CPE & Event Calendar

Fraud activities can be executed from within an organization, by parties outside an entity, or by both. Importantly, as the business world becomes more technological, the way fraud is carried out is changing. There must be an increased focus on understanding where new fraud vulnerabilities exist. In this session, we delve into the reasons that both internal and external intentional defalcations take place. The material discusses the new ways fraud is being actuated and looks at the factors driving those that undertake fraud. We spend time examining measures that can be implemented in order to stop fraud via the deployment of added security across the enterprise. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This course investigates actual real-world fraud schemes and discusses what controls could have prevented the fraud from occurring, and what controls could detect and curtail the fraud scheme. The instructor speaks from experience, finding multiple frauds very early in her career leading to a career-long focus on fraud prevention and detection. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This course will focus on preparing financial statement audit documentation critical for high quality audits that can pass peer review.

By far, the biggest contributing factor that leads to a profitable, yet high quality, financial statement audit is the proper identification, evaluation, and response to assessed risk of material misstatement. When designing your detailed audit plan, how and where you decide to spend your time is largely a matter of professional judgment. The proven tips and techniques for critically rethinking how you plan and design your audit taught in this course will help auditors enhance audit quality and manage profitability in all engagements.

With new accounting standards, the economic landscape and evolving technology, accounting, financial reporting and finance continue to grow in complexity. FASB has tried to address the growing complexity, by working towards making GAAP less convoluted.  The struggle to stay on top of accounting financial reporting requirements and finance changes due to the economy continues for several reasons. Lack of in-house SMEs, managing high volumes of transactions, and data and evolving information technology systems. In the future, executives must consider the challenges they will face in future years that will bring their own nuances and complexities. Budgeting is certainly one of those processes that must be evaluated and re-evaluated for efficiency. This session delves into the corporate budgeting process and discusses methods used and which methods may or may not allow for the organization’s to properly plan for a volatile future.

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.

Maintaining a strong network is one of the most important things you can do to grow professionally. Yet despite its importance, maintaining an effective network is often not taught in undergraduate and graduate schools. The good news is that managing and growing a network is easier than it sounds. In fact, most professionals have some level of basic networking skills simply from helping someone find a job, attending an industry conference, or seeking professional connections through social media. Effective networking involves more than simply collecting contacts. Strong networks should be relevant to your career and consist of people you trust. Personal networks are just as important as professional networks and the two often overlap. In this course, we explore ways to strengthen and grow networks by examining proven strategies that have helped individuals meet their personal and professional goals.

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.  

Excel remains a staple tool for virtually all accounting and financial professionals. In this session, learn about many of the newer features in Excel, along with some you may have overlooked in the past'truly "must-see CPE!?

Planning may be one of the most important assignments of the finance professional; however, it is often accomplished in a way that can harm the organization. In many cases, huge sums are spent only to have a planning document developed that does not serve to bring the company together, but rather causes internal division. In some situations the budget can actually harm both productivity and alignment. This course is designed to bring planning, budgeting, and forecasting together into one fully aligned process that is easier, more efficient, and fully engages all parts of the organization. Rather than the plan being owned by the finance department, it is owned and followed by everyone from the CEO to the entry-level employee.

Nonprofit entities have a high degree of public accountability. This course will examine the most common fraud schemes and provide multiple examples of how to prevent or detect these schemes. Nonprofit entities have a high degree of public accountability. This course will examine the most common fraud schemes and provide multiple examples of how to prevent or detect these schemes. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

This another course in our series on the controllership function. The controller's role encompasses many traditional responsibilities. The breadth and depth of the controller skill set has expanded and will continue to expand as the business world evolves. The controller position will typically lead teams of financial and accounting experts. Recognizing that leadership and team management skills are must-haves; they need to be able to command their team's respect, inspire them to act, and ensure that such actions are aligned with your organization's overall vision. These skills, along with tactical knowledge will ensure the controller's success.

Understanding unconscious bias is key to creating an inclusive workplace and to making the best business decisions. This course explores the concept of unconscious bias, the science behind it, and how it can affect the way employers hire, evaluate, and treat employees. We will also discuss strategies employers can use to reduce unconscious bias and create a more inclusive workplace.

This course corresponds to our Controllership series. This course 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 discuss the area of cash and investments and explore how the controller can move these responsibilities into more of a strategic role. In today’s world, the role of cash management is often a pivotal role in the organization. In economically difficult times, controllers may find that they spend a great deal of their time on understanding and managing the organizations' cash position. This is certainly important and, in some areas, can be seen as a staple of the lifeblood of the organization’s ongoing viability. This course takes a look at some of the typical objectives involved in Cash management and then evaluates how those objectives can be further stretched into strategic pillars of the organization.   

Most ethics courses focus on unethical individuals and their terrible misdeeds. We don't need another course on lessons from Enron or individuals committing fraud. Most unethical failures result from unethical individuals. Instead, this session will focus on how good people can do better, why there is no such thing as business ethics and why we only need one rule to lead ethical lives.

As accounting firms' non-attest offerings to their attest clients become more diversified, such engagements increase firms' exposure to independence violations. In order to thread the needle of providing value-added services and upholding their independence obligations, firms need to have a strong foundational understanding of the applicable ethical and independence rules which govern these engagements. In this course, we'll review the relevant sections of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct regarding independence, objectivity, and conflicts of interest. The course will focus on the Code's Independence Rule and common threats to auditor's independence. In particular, the course will focus on those unique considerations related to non-attest services, both from the perspective of AICPA interpretations and other applicable rules and regulations. PLEASE NOTE: THIS COURSE COVERS GENERAL ETHICS AND IS APPLICABLE IN STATES IN WHICH STATE-SPECIFIC ETHICS IS NOT REQUIRED.

Two conmen used lies and falsified documents to convince the State of Tennessee to give them a $3,000,000 economic development grant to create 1,000 jobs by purchasing and rehabilitating a vacant factory in rural Tennessee. Instead, they spent most of the money on an extravagant lifestyle and invested over $1M in a scheme to defraud the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of over $30,000,000 pursuant to a contract to provide the tarps for areas such as Puerto Rico, affected by hurricanes. This session provides a detailed case study of how the investigators accumulated, organized, and analyzed hundreds of documents, identified the falsifications and misrepresentations, conducted multiple interviews, and ultimately convicted the conmen. This case study provides multiple takeaways for detecting and investigating grant fraud, which is especially relevant in light of the numerous federal stimulus programs in recent years.

ChatGPT has grown its user base to over 800 million active users per week. As a leader in the generative market, it a tool that every CPA should have a basic understanding of how to use and apply in business. This course will provide a comprehensive review and demonstration of how to put ChatGPT to work for you and your clients. It is designed as a "hands-on" course that facilitates following along with the presenter to apply the features of ChatGPT on your computer. Practice files will be provided so you don't have to expose your confidential data. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Information becomes influential when it is structured. In this 1-CPE session (Professional Development), participants explore narrative frameworks presented in the course materials, including situation-complication-resolution and hero-based narrative arcs. Using business-oriented examples, the session demonstrates how structured storytelling enhances clarity and impact without sacrificing rigor. Participants will examine how to define context, introduce tension, present evidence, and guide audiences toward resolution. The emphasis is on logical flow and disciplined narrative construction rather than dramatization. The course concludes with application of a structured storytelling model to a professional scenario. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

These are uncertain times. With constant economic fluctuation, geopolitical uncertainty and inflation pressures, corporations and their professionals are facing challenges at every turn. The Controllership function is accustomed to dealing with changing variables but when the change is constant and every evolving, even the simplest of tasks like cash flow and cash forecasting can become difficult.  This webinar is to focus on what methods the controller can elicit to attempt to address the current uncertainty when working with their cash flow issues and forecasting. Of course, there are basic measures that can be employed such as: Proactively managing receivables and payables Automate your accounts payable and receivables process Keep business expenses at a minimum Work with digital methods of payment from vendors Use credit wisely However, this webinar will explore methods used to create and manage your cash flow and forecasting processes. These methods go one-step past your typical forecasting to enable management to explore various alternatives and scenarios for the business.