CPE + Events Catalog
The Preparation of Forms 706 and 709 - Understanding the Law (3 hours)
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Online
3.0 Credits
Member Price: $99
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A solid understanding of the laws governing estate and gift taxation is essential for tax professionals handling Forms 706 and 709. This course provides an in-depth analysis of the legal framework surrounding estate and gift taxes, including key regulations, IRS guidance, and court rulings. Participants will explore how estate and gift tax rules interact, learn strategies for minimizing tax liabilities, and gain insight into compliance challenges. The course will also provide a thorough review of any new legislative changes introduced by the current administration and their implications for estate and gift tax planning. *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
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Avoiding Legal Liability and Peer Review Deficiencies in Nonaudit Services, Including Bookkeeping and Preparing Financial Statements (4 hour
Online
4.0 Credits
Member Price: $129
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The majority of peer review deficiencies and malpractice claims result from nonaudit services. This course will provide best practices for avoiding legal liability and quality control concerns.
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The SECURE Act 2.0 - Planning Opportunities for Individuals (1.2 hours)
Online
1.2 Credits
Member Price: $39
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The Secure Act 2.0 was passed in a flurry of year-end legislation. This one hour program will cover the important changes that individuals need to know about contributions to accounts and new ways of accessing these funds. This course will provide a concise look at these hot topics. **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.
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The Competent Accountant - Mastering the Role of the Controller/ CFO (4 hours) [NT]
Online
4.0 Credits
Member Price: $129
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How do you raise your skills to the next level to master the Controller or CFO role? Welcome to a course that provides insights that align the CGMA Competency Framework. The course will examine each of the areas: Technical, Business, Leadership and People to increase your competency. How are your technical skills? Are you a traditional accountant or have you learned to expand your technical skills to go beyond “what are the financial numbers?” to “why did these financial results occur?” Are you able to use ratios to understand the business dynamics and the implications to change course or take corrective action? Are the systems that you implement and operate best practices or merely stop-gap solutions? How are your business skills? Can you set a vision? Can you develop a strategy? Do you understand the macroeconomic environment of your organization? Can you lead a major project to a successful conclusion? This session will explore the role of business as opposed to tracking the results of the business. How are your people skills? How good is your ability to influence others? How are successful are your negotiation skills? How well can you communicate? Are you a collaborator or a partner? This section will help accountants understand that it is people skills that drive the overall success of the accounting operations. Finally, how are your Leadership skills? Do you inspire staff or make them angry? Do you know why your staff work for your company and you? Do you understand what employees want from their position? Do you know how to deal with a difficult staff person? Can you lead difficult change? This session will help you recognize what leadership truly is as opposed to what passes for day to day management.
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New Mergers & Acquisitions: Tricks, Traps, & Terrors (4.2 hours) [NT]
Online
4.2 Credits
Member Price: $129
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Welcome to a course that makes the process of M&A easy to understand and easy to implement within your organization or your clients' organization. The course will provide an intensive overview of the M&A process. Focus will be on practical techniques to guide you through the M&A jungle and avoid the traps that have befallen many organizations.
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A Practical Guide to Trusts
Online
8.0 Credits
Member Price: $245
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This course provides financial professionals with a comprehensive understanding of trusts and their role in estate planning. Participants will learn how to determine whether a trust aligns with a client's financial goals and explore strategies to maximize tax efficiency. The course covers various trust structures and their potential to reduce income, estate, and generation-skipping taxes at both federal and state levels. Additionally, it delves into trustee responsibilities and the benefits of irrevocable life insurance trusts and dynasty trusts. With a focus on practical applications and real-world scenarios, this course equips CPAs, EAs, attorneys, bankers, and financial planners with the expertise to navigate probate avoidance, streamline asset distribution, and manage complex tax considerations. Whether working with revocable or irrevocable trusts, participants will gain the tools to enhance their clients' financial well-being across generations. *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
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Ethics for CPAs: The Practical and the Possible (2 hours)
Online
2.0 Credits
Member Price: $79
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Award winning discussion leader, former AICPA Council Member, and former state accountancy board member Mark Hugh will review the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct and its interpretations; discuss new developments in regulation at the national and state level; and discuss examples of best practices, case studies, and disciplinary actions.
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The ABCs of Advisory Services (2 hours)
Online
2.0 Credits
Member Price: $79
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Over the next decade, the area of “Advisory Services” has the greatest potential for growth in your practice. Complexities within your clients’ financial, estate, and asset protection plans coupled with the ever-changing Internal Revenue Code has created an opportunity for the CPA, the EA, and other advisors to expand their client offerings. This course provides the practitioner with the framework for practice expansion as well as an understanding of a variety of necessary issues and techniques.
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Critical "Soft" Skills for CFOs and Controllers (4 hours) [NT]
Online
4.0 Credits
Member Price: $129
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Accounting and finance managers and executives must demonstrate sound soft skills necessary for personal growth and organizational success. This course will provide insights into the most crtical personal skills critical for CFOs and Controllers - or those that want to be!
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Communicate Financial Concepts to Non-Accountants (2 hours)
Online
2.0 Credits
Member Price: $79
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Do you ever get blank looks when you present your company's financial statements? Does your board nod knowingly, during your presentation, but never seem to have any meaningful questions? It could be that they have no idea what you are talking about and are just pretending to understand! Learn how to connect with your CEO, board, fellow managers, and ordinary employees so they understand your message.
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The Role of Internal Audit in Enterprise-Wide Risk Management (4 hours)
Online
4.0 Credits
Member Price: $129
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Those charged with governance, with the assistance of internal audit, are responsible for overseeing the strategic direction of the organization, and ensuring value is delivered to the entity's stakeholders. This course will provide guidance on fulfilling the responsibility for challenging how much risk and uncertainty to accept through the application of COSO's Enterprise Risk Management Framework.
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The SECURE Act 2.0 - Planning Opportunities for Employers (1 hour)
Online
1.0 Credits
Member Price: $39
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The Secure Act 2.0 was passed in a flurry of year-end legislation. This one hour program will cover the important changes that employers need to know about company retirement plans. Employers will also need to consider how Secure Act 2.0 will the administration of existing plans or the creation of new ones. This course will provide a concise look at these hot topics. **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.
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Annual Update on the 2024 Revised Uniform Guidance And Time & Effort Reporting (2 hours)
Online
2.0 Credits
Member Price: $79
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The Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200) pertains to the management of Federal Financial Assistance for grants and cooperative agreements. The Biden Administration has performed a comprehensive update where the revised Uniform Guidance was released in April 2024. We will review all of the significant compliance and threshold changes. In addition, we will provide a brief presentation of the revised guidance as it pertains to Time and Effort reporting.
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Critical Technical Skills for CFOs and Controllers (4 hours) [NT]
Online
4.0 Credits
Member Price: $129
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Accounting and finance managers and executives must demonstrate sound technical and analytical necessary for personal growth and organizational success. This course will provide insights into the most critical technical and analytical skills needed by CFOs and Controllers - or those that want to be!
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Leveraging Marketing Automation for Accounting Firm Growth (1 hour) [NT]
Online
1.0 Credits
Member Price: $55
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This course will provide an overview of 6 key areas of automation that accounting firms can leverage to effectively increase their lead generation and client retention efforts while reducing the burden on their time and budget. These areas include: 1. Social media 2. Content development. 3. Email marketing. 4. Text (SMS) marketing. 5. Chatbots and other interactive AI tools. 6. Drip marketing campaigns. Attendees will receive a practical guide to the technologies and tactics needed to improve marketing efforts with efficiency and ease! This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
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The Controllership Series - The Financial Close Process (1.5 hours)
Online
1.5 Credits
Member Price: $59
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A common challenge for the controller role is in closing the month-end and period-end books in preparation to issue financial statements. This duty requires precision, timing and efficiency. In today’s digital world, many organizations have access to financial accounting software that will assist with the steps in the financial close. However, even with this aid it is critical the accountant understand the various steps for the close process and how they inter-relate to other accounting processes. This course gives you an insight into the inter-relationships between many processes that impact the financial close. The closing process has traditionally been a slow one with many companies taking two weeks to close its subsidiary’s books and another two to three weeks to roll up and consolidated the results. With the introduction of technology much has been done to help accelerate that process with integrated enterprise resource planning systems and general ledger and consolidate software. Within this segment we will discuss the elements of the financial close and also important concepts to assist the controller in accelerating their close timeline. This includes addressing all functional areas of the close including payroll, invoicing, payables, inventory, cash, and the general ledger. We will also discuss important concepts of ensuring your financial close is accurate by discussing bank reconciliations, overhead allocations, bad debt reserves, unpaid wages and accruals for vacation time, account reconciliations, deprecation and overall financial statement review. Note: This course does not address utilizing technology in the financial close. Its focus is to understand the varied procedures involved in the financial close whether or not technology is utilized.
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Deep Dive into Quality Management (2 hours)
Online
2.0 Credits
Member Price: $79
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Quality management will have a big impact on CPA firms. This course will cover both SQMS 1 and 2 as well as the related engagement level standards (SAS 146 and SSARS 26). The new standards will require a risk-based approach to quality management as well as the documentation of an information & communication process. SQMS 1 is required to be implemented at all accounting firms by December 15, 2025 but due to the size of the effort, firms should start their implementation process ASAP. SQMS 2 covers the appointment and eligibility of the engagement quality reviewer and the performance of the reviews. SAS 146 addresses the specific responsibilities of the auditor regarding quality management at the engagement level for an audit of financial statements and the related responsibilities of the engagement partner. SSARS 26 amends AR-C Sections to be consistent with these new standards. This two hour class will provide a deep dive into what you need to know to start your implementation process!
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Progressive Management Accounting (2 hours)
Online
2.0 Credits
Member Price: $79
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Critics have claimed that traditional managerial accounting is at best useless and at worst dysfunctional and misleading. Most line managers do not trust their management accounting data. 21st Century management accounting develops cost/unit metrics that are useful for budgeting, cost analysis and control. Activity-based costing (ABC) brings truly accurate fact-based costing visibility. ABC does not broadly allocate overhead, but traces costs by identifying cause-and-effect relationships. Such information can provide the ability to reveal true profit margins for products, service-lines, specific sales channels and customers. The same information also helps reduce costs and improve productivity by reporting unit costs that you can use to monitor cost trends and benchmark against your competition. Removing the barriers caused by your current management accounting techniques can provide huge rewards.
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Finding Errors in Excel Spreadsheets (2 hours) [NT]
Online
2.0 Credits
Member Price: $89
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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.
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Proper Financial Accounting for S Corporations (4 hours)
Online
4.0 Credits
Member Price: $129
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Proper financial accounting for S corporations involves adhering to specific accounting principles and tax regulations designed for this unique business structure. This course examines the proper financial accounting for S Corporations.
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