Professional Development and Event Catalog

Many partnerships and S corporations are now required to complete the voluminous Schedules K-2 and K-3 to report foreign-related tax information. Updated for the 2024 tax year, this course is an essential guide for tax preparers on how to tackle the preparation of these forms. Understanding and preparing these forms requires a basic knowledge of various international tax topics, including sourcing of income, foreign tax credit income categories, effectively connected income, and fixed, determinable, annual, or periodical (FDAP). The course includes a brief discussion of key international tax concepts, a detailed walk-through of what information is required to be reported in different parts of the schedules, and practical advice from the field. The course also includes three comprehensive case studies on how the form should be completed for operating, real estate rental, and investment partnerships. Please note: Surgent also offers a companion course, "Schedules K-2 and K-3: Filing Requirements" (KFR2).

When asked the question, “What would you like to improve about your leadership and communication style?” more than 65% of leaders say they want to be more confident and assertive in their communication. Confidence and clarity communicates leadership. If you are responsible for growing a profitable company or a productive team, you want team members who have the ability to reach goals, make sales, finish projects, and serve customers. Being a confident compelling leader helps to inspire better relationships, promotes trust and reduces stress in the workplace.

For many business professionals, accessing and managing data in Excel is one of the biggest stumbling blocks when creating reports and analyses. Common practices include far too many manual processes and formulas, including never-ending manual processes needed to update your data and related reports. Make plans now to join us in this session to learn best practices for accessing and managing data using Excel. In this session, you will learn how you can use Power Query and other Excel tools to quickly access and manipulate your data and generate reports in record time! This is a “must-see” session for any business professional working with Excel!    

Automating the tax practice is – or should be – a major initiative of almost all public accounting firms today. From ingesting data, processing returns, distributing draft and final copies, and billing and collecting fees, practitioners have outstanding opportunities to automate their tax practice. Those that choose to automate will experience the benefits of reduced staff turnover, increased productivity and efficiency, fewer errors, and improved cash flow. Participate in this session to learn the “how’s and why’s” of automating your tax practice. This session includes critical topics such as hardware and software options, workflows, and security and privacy issues. Plan to join us in this session to position your tax practice for greater success! 

When asked the question, “What would you like to improve about your leadership and communication style?” more than 65% of leaders say they want to be more confident and assertive in their communication. Confidence and clarity communicate leadership. If you are responsible for growing a profitable company or a productive team, you want team members who have the ability to reach goals, make sales, finish projects, and serve customers. Being a confident, compelling leader helps to inspire better relationships, promotes trust, and reduces stress in the workplace. Lack of confidence and assertiveness can lead to resentment, depression, low self-esteem, and loss of respect from colleagues and employers. Confident communication cultivates cooperation, goal achievement, and a more respectful work environment. Clear and compelling leaders are better equipped to move projects forward and make things happen while improving cooperation and respect from partners and subordinates.  

If you are an experienced Excel user seeking to elevate your skills, join the K2 team for K2’s Advanced Excel. In this laptop-friendly program, you will learn critical advanced Excel skills in six key areas: 1) collaborating with other users and securing workbooks, 2) using tables to analyze and report data, 3) integrating and manipulating data from external sources, 4) creating and auditing complex formulas, 5) advanced data analysis tools, and 6) visualization techniques to analyze and communicate information. The course draws from over twenty-five years of experience delivering Excel training to accountants and other business professionals. Throughout the program, relevant, real-world examples reinforce the topics presented. Take advantage of this opportunity to become more efficient and proficient in Microsoft Office Excel, the tool of choice for accounting and financial professionals. This course covers advanced Excel topics found in Excel 2019 and newer.

As discussed in the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations, 86% of all frauds are misappropriation of assets.  Why is the misappropriation of assets so large?  Because there as so many of them it creates many, many opportunities.  And the asset which is stolen the most?  CASH!  Because it’s easy to conceal and you don’t have to convert it.  During this presentation, the many, many different ways to misappropriate (steal) assets and which assets (besides cash) are most subject to misappropriation are discussed as well as how to recognize such and more importantly, how easy it is to prevent it!

Many organizations unconsciously fail to exhibit diversity, inclusion and belonging.  This session provides an opportunity for leaders to  understand diversity language and definitions, build awareness of biases and stereotypes, recognize how our own actions protect our awareness gaps, and find a level of understanding concerning where we are and where we want to be in the future. 

Inventory is a wonderful place to both hide fraud and commit fraud.  The reasons that inventory is subject to so much fraud is the it is often very large, spread out over a large area, and many people have access to it.  When there are little or no internal controls related to inventory control, you are begging employees to steal it.  No with so many ways to dispose of stolen inventory via the internet, i.e., EBAY, inventory fraud is much more appealing to a lot of individuals. The more common ways to commit expense fraud and how to cover it up will also be discussed.  Travel and entertainment are some of the favorite areas of committing expense fraud.  In addition, payroll fraud will be discussed.  Although there are many ways to commit payroll fraud, it is very easy to prevent. This presentation is designed to familiarize the participants with the many ways to commit inventory, expense and payroll fraud, how to detect it, and more importantly, how to prevent it.

Excel remains a staple tool for virtually all accounting and financial professionals. In this session learn about many of the newer features in Excel, along with some you may have overlooked in the past…truly “must-see CPE!”

Office Scripts are an exciting new development for Excel and other applications. Although they are like macros in some respects, most users will likely find them easier to work with. Learn how to put this powerful automation tool to use!

Automating the tax practice is – or should be – a major initiative of almost all public accounting firms today. From ingesting data, processing returns, distributing draft and final copies, and billing and collecting fees, practitioners have outstanding opportunities to automate their tax practice. Those that choose to automate will experience the benefits of reduced staff turnover, increased productivity and efficiency, fewer errors, and improved cash flow. Participate in this session to learn the “how’s and why’s” of automating your tax practice. This session includes critical topics such as hardware and software options, workflows, and security and privacy issues. Plan to join us in this session to position your tax practice for greater success! 

We all know that Fraud Happens. But, why? Why do people we think we can trust let us down? This session will explore the minds of white-collar criminals and examine some recent high-profile fraud cases. Why did they do it? How did they do it? What were the warning signs? If you think that fraud cannot happen to your organization, this session might give you pause.

Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs), unique, identifiable digital assets based on blockchain technologies, have become a fast-growing industry. This course will provide a background on how NFTs came into the mainstream marketplace.  These materials will assist the practitioner to understand the tax implications of the creation, purchase and sale of these assets.  **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.

For each digital asset sale that a broker has affected for a customer in 2025, the broker must complete Form 1099-DA. A broker includes any person who, in the ordinary course of a trade or business, stands ready to affect sales of digital assets to be made by others. This program covers the required rules for reporting digital asset transactions on Form 1099-DA.

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.

This is not your average CPE course--Part 2! In this second part course (which is equally fun and engaging), you will learn how to feel confident--even in highly stressful situations. You will learn new secrets to great health that take under 10 minutes per week, and you will learn how to know what is most important to you--so you can be happier and healthier in the long run. Tune in for techniques to relieve stress and tips on incorpating meditation into your daily routine. All of which will help improve your memory and overall mental health and wellbeing. In addition, you'll learn an unsurpassed method for making sure you stay consistent with actually implementing these methods in your daily life.

Social Security seems poised for changes in benefits and eligibility age. The leading edge of the baby boomer generation has already reached retirement age. Financial and tax planners can expect increased demand for strategies that dovetail Social Security with other retirement and estate planning objectives. This course provides tax and financial planning professionals with both the background information on the Social Security system and the strategies clients will need in dealing with Social Security, and the myriad other related retirement planning issues.

Once an employee decides to report an issue, the risk for retaliation must be minimized. Metrics matter. As such, capturing and reviewing employee data for indicators of possible retaliation are key to protecting those who report. The more subtle forms of retaliation, though, require a focused communication plan to address. This course offers recommendations for implementing specific retaliation monitoring protocols.

Good judgment works well in handling most employee relations matters.  However, there are special situations where legal requirements dictate specific handling to avoid significant personal and employer liability.   This course provides practical knowledge and scripts for responding to requests for accommodations regarding religious practices or disabilities, confronting employees in substance abuse situations, and handling disclosures of contagious infections so that individual is properly helped, and the health of your workforce is protected.