CPE & Event Calendar

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.

The next five years are going to be eventful for CPA firms. The profession has never seen such rapid change, with new and changing technologies appearing almost daily! So, what will your firm do? How can you keep up without getting overwhelmed by these fast-paced transformations in the profession and stay profitable during this turmoil? What are the best technologies to handle client interactions, PBC lists, electronic signatures, and Advisory services? How do the cloud, next-generation accounting software, and client demands affect partner profitability? Attend this session to get an independent overview of the state of technology in the profession.

What do you do when the routine audit is no longer routine? This program discusses "eggshell audits", which are civil IRS exams but where we as the practitioner become aware there is potential tax fraud. Potential pitfalls, how to navigate the issues and when to bring the attorneys into the picture will be addressed. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Casey Crowther did not have a college education, but he had an outstanding work ethic. With little more than a pickup truck and some hand tools, he built a roofing company that grew. Over time, Casey's company employed more than 100 people and generated more than $20 million in annual revenues. With a company of that size, Casey relied upon advice from his bookkeeper when filling out financial documents. As a result of representations he made on bank statements and loan documents, authorities charged Casey with criminal behavior related to PPP loan fraud. What should an accounting professional learn from Casey's story? Stay tuned to find out! This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Storytelling makes wisdom stick.

To make more money in less time, all accountants need to learn to market themselves effectively to their clients or their firm. For better or worse, promotions and more money go to those who are the best marketers, rather than the most competent accountants.  In this fascinating and fun workshop, participants will learn seven key ways to get more clients and/or promotions through the art of marketing.

Performance Management is about getting the best out of everyone. It's about setting the stage so staff can excel as an individual and as a team member. It's about knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it to inspire and elevate staff performance. For staff to hear, understand, and act on performance feedback they have to trust the person delivering the feedback. The feedback must be constructive, useful, and implementable. And surprisingly, the performance management process is as much about listening as it is about delivering feedback. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Our guidance on ethics comes from the AICPA and other groups, but it does not fully address the “why” behind ethics. Understanding what motivates people and understanding those people are key to both solving ethical dilemmas and workplace issues that can lead to greater job satisfaction and efficiency. To correct an issue, you need to delve into the root cause – the why?

We all make predictions in our personal and professional lives.  We base our decisions to marry, buy a house, launch a new product or hire staff on expectations about the future.  In the past few years, research into improving predictions has advanced. We will look at this research and current best practices in forecasting to help us prepare better budgets and projections. 

Volatility and complexity are the new normal. Most organizations are drowning in data, but starving for information. The finance and accounting function has the opportunity to leverage Big Data and the continuum of analytics – descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive. All are useful for better decision making. Collecting, validating, and reporting data is not the same thing as analyzing information where we can glean valuable, actionable insights. In some ways the finance function is many years behind other disciplines such as marketing, sales, and supply chain managers, in applying analytics. How can the CFO’s function catch up?

This course examines actual fraud circumstances through the lens of potential prevention. We will examine how selected frauds were accomplished and consider what internal controls may have prevented fraudsters’ ability to accomplish their nefarious acts.

This program addresses the recent changes imposed by recent tax legislation that real estate owners and investors need to know, including Section 199A, the new Section 163(j) interest expense limits and the opportunity to elect out.  An introduction to opportunity zones and other important issues will also be addressed. **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 leighanne.conroy@acpen.com.

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.

You may have read all sorts of stories in books about how bad people steal and make their coworkers and organizations miserable.  Come hear veteran Internal Auditor Rob Berry and veteran CFO John L. Daly discuss situations they have seen in the real world.  

Blockchain is one of the most-watched emerging technologies. Yet, few accountants understand how to use this technology to make existing ledger-based systems more efficient, effective, and tamper-resistant. In this session, you will learn the basics of blockchain-based ledgers. You will also learn about the fundamentals of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ripple. Additionally, you will learn about emerging issues in these fields, such as stablecoins, central bank-issued digital currencies, smart contracts, and sovereign identity management. By attending this session, you will see how blockchain-based technologies will change your work with others.

Are you looking to take your PivotTables to the next level? Many experts consider PivotTables to be Excel’s most powerful feature. Yet, most who create and work with them barely scratch the surface of all that PivotTables can do. In this session, you’ll learn eight powerful features you may have missed. From user-defined calculations to consolidating reports and adding KPIs, we’ll show you how to get the most out of your PivotTables. These are just some examples of the great things you can do with PivotTables, and in this session, you will learn these and other techniques to make your PivotTables even more powerful.

You only have one chance to make a good first impression.  In the fast paced world we live in, being able to create immediate rapport and a sense of trust with people is more important than ever.  Fortunately, this is an easily learnable skill that can serve you in both business and in life.  People who can master the one minute relationship end up making more money, being better liked, and enjoying their clients more.  

In this course, you'll learn why being able to do public speaking well is a major advantage in becoming successful in your career.  You'll learn how to write a good talk, how to present it well, and how to use your new found ability to get more clients and/or a promotion. In addition, you'll learn how to overcome your nervousness, and how to overcome stress in less than a minute.

Enterprise Risk Management for SMEs.

This course is an updated overview of the single audit of state and local governments and not-for-profit organizations under the OMB Unified Circular, as well as the applicable AICPA standards for compliance audits.