Turn dense tax codes, messy ledgers, and long webinars into your own private, AI-powered research assistant.
This course, developed entirely from scratch using the latest generation of AI applications, provides a concise overview of how accountants can use Google’s NotebookLM as a powerful AI-driven research and analysis assistant to transform everyday accounting workflows. The course demonstrates how NotebookLM creates a “closed garden” of trusted sources where accountants can upload documents and interact with them through AI-guided analysis, summaries, and insight generation. Participants will explore practical, real-world scenarios showing how the tool can support tax research, financial statement analysis, client onboarding, webinar knowledge extraction, and audit forensics. The emphasis is on professional judgment, verification discipline, and responsible AI usage in accounting environments. Through step-by-step demonstrations and repeatable workflows, learners will see how AI can dramatically accelerate research, surface hidden patterns, and convert complex document sets into actionable insights—while maintaining the verification standards required of CPAs and financial professionals.
Topics Covered:
NotebookLM fundamentals and the “closed-source research” model
Building AI research notebooks using trusted documents and sources
Cross-border tax research using IRS and CRA guidance
Distilling long technical webinars into actionable insights
Multi-year financial statement and risk factor analysis
Client discovery and onboarding using unstructured document sets
Journal entry forensic analysis and fraud-pattern detection
Target Audience:
This course will benefit CPAs, accountants, auditors, and finance professionals who want practical methods for using AI research assistants to analyze documents, streamline investigations, and extract insights from complex financial information.
MA, CMC, CITP/FITP
GARRETT WASNY, MA, CMC, CITP/FITP, is an artificial intelligence (AI) skills advisor to accountants, tax attorneys, enrolled agents, and tax preparers worldwide. His courses focus on the new intersection of accounting and technology, and provide guidance to practitioners on how to prosper in this dynamic age. His sessions demystify emerging cloud, mobile, and social applications, and explain in plain language how financial professionals can use these online tools to build trust, solve problems, and create new value. He’s also an award-winning Internet speaker, author, app developer, professional development specialist, and former management consultant for Price Waterhouse. He's published 50+ ebooks on computing and ethical issues related to accounting, written hundreds of articles and columns on Internet strategy, and delivered thousands of seminars and webinars to CPAs and accounting organizations around the globe.
This portal is provided as a training and development resource for City of Markham employees. Every course is delivered by a qualified subject matter expert or learning organization, is quantifiable in hours, and is verifiable — you receive a documented certificate of completion for every course you finish, stored on LearnFormula indefinitely.
If you hold a professional designation (for example in engineering, accounting, human resources, or law), courses may be counted as professionally relevant, verifiable learning activities toward your continuing professional development. Individual practitioners are responsible for confirming that an activity meets the requirements of their professional body. For questions about the City of Markham's training and development policies, please speak with your people leader or Human Resources.
