CPE Catalog & Events

What were they thinking?  Why do some people make horrible decisions that severely damage themselves and their organizations?  It is tempting to assume that a poor choice must be due to a leader’s incompetence, inexperience, bad character, or low intelligence – but such easily attributed factors generally aren’t the true cause when leaders blunder.  In such situations, many turn to finance and accounting professionals for evaluation, answers, remedies, and solutions for improved decision-making.

Financial statements prepared for stockholders and external users follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), while tax returns adhere to the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). These frameworks differ in recognizing profitability, influencing reported income significantly. Companies often aim to minimize taxable income within legal bounds, while maintaining compliance with both financial reporting and tax regulations. - Timing Differences: Variations in income recognition and deductible expenses between GAAP and IRC create timing differences, impacting reported profitability and tax liabilities. - Deferred Tax Assets: Companies accrue deferred tax assets from overpaid taxes or carried-forward credits, which can offset future taxable income, reducing tax liabilities. - Deferred Tax Liabilities: When taxable income is less than reported income, deferred tax liabilities arise, necessitating future tax payments when temporary differences reverse. Join us to delve into these concepts, exploring how financial reporting choices and tax strategies shape a company's financial performance and compliance obligations. 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 address the most recent tax legislation, IRS guidance and developments occurring in 2024-25 that will impact business taxpayers. Designed to prepare the practitioner for the upcoming filing season, this course will provide useful strategies to assist in the tax preparation process. **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.  

Advisors often ask clarifying questions as they increasingly gain an understanding of new and existing tax laws that govern IRAs. Some provisions see more questions than others due to their complexity, popularity, and level of impact on tax benefits. This course focuses on the top 20 of these questions and on SECURE Act 1.0, SECURE Act 2.0, and other hot topics. This course aims to help the advisor provide clients with the correct responses based on their IRA profiles.

Charts and graphs are nothing new. However, many professionals struggle with building compelling visualizations. If that statement describes you, participate in this session to improve your skills in creating Excel charts and other visualizations. As a result, you will create visualizations to enhance your communication skills. This session is much more than just a seminar on fundamental charts. Instead, in this session, you will learn how to create advanced charts that are interactive, dynamic, and aesthetically pleasing – three qualities that will help to ensure that your readers and audience will understand the data you are presenting. This seminar is a must if you want to improve your communication skills.

Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular tools for communication, collaboration, and knowledge sharing. If you use Microsoft Teams in your practice or business, this is a "must attend" course. You will learn everything you need to know to optimize the features of Teams and maximize your productivity. We will cover everything from how to effectively design your teams and channels configuration. How to utilize all the Teams features for posting conversations and working with your Office documents, PDF files and more. You will leave this course with the skills to master all the features of Teams! This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Human Resources professionals are often tasked with investigating allegations of employee misconduct, discrimination, and others. Investigation training is traditionally presented from the position of an outsider looking in, such as a governmental agency, law firm, or private investigator. HR investigations require similar skills, but the environment and the approach are quite different. This session explores these differences and provides best practices for planning, executing, documenting, and reporting the results of an HR investigation. Attendees will end the session with takeaways to immediately implement in future HR investigations. 

Unlike a traditional financial audit objective (Are the financial statements materially misstated), performance auditing can address a wide variety of objectives.  Is this program working? Can it be improved? Where can we save money? How can we operate more efficiently and effectively? Are management’s assertions supported? And so forth.  This session will explain what a performance audit is, describe the applicable standards, and provide examples that indicate the value of a performance audit.  Performance audits can add value to any entity and practitioners can profit from adding these assurance services to their practices.

More and more entities need Yellow Book engagements, including a growing number of for-profit entities. In this course, we will review the unique independence requirements in GAGAS. We'll also review the recent changes to quality management in Yellow Book. We'll close with a reminder of common deficiencies found in Yellow Book engagements. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Financial skills needed in many situations are constantly changing.  It is prudent to routinely look into your toolbox to restock or revise your tool set.  In this course we will examine three tool categories that form the foundation for many analytical processes.

The introduction to governmental budgeting course is an overview of the typical timeline and process a government uses when creating their annual budget. Topics covered include, the basics of governmental budgeting, establishing priorities for the budget, the common steps and timeline of the budget process, what, when and how we should be monitoring the budget throughout the year, and how long-term budgets fit in with the annual budget process.

Following the ever-changing tax deprecation rules is not a game for the faint hearted! This course analyzes the current landscape of depreciating, capitalizing and disposing of business assets, with examples and illustrated case studies to enhance the CPAs understanding of the most current tax depreciation provisions. *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 addresses the most recent legislative developments impacting individual taxpayers, with a focus on important provisions, rules and concepts to apply when preparing client returns.  **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.  

Discover how Microsoft 365 Copilot can revolutionize your daily tasks as a CPA. Dive into the specific features and functionalities of this AI-powered assistant. Learn how to leverage Copilot to enhance productivity, automate routine tasks, and improve collaboration within your team. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

In February 2016, FASB issued ASU 2016-02, Leases, which provides new guidelines that change the accounting for leasing arrangements. To be able to properly account for leases, financial professionals must understand ASU 2016-02 (also referred to as Topic 842). This guidance covers information on how leases should be accounted for. The previous leasing standard (ASC 840) had been in existence for almost 40 years. Under ASC Topic 842, lessors continue to classify leases as operating, direct financing, or sales-type. While lessees now classify leases as operating or financing leases. Previous guidance only required capital leases to be reflected on the BS. The new guidance requires all leases to be reflected on the BS. This is a major change for organizations and will cause their balance sheets to swell as leases must now be disclosed on the balance sheet. The standards original effective dates were prior to 2019. In April 2020, due to COVID-19, FASB voted to defer the effective date for ASC 842 for private companies and certain not-for-profit's for one year. For private companies and private not-for-profits, the leasing standard will be effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2021, and interim periods within fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2022. For public companies the leasing standard is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2019, including interim periods within those fiscal years. The course covers elements of lease classification for both lessees and lessors. Also, numerous examples are incorporated as reference.  

This course provides a concise update on key changes in governmental auditing. We'll review the 2024 Yellow Book updates, including the shift from quality control to quality management, key audit matters, and implementation timelines. For Single Audits, we'll cover the 2024 Uniform Guidance updates, the 2025 Compliance Supplement, GAO reports on improper payments and fraud, the Financial Data Transparency Act (FDTA), and recent Department of Education guidance on related parties. Stay informed on critical standards and updates to ensure compliance and audit quality.

Strategic Planning for SMEs

Financial statement disclosures are important to provide the information necessary for financial statement users to make economic decisions. Disclosures further explain and clarify information provided in the basic financial statements, but also provide critical information about subsequent events, litigation risk, and other concerns. This course focuses on the most common financial statement disclosures for small- or medium-sized nonpublic entities. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Various legal tests are used to evaluate whether a worker should be classified as an employee or an independent contractor. There is no uniform standard or bright-line rule for determining whether an individual is properly classified as an independent contractor. Instead, the inquiry is always fact-intensive, and the analysis can vary based what body is performing it, i.e. the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”), Department of Labor (“DOL”), various state agencies, or the courts. This presentation will review the various tests and highlight some of the common, most important factors for consideration.   

Applying Topic 606 in an environment of uncertainty can be especially challenging. This course will discuss the proper application of the revenue recognition model when facts and circumstances are changing.