Best CPD tracking tools for UK accounting firms (2026): an honest comparison

If you run CPD for an accountancy practice, you already know the awkward truth: the individual declaration is the easy part. The hard part is knowing, across a whole firm, who is on track, who has left their verifiable hours until December, whether everyone has done their ethics learning, and whether your AML training records would stand up if your supervisor asked to see them.

This guide compares the main ways UK accounting firms track CPD today, what each approach does well, where it struggles, and the questions worth asking before you choose a tool. It is written for practice managers, partners, finance directors and heads of learning rather than for individual members, although the two needs overlap more than most tools assume.

A quick note before we start: your professional body sets the rules. Whichever tool you choose, each member remains responsible for meeting the current CPD requirements of ACCA, ICAEW, CIMA, ATT, CIOT or any other body they belong to. A tool can make that easier to organise. It cannot make the declaration for anyone.

What a UK accounting firm actually needs from CPD tracking

Most CPD tools are built either for one person keeping a log or for a large employer managing courses. Accountancy practices sit awkwardly between the two. In practice, a firm usually needs to cover five things.

1. Body-specific rules, not a single hours target

Your team rarely belongs to one body. ACCA's unit route asks for 40 units a year, at least 21 of them verifiable. ICAEW sets minimum hours by CPD category, with category-specific verifiable requirements and at least one hour of ethics learning each year. CIMA, ATT and CIOT each have their own approaches. A useful tool lets each person record what matters to their body - verifiable or non-verifiable, ethics, structured or unstructured - rather than forcing everyone into one generic total. You can read more in our guides to ACCA CPD and ICAEW CPD.

2. Evidence that is attached at the time

Verifiable CPD generally needs evidence: a certificate, attendance record or a short note on relevance and application. The firms that struggle most at year end are the ones collecting evidence retrospectively. Look for a tool that lets people attach evidence when they log the activity, not three months later.

3. Mandatory and compliance training alongside CPD

For most practices, CPD is only half of the picture. Anti-money laundering training, data protection, information security and other compliance training sit alongside professional development, and your AML supervisor may expect you to show who has completed what and when. Tracking these in a separate spreadsheet from CPD is where gaps creep in. If AML is on your list, our eLearning courses include AML awareness training.

4. Firm-wide visibility without reading people's reflections

Partners and practice managers need to see progress: who is behind, who has an expiring certificate, which teams have not completed this year's compliance training. They rarely need, and often should not have, access to every personal reflection. A good tool separates oversight from privacy.

5. A record that moves with the person

Accountants move between practice, industry and their own firms. A record that disappears when someone leaves creates problems for them and, sometimes, for you if you need to show what training was completed while they worked with you. Portability is worth asking about.

The main options compared

There is no single right answer. The best choice depends on the size of your firm, how many bodies your people belong to and how much compliance training you manage alongside CPD.

Option 1: spreadsheets and shared folders

How it works: Each person keeps a spreadsheet, or the firm runs one master workbook, with certificates saved in a shared drive.

Where it works well: Very small practices with two or three qualified staff who are disciplined about updating it. It is cheap, familiar and flexible.

Where it struggles:

• No reminders, so logging tends to happen in December.
• Evidence lives in a different place from the record.
• Version control becomes a problem as soon as more than one person edits it.
• Mixing body-specific rules in one sheet gets complicated quickly.
• Personal reflections and firm oversight are in the same file.

If you are starting here, our free CPD log is an easy step up for individuals without changing how the firm works.

Option 2: professional body portals

How it works: Members record or declare CPD through their own body's online account.

Where it works well: Making the annual declaration. The body's own portal is where that declaration ultimately goes, and members should keep using it for that purpose.

Where it struggles for firms:

• Each body has its own system, so a multi-body team has no single view.
• Firms generally cannot see progress across their staff.
• Compliance training such as AML is usually out of scope.
• Records are tied to that body membership, not the person's wider career.

Body portals are part of the answer, not a replacement for firm-level tracking.

Option 3: a general learning management system (LMS)

How it works: The firm buys an LMS to assign and track courses, sometimes with a CPD module added on.

Where it works well: Larger firms with a learning team, a big internal course library and the time to configure and maintain it.

Where it struggles:

• Built around courses you assign, so self-directed CPD such as technical reading, webinars and on-the-job learning is often awkward to record.
• Verifiable and ethics tagging may need custom setup.
• Pricing is often per seat, which can be hard to justify for a small or mid-sized practice.
• The record usually belongs to the firm's system and stays behind when people leave.

We look at the costs in more detail in our LMS alternative comparison.

Option 4: a CPD-first platform with team oversight

How it works: Each person keeps their own CPD record, tagged for their body, with evidence attached. The firm gets a dashboard showing progress and compliance training across the team.

This is the approach we take with WorkplaceHero. Individuals use a free personal CPD Passport for accountants, and firms add Passport for Teams for oversight.

Where it works well:

• Members tag entries as verifiable, non-verifiable or ethics as they log them.
• Evidence is attached to each entry and can be exported for a declaration or a sample.
• Partners and managers see progress and mandatory and compliance training status in one place.
• Personal reflections stay private unless the person chooses to share them.
• The record belongs to the individual and moves with them between employers.

Where it may not fit: If you need a large internal course library with complex authoring and assignment rules, a full LMS may suit you better. And like any tool, it organises your records; it does not submit anything to ACCA, ICAEW or any other body on your behalf.

Questions to ask before you choose

Whatever you are comparing, these questions tend to separate tools that help from tools that simply add another login.

1. Can each person record CPD in the way their own body requires? Ask specifically about verifiable and non-verifiable tagging, ethics learning and ICAEW categories.
2. Is evidence attached to the entry, or stored somewhere else? Retrospective evidence-gathering is where most year-end stress comes from.
3. Can we track mandatory and compliance training, such as AML, in the same place?
4. What can managers see, and what stays private? Oversight of progress is useful. Access to every reflection usually is not.
5. What happens to a person's record when they leave?
6. How is it priced? Per seat, per course or a flat fee, and whether that still works as the firm grows.
7. Where is the data hosted, and is it GDPR compliant? For UK firms, UK or EU hosting is often a reasonable expectation.
8. Can people import their existing records? Most members already have something in a spreadsheet.

A simple way to get started

You do not need to move the whole firm at once. A practical sequence looks like this:

1. Ask your team to start a personal record. Have each qualified member log the last few activities they completed, tagged for their body, with evidence attached. Individual Passports are free.
2. Pick one compliance area to track centrally. AML training is usually the obvious first choice.
3. Review progress at a regular point in the year, not just in December. A mid-year check is often enough to catch anyone falling behind.
4. Add firm-wide oversight when you are ready. Once people are logging consistently, a team dashboard makes it easy to see where you stand.

For firms thinking about the cost side of development, our guide to managing a department budget can help you plan what the year's learning should cost and cover.

The bottom line

For a two-person practice, a disciplined spreadsheet may be enough. For larger firms with an internal course library and a learning team, a full LMS can make sense. For most small and mid-sized UK accounting firms, though, the real need is simpler: a record each person can keep in line with their own body's rules, evidence attached at the time, compliance training in the same place and a clear view for partners without reading everyone's reflections.

Whichever route you choose, remember that each member remains responsible for checking their body's current CPD requirements and making their own declaration.

If you would like to see how firm-wide oversight could work for your practice, explore Passport for Teams or book a walkthrough. Individual accountants can start a free Passport today.