Professional Development and Event Catalog

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.

The mad scramble to remote work and utilize apps like Teams has been trying for most organizations over the past couple of years. With a rush to install and no time to plan, most team members did their best, prioritizing remote meetings as the primary concern. Therefore, as a result, Teams is vastly misunderstood and underutilized in most organizations. Join us in this session to go beyond the remote meetings aspect of Teams and to learn how to optimize efficiency, communication, and workflow with Teams.

Generative AI use is growing, and ChatGPT is leading the way. But what exactly is ChatGPT, and how can it help you increase your productivity? Join us for a one-hour seminar on ChatGPT. We'll guide you through everything you need to know to get started You'll learn to use ChatGPT to: Streamline your workload Save time Boost efficiency Say goodbye to tedious data entry and hello to lightning-fast responses and analysis. As with any new technology, risks and ethical concerns must be considered. Our experts will delve into these topics and provide you with the knowledge and tools you need to use ChatGPT responsibly and effectively. Don't miss this opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and take your CPA game to the next level. Discover the amazing benefits of this groundbreaking technology.

Many organizations have implemented Microsoft 365/Office 365 at a basic level, but few have truly explored the breadth and depth of tools included with their subscriptions. Some less commonly known apps help you manage shared email boxes, create and use web forms, schedule appointments, trade shifts, create real-time closed captions, and translate presentations. Attend this session and learn more about the hidden features in Microsoft 365 that you can use to level up your productivity.

“How will I EVER get this all done?"  It’s a question I often hear from clients and on a particularly stressful day, I can hear myself saying these words!  Instead of helping us focus, it's a question that leads to stress, anxiety and overwhelm! Regardless of where we are in business and in life, we will run into challenges and problems as we navigate business growth, leadership, work life balance and our quest for success and happiness. This workshop will explore the 7 HIGH QUALITY questions that lead to relief, enthusiasm and success.  It will be an interactive exploration that will leave you with a game plan to use right away, as well as an opportunity to practice the mindset that the most successful and happiest people use daily.    This program is for both the entrepreneur who wants to be more effective in their day as well as team leaders who want to stand out in their organization.  For the business owner or staff member you can expect a new way to work with your day so that it's profitable, productive and happier.  For leaders, you will learn new up- leveled skills to increase your efficiency, communication and productivity.  You and your team will shine.  Your staff will feel appreciated and connected to their value as well as the company's goals. Albert Einstein said 'we can't solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them'.  The quality of your question will impact the quality of your solution.  Learn the 7 questions that take you from confused and frustrated to creative and focused. 

AI is an extremely popular topic these days, and for good reason! However, does AI present yet another threat to your privacy? Get answers to this question and more in this session.

Small businesses have better options now than ever before in the market of accounting solutions. Participate in this session to learn more about these options and which might be best for you or your clients.

This is part 1 of a 4 part series. The first session of the series introduces the PivotTable feature and covers the basics. We start here to ensure that all participants, regardless of previous PivotTable experience, have the skills needed for the remaining sessions. We discuss the four report layout areas, rows, columns, values, and filters. We then discuss how to update PivotTable reports and ensure that any new transactions appended to the data source are included in the report. We explore how to create monthly columns and how to properly format the values in a PivotTable.

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.

AI is an extremely popular topic these days, and for good reason! However, does AI present yet another threat to your privacy? Get answers to this question and more in this session.

Automation and outsourcing offer viable options for addressing today’s labor issues. In this session, you will learn about the potential benefits and risks associated with automation and outsourcing.

We know that effective communication is essential to growing a career and a business. But we often don't take time to think through, concsiously, about how we communicate and how small changes could change the trajectory of our messages. This workshop is designed to give you a survey of multiple communication strategies and mistakes to avoid. We start by discussing how people make decisions--which is important to understand in the context of business communication and communication in the workplace. We then transition into common communication mistakes and actionable tools and tactics that you can use to overcome and avoid these mishaps.

Internal controls are more important than ever, and their importance increases daily. However, internal controls present a challenge for many smaller organizations. This program will teach you how to evaluate, develop, and implement an effective internal control structure in a small business environment. You will identify how to assess risk in smaller organizations and implement preventive, detective, deterrent, and compensating controls to mitigate these risks, even without proper segregation of duties. Additionally, participating in this program will teach you technology-focused techniques for preventing and detecting fraud and securing information systems and sensitive data. For small organizations, maintaining an effective system of internal controls presents a significant challenge. Realistically, implementing many theoretical concepts surrounding internal controls may not be possible in some cases. Consequently, many internal control structures foster an environment where too much risk exists. This factor and uncontrolled information systems can often lead to disastrous results. Participate in this program to learn the necessary insights and tools to design, implement, and monitor effective internal controls, security, and anti-fraud measures in small organizations.

Business professionals can automate data collection processes by using today’s electronic forms. Learn about these tools and how to deploy them in this session.

To move beyond the HR realm it is essential for HR professionals to understand planning at the strategic and tactical level. This session is designed to help HR professionals understand the overall strategic planning process so they can contribute at the executive level.

The term “automate” has been an industry buzzword for at least a decade. Yet, few organizations have embarked on successful automation journeys, leading to greater efficiencies, reduced errors, and happier team members. In this session, you will learn how to crank up your automation projects and see first-hand how easy and effective automation can be. More specifically, this session shows you exactly how you can work with tools from Zoho, Zapier, and Microsoft to enable powerful routines that will allow you and your team to get more done in less time.

This CTCPA conference updates practitioners on a variety of topics in the employee benefit plans area.

According to the Gallup Organization, only 10% of employees believe that their organization does a good job onboarding new employees. This means most organizations are overlooking this crucial phase of the employee lifecycle, which not only includes the often-neglected pre-boarding stage but also the continuous efforts to reduce uncertainty, bolster excitement, and foster connections for their new recruits. By streamlining these processes and crafting impactful moments from pre-boarding through the initial weeks, HR and Business leaders can significantly enhance efficiency, foster trust, and establish a foundation of psychological safety for years to come. In this session, attendees will discover strategies and resources that craft a holistic onboarding experience, mitigating risks like employee ghosting, and paving the way for heightened engagement and retention.

Overview of the most important labor and employment policies and practices that every business should have. The review will go over confidentiality agreements, arbitration agreements, restrictive covenants, training, and severance agreements, as well as compliance issues related to each of them. 

This is part 2 of a 4 part series. This session begins by comparing the formula-based reports we built at the end of the Excel for Accounting Professionals series to PivotTables. We'll dig into the details between these two report types so that you are comfortable applying them to specific workbooks. In this webcast, we create two versions of many reports, one version with formulas and the other with PivotTables. With this interactive practice, you will be comfortable replacing formula-based reports with PivotTables when appropriate.