CPE Catalog & Events

The ACFE/COSO Fraud Risk Management Guide (FRMG) was published in 2016 (and updated in 2023).  It has quickly gained acceptance as the set of best practices for preventing, detecting, and thus deterring fraud. The fraud landscape is constantly changing and evolving. The FRMG sets out a rigorous set of principles and leading practices for managing fraud risk for forward-thinking organizations to follow.  It covers: How to establish fraud risk management governance. How to conduct rigorous fraud risk assessments. How to design and implement fraud control activities. How to establish reporting mechanisms and investigative procedures. How to monitor the overall fraud risk management program. Fraud risk can be managed.  All anti-fraud and accountability professionals will benefit from this session's focus on effective fraud risk management.

Traditional managerial accounting has often been criticized as ineffective, and in some cases even misleading, leaving many line managers skeptical of the information it provides. Modern management accounting addresses these shortcomings by developing precise cost-per-unit metrics that support budgeting, cost analysis, and performance control. Activity-Based Costing (ABC) enhances accuracy by tracing costs through cause-and-effect relationships rather than relying on broad overhead allocations. This fact-based approach delivers clear visibility into true profit margins across products, service lines, sales channels, and customers. In addition, ABC empowers organizations to reduce costs and improve productivity by reporting unit costs that track trends and benchmark performance against competitors. By moving beyond outdated accounting methods, organizations can unlock significant strategic and financial advantages.

Intro to Governmental Accounting 103 is the natural follow up course to the first two Intro to Governmental Accounting courses, 101 and 102, and will take a dive into more complex issues surrounding the reporting of capital assets and long-term debt, investment accounting, and a little introduction to grant accounting and reporting.  

Excel gives you multiple ways to solve the same problem - but which formula is the right one? This course teaches a decision-based approach to function selection, helping you confidently choose between similar and competing functions. Through real-world examples and side-by-side comparisons, you'll learn when IFS or SWITCH is cleaner than nested IFs, how SUMPRODUCT can help with complex summarizing data, how to use LET in place of defined names, and much more. Ideal for professionals who want to make smarter, faster formula choices that are easier to maintain and audit. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

S corporation taxation has a lot of pieces. There are helpful elections you can make that can potentially save your client money, but there are also rigid rules to adhere to. For example, if there is more than one class of stock, it can terminate the S corporation election. Learning how to successfully navigate these rules can make all the difference. In this course, we will discuss some of the more common specialty areas experienced by practitioners — late filing relief for S corporation elections, disproportionate distributions, and selling S corporation shares. While these items may not come up on every single Form 1120-S, you will be able to add more value to clients when they do.

The new Standards emphasize that quality performance requires conformance to the Standards. Each standard within Domain III specifically identifies the responsibilities of the CAE and the board, as well as joint responsibilities. The new Global Internal Audit Standards were released on January 9, 2024, and will become effective January 9, 2025. The previous version, the International Standards for the Professional Practice of Internal Auditing, released in 2017, remains approved for use during a one-year transition period. The Global Internal Audit Standards guide the worldwide professional practice of internal audit. They serve as a basis for evaluating and elevating the quality of the internal audit function. The Standards use 15 guiding principles with five separate domains that enable effective internal audit implementation and examples of evidence of conformance. The Global Standards are organized into five domains. Domain I: Purpose of Internal Auditing Domain II: Ethics and Professionalism Domain III: Governing the Internal Audit Function Domain IV: Managing the Internal Audit Function Domain V: Performing Internal Audit Service

This course equips financial and information technology auditors with an understanding of cybersecurity risks and their impact on financial reporting as well as cybersecurity best practices. Participants will learn to identify threats, evaluate controls, and assess risk using recognized frameworks, with a focus on audit implications.

Transform your data presentation skills with our comprehensive course on creating impactful dashboards and reports using Excel. This workshop is tailored for professionals who: Regularly produce or update dashboards and reports Struggle with confusing or overly complex reporting tools Seek to streamline varied reporting styles across their organization Aim to establish a consistent, replicable "house style" for reporting Want to impress stakeholders with clear, user-friendly data presentations Through a combination of theory and hands-on practice, you'll learn the fundamental principles that make reports and dashboards easy to understand. We'll distill these concepts into a set of practical rules and guide you through their application in Excel.

Welcome to a management course that helps CFOs and Controllers lead the Accounting Department. It is essential that the Accounting Department have a Vision which is aligned with the Business goals. Controllers must also be comfortable with wearing multiple 'hats' in the business. The head of the Accounting Department must be skilled in a variety of leadership skills, technical skills, managerial skills and current management techniquest.

The amount of electronic content that business organizations contend with is growing at incredible rates. Terms like "Big Data" and "Information Overload", are being used by overwhelmed information workers on a daily basis. Additionally, because of the move to a much larger telecommuter footprint, electronic data is now even more prevalently utilized. This session discusses the places that businesses keep digital information and addresses the importance of securing corporate electronic data. The material effectively shows ways to achieve high security standards for content stored in fixed locations, on mobile devices and in the cloud. Participants in this session will gain an understanding of the concepts needed to improve the way they, and their companies secure digital information. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This case-driven training is designed to get the inexperienced accountant up to speed quickly in the most common areas of partnership, limited liability company (LLC) and limited liability partnership (LLP) taxation. A cornerstone of this course is the preparation of the Form 1065 using a fairly complex trial balance common to most partnership, LLP and LLC income tax returns.   *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 terri.storer@acpen.com  

With the new administration proposing significant tax changes, estate and financial planning strategies must adapt to stay ahead. This course equips financial professionals with the latest techniques and insights into evolving tax laws, domicile considerations, and wealth transfer strategies. Participants will explore how potential reductions in estate and gift tax exemptions, new compliance requirements, and advanced IRA distribution planning may impact client strategies. With a focus on practical application, this course provides actionable strategies for charitable giving, domicile considerations, and estate tax efficiency to help practitioners optimize outcomes while ensuring compliance with new and anticipated tax regulations. *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

In today's fast-paced business environment, internal controls are more crucial than ever, especially for small organizations. However, many small businesses face significant challenges in implementing effective internal control structures. Our comprehensive program is designed to help you evaluate, develop, and implement a robust internal control system tailored to the unique needs of small businesses. Join us to learn how to assess risks and implement preventive, detective, deterrent, and compensating controls to mitigate these risks, even in the absence of proper segregation of duties. Our program also covers technology-focused techniques for preventing and detecting fraud, securing information systems, and protecting sensitive data. Don't let the complexities of internal controls overwhelm you. Our expert-led sessions will provide you with the insights and tools necessary to design, implement, and monitor effective internal controls, security measures, and anti-fraud strategies. Ensure your small business is safeguarded against risks and positioned for success.

Recent new auditing standards are designed to improve overall audit quality. The course will address the most common misapplied audit concepts in planning and performing effective and efficient financial statement audits. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Most accounting and financial professionals have been preparing individual income tax returns for years, and while many of the returns are easy, there are always a number of issues that come up in busy season of which experienced practitioners wish they had more knowledge. This course is designed to explore the tough tax issues for experienced practitioners and help them provide better planning strategies and results for their higher income clients.

Most review techniques developed by professionals are self-taught and fine-tuned via experience. Yet how does one start? The purpose of this course is to give both new and seasoned reviewers additional and advanced procedures via a multitude of checklists to thoroughly review various tax returns. Its emphasis is not planning; rather, it is to develop a strategy to properly review a return effectively and thoroughly. The course includes dozens of practice tips for new reviewers and is updated for impacts of newly enacted legislation.

Until recently, a percentage of organizations discounted the risk related to external fraud attempts. Most were only concerned with protecting physical assets such as inventory or fixed assets. However, because of the many highly publicized corporate hacking events, such as the ones that affected the Colonial Pipeline and JBS Meats, more attention is being paid to external fraud risk of all types. In this session, we look at what is included in a definition of external fraud and then delve into specific control issues that can give rise to increased risk. We then discuss measures that organizations can employ to help reduce exposure to external attacks. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Should CPAs in public practice use Agentic AI? How? What should I not do? Join us to review how to use AI to assist in Assurance engagements, including testing internal controls.  Agentic AI (‘Artificial Intelligence’) is rapidly being deployed by leading audit, compliance, and finance teams. While AI agents are not yet replacing all of today’s knowledge workers like auditors, accountants, and IT security professionals, the knowledge workers that effectively use Agentic AI may soon be replacing those knowledge workers who do not use these tools to drive high quality business growth and scale. AI is moving beyond automation to become a true teammate, especially in the governance, risk, and compliance processes. This session will show how supervised AI agents can work alongside accountants, auditors and IT security professionals to enhance efficiency, consistency, and assurance quality.  Of critical importance is training and supervision so that the AI agents accomplish their testing to the intended quality standards. Attendees will leave with a practical view of how AI-powered testing can be applied to both internal and external assurance.

In today’s business world, there is a war for talent and organizations with the best talent will win. We clearly need to motivate talented personnel. Equity compensation plans are useful to retain, reward and recruit. The GAAP and tax accounting for equity compensation plans is not static and decisions that you make during plan set-up can have major consequences to your organization’s bottom line and your management team’s personal tax situations. We will review nuances and details that impact proper accounting. Whether you are the CFO or CEO who has not been happy with prior equity compensation plans or the accountant who performs the intricate analysis and detailed accounting for these plans - this session will help you understand the issues and get it right the first time.

Award winning discussion leader Mark Hugh discusses both nexus basics and new developments in the dynamic, ever changing world of state income and sales tax nexus. This valuable course answers your frequently asked questions, reviews key factors in examining potential nexus consequences, takes a tour through the rules in states comprising 50% of the US, and identifies free, online multistate resources.  *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