WICPA CPE & Special Event Catalog
Preparing to be a Forensic Accountant: Focus on Document Review & Handwriting Analysis
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Online
2.00 Credits
Member Price: $89
Forensic accounting, forensic accountancy or financial forensics is the specialty practice area of accounting that investigates whether firms engage in financial reporting misconduct. Forensic accountants apply a range of skills & methods to determine whether there has been financial reporting misconduct. Financial forensic engagements may fall into several categories. Economic damages calculations, whether suffered through tort or breach of contract. Post-acquisition disputes such as earnouts or breaches of warranties Bankruptcy, insolvency & reorganization Securities & tax fraud Money laundering Business valuation Computer forensics/e-discovery This session is designed to delve a bit deeper into the world of forensic accounting & identify some of the specific areas of expertise required to become a forensic accountant. We will then first delve deeper into the art of document analysis & handwriting analysis.
Habits That May Keep You From Promotions, Raises or Achieving Your Potential in Organizations: Small Steps Can Lead to Big Changes
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Online
4.00 Credits
Member Price: $149
In this course, we will discuss what derailer habits keep you From achieving your fullest potential & deserving place.
Beyond the Basics of SSARS & Nonattest Services: Are You Certain You Are in Compliance?
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Online
8.00 Credits
Member Price: $250
Practitioners that provide non-audit services must strike the right balance between complying with relevant professional & regulatory standards, providing value-added client service & mitigating litigation & other practice management risks. This course contains many case studies to reinforce best practices for managing the accounting, reporting & performance issues associated with the attest services of compilations & reviews where reports are issued, as well as the SSARS preparation of financial statements service & other nonattest engagements.
The Controllership Series: Addressing Budgeting Uncertainty
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Online
1.00 Credits
Member Price: $39
With new accounting standards, the economic landscape & evolving technology, accounting, financial reporting & 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 & finance changes due to the economy continues for several reasons. Lack of in-house SMEs, managing high volumes of transactions & data & evolving information technology systems. In the future, executives must consider the challenges they will face in future years that will bring their own nuances & complexities. Budgeting is certainly one of those processes that must be evaluated & re-evaluated for efficiency. This session delves into the corporate budgeting process & discusses methods used & which methods may or may not allow for the organization's to properly plan for a volatile future.
Cost & Pricing Models: Boost Your Bottom Line
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Online
2.00 Credits
Member Price: $89
If sales increase, so should profits. Yet, the opposite result often leaves executive's scratching their heads. When organizations work with inferior cost information, they make mistakes in four specific situations. Bad information causes sellers to overprice easy, high-volume work & under-price difficult, low-volume work. This session discusses how to use activity-based costing to build accurate costing models that consider far more than just the labor & materials necessary to provide goods & services.
Partnership & LLC (Form 1065): Formation to Liquidation
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Online
8.00 Credits
Member Price: $300
With the increasing complexity & ever-changing nature of tax laws & issues, today's accountant needs a partnership/LLC course focusing on the hottest tax topics & most frequently encountered issues. This case driven course will deal with both partnership/LLC & partner/member developments addressing the most common, yet complex Federal partnership/LLC issues & problems. 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 & submit to terri.storer@acpen.com
Living in the World of AI: How AI Has Changed Ethics?
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Online
1.00 Credits
Member Price: $39
AI ('Artificial Intelligence') has already reshaped the way we work, offering immense opportunities alongside serious ethical & organizational challenges. How should we use AI responsibly without slowing innovation? Is using AI ethical? Is it right? Is not using AI ethical? The goal is to make better use of the power of AI, in a sustainable & ethical way.Note: This course qualifies to count toward the WICPA membership Ethics CPE requirement.
Preparing to be a Forensic Accountant: Focus on Computer Forensics: Part II (Cryptology)
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Online
1.00 Credits
Member Price: $39
This is a continuing part of our series on forensic accounting. Within this segment we discuss the concepts that are part of computer forensics known as cryptology. The term cryptography is From Ancient Greek & means "hidden secret". It is the practice & study of techniques for secure communications in the presence of adversarial behavior. Cryptography is about constructing & analyzing protocols that prevent third parties or the public From reading private messages. Cryptography starts with secrets. Various aspects in information security such as data confidentiality, data integrity, authentication & non-repudiation (where a statement's author cannot successfully dispute its authorship) are central to modern cryptography.
Business Valuation Fundamentals
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Online
1.00 Credits
Member Price: $39
This course provides a practical overview of business valuation, guiding participants through the key concepts, methodologies & considerations involved. You will explore the types of valuation reports, the standards governing their preparation & the step-by-step process of transforming raw data into actionable insights. The course also examines how the intended purpose of a report can influence its conclusions & offers strategies for valuing minority interests. By the end of the course, participants will gain a clear understanding of how to read, interpret & apply business valuation reports effectively.
Preparing to be a Forensic Accountant: Focus on Network Forensics
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Online
1.50 Credits
Member Price: $79
Network forensics: defined as the investigation of network traffic patterns & data captured in transit between computing devices: can provide insight into the source & extent of an attack. It is used in forensic accounting & with the expansion of information technology it has become a growing field. Network forensics is a relatively new field of forensic science. Computing has become network centric. Data is now available outside of disk-based digital evidence. Network forensics can be performed as a standalone investigation or alongside a computer forensics analysis. When used alongside a computer forensic analysis it is used to reveal links between digital devices or reconstruct how a crime was committed. Network investigations deal with volatile & dynamic information & is a sub-branch of digital forensics. It relates to the monitoring & analysis of computer network traffic for information gathering, legal evidence, or intrusion detection. This course is a complement to our other courses in the series on becoming a forensic accountant.
K2's Choosing Your CPA Firm Tech Stack
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Online
2.00 Credits
Member Price: $89
In today's fast-evolving landscape, CPA firms face a flood of new tools promising efficiency & innovation. This course helps practitioners assess the real return on investment (ROI) From their technology stack & -comparing suite-based solutions with best-in-breed applications & examining the latest Agentic AI & Generative AI offerings. Attendees will learn how to evaluate productivity, integration & strategic alignment to maximize firm performance. Whether upgrading your stack or validating your current tools, this session offers practical insights for tech-savvy decision-making & smarter technology investments tailored to the unique needs of accounting professionals.
Grow Your Business From Within: Striking the Right Balance Between a CPA Firm's Financial, People & Client Success
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Online
8.00 Credits
Member Price: $250
There are multiple tangible & intangible factors that can drive a CPA Firm's long-term success. Specifically, public accountants must place a priority on being both efficient & value-added business advisors when performing audit & other services. This course provides proven tips & techniques for ensuring your firm has the capacity to grow & expand your "business" From within in a healthy way, considering how to improve in three key areas: financial success, satisfaction of people & outstanding client service.
Understand Yours & Other People's Styles: Meet Them in the Middle & Be More Effective in Generating Great Results!
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Online
1.00 Credits
Member Price: $39
Understanding your own & the people style of others whom you are dealing with which can establish rapport more easily, help you become more persuasive & avoid miscommunication with the possibility of rubbing someone the wrong way. In our session, you will gain insights into your people style, ways to improve communication connectivity & how to understand your team's functionality (or more likely dysfunctionality).
Ethics Aren't for the Byrdes in Ozark
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Online
1.00 Credits
Member Price: $39
Professional codes of ethics provide guidance to professionals who are frequently required to choose between doing the right thing & the wrong thing. Sometimes, professionals violate their ethical code & do the wrong thing for what they rationalize is the right reason. This session uses the popular television show "Ozark" & its multiple examples of seemingly good people doing bad things for the right reason to define ethics as well as explore why people make unethical choices & how they justify those choices.Note: This course qualifies to count toward the WICPA membership Ethics CPE requirement.
Preparing to be a Forensic Accountant: Focus on Computer Forensics: Part III (Steganography)
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Online
1.60 Credits
Member Price: $79
This course is a complement to our series on Becoming a Forensic Accountant & the focus of the course is on steganography techniques. Steganography is the art & science of embedding secret messages in a cover message in such a way that no one, apart From the sender & 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 & 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 & plans reduced in size to the size of a dot & 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 & 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 & also discuss relevant software.
Consulting Services Secrets
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Online
1.00 Credits
Member Price: $39
Award winning discussion leader Mark Hugh discusses how to create & capture value with consulting services. Whether you want to consult a little or full time, this valuable course reviews identifying a specialty, growing a practice, capturing value, creating deliverables & effective marketplace marketing strategies.
Introduction to Forensic Accounting
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Online
1.80 Credits
Member Price: $79
This course provides a high-level overview & introduction into the world of the forensic accountant. Most accountants have an understanding of the concept of fraud & how it impacts companies, but many individuals do not have a full comprehension of the variance in the work performed by a forensic accountant versus a typical management accountant. This course is meant for those individuals interested in understanding the variances in the job tasks & responsibilities of forensic accountants versus typical financial or management accountants. Forensic accountants or auditors take a unique focus on performing their work. Typically, when a person with forensic experience is called in to examine financial records, it is due to suspicion of fraud, evaluation of assets, or even to track down fundamentally incorrect accounting: intentional or not. As fraud continues to raise its head in business processes, forensic accountants are discovering new & unique ways to identify, examine & support their hypotheses & investigative techniques. The work performed by a forensic specialist can be interesting & full of potential potholes if evidence isn't examined according to proper protocols & standards.
The Controllership Series: The Treasury Function Part I: Cash & Investing
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Online
2.00 Credits
Member Price: $89
This course corresponds to our Controllership series. This course is dedicated to exploring the traditional controller role & 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 & investments & 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 & 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 & then evaluates how those objectives can be further stretched into strategic pillars of the organization.
K2's AI: Real Tools, Real Results
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Online
2.00 Credits
Member Price: $89
This session teaches professionals how to move beyond theory & start using AI to work smarter, faster & more accurately. This hands-on session explores how public accounting & industry finance teams can use AI tools for tasks like reporting, forecasting, audit analytics & client service. Participants will see real-world examples of automation, gain practical implementation tips & learn how to balance innovation with professional responsibility. Discover how to measure your AI ROI, enhance productivity & position your firm or department for success in the AI-driven accounting era.
Private Company Simplified GAAP Alternatives
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Online
2.00 Credits
Member Price: $89
The FASB formed the Private Company Council to provide certain alternatives in U.S. GAAP that are only available to nonpublic business entities, with limited exceptions for certain nonprofits. This course will provide insight into when adopting the accounting & financial reporting alternatives would be to the advantage of private companies.