CPE + Events Catalog

All-new material for tax practitioners to get updated on the most pressing tax matters affecting business entities, individuals, estates and trusts, and more.

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.

The course provides a comprehensive, hands-on, pencil pushing understanding of the preparation of both S corporation and partnership/LLC tax returns, along with the underlying laws, regulations, etc. The course uses the basic concepts underlying the two main types of business returns: 1120S and 1065 as building blocks for more complex concepts tax preparers should be aware of. The theoretical concepts get illustrated in comprehensive examples that incorporate the most up-to-date law changes and provisions.

Don't let the title frighten you. Experienced staff can get bogged down in busy season with advanced practice and reporting issues. With major legislation enacted over the past few years, we bring you the distilled version of what you need to know for the current year and significant current proposals that may impact the tax landscape in future years or even retroactively. This course discusses the topics that experienced staff, managers, and partners should understand in depth while also assisting experienced staff in avoiding costly mistakes when facing complicated 1040 issues. The manual includes advanced examples and several advanced cases with "filled-in" forms provided with the complete answers.

A beginner's guide or a refresher on the essential elements of partnership and LLC taxation.

This course has significantly changed for the better the lives of a significant number of practitioners and their clients. Participants will learn a step-by-step process for performing an annual personal financial health checkup for themselves, family members, employers, and, if in the practice of accounting, their clients. This course is loaded with practical aids to enable CPAs to help individuals get a "great" financial health checkup result! This course will enable practitioners to add a huge value to their tax preparation services. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Penalty abatement is a technique that tax practitioners can utilize to help their clients reduce penalties and interest they owe to the IRS if the taxpayer can prove "reasonable cause". This informative and insightful webinar will provide you with some insider tips, practical steps and effective strategies to help your client manage IRS tax penalties and interest. Learn about various types of penalties that you may face, and the various forms and procedures used for requesting penalty and interest abatement, including First Time and Reasonable Cause abatement. Plus, learn about the procedure to follow when requesting refund of paid penalties. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

The world of work today has never before faced so many simultaneous changes. From rising turnover and rising employee disengagement to the changing psychology of the workforce, the world of work is changing fast. In order to understand how to thrive in this complex landscape - we must begin by understanding the key drivers of change. What is changing in the world of work, why are these changes happening, and what can we expect will continue to change and what may not change. These are the elements we will explore in this class. 

Why do for profit organizations exist??? To make money!!!!! What a great concept. But if the organization does not have the proper collections and credit procedures in place, they may not be able to access that money. Hence the importance of the credit and collection process. Credit and collections are critical areas for the financial statement controllers. Customer credit is a form of payment that allows small business customers to purchase a product or service before paying for it in full. The process works similarly to the way a credit card does - you procure something and pay it back later. Collections is a term used by a business when referring to money owed to that business by a customer. When a customer does not pay within the terms specified, the amount of the bill becomes past due and is sometimes submitted to a collection agency. The sales and collection process includes business activities related to selling products and services, maintaining customer records, billing customers, and recording payments from customers. It also includes activities necessary to manage accounts receivable, such as aging accounts and authorizing credit.  This course delves into the topics that impact the sales, credit and collections process for management. We discuss strategic steps management can take to ensure their processes are efficient and that they are able to actually collect their revenue.  

This course is a complement to our series on Becoming a Forensic Accountant and the focus of the course is on steganography techniques. Steganography is the art and science of embedding secret messages in a cover message in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient, suspects the existence of the message. The first use of steganography can be traced to 440 BC when ancient Greece, people wrote messages on wood and covered it with wax, that acted as a covering medium Romans used forms of Invisible Inks, to decipher those hidden messages light or heat were used. During World War II the Germans introduced microdots, which were complete documents, pictures, and plans reduced in size to the size of a dot and were attached to normal paperwork. Null Ciphers were also used to hide unencrypted secret messages in an innocent looking message. Given the amount of data being generated and transmitted electronically, it’s no surprise that numerous methods of protecting that data have evolved. There are various types of steganography: Text Steganography - Hiding information inside the text files. This involves changing format of existing text, changing words in a text, generating random character sequences or using context-free grammars to generate readable texts. Image Steganography - Process of hiding text in an image without distorting the picture. Video Steganography - Technique to hide any kind of files into a cover video file. Audio Steganography - The secret message is embedded into an audio signal which alters the binary sequence of the corresponding audio file. Network Steganography - The process of utilizing active network protocols as carriers to transmit a covert message, undetectable by an uninformed party, from a host to its destination. This session will review these methods and also discuss relevant software.  

In today’s real estate market, IRC §1031 tax-deferred exchanges can be one of the most important planning tools available to the real estate investor. The use of this technique is filled with pitfalls and traps. This new course will assist the practitioner in understanding the mechanics of a tax-deferred exchange and the value of a tax-deferred exchange in both tax and financial planning. Updated August 2022

To many clients, CPA firms all look the same. While services and specialties may vary significantly from one firm to another, it is hard for the average person to see this by simply looking at the sign outside our office door. Is there any way to make us stand out more to the outside world? Through surveys, statistics, and examples, this course looks at how CPA firms can develop a marketing plan beyond just relying on referrals. We look at the pluses and minuses of various marketing channels, regulatory constraints, and how to measure success in the competitive financial services space.

According to a recent study, over 70% of accounting professionals suffer from burnout, leading to feelings of exhaustion, inefficiency, and dissatisfaction with their careers. Recurring challenges for accounting and finance professionals include long hours, repetitive work, pressing client demands, and changing rules and regulations. Together, these conditions contribute to chronic workplace stress. Burnout is real, and firms that ignore this common problem pay a high price. Nearly three out of five employees in accounting and finance professions report psychological harm from work-related stress, including an overall feeling of lack of interest, motivation, or energy. Fortunately, individuals and organizations are beginning to take career burnout more seriously, especially in the post-pandemic era. This course looks at the causes of accounting burnout and examines strategies organizations are implementing to address and reduce a well-known but often overlooked problem.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was a major overhaul of our tax system that lowered the income tax rates for individual and corporate taxpayers and introduced the new 20% qualified business income (QBI) deduction for sole proprietors and pass-through entities. The cornerstone of this course is the comprehensive discussion of the 20% QBI deduction final regulations under IRC §199A.    **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

LLCs and partnerships continue to present some of the greatest challenges for return preparers and advisors.  This program will address the latest developments: New IRS audit initiatives An SE tax update for LLCs and partnerships Disregarded entity rules and transactions Common allocation problems Identifying various types of partnership debt properly for basis purposes The 754 election in the sale of interests and at death Reporting LLC and partnership interests on gift and estate tax returns and valuation of closely held businesses and minority interests **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.

As they gain more experience, staff are expected to take on more complex assignments with minimal supervision. The course is designed to be a stepping stone for staff interested in pursuing more advanced partnership and LLC issues than mere preparation, via deeper life-cycle study into critical areas of formation, special allocations of income and deductions, basis calculations and implications of recourse and nonrecourse debt, basis step-up under 754 on transfer of an ownership interest, distributions, self-employment tax issues, and termination/liquidation of the LLC. With the right blend of legal and tax ramifications of LLC-specific issues, this course identifies all the major areas that are potential sources of increased complexity.

Performance Management is about getting the best out of everyone. It's about setting the stage so staff can excel as an individual and as a team member. It's about knowing what to say, how to say it, and when to say it to inspire and elevate staff performance. For staff to hear, understand, and act on performance feedback they have to trust the person delivering the feedback. The feedback must be constructive, useful, and implementable. And surprisingly, the performance management process is as much about listening as it is about delivering feedback. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Most accountants use Excel to help them make decisions about their data. However, as the amount of data grows, it becomes difficult to make strategic decisions based on rows and rows and columns and columns of data. In this course, you will learn how to build robust dashboards for analyzing key metrics in Excel. We will begin with some dashboard design guidelines, such as understanding your audience and identifying necessary metrics. Then, we will work through importing data, setting up calculated fields and columns, and creating key performance indicators (KPIs) for the dashboards. You will learn how you can add charts and eye-catching visuals with Power View, in order to make your dashboards easily understood. This session is presented using Excel 2013. Regardless of the version you are using, ALL 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 construction industry faces many unique challenges to survive and remain profitable. These include specific accounting and reporting aspects for construction contracts and estimating project costs and profitability. Analyze revenue recognition under the percentage of completion method (including comparing current standards to the new FASB revenue standard) by exploring the underlying details. Reduce potential errors made using established concepts, including the shortfalls of the "cost to cost" method. Take a focused look at construction contractors' accounting, reporting and auditing. Discuss techniques and examples that provide a realistic audit approach for the contractor, including detailed auditing procedures for many types of contracts.

It is virtually impossible to pick up the daily newspaper and not find an article on some type of fraudulent event. In the wake of the “Era of Fraud, Waste and Excess,” one might suspect that potential fraudsters would think twice before committing illegal acts. However, just the opposite seems to be the case.  Is there really more fraud or is there simply more fraud awareness?  The harsh reality is that it is a little bit of each.  Not only has fraud worldwide reached a level of over $7.0 billion in lost  revenue but savvy C-level executives now realize that it could happen to their companies—very easily. When you put these facts together, it adds up to a completely new era of vigilance.