CPE & Event Calendar

This Masterclass is a one-hour training exclusively for employed accountants and bookkeepers. Start a business on the side offering CFO Advisory services to small businesses! Designed exclusively for accountants and CPAs, this class focuses on how you can use your knowledge and experience to start an advisory service in your spare time. By providing a service that your clients really want, you can supplement your income by upwards of $6k per month working only 4 hours per client - with only 3 clients. We'll cover the systems you need to start your own advisory service including how to package, price and market your business. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Join us for our next monthly Government Accounting & Auditing Committee meeting! All MassCPAs members are welcome and you don't have to be a member of the committee to attend a meeting. CPE credit: In order to verify your attendance, you must log into Zoom with the same email address you used to register for this event. This email address should also be linked to your MassCPAs profile. To review or update your account, please click here. Join the committee! By joining the committee roster, you'll have special access to the Government Accounting & Auditing Committee Online Community on The HUB-an exclusive space for committee members to connect, post messages and access meeting resources. If you have any questions, contact Melissa at MNystedt@masscpas.org

GAAP is changing at an increasing rate. Every successful organization has a sound strategy. Financial leaders are faced with the dual challenge of navigating evolving accounting standards while strategically guiding their organizations toward sustainable growth and profitability. What are the newer accounting changes that will impact professional accounting? This seminar will equip finance professionals with the critical skills and practical insights needed to effectively manage the complexities of ever-changing accounting standards and upgrade your essential strategic planning skills. Strategic skills are mandatory today. Strategies that do not keep pace with the market are doomed to fail. If we do not keep up, our successor will.

Two of the hottest topics in the CPA profession today are CAS (client advisory services) and ChatGPT. This course will explain how to bring these two worlds together by integrating ChatGPT and other generative AI applications into your client advisory services. John Higgins, a leading advisor to the profession on ChatGPT and a seasoned client advisor on technology based solutions, will show you how you can position your firm and yourself as a "go to" advisor on how to embrace this technology in virtually any type of business. John will address how to use this technology as a research and writing assistant in your client services and how to advise your clients on this revolutionary technology and all benefits and "gotchas" that come with it. If you want to step up your advisory game, this course is a "must take." This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

According to a 2020 AICPA survey, advisory and consulting services were considered the greatest unmet needs of clients. The recent growth in Client Advisory Services (CAS) has led many to ask what is included in this broad category as well as how to develop the services for clients. With so much focus on the recent success of CAS offerings, now is the time to learn how the services differ from what you currently offer, which of your clients would benefit most, and what you need in place to add a quality CAS program to your firm's menu of services.

When auditors detect findings in Yellow Book and single audits, they do not just communicate them in some shabby little letter to management; they get reported! In this course, we will examine what types of findings get reported, how they get reported, and where they get reported! This course will take you from just checking a box and fulfilling a requirement to developing and delivering findings that make a meaningful difference to your clients.

Answering clients' tax questions accurately and on time is a key challenge for tax practitioners. Through simple, plain language explanations and examples, this course will help practitioners perform tax research more efficiently by describing the structure of the primary sources, highlighting the difference between primary and secondary sources, and describing the steps in the tax research process.

This program will address recent legislation, rulings and developments affecting individual taxpayers and provide practitioners with a comprehensive update for the upcoming tax season. **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 course equips practitioners with the knowledge to help clients navigate complex tax and financial challenges. Covering a range of difficult situations—such as divorce, bankruptcy, and other personal and business matters—this course provides key tax insights and strategic planning considerations. Participants will gain practical strategies to support clients in making informed decisions while understanding the tax implications of these situations.

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 one, we go through numerous concepts in detail and the remaining concepts will be covered in segment two.

Is there a perfect mix of financing that we should aspire to achieve? What does financial theory tell us we should do? What is the cost of our financing decisions? Should we lease an asset, or buy it outright? How do we analyze this decision? How can we survive financial distress? These are all topics that every enterprise faces. In this seminar we will look at theory and practice to help resolve the dilemmas. If you are involved with financing the organization, this seminar is essential.

Attracting and retaining staff is critical to an organization's success, especially in the age of the millennial worker who will change jobs multiple times in the course of a career. This course will focus on best practices for nurturing the human element of your organization, especially millennial workers who comprise a growing percentage or the workforce. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The course provides general information on how to identify money laundering activities during the conduct of normal tax audits. Discover key resources and tools available for effective detection and deterrence. Explore the impact of money laundering on ethical decision-making, and how examiners and auditors can assist criminal investigators in countering money laundering. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Portable Document Format (PDF) documents are everywhere! Yet few know how to work effectively with these documents. If you are interested in working more effectively and efficiently with PDFs, this session is for you. In this session, you will learn valuable tips you can use to assist you with creating, editing, and securing PDFs. You will also learn how to convert PDFs to fillable forms and secure PDFs, among other features. Don't miss this chance to learn ten PDF tips you need to know to increase your ROI on PDFs.

Power BI - Bringing It All Together for Data Analysis is an advanced-level course designed for professionals looking to integrate and optimize their use of Microsoft Power Pivot and Power BI. Building on the foundational knowledge from previous courses, this session focuses on the crucial next steps after creating data models and measures, guiding participants on how to fully utilize the potential of these tools to uncover insights and create impactful, actionable visualizations. This course takes a deep dive into the critical aspects of using Power BI to its fullest potential, emphasizing a holistic approach to data analytics. You'll learn how to build a streamlined workflow, ensuring every step in your data journey contributes to actionable insights. The course also focuses on optimizing performance for data models, utilizing advanced features of Power BI Services, and moving beyond basic data models to create advanced solutions tailored to real-world business needs. By the end of the course, you'll be able to synthesize all your Power BI skills to design and deliver powerful analytics solutions tailored to any audience. Whether you're presenting to stakeholders, sharing insights across teams, or managing enterprise-level reporting, this course will equip you with the tools and strategies to succeed. Perfect for Power BI users looking to tie all the pieces together into a comprehensive, efficient workflow. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

By 2025, millennials will represent 75% of the workforce. Whether you are an owner of a small practice or manager in a multinational corporation, it is important to understand characteristics and expectations of this large segment of the workforce. Research reveals that many of the common stereotypes surrounding millennials are unfounded and counterproductive. This course provides an understanding of who millennials are in comparison to their predecessors, the Gen-Xers and baby boomers. Equally important, the presentation will look at common myths regarding millennials and why understanding this class of employees provides opportunities for your organization to grow and succeed.

When performing a financial statement audit, auditors have always been responsible for the detection of anything that would cause a material misstatement of the financial statements whether caused by error of fraud.  However, in the past the audit profession focused on material misstatements due to errors and more or less ignored the possibility of misstatements due to fraud.  Now, SAS No. 122, AU 240 requires significant documentation as to what the auditor did in order to determine if there any material risk of a misstatement of the financial statements.  This presentation is an overview of what the auditor is to document in there working papers on every financial audit as to the procedures they performed in order to determine the risk of a material misstatement.  If a material risk is discovered, they are then required to document what they did in order to determine if the financial statements were misstated.

Many leaders in business organizations of all sizes view the system of Internal Control almost purely as a protective security measure. A well-designed internal control system can and will drive all entity objectives which includes successful operations. This session uses information gathered from years of creating internal control systems as well as concepts from well-respected authoritative pronouncements and frameworks to illustrate the power of a strong and well supported control system as well as actions that can help establish such a system. Those that work with internal controls who are tasked with developing ways to improve operation level capabilities should strongly consider this session. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This program addresses the most recent developments impacting partnerships operating as LLCs, with a focus on legislative, administrative, and tax form changes. Emphasis will be placed on partners "tax basis" capital accounts, now required for tax form reporting. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Knowing just a little about the Yellow Book can hurt you! It is important to have a thorough understanding of the standards. This course covers the Yellow Book financial auditing requirements and prepares you to excel in applying the standards. You will learn precisely what the Yellow Book does and does not require auditors to do. Updated for the 2024 Yellow Book revision, the course materials utilize a highly illustrative and innovative format. Over 15 focused exercises are included to provide an enhanced knowledge of the Yellow Book.