Professional Development and Event Catalog

Emerging from the pandemic is a workplace culture governed by values. Far from a soft approach, it can drive significant business results. Organizations that embrace an empathetic culture increase performance and decrease turnover, while their customers report a more positive experience. Additionally, being more “person-focused” strongly correlates with more effective ethics and compliance programs. These insights can provide a roadmap for the "new normal" as the world emerges from the crisis. How employees and management move forward from this experience will shape the workplace for decades to come.

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.    

ProActive Response Group's Active Shooter Response Training course educates participants in current trends of active shooter incidents, how to recognize early warning signs of violence, appropriate actions to increase chances of survival in an active shooter event, and how to use basic medical equipment to save the lives of victims.   *****(Warning: This video contains simulated graphic scenes that some viewers may find disturbing)*****

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.

By now, we should all understand the ethical obligations we have as CPAs.  So, theoretically, if we just all agree to remain ethical, we should not have CPA ethical violations.  But, of course, our professional ethics committees still have plenty of cases to investigate.  This session will examine several ethical frameworks, including the AICPA’s Code of Professional Conduct’s and the GAO Yellow Book’s Threats and Safeguards approach to remaining ethical and resolving ethical dilemmas.  The session will present several ethical case studies that illustrate the complexities of and challenges to staying ethical. By exercising our “ethical muscles”, we should be better positioned to effectively deal with the ethical dilemmas that we will inevitably encounter.

This course explores the multitude of issues that taking on a new client can bring with it, and then interprets them using three sets of ethical rules.  A group of “players” reveal real-life challenges faced by the CPA firm in bringing the new client into compliance, as well as proper financial and tax compliance issues. **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.

Many practitioners dealing with government and not-for-profit issues are asked to serve as expert witnesses in courts of law or other adjudicatory venues.  This session will discuss key issues you need to know when you are asked to serve in this capacity, including: Applicable standards and other engagement acceptance considerations. Preparation requirements and techniques. Dos and don'ts of testifying. Avoiding commons traps and tricks designed to undermine your effectiveness. The session will conclude with a “mock cross-examination” with participants serving as the jury to identify what our witness does right and what he does wrong.

Governmental Accounting 101, is a 2 hour webcast that takes the participant of a whirlwind tour of governmental accounting basics, focusing on wetting the participant’s appetite for more.  This session will be the first of a series of webcasts, with each subsequent webcast delving deeper and deeper into the governmental accounting basics. 

Trusts are not cookie-cutter documents. In fact, they can be rather unwieldy, especially in explaining the functions to a client and then having the client comply with the trust terms. This course delves into best practices. Given common scenarios, what are the best trusts to use? And how can the client be best protected?

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.

Tax developments have been in the forefront of the news, and tax practitioner can find it challenging to remain up-to-date with these changes.  This 8 hour program will cover tax issues relating to individuals, including new court decisions, recent IRS publications, and the latest tax legislation.  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.

Many organizations are successful as they create a system of internal controls, however some fail to properly implement the measures that are established. Moreover, entities regularly neglect the important process of testing, monitoring, and updating control procedures, which weakens the entire internal control structure. This session provides an overview of control creation methods and discusses ways to successfully implement policies and procedures. Additionally, it includes an array of control maintenance checklists that participants can take and adapt to their organization as they work to improve policies and procedures. Finally, it provides an understanding of the need for dynamic, fluid controls that adapt to changes in business tools and methods. Participants that take this course will have a strengthened ability to implement and maintain an internal control system. 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 explore some of the most essential tools for measuring financial and operational success, as well as improving results. Appendices will be provided to give students hands-on applicable materials that can be utilized after completion of the course.

In this cutting-edge course, participants will gain a deep understanding of how to leverage ChatGPT, OpenAI's powerful language model, to innovate and enhance business advisory services in the accounting sector. The course integrates theory and practice, demonstrating how various enterprise evaluation methodologies can be applied in conjunction with ChatGPT for increased business analysis efficiency, profitability, and growth. It also provides hands-on training for implementing these techniques in real-world scenarios. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The Uniform Guidance identifies COSO and Green Book as best practices in internal control. This course will cover the background on COSO and its 2013 update. We’ll also review the application of COSO to Green Book. Attendees will learn how to leverage Part 6 of the Compliance Supplement for documentation of internal controls.

This course aims to reveal many examples of companies, leaders and industries who are building new talent models. The world of work is less certain than ever before and this world requires experimentation. In this course you will learn about many experiments that organizations are deploying to build a new model that fits the pace of change the world is experiencing today.  IN this course we will consider many new models and approaches and learn from them. In a world of work with few benchmarks - today organizations need to learn how to experiment and become the benchmark. 

This is a two-part series that discuss new trends and concepts the financial controller should begin to execute in order to truly become a valued member of the senior leadership team. The rapid pace of the evolving technological landscape has promoted changes in how accountants and financial professionals focus attention on strategy and modernize their roles to leverage digital technology. There is increased demand for enhancing flexibility into finance cycles and initiating real-time reporting and insights. These are the core attributes that will assist in transforming the work that controllership function performs. Is the financial controllership prepared to meet future business demands? The IMA® (Institute of Management Accountants) and Deloitte’s Center for Controllership aimed to better understand the current state of controllership and expectations of future demands for controllers and accounting professionals. They conducted a survey in late 2022 and identified several trends. The survey takes a look at how prepared controllership is to meet future business demands. It also highlights some insights for leaders to consider that may increase their preparedness. It also identified areas of additional insight and questions to answer on the controllership transformation journey. In this segment, we will go through numerous concepts in detail.  

U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) imposed a new reporting requirement that went into effect on January 1, 2024.  Millions of businesses may have to file a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) Report. In a surprise turn of events, the Federal District Court from the Northern District of Alabama ruled on March 1, 2024 in National Small Business United v. Yellen (“NSB”) that the CTA is unconstitutional.  This course will discuss the CTA’s provisions and the court’s decision in NSB.  Also covered will be future implications for business entities and steps to consider given the recent ruling. We will also discuss recent proposed rulemaking by FinCen with respect to nonfinanced purchases of residential real estate and gratuitous transfers so that businesses can prepare for any additional reporting burdens that might arise. **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 hands-on workshop offers an analytical approach for designing, executing, and communicating results of a comprehensive financial statement analysis. We will explore numerous techniques and approaches that facilitate in-depth financial statement analysis. Accountants in public practice will obtain insight regarding analytical procedures, additional client services, and enhanced compliance with professional standards. Accountants in private enterprises will develop more robust techniques for understanding their organization’s financial statements to facilitate forward-thinking decisions and communication to internal and external stakeholders.

Ethical behavior is not a destination it is a journey with twists, turns, and bumps in the road. We are faced with ethical dilemmas every day. Do I speed to make it to a meeting? Do I call in sick because I need a break? When does "helping my child with their homework" become "doing it for them"? CPAs are ethical most of the time, but staying ethical is hard. It gets harder when we are under stress. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.