CPE & Event Calendar

The barber, blacksmith, butcher, baker and candlestick maker used to have an intimate knowledge of their customers. This tacit knowledge got lost in the Industrial Revolution. It is now coming back. The world is moving from products and services to subscriptions, favoring access and transformations over ownership and deliverables. McKinsey reports that the subscription ecommerce market has grown by more than 100% per year for the past five years. Further, subscription-based companies are growing eight times faster than the S&P 500 Index (17.6% vs. 2.2%) and five times faster than US retail sales (17.6% vs. 3.6%). The advantages of a subscription model include predictable revenue, the collective knowledge of your customers, one-to-one marketing, forecasting for demand and planning more effectively, breaking down silos and creating an actual "one-firm" model.

Learn an overview of confidentiality privileges that shield taxpayer communications with their non-attorney tax professional from discovery by the Federal government in tax controversy. Taxpayers are entitled to assert confidentiality privilege under Internal Revenue Code Section 7525, similar to the common law attorney-client privilege concerning communications with CPAs and Enrolled Agents. Also, some taxpayer communications, including CPAs and Enrolled Agents, enjoy privileged protection from discovery by the government under the "work product" doctrine. Additionally, communications between clients, attorneys, CPAs and Enrolled Agents may enjoy privilege protection under the "Kovel" judicial doctrine when the professional is retained to assist an attorney. Significant limitations attached to non-attorney privileges are critical for tax professionals to understand. Further, to avoid compromising, a taxpayer communicates with an expectation of privilege that will not withstand challenge. Learn from the perspective of a non-attorney tax professional with experience in addressing each of the privilege issues in tax practice. Companion course: Providing Tax Advice: Professional Standards 2024

Unlock the full potential of your data with our cutting-edge course, "Create Visuals in Power BI to Successfully Analyze Data." Designed to span a focused, four-hour session, this course is your gateway to mastering the art of data visualization using the powerful tools of Microsoft Power BI Desktop and PowerBI.com. Whether you're a business professional, a budding data analyst, or simply someone interested in the world of data science, this course is tailored to enhance your skills in transforming raw data into visually stunning and insightful reports. Dive into the intuitive interfaces of Power BI Desktop and PowerBI.com, and learn to navigate these platforms with ease and confidence. The course is meticulously structured to provide you with demonstrations and practical knowledge. Starting with a comprehensive tour of the Power BI Desktop and PowerBI.com interfaces, you'll quickly move to the core of creating impactful visuals. Explore a wide array of available visuals and learn how to select the most effective ones for your data stories. Through detailed sessions on building interactivity into your visuals, you will discover how to create dynamic reports that not only captivate but also communicate effectively. This course will also guide you through the process of publishing your reports on PowerBI.com, ensuring that your insights reach their intended audience with the right impact. By the end of this transformative journey, you will be adept at leveraging the full capabilities of Power BI. Your newfound ability to create interactive, engaging, and informative visual reports will make you an indispensable asset in any data-driven decision-making process. Embrace this opportunity to elevate your professional profile, enhance your analytical capabilities, and become a sought-after expert in the field of data visualization. Join us for "Create Visuals in Power BI to Successfully Analyze Data" and step into the future of data analysis with confidence and skill. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This intensive two-hour course addresses the critical need for accuracy and efficiency when developing spreadsheets using Microsoft Excel. Recognizing that even minor errors can have significant implications, this course delves deep into strategies and skills required to detect and correct errors in Excel. By the end of this course, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of how to efficiently identify and correct errors in Excel spreadsheets, enhancing their overall productivity and accuracy in their professional roles. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This course provides a concise overview of Google Sheets, a cloud-based spreadsheet application by Google. Similar to Excel, the tool allows users to enter numbers, apply formulas, prepare graphs, create charts, use pivot tables and more. While Excel is the default tool and industry standard for most accountants, Sheets has many underrated capabilities which are clearly superior to Excel. These include online collaboration, team communications, mobility, version control, revision history, cloud storage, translation, Google integration, and scores of third-party add-ons. You'll walk away knowing how to use a whole new array of spreadsheet features not found in Excel that can boost your analytical powers and accelerate your financial workflow. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

2020 taught us that major risks can come at us from any direction and with barely a warning. All organizations operate in a risk environment, but all too often, they either don't realize it or they don't develop a strategy to deal with the risks. In this session, we will explore how risks work in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations and how they can develop a strategy to identify, evaluate, and mitigate those risks. This program will not teach how to eliminate risks, but how to strategize how to reduce their total effect. We will liberally use case studies of both for-profit and not-for-profit companies to bridge the gap between concept and actual implementation. In each area we will explore what our experiences of the pandemic have taught us about this part of risk management.

The Art of Discipline and Getting Things Done - Applying Better Time, Team, and Project Management Techniques provides best practices for various areas that support this culture of discipline, including time, team, and project management. Those in a supervisory or managerial role must create a culture of discipline, where a high priority is placed in accomplishing responsibilities in an effective and efficient manner. Note: This course is recommended as a part of an 8-hour audit skills curriculum for managers, while it is also appropriate for anyone who has responsibilities for project and time management. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Until recently, a percentage of organizations discounted the risk related to external fraud attempts. Most were only concerned with protecting physical assets such as inventory or fixed assets. However, because of the many highly publicized corporate hacking events, such as the ones that affected the Colonial Pipeline and JBS Meats, more attention is being paid to external fraud risk of all types. In this session, we look at what is included in a definition of external fraud and then delve into specific control issues that can give rise to increased risk. We then discuss measures that organizations can employ to help reduce exposure to external attacks. 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.

It's an exciting time to manage a public practice accounting firm! In addition to technical knowledge in tax, auditing, and accounting, we need to understand data analytics and security options in an advisory context. Beyond that, we must manage the practice and people while profitably delivering excellent client service in a competitive environment for the owners. Further, portals, CAS stacks, PBC lists, electronic signatures, Cloud, and robotic process automation are technologies we need to understand beyond our tax, audit, practice management, document management, and workflow systems. This CPA Firm Update session independently covers significant trends and technologies for CPA firms, which will help you understand your current and future choices. With such rapid change, what will your firm do?

Have you ever wanted to reduce the number of financial statement review points you receive? Have you ever been curious about a reviewer's thought process? This session will help you understand the role of an engagement quality control reviewer. You will leave this session understanding the role of an engagement quality control reviewer, and an appreciation of best practices to minimize your exposure to critique when your work is subject to review. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

One of tax practitioners' most fundamental yet frustrating tasks is tax research: getting answers to tax questions. This two-part series will cover the six-step process of tax research from establishing the facts, identifying issues, locating and evaluating authority to developing and communicating recommendations and conclusions of the research. With each of these steps, tips and techniques are discussed and demonstrated to improve the process's efficiency and effectiveness through electronic tax research services (CCH IntelliConnect and RIA Checkpoint) and the Internet.

Understanding how people make buying decisions is key to any successful pricing strategy. By grasping the concepts of how humans make decisions, you can be better equipped to price successfully and increase your profitability. This session will provide a look at behavioral economics, marketing strategy, customer psychology and how these principles should be applied to pricing. This course is ideal for any professional who is interested in being among the leaders in the profession, moving away from the old business model of "We sell time" while embracing the critical success factors of the knowledge economy, will find this presentation stimulating, dynamic, and thought-provoking.

Individuals who work in a governmental environment have many rules of ethics that must be followed. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issues Yellow Book providing rules related to ethics and independence, which received a significant update in 2018. We'll review some of the key elements of ethics relevant to governmental entities and auditors to prevent independence noncompliance. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

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. 

In the fight against global corruption, accountants are being asked to be more forthcoming when they discover information or evidence that points to illegal or prohibited activities. This ethics workshop considers new international professional ethics proposals for responding to non-compliance with laws and regulations (NOCLAR). This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This course introduces practical ways that public accountants can use Excel to enhance both the efficiency and effectiveness of client engagements. We will reinforce core concepts by illustrating ways that Excel is a tool for analysis and reporting. We will introduce numerous analytical methods and techniques by using practical examples to illustrate how to unleash the power of Excel when obtaining, analyzing, and reporting information.

Loans, rental agreements, business combinations – what do these all have in common? They all have the potential of creating a related party transaction.  This program presents a detailed analysis of the financial accounting rules for transactions with related parties, as well as compares and contrasts those rules with the AICPA financial reporting framework for small and medium-sized entities. **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.

Surveys show that the average North American company completes its monthly financial statement closing in six days. However, some companies can close their books in one day or less. You don't have to sacrifice accuracy for speed. This session will show you how to close month-end faster, better and cheaper. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee (NAC) has been meeting with FASB to discuss the impact of various standards on the nonprofit community. We'll look at the work of the NAC and the impact they've had. We'll then transition to the Accounting Standards Updates (ASUs) issued by the FASB that impact nonprofit entities. We'll review year 2 considerations of the leases standard. We'll also review common nonprofit deficiencies identified in peer review. Once we've wrapped up the accounting update, the course shifts to the audit side of the house with a look at what's going on at the AICPA. We'll review the impact of the changes to group audits as the changes coming down the pike for quality management. This course will keep auditors up to date on the work of the ASB. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.