AML Training for Accountants
Accountancy practices sit at the centre of Irish money-laundering risk. Client money, company formations, trusts and tax structuring put a practice squarely in the view of the Central Bank, the CRO’s AML Compliance Unit and the professional bodies. This is AML training built for that reality, not adapted from a generic finance course.
Purpose-built for Irish accountants
Every scenario in the course is one a practice meets: an engagement letter that does not match the work, a company formation with a beneficial owner nobody can name, a client whose turnover moves without explanation.
What the training covers
- Your obligations as a designated person under the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Acts 2010–2021
- Client due diligence for practices: onboarding, ongoing monitoring and beneficial ownership through the RBO
- The firm-wide business risk assessment, and the written AML policies a supervisor expects to see behind it
- When and how to file an STR with FIU Ireland and Revenue, and how not to tip off
- What an inspection actually asks for: training records, CDD files and the audit trail that ties them together
Who it's for: Partners, qualified staff, trainees and practice managers across audit, tax and advisory.
What makes it accountant-specific
CCAB-I aligned
Mapped to the CCAB-I Anti Money Laundering Guidance for the Accountancy Sector, so the language matches the guidance your principals already work to.
Engagement letter risk
How scope, fee structure and the work actually performed create AML exposure a practice does not always see coming.
CRO AMLCU focus areas
The supervisory themes the AML Compliance Unit has been pressing on, and the evidence it asks practices to produce.
Tax-based STR typologies
The Revenue and FIU Ireland patterns most likely to appear in an accountancy file, with worked examples.
The accountancy risk picture
Where practices are most often found short at inspection.
Company formations
Beneficial ownership gaps, nominee arrangements and RBO filings that were never revisited after incorporation.
Cash-intensive clients
Income streams the accounts cannot explain, and the awkward conversation a practice is required to have about them.
Cross-border structures
Entities and payment routes touching high-risk jurisdictions, where enhanced due diligence is not optional.
Unexplained turnover shifts
Sudden volume increases with no commercial rationale, the classic trigger for a suspicious transaction report.
The recommended pathway
Five 30-minute courses that together cover what a supervisor expects of this sector. Enrolled from one dashboard, evidenced from one audit export.
Each course ends in a randomised exam rather than a recap slide, and issues a timestamped certificate stating the outline covered. The Harrington Hub tracks completion, chases the stragglers automatically and exports the whole record when you need it.
Accountancy practices are designated persons under the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Acts 2010–2021. Section 54 requires a firm to ensure that people involved in the conduct of its business are instructed on the law and on how to recognise and handle a suspicious transaction, and to keep records proving it happened. There is no fixed statutory interval, but annual refresher training is what supervisors expect to see.
Supervision sits with the CRO’s AML Compliance Unit and with the professional bodies (CPA Ireland, Chartered Accountants Ireland and ACCA), depending on your practice’s membership. Each can ask for training records as part of a monitoring visit.
Yes. The courses carry CPD accreditation codes issued by the LIA and the IOB. Every certificate is timestamped and states the hours and the course outline, so members of CPA Ireland, Chartered Accountants Ireland and ACCA can record it against their own CPD requirement, and it stands up as evidence rather than a completion badge.
About 30 minutes per person, in any browser, with nothing to install. Practices enrol a whole team from one dashboard, and the completion record and audit pack export in a click.
Get your practice audit-ready.
We will show the accountant-specific scenarios, the randomised exam and the certificate, with your own team on the dashboard.