CPE Catalog & Events

This session will provide a basic overview of Employee Stock Ownership Plans (“ESOPs”). It will specifically address what companies are well suited for establishing an ESOP, how ESOPs are implemented, and how employees and departing owners alike can benefit from them. The session is intended to provide business and tax advisors with talking points about how an ESOP may be used as a succession planning strategy.

AI is an extremely popular topic these days, and for good reason! However, does AI present yet another threat to your privacy? Get answers to this question and more in this session.

Professional Codes of Conduct make Ethics seem easy and clear cut. However, this is not so in real life. This session discusses five cases where the ethics is not so clear cut.  What should be considered?  We will explain how you can be more diligent and maintain awareness of ethical issues to become more effective and enhance the reputation of the profession.    

This course will examine certain qualities a leader must exhibit to set an ethical tone from the top.

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 continue our discussion on inventory from segment one. This specific segment focuses on areas of inventory valuation, the types of physical inventory methods, and inventory fraud. These areas are critical for the controller to have a strong comprehension of and also participate in the development of policies and procedures.      

Construction accounting is not just about revenue, but it is a lot about revenue. Leases too. Diving deep into the five-step approach for revenue recognition in the construction industry, this course has all of the rules and interpretations that you might need. Further, practical examples help to drive home the learning. Additionally, leases are critical for contractors. From equipment to warehouse space, leases appear prominently on many contractors' book. Review the current guidance and begin to understand the new guidance under ASC 842. Program features: Detailed discussion of the guidance under FASB ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers. Examples and exercises to understand the five-step recognition process. Detailed discussion of the guidance under FASB ASC 842, Leases. Reasons why leases are so important to contractors. A walkthrough of both current and future lease guidance.

Technology continues to evolve at an ever-increasing pace-disrupting and transforming virtually all aspects of our personal and professional lives. New technology is impacting and revolutionizing almost any product and service available, from AI, 5G and blockchain to IoT, robotics and EVs. Join Inspector Gadget as he explores the latest technology trends, vendor solutions, and cutting-edge gear and gadgets. Technology has never been more critical and impactful than it is today. Ensure you have the essential details to navigate your next steps.

The process of closing out the books every month can make year-end accounting a breeze! But isn't this time consuming? Not when you know the steps to take monthly. We'll show you what to do in your QuickBooks Pro, Premier, or Enterprise as well as learn what you can do monthly to ensure a tax return that will stand up again an IRS audit. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

One of the most challenging skills for a manager or supervisor to master is delegation. This course will cover a variety of delegation-related topics and provide participants with the necessary knowledge and skills to delegate work and authority effectively.

We see change every day, but we ignore it as a key risk. Even though change is natural, it is also natural for humans to fight it. Why do humans think we can control everything? What are the steps we can take to adapt to change? Learn more about how we can become better at recognizing change and how we can embrace and adapt to the many changes we see every day. Change is inevitable. We can adapt to it or be replaced. We will discuss practical insights that will help you be even more successful in the office and in life. Effective leaders should not miss this course. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The Secure Act 2.0 was passed in a flurry of year-end legislation. This one hour program will cover the important changes that employers need to know about company retirement plans. Employers will also need to consider how Secure Act 2.0 will the administration of existing plans or the creation of new ones.  This course will provide a concise look at these hot topics.   **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.

Managing expenses is a key for business success, and overhead costs play a pivotal role in realizing favorable profit margins. Almost all companies have some form of overhead consisting of specific categories of indirect expenses. The better organizations are able to manage overhead costs, the more competitive they are in the marketplace. It is incumbent in the Controller’s role to effectively manage, monitor and perform ongoing assessment of overhead costs, allocations and rates. Overhead refers to the ongoing business expenses not directly attributed to creating a product or service. A company must pay overhead on an ongoing basis, regardless of how much or how little the company sells. It is important for budgeting purposes but also for determining how much a company must charge for its products or services to make a profit. Overhead can be fixed, variable, or a hybrid of both. There are different categories of overhead, such as administrative overhead, which includes costs related to managing a business. In short, overhead is any expense incurred to support the business while not being directly related to a specific product or service.      

Business professionals can automate data collection processes by using today’s electronic forms. Learn about these tools and how to deploy them in this session.

Selecting the right KPIs for your organization can be complex and stressful. Rather than resorting to brainstorming and internet searches, there is a better way to discover the best KPIs for your organization - the ROKS method. In this session Bernie Smith, creator of the ROKS method, walks you through the first five steps of this powerful approach, using real-world stories to bring each step to life.  

The Secure Act 2.0 was passed in a flurry of year-end legislation. This one hour program will cover the important changes that individuals need to know about contributions to accounts and new ways of accessing these funds.  This course will provide a concise look at these hot topics.   **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 people, when they hear about feedbcak in organizations and the workplace, think immediately of performance reviews. But feedback should not be isolated to these formal structures. This workshop is about the more informal methods of feedback that managers and coworkers can use to have more productive conversations that drive behavioral change. Through understanding the importance of dialogue, strategic questions to drive conversation, and mistakes to avoid, you'll be able to have more productive feedback conversations in your workplace (and maybe even at home, too).

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. 

More and more entities need Yellow Book engagements, including a growing number of for-profit entities. In this course, we will review the unique independence requirements in GAGAS. We'll also review the recent changes to quality management in Yellow Book. We'll close with a reminder of common deficiencies found in Yellow Book engagements.

Ready to make radical leaps in your critical thinking? In a world of rapid change and unreliable information, we need the ability to separate fact from fiction, recognize flawed assumptions, and have clarity under pressure. This course will teach you how to audit your thinking and build effective reasoning strategies for all types of situations. You will achieve dramatic improvements in judgement, problem solving, memory, and learning. This course will make you more flexible, adaptable, creative and resilient, and provide a cognitive toolkit you can carry for life. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Many organizations struggle to keep budgets current in an ever-changing business climate.  Twenty-first century performance metrics focus on determining what budgets should be rather than what they were in the past.  Using performance metrics effectively reduces work, reduces politics, provides flexibility and substantially improves the performance management process.  This session will show you powerful techniques to drive your organization’s performance.