Professional Development and Event Catalog

Small business accounting solutions have never been better, with many fantastic options. In this session, you will learn about the relative strengths of these platforms so you can make the right choice when selecting and implementing a solution.

This course focuses on concluding a fraud examination and participating in court activity. You will learn how to draft an effective written report on a fraud investigation, including exhibits and visual aids that will help make your case. We will discuss common questions asked of financial experts and techniques for successfully testifying at deposition and trial. This is the most practical fraud investigation course you will ever take. Rather than learning only the theory of fraud, you will learn how a forensic accountant actually investigates fraud from the beginning to the end. We focus on forensic accounting techniques used in the field to prove what happened, who was involved, how much money was stolen, and where the money went. Reporting the Results of a Fraud Investigation is Part 4 of a series of four courses on fraud investigations. Each course is a stand-alone class that may be taken individually. For comprehensive instruction on completing a fraud investigation from start to finish, take all four. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

What would you do if you only had one workday to complete a financial statement audit? How would you optimize just a handful of hours? What would you test? More importantly, what would you minimize or eliminate? Although one day is unrealistically short, it illustrates how risk-based auditing can help auditors optimize professional effort. This course emphasizes the importance of risk assessment for enhancing both the effectiveness and efficiency of audit procedures.

When we’re going through change and life feels out of balance, it’s normal to get stuck focused on all the problems and challenges that stress us out. How will the changes impact our team, our job, our lives? It doesn’t help that our brains are wired to anticipate the worst possible outcome. This wiring can make it difficult to be our best; to provide our best teamwork, our best ideas, and our best leadership. However, studies show that there are things we can do to shift our thinking so we can spend more time in positive emotions, like curiosity, enthusiasm, and optimism. Now everything gets easier and better, including: ~ Productivity ~ Customer relations ~ Change management ~ Teamwork ~ Leadership Join Tina to learn and apply The Path for Positivity™ framework based in Positive Psychology. You will learn strategies and insights to help you experience less stress, a smoother transition, and higher productivity even when the future seems uncertain. Share the framework and strategies with your team, too.

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.

Microsoft Teams is one of the most exciting personal and organizationally productivity tools to ever appear on the business landscape. With Teams, you can communicate and collaborate easily and securely with others, including colleagues outside your organization. Further, you can extend the already-robust functionality in Teams by incorporating add-in solutions with just a few clicks of the mouse. Unfortunately, despite Teams’ power and relatively simple interface, many organizations struggle with deploying and using Teams.  In this session, you will learn how you can get up and running quickly in Teams so that you can take full advantage of this powerful tool. More specifically, you will learn how you can get started in Teams and critical decisions that will affect your deployment. Also, you will learn how to work in Teams, including how to take advantage of the chat, voice, and video call services and how to share documents securely with others. Moreover, you will learn how to extend your Teams platform to external organizations for improved communication and collaboration. Additionally, you will identify how you can add other applications into Teams and optimize Team's configuration for the best overall efficiency and security. If you are working with Teams or plan to do so, this is one CPE session you can’t afford to miss!

Schedules K-2 and K-3 are promulgated by the IRS in order to standardize the reporting of foreign-related tax information for pass-through entities. Even pass-through entities that have no foreign activities, investments, or partners may have a reporting requirement. Schedules K-2 and K-3 for reporting partners' income, deductions, and credits from foreign activity are now required for passthrough returns (Form 1065, 1120-S and 8858). This requirement starts with returns with a tax year that ends in 2021. This course discusses each part of these schedules and explain these new reporting obligations in detail. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Stay current on recent changes to the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct and keep abreast of emerging trends in ethics standards and regulatory initiatives and their potential impact on your practice. Explore frequent practitioner ethics compliance challenges, including competence, due professional care, audit quality, and independence. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Excel is the accountant’s tool of choice for analyzing and reporting financial data, yet many use time-consuming and error-prone processes to complete everyday tasks. Regardless of your level of experience, if you use Excel, you need this course to learn more efficient and effective ways to work with Excel. In this course, you will discover countless tips, tricks, and techniques to improve your general level of productivity, reduce the amount of time you spend on mundane tasks, such as formatting, and customize Excel for greater accuracy and efficiency. You will also learn valuable formula-building skills, best practices for linking Excel data from other worksheets and workbooks, and how to streamline report generation and printing processes. Your K2 instructor will reinforce key learning points throughout the program with practical, real-world examples that will improve your understanding and comprehension of the topics presented. This highly acclaimed course draws on over twenty-five years of experience in delivering spreadsheet training to accounting and financial professionals, which assures you of the relevance and usefulness of the information and guidance provided during the program.

Accountants are expected to demonstrate a questioning mindset. While such professional skepticism is an obvious requirement for assurance engagements, it is applicable elsewhere in the practice of public accounting. In fact, a skeptical mindset offers benefits to both public accountants and those who work in industry. This course provides specific examples of professional skepticism while suggesting best practices.

Ethics is simple: Do no harm, just tell the truth, keep your word, and when in Rome do as the Romans do. For most people in most circumstances, these "bumper sticker" sayings provide helpful ethical guidelines. For accountants, however, ethics -- and especially, professional ethics -- can quickly turn into a tangle of ethical conflicts and competing rules. This workshop untangles some of these situations by working from ethical theory and practice. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Tax rates, personal liability, operations – these are all factors to be weighed when advising clients about their choice of entity decision.  This session provides a comparison of the multiple entity choices to start the discussion with clients and selecting the best tax efficient option for them. **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 session will explore the ethical considerations CPAs and CPA firms should be cognizant of when considering services to the state legal, regulated cannabis industry. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Specifically designed for preparation, compilation, and review practitioners, this course will provide you with a comprehensive review and hands-on application for performing financial statement preparation, compilation, and review engagements. You will learn the ins and outs of applying SSARS No. 21, Clarification and Recodification, as well as the additional guidance related to SSARS engagements through the issuance of SSARS Nos. 22-25 by the ARSC. The course will also review recent peer review feedback on SSARS engagements, providing insights on how to successfully apply this guidance. Not only will this course bring you up to date on SSARSs requirements and guidance, but more importantly, it will provide you with practical examples and illustrations to help you effectively and efficiently perform compilation, preparation, and review engagements.

Embezzlement happens often to many small businesses. Unfortunately, the lack of internal controls allow the embezzlement to remain undetected for years. But when it is discovered, the small business owner will most likely contact their CPA for advice. What should you do when your client contacts you about their employee embezzling money from their business? What options should you present to your client? How can your client protect themselves, while investigating the embezzlement? What steps need to be taken about preserving any documents, emails, texts, or phone calls? This course teaches how to engage the client, properly identify the evidence needed to prove the crime, how to write the report for civil and criminal trial, and best practices in preserving electronic and paper evidence. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The tax landscape is constantly changing, challenging tax practitioner to stay abreast of these developments.  This eight hour program will cover issues unique to business entities, including new court decisions, recent IRS publications, and the latest tax legislation that will impact businesses and individuals.  The remaining time will be spent on IRS procedure and other issues. This course will provide a concise look at the hottest topics affecting every tax practitioner.  **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.

Change is inevitable and at times overwhelming if you are unprepared. Ensure you are current in governmental and not-for-profit accounting and auditing. This update course is designed to prepare you for the latest accounting and auditing developments affecting governments and not-for-profits and give you the tools and knowledge to implement the new standards.

New Technology, the move toward telecommuting, the widespread adoption of electronic documentation, and a wide range of other factors have significantly and forever changed the way business is conducted. It should go without saying that changes in tools and methods lead to upheaval in any organizations internal control system. In this session, we look at all the changes that are occurring and discuss what's coming in the not too distant future. The material then looks at how internal controls have been affected and what other updates are on the horizon. Anyone trying to use controls to keep their organization efficient and secure should consider this session because the rate of change to both operational methods and control processes has been and will continue to be incredible. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Designed especially for CPAs, this class is a practical call to action that provides CPAs with the tools and inspiration they need to be better thinkers. You'll learn habits and strategies you can use every day to dramatically improve judgment and decision-making. You'll learn how to break down mental barriers and alleviate mental fatigue. You'll achieve new levels of mental clarity, flexibility, and resilience. You will also benefit from better overall mental well-being and be more resistant to stress and burnout. Attendees leave as more powerful and confident thinkers and better communicators and problem-solvers. 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 is one of the courses dedicated to our Controllership series. This series of courses 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 will discuss the area of inventory. This specific segment in the first part of a two-part series on inventory. We explore how the controller can move these responsibilities into more of a strategic role. This course takes a look at some of the typical concepts and duties involved in the inventory function that is sometimes viewed as operational roles. We explore how these areas are strongly tied to the importance of the controllership role and how the controller can add value in each area.