption, and measuring value. In this webinar, you’ll learn how to:
- Select the appropriate Copilot experience for a particular accounting or finance task
- Construct effective prompts grounded in the appropriate organizational sources
- Apply Copilot across accounting and finance workflows while identifying where professional verification remains necessary
- Address privacy, security, permissions, oversharing, ethics, and professional responsibility
- Evaluate organizational readiness and develop a phased adoption and value-measurement roadmap
Objective
To provide CPAs and other finance professionals with practical guidance for using Microsoft 365 Copilot across connected professional workflows while addressing data governance and professional responsibility.
Emphasis
- Microsoft 365 Copilot's ecosystem, including Copilot Chat, Microsoft 365 Copilot, and the capabilities that distinguish each offering
- Core Microsoft 365 Copilot experiences, including Chat, Pages and Notebooks, Excel, Word, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint, Researcher, Analyst, and Agents
- Structured prompting techniques that improve AI performance by grounding responses in appropriate organizational data sources
- Connected accounting and finance workflows spanning monthly close, FP&A, variance analysis, audit support, tax support, and board reporting
- Practical workflow activities illustrating how to:
– Build prompts that reference the appropriate organizational sources
– Understand what Copilot can access within the Microsoft 365 environment
– Connect work across Excel, Teams, Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint
– Apply structured verification before relying on AI-generated outputs - Governance considerations unique to Microsoft 365 Copilot, including permissions, oversharing risks, data security, and organizational readiness
- Practical guidance for measuring adoption success, selecting pilot projects, and scaling Microsoft 365 Copilot responsibly across the organization
- Reusable prompting frameworks, verification protocols, governance practices, and adoption strategies that participants can immediately apply within Microsoft 365
Speakers
Tracie Miller, PhD, CPA
Wendy Tietz, PhD, CPA, CGMA, CITP