Saturday conference two for practitioners

We’re excited to welcome you to our September practitioner conference on Saturday, 26 September 2026.

Expect a programme of insightful, expert-led sessions, along with opportunities to connect with peers, broaden your professional knowledge, and gain practical takeaways to support your practice.

Conference Agenda:

08:30-09:00 Registration and refreshments

09:00-10:20 Session 1: Sustainability Reporting: Why, What and How? -  Rosie Dunscombe

10:20-10:40 Morning break and refreshments

10:40-12:00 Session 2: Inheritance tax update - Ros Martin

12:00-13:00 Lunch 

13:00-14:20 Session 3: Cybercrime prevention for practitioners - Dr Stephen Hill

14:20-14:40 Afternoon break and refreshments 

14:40-16:00 Session 4: Overcoming crypto tax hurdles - Jamie Nutall

16:00 Conference close

Overview:

Sustainability has rapidly shifted from a niche interest to a mainstream business issue, driven by regulation, investor expectations, supply‑chain pressure and rising client scrutiny. For practitioners, this is no longer a “big business only” topic — SMEs are increasingly being pulled into sustainability reporting through bank requirements, procurement questionnaires, customer demands and emerging UK standards.

Accountants are increasingly expected to help clients navigate sustainability risks, identify opportunities, and prepare for new reporting expectations. This creates both risk (being left behind as clients seek support elsewhere) and significant opportunity (new advisory, reporting and assurance services).

This session will explain why sustainability matters for practitioners and their clients, what developments and standards you need to understand, and how to start integrating sustainability into your practice in a practical, proportionate way.

Key Topics

• Drivers - Key drivers of sustainability risk and opportunity for clients and practitioners
• Regulatory timeline - Timeline of recent developments in the sustainability reporting space
• Standards landscape - Overview of key sustainability standards, including size thresholds and scope
• Similarities and differences - Key similarities and differences between financial reporting and sustainability reporting. This will touch on, amongst others, materiality assessments, maturity of data systems and controls, value chain considerations, the diversity of reporting frameworks and requirements.
• UK SRS & ISSA 5000 - Deeper dive on UK Sustainability Reporting Standards (SRS) S1 and S2, climate transition plans and the International Standard on Sustainability Assurance (ISSA) 5000
• Practice capability - The role and skills required of accountancy practice firms
• Client engagement - Opportunities to engage and support clients

Overview:

There have been a number of crucial changes in relation to IHT, with more to come. This has led to an increased interest from clients in reviewing their IHT position. This session will provide an update on those change and a refresher of common IHT planning issues.

Key topics:

• APR and BPR – where we now?

• The inclusion of pensions in the estate – what can be done?

• Other planning ideas and options

Who should attend:

Individuals in practice who are involved in advising private clients

Speaker: Ros Martin

Overview:

Accountancy and audit firms continue to face rising cyber threats, driven by the high value of client financial data, payroll information, and audit records. Attacks increasingly involve ransomware, phishing, and insecure remote working.

This course provides a practical, sector-specific guide to preventing cybercrime within UK accountancy practices. It explores the evolving threat landscape, the role of AI in both attacks and defence, and the essential controls firms must implement to protect clients, maintain trust, and meet regulatory expectations.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Identify why accountants are prime targets for cybercriminals, including the financial value of data and the impact on trust and compliance.
• Recognise the most common cyber threats facing UK accountancy firms, including ransomware, phishing, invoice fraud, and supply-chain compromise.
• Understand how AI is shaping cyber risk, including deepfakes, AI-powered phishing, and data leakage via AI tools, as well as how AI can support anomaly detection and fraud prevention.
• Apply practical defensive strategies such as MFA, encryption, secure remote access, incident response planning, and governance frameworks tailored to accountants.
• Strengthen organisational resilience through staff awareness, secure workflows, and alignment with UK regulatory expectations.

Key Topics:

• Why accountants are targets: The financial value of client data, reputational risk, and regulatory obligations.
• The cyber threat landscape: Attack patterns in financial services, supply-chain risks, and recent sector breaches.
• Ransomware risks: How attackers target accountants, legal reporting duties, and recovery strategies.
• Phishing and social engineering: Invoice redirection, impersonation scams, tax-season phishing, and AI-powered attacks.
• Remote and hybrid working vulnerabilities: Personal device risks, insider threats, WiFi, securing cloud platforms and VPNs.
• AI and cyber threats: Deepfakes, AI-driven attacks and responsible AI adoption.
• Practical defence measures: MFA, encryption, access control, staff training, incident response and client assurance

Speaker: Dr Stephen Hill

Speaker: Stephen Hill

Crypto tax hurdles

The theory of crypto taxation is one thing; the reality, clients with multiple wallets, exchanges, missing data, and no grasp of taxable events, is another.

This session is for practitioners who want to tackle the difficult parts of crypto taxes with confidence. Drawing on real casework, Jamie focuses on practical challenges including incomplete data, complex assets, HMRC pressure, and tricky client dynamics.

The session covers the most common day-to-day hurdles, including software liability, voluntary disclosures, token vesting, MTD for ITSA, and a deep dive into CARF.

Key topics covered:

• The Data Problem: missing transactions, chain hopping, incomplete exchange histories

• Reconciliation in Practice: working through real-world gaps using software and block explorers

• Tricky Asset Classes: wrapped tokens, liquid staking tokens, rebasing tokens and ordinals

• Stablecoins: current tax treatment, HMRC's position and where the rules are heading

• HMRC Enquiries and Compliance Triggers: what causes them and how to respond

• Client Management Challenges: getting full disclosure, managing expectations and defining engagement scope

Speaker: Jamie Nutall

7 CPD units:

ACCA members can use this learning to meet their CPD requirements, provided it is relevant to their career. If the event contributes to general knowledge and skills, it should be recorded as non-verifiable CPD. If the learning can be applied in the workplace, it will contribute to verifiable CPD.

1 hour of learning = 1 unit of CPD.

Fees:

£250 + VAT = £300 per person

Contact us

This event is produced on behalf of the ACCA UK network.

If you have any queries regarding this event please contact us on:

[email protected]