Priority Governance
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For Independent CPA and Accounting Firms

Be Ready When a Client Asks How Your Firm Governs AI

See whether your firm can clearly account for the AI tools it uses, the client information they may receive, who approves exceptions, and how those decisions stay current.

Schedule a 20-Minute CallSee the 90-Day Plan

No sensitive client or firm information is needed for the call. No purchase or commitment is required from it.

Firm AI Governance · SummaryIllustrative
Approved AI tools
12 in use
Client information conditions
Defined
Who approves exceptions
Managing Partner
Next scheduled review
14 November
Illustrative concept with invented details. Your firm’s leadership approves each decision.

When the Question Comes Up

AI Questions Arrive Before Anyone Has Decided the Answer

AI is often already part of the work. What is usually missing is a clear, current decision about how it may be used — and one answer everyone in the firm can give.

  1. A client asks, on a questionnaire or in a meeting, whether AI is used on their work.
  2. A staff member wants to use an AI tool to summarize a document or draft client correspondence.
  3. Tax, accounting or practice software the firm already uses adds an AI feature.
  4. Seasonal and new staff need to know the rules before the busy season starts.
  5. A partner asks who approved a tool, and on what conditions.

Your Leadership Decides

The Decisions Your Firm Makes and Keeps

We prepare the questions, recommend options and record what is approved. Your leadership makes each decision, and nothing reaches your people until it has been approved.

  1. Which AI Tools Staff May Use

    The tools the firm has approved, the ones that are conditional, and the ones staff should not use for client work.

  2. What Client Information Stays Out

    Which categories of client financial and tax information may never be entered into an AI tool, and the conditions for the rest.

  3. Review Before Work Reaches a Client

    When AI-assisted work needs a person's review before it goes into a return, a workpaper or a client message.

  4. Who Approves Exceptions

    One named person who decides when someone needs to go outside the rules, with the decision written down.

  5. What You Tell a Client Who Asks

    A plain answer your partners and managers can all give, drawn from the decisions the firm has actually made.

The Recommended Start

The 90-Day Governance Launch

Governance Launch is an implementation engagement rather than another document purchase. Priority Governance works alongside your leadership to identify the AI tools already in use, establish practical rules, prepare staff guidance, document acknowledgments, and organize recurring reviews. We prepare and coordinate the work. Your leadership approves the decisions.

  1. Days 1–30

    Establish

    Known AI use becomes a practical baseline.

    • Initial AI inventory and known material uses
    • Named owner and escalation path
  2. Days 31–60

    Enable

    Staff receive usable guidance rather than a long policy.

    • Leadership-approved baseline rules
    • Conditional and prohibited-use records
    • Staff guidance and training
    • Version-bound acknowledgments
  3. Days 61–90

    Operate

    The first requests, reviews and follow up move through a repeatable process.

    • Initial Governance Record
    • Review schedule
    • First operating cycle

First 90 days of Control Center are included throughout, so decisions, owners and reviews have a place to live from the first week.

What It Looks Like in Your Firm

  • Establish

    The AI tools staff already use for research, drafting and client communication are listed, including AI features inside the firm's existing software, with an owner named for governance.

  • Enable

    Leadership approves the client-information rules, and staff — including seasonal staff — receive short guidance and acknowledge the version they were given.

  • Operate

    The first new tool requests and exceptions go through the process, and the firm has a Governance Record it can refer to when a client asks.

At day ninety the first operating cycle is complete, your Governance Record is delivered, and your leadership chooses the ongoing model. Continuation is never selected for you: Priority Governance prepares one recommendation with the reason behind it, and your leadership decides.

See the full 90-day plan

Clear Boundaries

Governance Without Handing Over Client Files

What we work from

High-Level Information Only

Priority Governance prepares and coordinates the governance process using high-level information about your firm. Your leadership approves the decisions.

  • Not needed: client files, returns or workpapers
  • Not needed: taxpayer records or client financial data
  • Not needed: the prompts or outputs of anyone's AI use
What this is not

Your Professionals Keep Their Responsibilities

Priority Governance does not provide legal, accounting or tax advice, and it does not interpret professional standards for your firm. Your partners remain responsible for professional judgment, and your own advisers remain responsible for work in their disciplines.

Governance Launch is practical governance-readiness support. It is not legal advice, a security assessment, an audit opinion, or a compliance certification, and Control Center records the decisions your firm makes — it does not monitor, detect or block AI use.

See Whether Governance Launch Fits Your Firm

Twenty minutes on how AI is used in your firm today, who owns the decisions, and what clients are asking. If another path fits better, we will say so. No purchase or commitment is required from the call.

Schedule a 20-Minute Call

Prefer to look first? Take the free QuickScan — practical results, no obligation. Priority Governance is not legal advice, a security assessment, or a compliance certification. Data Handling