CPE + Events Catalog

This course provides in-depth information to enable the practitioner to make a well-informed decision as to whether a trust is the appropriate vehicle for a client’s financial, estate, and/or asset protection plan, and, if so, how the trust can best be implemented and operated. Participants will learn about the many different types of trusts that can be harnessed to save clients income, estate, generation-skipping, and other taxes, at both the federal and state level.

The Not-for-Profit Advisory Committee (NAC) has been meeting with FASB to discuss the impact of various standards on the nonprofit community. We'll look at the work of the NAC and the impact they've had. We'll then transition to the Accounting Standards Updates (ASUs) issued by the FASB that impact nonprofit entities. We'll review year 2 considerations of the leases standard. We'll also review common nonprofit deficiencies identified in peer review. Once we've wrapped up the accounting update, the course shifts to the audit side of the house with a look at what's going on at the AICPA. We'll review the impact of the changes to group audits as the changes coming down the pike for quality management. This course will keep auditors up to date on the work of the ASB. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Specifically designed for preparation, compilation, and review practitioners, this course will provide you with a comprehensive review and hands-on application for performing financial statement preparation, compilation, and review engagements. You will learn the ins and outs of applying SSARS No. 21, Clarification and Recodification, as well as the additional guidance related to SSARS engagements through the issuance of SSARS Nos. 22-26 by the ARSC. In addition to SSARS 26, the entire suite of quality management standards is discussed. However, knowing the standards is not enough. You need to be able to effectively apply them. To support this, the course will review recent peer review feedback on SSARS engagements, providing insights on how to successfully apply this guidance. Not only will this course bring you up to date on SSARS requirements and guidance, but more importantly, it will provide you with practical examples and illustrations to help you effectively and efficiently perform these types of engagements. This course is intended to be your go-to reference for training your staff and managing your SSARS No. 21-26 services in compliance with professional, ethical, and technical requirements.

Each year brings its own set of tax planning challenges, and this year is no exception. This course aims to arm tax planners with planning strategies and ideas that all clients, but in particular, wealthy clients, middle-income clients, and closely held business owners need to consider right now to take advantage of present opportunities and plan for future tax advantages. Learn strategies that can really have an impact on client lives, while also bringing value to you and your firm. This material is continuously updated for recent legislation impacting individual taxpayers.

Properly designed and effectively operating internal control over financial reporting is critical for preventing, or detecting and correcting, material misstatement. This course describes how to satisfy the audit requirements related to taking a control reliance strategy by testing the operating effectiveness of internal controls, while promoting an effective and efficient financial statement audit. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Sampling is often identified as a common audit deficiency in peer review. This course will review when is sampling applicable and basics of planning a sample. We'll then focus on the application of sampling in financial statement audits with a look at sampling for substantive procedures. We'll look at the use of monetary unit sampling and tools that can be leveraged to reduce bias in sampling.

This course will serve as an introduction to conducting effective walkthroughs to gain an understanding of the client's transaction processes as well as identify internal controls within each process. This course will review the procedures, questions to ask, and documentation requirements of walkthroughs. It will also include real-world examples of the red flags that may arise while executing a walkthrough. 

Tax planning for 2024 is largely based upon legislation contained within the Inflation Reduction Act and the SECURE Act 2.0, both enacted in 2022, that offer new planning options and challenges for businesses in 2024. There are, however, other business tax changes in 2024 that result from different pieces of tax legislation, IRS pronouncements, and court cases that need to be taken into account from a planning perspective. This program analyzes the new opportunities and challenges that these tax changes offer to businesses and their owners that impact 2024 and sometimes later years.

With the increasing complexity and ever-changing nature of tax laws and issues, today’s accountant needs a one-day update course focusing on individual income tax issues with an emphasis of newly enacted income tax legislation. This comprehensive class will not only review the current Federal individual income tax laws but will also update tax return preparers of new tax forms, changes to existing tax forms, as well as tax planning opportunities and pitfalls. This is a “must-attend” course for all tax practitioners who want to be up to speed quickly and have a successful Federal individual income tax filing 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

Part one of a five-course series, address common issues new staff members face. Focus on strategies to improve efficiency and quality control, build technical skills, and make valuable contributions to a company. Dive into the fundamentals: workpaper techniques, analytical procedures, compilation and review services, tax recognition and research techniques, understanding audit objectives, and auditing and reviewing selected accounts.All of AHI's courses rely heavily on participant interaction and these virtual programs have co-opted many of Zoom's features to preserve the same strengths of the in-person training: visual interaction between the instructor and all participants (plan to be "on screen" throughout the program); breakout rooms to ensure small group engagement; and instructor interaction screen share for small group presentations easy delivery of video presentations fillable PDF for online note-taking in the course materials.

Over the next decade, the area of “Advisory Services” has the greatest potential for growth in your practice.  Complexities within your clients’ financial, estate, and asset protection plans coupled with the ever-changing Internal Revenue Code has created an opportunity for the CPA, the EA, and other advisors to expand their client offerings. This course provides the practitioner with the framework for practice expansion as well as an understanding of a variety of necessary issues and techniques.  

AICPAs Code of Professional Conduct - Exploring the Foundational Principles Underlying the CPA Profession as a whole will provide an overview of the basic principles of the AICPA's Code of Professional Conduct with practical implementation examples. CPAs must seamlessly transition to a profession that relies heavily on conformance with technical and ethical standards. It is critical for CPAs to seek to serve the public interest with a strong sense of character, integrity, competence, and due professional care. In addition, CPAs must appropriately safeguard any threats to independence and objectivity. Note: This course is recommended as a part of a 16-hour audit skills curriculum for beginning auditors, while it is also appropriate for anyone who has public accounting responsibilities. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The first course in a four-part series, fiduciary accounting and taxation field, has transitioned over the past several years with updated rules and the increased tax cost of accumulating income in a non-grantor trust. The changes in the income tax rate structure at the federal and state levels have pulled income tax planning forward as a prime objective for estate planners. The rules and understanding of fiduciary accounting continue to be in a state of development and challenge. It is an understatement to say that fiduciary accounting and taxation have entered a new and very different phase of complexity and change. We will explore many of these issues in Parts 1-4 of Form 1041 Workshop.

Review the sale of both C corps and S corps, including tax planning related to a possible liquidation after the asset sale. Also, identify tax and non-tax differences between asset and stock sales. The sale of a corporate business by selling the assets is a situation where effective tax planning can reduce the tax cost to both the buyer and seller. We'll discuss compensation for services, covenants not to compete, personal goodwill and contingent consideration.

Enterprise Risk Management for SMEs

* This course is #3 in the Microsoft Power BI series of webinars. Click button in Program Content section below to see suggested viewing order. * Excel is a popular tool for data analysis, yet most users have never learned the basics of data analysis using Excel or the tools that Excel offers to help with data analysis. This session is designed to teach participants the importance of PivotTables for analyzing data. We will demonstrate how PivotTables can make data analyzation an easy task for all accountants. Participants will learn the step-by-step process to create PivotTables and PivotCharts. We will also cover all the setup options and features. This session is presented using Excel 2019/Office 365. Regardless of the version you are using, most concepts covered in this course apply to all versions of Excel. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The QuickBooks platform is robust with features and capabilities that many users are unaware of or do not know how to utilize effectively. This course helps you get more out of QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online and resolve the issues even experienced QuickBooks users struggle with, such as locking down prior periods. This program starts fast with a chapter covering the top issues accountants face with QuickBooks. Then, the day continues with practical guidance and solutions designed to help accountants get the most out of QuickBooks for themselves or their clients. You will learn about issues like setting up a new company, configuring and customizing QuickBooks preferences, and enabling system security and password protection features. Also, you will learn how to lock down transactions in prior periods, use the audit trail, customize reports, export reports to Excel, and extend QuickBooks' usefulness with tools such as the Fixed Asset Manager and Loan Manager.

This course approaches financial statement preparation and review from a tax practitioner's perspective. Often tax motivated clients have different needs concerning financial statements. Topics in the program are:

Communicating financial data to those who aren't used to hearing it can be a challenge; however, there are some actions you can take to make the information easier to understand and relatable. This course provides you the necessary tools to communicate financial information to non-financial audiences. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

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.