CPE Catalog & Events

Technical expertise may get you in the door—but emotional intelligence (EQ) is what builds trust, earns loyalty, and sustains lasting success. For CPAs, attorneys, financial professionals, bankers, and insurance agents, your ability to navigate emotions—your own and others'—is often the difference between a good client interaction and a great one, between a team that functions and a team that thrives. This interactive course goes beyond theory and dives into real-world application. You’ll uncover what emotional intelligence really is, why it matters more than ever in today’s professional world, and how to strengthen your EQ to improve performance, strengthen relationships, and manage stress with confidence. You’ll walk away with tools you can use immediately to transform how you lead meetings, manage conflict, build client trust, and drive results—while also enriching your personal life. Whether you're looking to become a better leader, communicate with more clarity, or create meaningful client connections, this course gives you the insight and strategies to make it happen.  

AU-C Section 315 requires the auditor to gain an understanding of the entity and its environment and the entity's internal controls in order to design appropriate audit procedures. This course will review the key requirements of COSO which is one of the most widely used internal control frameworks. We'll also review the limitations of internal controls. Additionally, this course will introduce the risk assessment process and the various audit procedures to evaluate controls and to determine whether to test the operating effectiveness of controls. 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are being deployed in organizations large and small at a rapidly increasing rate. Your organization is likely testing, deploying, and perhaps refining AI-powered applications across a variety of departments and business functions. Why should this matter to accounting, internal audit, finance and cyber professionals? Should our teams be testing and deploying also? How and why AI can be used in accounting and audit? During this interactive session we will demonstrate and describe the differences between chat-based AI search tools and more robust AI-powered applications - e.g., an app to help prioritize and dispatch IT help desk tickets. The session will include example policies for responsible and ethical AI, and resources to help curious professionals learn more about these subjects. These technologies are powerful and quite capable, but they are not without risk. After all, with great power comes great responsibility. These technologies can also be misused (accidentally or intentionally) to destroy value instead of creating it. We also discuss which is the greater risk; a) not using these new technologies, or b) misusing these new technologies. Leading organizations have been using AI and ML. Successful leaders must be aware of the pros and cons and how to properly utilize these tools.

If sales increase, so should profits.  Yet, the opposite result often leaves executive’s scratching their heads.  When organizations work with inferior cost information, they make mistakes in four specific situations.  Bad information causes sellers to overprice easy, high-volume work and under-price difficult, low-volume work.  This session discusses how to use activity-based costing to build accurate costing models that consider far more than just the labor and materials necessary to provide goods and services. 

How can you solidify an appropriate investment strategy based on risk, help clients stay on top of potentially life-altering situations and help them understand the intricacies of investment planning? Gain a better understanding of investment markets and the effects of world events, assess client risk and matching to expected return, deal with increasing client concerns, and develop better investment solutions in a rapidly changing environment. Attendees will consider the following questions during this course: How should you adjust your investment philosophy based on a world that is not secure? With new market heights attained often and unexpected events occurring regularly, how does one feel comfortable with an investment strategy? Where are investments headed in an economy?to some?on borrowed time? Be sure to register for all of our PFP updates: PFP Update: Income Tax, Retirement, and Estate Planning PFP Update: Issues, Exposures, and Developing Client Strategy PFP Update: Investment Planning in This New Era

It's essential to stay current on Form 5500 filing rules and requirements. Get a practical review of Form 5500, including 5500SF and 5500EZ. We'll discuss the changes for 2025 and how different government agencies use the form to target enforcement efforts. We'll review the related schedules, how to report late contributions, and what to do if your clients miss a filing deadline.

A deeper dive into Cybersecurity topics specific to CPAs and Fintech Organizations, expanding on the fundamentals from Cybersecurity 101 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 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

Join the Team from Hodgen Law for a monthly LIVE International tax-based presentation. Be sure to register for them all. April 2025 - Form 8858: When to File, What to Report May 2025 - Form 5472: When to File, What To Report June 2025 - Life After Expiration: Common Tax Issues July 2025 - Form 5471: The Section 962 Election August 2025 - Form 5471: Previously-Taxed Earnings & Profits (Schedules J, P) September 2025 - Form 3520: When to File, What to Report October 2025 - Form 3520-A: When to File, What to Report November 2025 - Pre-Expatriation Tax Planning to Minimize Exit Tax January 2026 - Pre-Residency Tax Planning February 2026 - Foreign Retirement Plans: Employees' Trusts, Grantor Trusts, or What? March 2026 - Portfolio Interest Loans for Real Estate Investments

Many employees with ADHD struggle with productivity. It’s heart-breaking to feel you have to let a team member go due to lack of performance. This course is for HR Professionals and Team Leaders who want more tools in their tool belt to help improve retention with ADHD team members. You will learn whole brain strategies to help your team members with ADHD improve performance, so they can not only survive but thrive. This innovative science-based approach is designed to help people with ADHD get more done in less time with a process designed with their creative brain in mind.

What obligations does an employer have when an employee needs to take a leave of absence? This presentation will provide an overview of the complicated, intertwined compliance obligations triggered when an employee requests a medical leave of absence (including for pregnancy, mental health, or addiction).  

The ability to create and ask good questions as well as the ability to know when someone is being deceptive are important skills for managers, auditors, and investigators. This session will improve your interview techniques and your lie detection abilities. Multiple videos from various movies, TV shows, and public figures showcasing the behaviors of liars are included.

This course will explore the use of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence chatbot technologies in the accounting profession. Participants will learn how to utilize ChatGPT to automate tasks, improve efficiency and accuracy, and provide real-time support to clients. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

When we verbally communicate with an individual, we must make a conscious decision as to whether we believe what we have heard.  Little do we realize that we are not making a decision based on what we have heard; rather we make a subconscious decision based primarily on what we have seen, or how the body was behaving when the subject was speaking.  We often walk away from a conversation with a gut feeling that the person was not telling the truth.  That gut feeling is your subconscious.  Yet we often have no idea as to why we have that feeling. This presentation is designed to provide the participant with the tools to identify those both verbal and nonverbal indicators that we all give off when we are under stress.  Normally, telling the truth does not create stress.  When we lie, we know that we are not supposed to and that creates stress, and it will manifest itself in some manner, and that is what a trained interviewer is looking to observe. When we observe indicators of deception, how do we deal with it?  How do we get the subject to admit to a wrong-doing when it is not in their best interest to do so?  That is one of the many things that will be addressed in this presentation.  Whether you are a parent dealing with you kids; an employer dealing with employees or and investigation interviewing a suspect, this presentation will provide you with the tools to assist you in finding the truth.

Discover the communication edge that will take your CPA career to the next level. This comprehensive course empowers CPAs with the tools to enhance clarity, build trust, and drive decisions. Learn to transform complex jargon into actionable insights and develop powerful persuasion techniques that resonate with clients and stakeholders. Join me to sharpen your communication skills and elevate your professional impact. 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.

This course dives into the powerful, but potentially under-utilized, capabilities of Microsoft Excel. Designed for sophisticated users willing to approach spreadsheets from a unique perspective, this program encourages users to challenge the status quo by considering opportunities to take acceptable spreadsheets to a new level. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Appreciation isn’t a soft skill—it’s a strategic advantage. In today's competitive professional landscape, your ability to express appreciation effectively can be the difference between retaining top talent, building strong client relationships, and creating a thriving team culture—or not. This course introduces a powerful, research-backed framework for understanding how appreciation works—and how to use it to fuel performance, loyalty, and engagement across your firm, practice, or department. Based on the work of Dr. Gary Chapman and Dr. Paul White, you’ll explore the four core "languages of appreciation" and learn how to recognize and use them in a way that resonates with clients, colleagues, and team members. The truth is, everyone wants to feel valued—but not everyone receives appreciation the same way. In this hands-on session, you’ll discover your own appreciation style, learn to spot others’, and develop practical tools to build a more energized, connected, and committed workplace.  

This session will address the complex rules of retirement distributions, review key provisions of the SECURE Act 2.0, and provide practical strategies of maximizing tax benefits for your client. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

PowerPoint is a widely available resource that is potentially underutilized by accountants because many accountants do not stray beyond Excel and Word in the Microsoft Office suite. You will learn how to create and edit a professional PowerPoint slide deck. This session places particular emphasis on efficiency tips and tricks that will allow you to develop creative, professional visual aids while minimizing time and effort. The course’s author will share personal insights he has cultivated throughout more than two decades of public speaking. Although the session will focus on creating and editing slides, we will illustrate best practices for presentation delivery. We will also explain how PowerPoint can be used for purposes other than delivering presentations.