CPE Catalog & Events

This two-hour CPE course is designed for accounting professionals and technology enthusiasts seeking to enhance productivity through Microsoft 365's versatile applications. Participants will explore ten key apps - including Shared Mailboxes, Planner, Lists, To Do, Stream, Viva Learning, Forms, Bookings, Approvals, and Places - and learn to integrate them effectively into their workflows. The course emphasizes practical applications within accounting contexts, aiming to streamline operations and foster collaboration.

This course will explore significant elements of the FASB's technical agenda, focusing on recent updates to revenue recognition and lease accounting standards. A Special Purpose Framework overview will be provided, which may reveal salient alternatives to U.S. GAAP for certain entities. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Most leadership training focuses on leading downstream, with the goal of eventually advancing to an executive role. Few people get to be “top dog” in their organization. So, nearly every worker will spend their entire career leading up, even while serving in a leadership role. Learn the skills and tactics needed to develop an effective working relationship with your boss and other superiors. Gain the credibility and support necessary to get things done and advance professionally.

Resilience training was originally developed to strengthen individuals in high-risk groups like law enforcement, firefighters, and the military. This course also speaks to accounting and finance experts in a very challenging discipline. Resilience training is based on the intriguing assumption that resilience can be learned. A resilience leader possesses mental toughness, competence, and confidence. A confident accounting or finance person makes better decisions and thinks in deliberate ways to meet adversity and pressure. Resilience is the ability to exercise tenacity, bounce back from tough times, or even triumph in the face of adversity. Today's accounting professionals will experience challenges but are able to reframe then as learning opportunities. Resilient accounting and finance professionals push their limits, learn from their mistakes, and are able to transform an organization and themselves.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) were implemented to improve the lives of employees. FMLA allows eligible employees to take job-protected leave for their own serious health conditions or to care for sick family members. The ADA was intended to ensure "equality of opportunity" and "economic self-sufficiency" for individuals with disabilities. Yet both laws have proven challenging for employers. These laws are complex with rules that can be confusing and often misunderstood. This webinar is designed to provide information, guidelines, and examples of the key concepts under both laws.

The IRS has recently increased the pressure on how to calculate and report partner and shareholder basis. Changes in the forms reflect these developments. This program provides a detailed analysis of the calculations related to determining tax basis for a partnership interest and S corporation shareholder shares and loans. How to use the Form 1065, Schedule K-1 and Form 1120S, Schedule K-1 information for basis determination. Illustrated examples with filled in forms will demonstrate how the process works and their many potential pitfalls. *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

This course will review the fundamentals of fiduciary accounting and provide a reporting guide for determining whether receipts and expenditures are assigned to income or principal/corpus. Critical issues, rules, and special opportunities when preparing your clients' Form 1041 U.S. Income Tax Return for Estates and Trusts will be examined, including what is considered taxable income and allowable deductions. Planning and potential pitfalls will also be explored.  This course only qualifies for 2 IRS credits. *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

Properly designed and effectively operating internal control over financial reporting is critical for preventing, or detecting and correcting, material misstatement. This course describes how to satisfy the audit requirements related to taking a control reliance strategy by testing the operating effectiveness of internal controls, while promoting an effective and efficient financial statement audit. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

George Washington once wrote, "We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience." The cost of fraud, dearly paid by governments and nonprofits, is too severe not to learn and profit from. In this course, we will look back at real-world government and nonprofit frauds and derive useful controls to stop them. The course materials utilize a highly illustrative and innovative format. Over 15 focused exercises are included to provide an enhanced working knowledge of fraud and anti-fraud controls to both auditors and industry professionals.

Governmental Accounting 101, is a 2 hour webcast that takes the participant of a whirlwind tour of governmental accounting basics, focusing on wetting the participant’s appetite for more.  This session will be the first of a series of webcasts, with each subsequent webcast delving deeper and deeper into the governmental accounting basics. 

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.

Between 2010 and 2020 a parade of Court Cases, IRS Factsheets, Job Aids and Internal Memos, plus Heightened IRS scrutiny and Preparer Penalties has brought the issue of 'Reasonable Compensation for S Corp's out of the shadows and placed it forefront as a priority issue for CPA's, EA's, Tax and Financial advisors to cover with their clients. We will explore key court cases, IRS guidelines, preparer penalties and some of the obscure tools the IRS has put in place. We debunk common myths and fiction on how reasonable compensation should be calculated and replace it with facts and methodologies that the IRS relies on. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Please join us for a discussion on Treasury Circular 230 and other ethical issues faced by enrolled agents and other tax preparers.  In addition to covering the practice standards espoused by Treasury Circular 230, there will also be an overview of the applicable provisions in the Internal Revenue Code (IRC) and common law which will affect tax preparers.  The discussion will conclude with other ethical issues, such as avoiding conflicts of interest, proper fee structure and maintaining competency.  Also included will be case studies illustrating dilemmas faced by tax practitioners.   **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.  

This hands-on workshop offers an analytical approach for designing, executing, and communicating results of a comprehensive financial statement analysis. We will explore numerous techniques and approaches that facilitate in-depth financial statement analysis. Accountants in public practice will obtain insight regarding analytical procedures, additional client services, and enhanced compliance with professional standards. Accountants in private enterprises will develop more robust techniques for understanding their organization’s financial statements to facilitate forward-thinking decisions and communication to internal and external stakeholders.

Looking to stay ahead in tax matters? Join our Individual Tax Update course for an essential deep dive into Form 1040 essentials. Designed for tax pros eager to sharpen their skills, this course unpacks recent tax code changes and equips you with the know-how to navigate them effortlessly. From mastering IRS Form 1040 to leveraging new tax benefits, you'll emerge ready to optimize returns for your clients while staying compliant with the latest regulations. Don't miss out on this opportunity to boost your expertise and ensure financial success for both you and your clients! **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.

The course explains why you need more than Google to search the Internet and highlights a rich constellation of alternative search engine applications. The session also explains how to set up your own customized online research management platform, and discusses dynamic search strategies (two-step, vertical and lateral searching) that can be used to gain an extra edge when using any search engine. Participants will walk away with scores of new knowledge sources and streams that will complement their use of Google and improve their online research power. 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 corresponds to our Controllership series. This course is dedicated to exploring the traditional controller role and stepping out of the box to identify areas where the controller can continue to add strategic value to their organizations. Within this segment of our controllership series, we discuss the area of cash and investments and explore how the controller can move these responsibilities into more of a strategic role. In today’s world, the role of cash management is often a pivotal role in the organization. In economically difficult times, controllers may find that they spend a great deal of their time on understanding and managing the organizations' cash position. This is certainly important and, in some areas, can be seen as a staple of the lifeblood of the organization’s ongoing viability. This course takes a look at some of the typical objectives involved in cash management and then evaluates how those objectives can be further stretched into strategic pillars of the organization.  

The difference between star performers and average ones in leadership roles is attributable largely to emotional intelligence (EQ). It’s surprising, then, that EQ is underrated as an essential ingredient for success in life and leadership. This presentation highlights the importance of EQ and provides participants with actionable tools to develop better relationships within and outside of the workplace, build healthy teams, and navigate constant change.

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.

Where is your data? Do you have it controlled and backed up? If all your data is in the Cloud, how do you verify that the backup recovery is rapid? If your data is in various silos from your application providers, how do you ensure you have the protection and disposal approaches needed? This session will help you understand and guide your IT team and providers to take the right actions to protect your business. Backup considerations, including Cloud, backup appliance, disaster recovery, and business continuity approaches, are included. If you are from the "trust but verify" school of thought, this session will help you ask the right questions.