CPE Catalog
Note
AICPA On-Demand & Self-Study courses take up to 24 hours to process.
Surgent's Capital Assets: Basis and Taxation for Financial Professionals
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Online
2.00 Credits
This course provides a comprehensive understanding of capital assets taxation, basis determination, and related tax planning strategies. Participants will explore the fundamental classification of capital assets, the distinction between realization and recognition of gains and losses, and the complex rules governing disallowed losses. The course thoroughly examines the various types of capital gains and losses, including short-term, long-term, and special categories such as unrecaptured Section 1250 gains and collectibles. Attendees will learn the intricacies of netting capital gains and losses, calculating tax liabilities across different income types, and distinguishing between marginal and effective tax rates. The course also covers advanced topics including basis adjustments, wash sale rules, related-party transactions, and inherited property treatment. By the end of the course, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and tools to guide clients in implementing effective capital asset strategies that minimize tax liabilities while ensuring regulatory compliance.This course qualifies for IRS credit.
Practical Ethics and Circular 230 Compliance for CPAs and EAs
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Online
4.00 Credits
This comprehensive four-hour course takes CPAs beyond the basics, diving deep into the ethical quandaries that professionals face. Beyond just the rules of Circular 230, you'll explore a variety of ethical issues, discovering the best ways to handle them with integrity and wisdom. The course provides a dual focus: understanding your obligations under Circular 230 and tackling wider ethical challenges that can arise in your day-to-day work. With real-world scenarios and interactive discussions, you'll come away with practical solutions and the confidence to make the right decisions, keeping your practice ethical and your professional standing secure. **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.
Forensic Accounting: Court Approved Methods of Proof
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Online
4.00 Credits
How does a forensic accountant calculate financial losses? Federal courts have approved various ways to calculate losses ranging from net worth method of proof to the expenditures method. Each method of proof depends on the available facts to the forensic accountant. This presentation will focus on the various court approved methods of proof, when to use them, and how to calculate the total loss. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
KPI Bootcamp for Small Businesses
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Online
5.00 Credits
Running or advising a small business? The KPI Bootcamp can help you rapidly identify and implement the right KPIs to achieve your or your client's goals. Delivered by Bernie Smith, KPI specialist and seasoned entrepreneur, this course will guide you through selecting a powerful set of measures tailored to your business. The structured approach helps you refine your objectives and choose KPIs that drive growth and profitability. The program includes access to over 400 pre-defined KPIs, each with a clear, jargon-free definition, business benefits, real-world examples, and practical implementation tips.
What's Going on at the FASB (2025)
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Online
2.00 Credits
The course will start with the Accounting Standard Updates effective in 2024 for public entities, private entities, and nonprofits. We will also review year 2 implications of the leases standard including modification accounting. We will then switch our attention to the items coming down the pike, including a look at the projects identified by the FASB's Invitation to Comment: Agenda Consultation. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
A Fox in the Henhouse/Courthouse
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Online
1.00 Credits
The ancient Romans had a saying about using caution when appointing someone to a position of trust, "don't set a wolf to watch the sheep". That saying is in use today and has changed to include "don't put a fox to guard the henhouses";. The thought is similar, but the wolf and fox are vastly different animals. Wolves rely upon their strength to survive while foxes rely on their cunning. Like foxes, fraudsters rely upon their cunning to defeat or circumvent internal controls. This session reviews the investigation of a deputy court clerk who exploited a weakness in internal controls and committed fraud in the courthouse.
The Controllership Series - The Financial Close Process
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Online
1.50 Credits
A common challenge for the controller role is in closing the month-end and period-end books in preparation to issue financial statements. This duty requires precision, timing and efficiency. In today’s digital world, many organizations have access to financial accounting software that will assist with the steps in the financial close. However, even with this aid it is critical the accountant understand the various steps for the close process and how they inter-relate to other accounting processes. This course gives you an insight into the inter-relationships between many processes that impact the financial close. The closing process has traditionally been a slow one with many companies taking two weeks to close its subsidiary’s books and another two to three weeks to roll up and consolidated the results. With the introduction of technology much has been done to help accelerate that process with integrated enterprise resource planning systems and general ledger and consolidate software. Within this segment we will discuss the elements of the financial close and also important concepts to assist the controller in accelerating their close timeline. This includes addressing all functional areas of the close including payroll, invoicing, payables, inventory, cash, and the general ledger. We will also discuss important concepts of ensuring your financial close is accurate by discussing bank reconciliations, overhead allocations, bad debt reserves, unpaid wages and accruals for vacation time, account reconciliations, deprecation and overall financial statement review. Note: This course does not address utilizing technology in the financial close. Its focus is to understand the varied procedures involved in the financial close whether or not technology is utilized.
Peeking Behind the Curtain: Exploring IRS Audit Technique Guides
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Online
2.00 Credits
Have you ever considered a tax audit from the perspective of an IRS examiner? This session explains how you can use IRS Audit Technique Guides (ATGs) to enhance tax compliance. You will obtain a glimpse of the audit process from the viewpoint of an IRS agent as we explore insights that the IRS provides to its own examiners.
Surgent's Foundations of Cybersecurity for Financial Professionals
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Online
2.00 Credits
This course introduces key cybersecurity concepts tailored for financial professionals. It emphasizes the CPA's role in cyber risk management, key terminology, and practical steps to foster a security mindset, integrating cybersecurity with financial reporting.
The Bookkeeper Goes to Prison
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Online
2.00 Credits
This course profiles Brenda, a financial executive from the state of Washington. Despite earning her college degree, Brenda did not find employment in her area of study. Instead, she landed a series of dead-end jobs. Business reversals frequently led to the loss of employment. When a company that she knew to be unethical offered her an executive position that included bookkeeping tasks, including overseeing all finances, she accepted. While on the job, Brenda saw owners of the company misappropriating funds. Rather than reporting the fraud, she created an elaborate scheme to benefit herself - without the owner's knowledge. Her bad decisions led to a guilty plea for wire fraud, after authorities accused her of absconding with more than $600,000 in corporate funds. A prison term of 20 months followed. Listen and learn from Brenda's experience. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
Advanced ChatGPT for Accountants
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Online
2.00 Credits
This course concisely explains the latest "see, hear, speak" multi-modal updates to ChatGPT and how they can be used in an accounting context. New features include vision processing, voice conversation, image generation, real-time Internet access, advanced data analysis, plugins and more. Discover how this technology can be used in mind-blowing ways to analyze financial data, optimize processes, and solve problems in the accounting domain. Through the lens of ChatGPT, practitioners can explore innovative solutions, automate routine tasks, and generate deeper insights and value to their clients and organizations in previously unimaginable workflows. You'll walk away with scores of advanced ChatGPT strategies and tips that can be immediately applied and deliver instant results to elevate the efficiency and effectiveness of your accounting projects and tasks. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
Assessing Independence Under Yellow Book
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Online
1.00 Credits
Maintaining independence and adhering to strict ethical standards are essential for professionals in governmental auditing. The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) Yellow Book sets the benchmark for ethics and independence in this field, forming the foundation of professional compliance. This course provides a focused review of key principles and independence requirements, equipping participants with the tools to identify and mitigate common risks of noncompliance. Through practical guidance and real-world examples, attendees will learn to uphold the highest ethical standards and ensure independence in governmental auditing.
Getting SASsy - A Look at Recent Auditing Standards
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Online
1.00 Credits
This session provides an overview regarding recent standards that should be top-of-mind for auditors in addition to providing insight regarding auditing standards that will soon be effective.
Reasonable Compensation for S Corps
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Online
2.00 Credits
Between 2010 and 2020 a parade of Court Cases, IRS Factsheets, Job Aids and Internal Memos, plus Heightened IRS scrutiny and Preparer Penalties has brought the issue of 'Reasonable Compensation for S Corp's out of the shadows and placed it forefront as a priority issue for CPA's, EA's, Tax and Financial advisors to cover with their clients. We will explore key court cases, IRS guidelines, preparer penalties and some of the obscure tools the IRS has put in place. We debunk common myths and fiction on how reasonable compensation should be calculated and replace it with facts and methodologies that the IRS relies on. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
Beyond the Basics: Financial Ratios You Might Be Overlooking
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Online
1.00 Credits
Overview: Understanding your company's financial health requires more than just traditional metrics. This webinar is designed to reveal deeper insights through advanced, underutilized financial ratios. In this session, accounting and finance professionals will explore metrics such as operating leverage, free cash flow yield, and margin of safety-tools that go beyond standard ratios to deliver nuanced perspectives on profitability, risk exposure, and operational efficiency. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
The Controllership Series - Managerial Accounting Basics and Costs
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Online
1.20 Credits
Managerial accounting provides economic and financial information for managers and other internal users. Managerial and Financial Accounting have similarities and differences. Each field of accounting deals with the economic events of a business. Both managerial and financial accounting require that a company’s economic events be quantified and communicated to interested parties. This another course in our series on the controller’s role. The controller’s role encompasses many traditional functions. Within this segment of our controllership series, we discuss the area of managerial accounting and the basic concepts that surround this discipline as it primarily relates to cost accounting issues.
Microsoft 365 Application Lightning Round Review-Updated
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Online
1.00 Credits
Do you use Microsoft (Office) 365? Are you satisfied that you are getting the most that you can from it? If you answered yes then no, this course will provide a really high return on your investment of time and money in this application suite. John Higgins, one of the profession's leading experts on the integration of Microsoft 365 into business, will explain and demonstrate the depth and breadth of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. The course is designed to raise your awareness of all that you can do with Microsoft 365 and substantially increase your monthly subscription ROI. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.
Revenue Recognition Topic 606 - Identify Performance Obligations Part 1
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Online
1.20 Credits
This course is meant to complement the course that evaluates all aspects of the five steps to revenue recognition. The course "Understanding the new revenue recognition rules" examines the five-step model outlined in the standard that organizations must utilize when recognizing revenue. The new standard applies to all companies.
K2's Automation - Beyond The Basics With The Microsoft Power Platform
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Online
2.00 Credits
This session isfor accounting professionals aiming to enhance their automation expertise with the low-code/no-code tools in Microsoft Power Apps and Power Automate. Participants will explore techniques to create simple workflows and develop custom applications, including "describe it to design it." The session focuses on automating processes, such as approvals, workflow automation, and data manipulation, while accessing and utilizing data from Microsoft Fabric and external databases. Attendees will learn about different types of workflows and the platform's tools for Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Further, they will leave with a better understanding of the Power Platform so they can drive digital transformation in their organizations.
Surgent's Controller/CFO Update: Hot Topics Facing Today's Financial Professional
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Online
4.00 Credits
In today's rapidly changing world, finance professionals are required to wear many hats and are often the keys to the success of the organization. On one hand, they need to be abreast of the latest proven financial skills for making the best decisions, and on the other hand they need the best skills to motivate, manage, and lead people. Being pigeon-holed into one area or another is neither good for career building nor good for the organization. We'll cover the latest issues that all CFOs and controllers need to know about and provide how-to guidance to allow for immediate use in their organizations.