Become the CMA who brings AI to the finance function
The only live Claude workshop built for CMAs — by a CMA.
- Cut hours off your monthly close — Build a Claude automation for variance commentary, then run it on your own books.
- Verify every number — and defend it — Catch Claude when it's wrong using the PROVE Method, a verification protocol you could stand behind in a review.
- Use AI without risking your CMA designation — Know exactly what's safe to share, grounded in the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice.
- Walk away with your own written AI policy — Yours to show your firm, your manager, or your audit committee.
Meet Nathan Liao, CMA — the person thousands of CMAs have already learned from.
Nathan is the founder of CMA Exam Academy and has spent 11+ years helping management accountants pass the CMA exam and grow into senior finance roles. He built this workshop because his students kept asking the same question: "Is it safe to use Claude on real work?"
The protocols you'll learn are the ones Nathan uses himself — built and tested against real CMA tasks, not retrofitted from generic AI advice. Over the past two years he's also built and taught generative-AI CPE courses for management accountants, and every framework here was developed with the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice in mind from the first draft.
Why thousands of CMAs trust Nathan to teach them.
11+ years of teaching CMAs to pass their exams on the first attempt. Same instructor. Same standards.
Nathan is able to prepare any hard-working person to pass the CMA exam. His coaching techniques are innovative and effective; his personal presence is supportive and reassuring. This unique combination enabled me to score 420 on Part 1 and 440 on Part 2.
Their well-structured, strategic program allowed me to pass the CMA Part 1 exam on my first attempt despite having a Computer Science background. My new skills are already enhancing my career as CFO.
The CMA Exam Academy is the best course if you are someone who needs something structured. The structure and not having to figure out what I was studying each night saved me a lot of time. Nathan and his team helped me pass both exams first try!
What exactly am I going to learn?
Four weeks. Each builds on the last, so by Week 4 you have a complete, working protocol — not a pile of disconnected tips.
01
Foundations & Ethics
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Foundations & Ethics
- What Claude is — and isn't. The vocabulary, capabilities, and limits every management accountant needs before delegating any task to an AI.
- The 3-Zone Claude Map. Live classification exercise: Green (delegate), Yellow (verify), Red (do not use). You'll map your own real tasks during the session.
- IMA ethics & the 4P Data Test. The IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice applied clause-by-clause to how CMAs actually use AI — plus the 4P Data Test (Privileged · Personal · Proprietary · Public), a 30-second check run live against your own scenarios that tells you what's safe to share.
- Tools you'll use. Claude Pro, Projects, Memory, and the Cowork desktop app — set up together so you're ready to run real workflows by Week 2.
02
Prompting & Verification
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Prompting & Verification
- The CRAFT Prompt Frame. Context · Role · Action · Format · Test. The structure that produces reliable output on quantitative work — not confident-sounding noise. Built live against a real CMA task.
- The PROVE Verification Method. Side-by-side: watch the same prompt fail without PROVE and succeed with it. Benchmark-based validation — recompute, trace, tie out — that catches AI errors before they reach your CFO.
03
Claude on Your Real Work
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Claude on Your Real Work
- Documents — memos, narratives & board commentary. The draft-critique-revise loop for executive-ready writing, structured with the Pyramid Principle and briefed on your house style — without the AI-generic phrasing CFOs and audit committees now recognize.
- Spreadsheets — with Claude in Excel. Clean, structure, and reconcile data using Claude directly in your workbook. Then use Claude as a review tool to catch anomalies, outliers, and broken subtotals in your own numbers — a first-pass control check aligned with your internal-control responsibilities.
- Source documents — PDFs & filings. Grounded-answer prompting on 10-Ks and long technical material, so Claude works as a co-pilot on real documents instead of a confident guesser.
04
Memory, Projects & Automating the Close
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Memory, Projects & Automating the Close
- Make Claude know your work. Configure a Claude Project loaded with your company context so it stops starting from scratch every time — mapped onto the systems (AIS, ERP) you already think in.
- Live automation demo — your month-end close. Watch a complete monthly variance-commentary automation built end-to-end — gated with the 4R Automation Test, prompted with CRAFT, verified with PROVE. Then you adapt it to your own close that week.
- Your personal AI policy. Walk away with a written protocol covering when you use Claude, how you verify its output, what data is off-limits, and how you document AI-assisted work. Aligned with the IMA framework — yours to take to your firm.
$20/month at claude.ai/upgrade. Cohort #1 covers Projects, Memory, the Cowork desktop app, and automated workflows — all features that require Pro. If you're already on Claude Team or Claude Enterprise through your company, you're set.
Five frameworks. Yours for life.
Every framework was built specifically for management accounting work — not retrofitted from marketing or engineering examples.
The 3-Zone Claude Map — know in seconds what's safe to delegate
Stop guessing. Every CMA task lands in one of three zones: Green (delegate freely), Yellow (delegate with verification), Red (do not use at all). You'll classify your own real tasks during the live class and walk away with a custom map for your role.
The 4P Data Test — protect MNPI before it ever leaves your workstation
Privileged. Personal. Proprietary. Public. A 30-second check, aligned with the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice, that tells you whether information can safely be shared with any AI tool — Claude or otherwise.
The CRAFT Prompt Frame — built for quantitative work
Generic prompting advice assumes you're writing marketing copy. CRAFT is designed for variance analysis, board memos, control narratives, and the kind of careful financial work CMAs actually do — where 'sounds plausible' is the dangerous answer.
The PROVE Method — catch Claude before your CFO does
Claude can be confidently wrong about numbers. PROVE is the five-step protocol — Pull a benchmark, Run the prompt, Observe the deltas, Verify the cause, Establish an audit trail — that turns "looks right" into "verified right," on work you could defend in a review.
The 4R Automation Test — know before you automate
Just because Claude can do a task doesn't mean it should be automated. The 4R Test runs four questions — Recurring, Repeatable, Reviewable, Reversible — against any workflow you're considering, so you only automate the work that's actually safe to hand off.
- I will never share MNPI with any AI tool.
- I will apply the 4P Test before sharing.
- I will verify all numerical output with PROVE.
- I will document AI-assisted work.
- I will align with IMA Ethics.
Your Personal AI Policy — yours to take into your firm
By the end of Week 4 you'll have a written protocol covering when you use Claude, how you verify its output, what data is off-limits, and how you document AI-assisted work. Show it to your manager. Show it to your audit committee. Use it as the team standard.
CMA Prompt Library
The complete library of CRAFT-formatted prompts for variance analysis, board memos, KPI commentary, control narratives, and budget write-ups. Every prompt tested. Yours to fork on day one.
AI Policy Template Pack
Microsoft Word and Google Docs versions of the personal AI policy you build in Week 4 — plus a team-level policy your firm can adopt directly. The document that makes you the person who brought AI governance to the finance function.
The 5 Framework One-Pagers
PROVE, CRAFT, the 3-Zone Claude Map, the 4P Data Test, and the 4R Automation Test — each a clean one-page reference to pin next to your monitor. The whole system, at a glance.
NASBA-Approved CPE Credit
Includes 12 months of free access to the NASBA-approved self-study version of this training when it launches on CPE Flow — so you get the live cohort now and formal CPE credit once it ships. You'll be notified via email.
Attend the first class. If it isn't right for you, get 100% of your money back.
Reserve your seat today. Attend the first 90-minute live class. If — for any reason — it isn't the right fit, email us before the second class and we'll refund every cent. No forms, no negotiation. Either it delivers, or you don't pay. The risk is ours.
Claude Foundations for CMAs vs. generic AI training.
The internet is full of "AI for accountants" content. Almost none of it was made by a CMA, for CMAs, with the ethics framework you're held to.
Common questions, answered.
Something not covered? Reply to your confirmation email after reserving — Nathan reads every one.
Do I need any prior AI or prompting experience?
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Why Claude, and not ChatGPT or Copilot?
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Does this qualify for CPE credit?
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What software do I need?
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What's the schedule?
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Is the cohort live, or recorded?
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What if I can't make a live class?
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What about MNPI and client confidentiality?
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Is there a refund policy?
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Become the CMA who brings AI to the finance function.
Four 90-minute live classes — Wednesdays at 5pm Pacific, taught live by Nathan Liao, CMA. Cohort #1 is capped at 50 seats so every CMA and candidate gets real time with Nathan.
