CPE & Event Calendar

Cybersecurity protection is one of the most important responsibilities of every CPA professional to protect the confidentiality of sensitive client information. While there are many aspects of cybersecurity that need to be addressed, the biggest vulnerability to protect against is unauthorized access to your application login credentials. Once your login credentials are breached, the cybercriminal essentially has the keys to your data kingdom. John Higgins, a national leader in the CPA technology, will demonstrate the ease with which you can protect all of your login credentials with maximum security with minimal expense. You will leave this course prepared to deploy this state of the art security tool in your organization. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Do you find yourself challenged to achieve the results you want? While leading employees can be one of the most challenging activities, it is also one of the most impactful leadership skills few seem to master. Inspirational leadership looks like lifelong employees reaching their full potential AND impactful business results that are repeated year after year. Striking the balance between these two critical aspects does not have to be rocket science. In this power-packed course, the formula to be an Inspirational leader has been masterfully developed and covers the soft skills of Inspirational leadership and the Results Model: Goal Setting + Coaching + Follow Up with proven results from dozens of both large and small companies. These cornerstones are simple but can be hard to execute because it is HOW you do it first, then WHAT you do second. This exciting course is designed to ignite your leadership skills by putting theory into practice; drilling into real live examples and experiencing first-hand what excellence sounds like through role-playing and building your action plan. Get ready to become an inspirational leader and learn the steps required to get the results you really want. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

In this continually revised course, tax advisors will be fully updated on the most recent enacted legislation and IRS guidance, as well as major trends on the horizon with a view toward planning considerations. This update course is designed for all practitioners, both those working in public accounting as well as those in private industry, who need the latest information on tax changes. Please Note: Due to content overlap, it is recommended that this course NOT be taken together with BITU.

This course includes an analysis of all of the relevant authoritative pronouncements that a CPA must have an understanding of in order to properly perform preparation, compilation and review engagements. Troublesome areas as identified in peer reviews and litigation will be addressed. This course is loaded with practical aids to enable CPAs to comply with the standards! Participants who take this course will enjoy a smooth sailing in their peer reviews...guaranteed! This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Explore the ethical principles included in the Code of Professional Conduct that address the emerging practice issues created by new technologies. Consider how technologies may impact audit quality and the integrity of the financial systems, and whether they create a need for CPAs to adjust their skill sets to address those challenges. Look at the potential ethical challenges created by the data related to privacy, security, and its application. Discuss the changes being proposed to address emerging ethics challenges. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The tools for managing performance and addressing misconduct are not identical. The failure to point this out to leaders has often resulted in the use of the wrong tool. Reinforcing good performance and securing improvements in performance requires skill in coaching employees, making effective requests, and providing effective feedback   This course provides practical knowledge and scripts for setting, communicating, and enforcing performance expectations, such that personal and employer liability is avoided.

Please join us for our monthly Government Accounting & Auditing committee meeting. Committee meetings are open to all MassCPAs members. CPE Credit: In order to verify your attendance, you must log into zoom using the same email address used to register for this event and linked to your MassCPAs profile Join the committee roster? If you want to join this committee roster, to have access to the MassCPAs online community and be kept up to date with future events, let us know.If you have any questions, contact Melissa at MNystedt@masscpas.org 

Payroll is among the most common tasks an employer undertakes in the course of running their business. At it's most basic level, payroll consists of an agreement between an employer and employee related to compensation for services. However, once you look under the hood, there is so much more to payroll, including various kinds of compensation, payroll taxes and required reporting on government forms. Ethics in payroll is present in every step in the payroll process, from handling employee confidential information and dealing with pay, compensation and fringe benefits, to acting as an intermediary on behalf of federal, state, and local governments in the collection and remittance of payroll taxes. All levels of payroll staff- from payroll processor to payroll manager to CEO - encounter ethical considerations in their conduct when dealing with payroll matters. This course will discuss ethics as it pertains to payroll. Attendees will leave with a comprehensive framework for ethical decision making in the payroll function, as well as some real-life examples of what happens when stakeholders in the payroll process make the decision to decouple ethics from payroll. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Clients often ask their tax advisors whether they have the "best" pension plan and whether they are using it to its maximum advantage. This program explains how various pension plans work and analyzes why a small or medium-sized business owner would choose one plan over another.

Workplace harassment - especially sexual harassment - has dominated headlines in light of the #MeToo movement. While nothing suggests that such harassment is more prevalent than it was before the movement, people now feel more empowered to speak out, and the standard of appropriate workplace conduct is changing. With harassment claims to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission increasing over 50% in 2018, it is more important than ever to understand how to prevent and avoid harassment in the workplace.

This program addresses the critical issues and special opportunities facing S-corporations, with a focus on reporting shareholder basis and distributions. **Please Note:  If you need credit reported to the IRS for this IRS approved program, please download the IRS CE request form on the Course Materials Tab and submit to kori.herrera@acpen.com.

For the past two decades the trend has been to move away from brick and mortar offices and have a greater number of people work or telecommute from home. Because of the upheaval caused by recent events, the rate of this move has been accelerated. This has and will continue to create control challenges and organizations must work to address these. Such things as moving from time based employee value to task completion based measurement and the ability to drive needed inter-company communication are just a sample of the issues with which entities must contend. This session looks at the benefits and pitfalls of workers that telecommute. It then discusses important risks and controls to consider as this trend continues and evolves in the business world. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Are you looking to fortify your practice against the ever-growing threats in the digital landscape? Join us for the third installment of our exclusive webinar series, "Mastering Cybersecurity," brought to you by Practice Protect.  In today's digitally connected world, the need for comprehensive cybersecurity is paramount. With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated, it's crucial to stay ahead of the curve in protecting your sensitive client data. This webinar series is designed to equip CPAs with the knowledge and tools needed to secure their practices and client information effectively.

This course will review the Federal Trade Commission's proposed rule banning non-competes. It will also briefly go over the rule making process and timeline for the proposed rule to go into effect. In the second half, the presentation will review the patchwork quilt of state laws that have curtailed enforcement of non-competes, as well as best practices for businesses to consider when implementing non-competes in the workforce. 

Professional Requirements for Assurance Providers, Including Independence - Understanding Critical Code of Professional Conduct Concepts will dig deeper into important foundational principles, primarily focusing on threats to independence and how to avoid or appropriately safeguard them. The AICPAs Code of Professional Conduct provides guidance for ethical business conduct, as well as other potentially relevant ethical requirements from the PCAOB and international bodies. An important pillar of any Code of Professional Conduct is the rules governing independence when performing attest services, particularly when both attest and non-attest services are provided. Note: This course is recommended as a part of a 16-hour audit skills curriculum for in-charge or supervisor auditors, while it is also appropriate for anyone who has audit or attest engagement responsibilities. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

For tax-exempt organizations, it is not about calculating income tax. It is about showing to the IRS at inception and annually that the organization is entitled to be classified as a tax-exempt organization because of its purpose as reflected in its management and activities. Exempt organizations have unique tax rules and special forms. The IRS is especially sensitive to abuses of exempt status. From fundamentals needed to obtain exemption and to prepare Form 990, this program teaches what the informed accounting and finance professionals in public practice and inside a tax-exempt organization must know.

Join us for an insightful presentation featuring John Higgins, a renowned technology advisor to the CPA profession, who has assisted many firms with Microsoft 365 (M365) deployment. Discover how to leverage the M365 suite of apps to unlock new efficiencies and opportunities within your firm. Don't miss this chance to supercharge your practice with cutting-edge tools! Whether you are a solo practitioner or larger firm, this "bootcamp" will provide you with an ROI many times greater than your investment to attend. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

QuickBooks Online's (QBO) market share continues to expand, and the Cloud-based accounting platform now dominates the small business market. Yet, most accounting and financial professionals have not participated in any formal training on the Cloud-based accounting service. Thus, they are unaware of many of the tool's available features and do not work with QuickBooks Online as efficiently and effectively as they should. This course teaches you how to set up QBO and convert QuickBooks Desktop files into a QBO instance. You will learn how to process all types of transactions, including accounts payable, accounts receivable, bank feeds, inventory, and payroll. Further, you will learn how to implement appropriate internal controls and how to capitalize on advanced features such as workflow management and management reports. Join us in this session to learn how to set up QBO properly and take full advantage of all it offers while avoiding common errors and mistakes.

Did you know Excel has 400-500 functions depending on your version? Did you know there are 12 different function categories? Did you know you could create your own functions? After you attend this class, you will be in the know! In this webinar, we will focus on proofing and auditing your spreadsheets. You will learn how to build spreadsheets that validate the accuracy of your calculations and techniques to use the Data Validation feature to validate data entry. You will also learn techniques to cross-foot your data to ensure accuracy as well as how to use the various Excel Auditing Tools. This session is presented using Excel 2013. Regardless of the version you are using, ALL concepts covered in this course apply to ALL versions of Excel. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The objective of corrective action is to change conduct through teaching.  Corrective action may be sequential, out of order, repetitive, or not appropriate to take at all.  The action selected should reflect the type, frequency, and severity of the misconduct.  Changing conduct through teaching requires effective employee relations skills. This course provides practical knowledge and scripts for handling a wide array of sensitive misconduct situations with good judgment, such that personal and employer liability is avoided.