Time to Hit the Books: CPE Courses You Shouldn’t Miss

By Kate Prouty

It’s not September, but it’s time to go back to school. As the summer months approach, the Foundation for Accounting Education (FAE) is offering a range of new courses within its continuing professional education programs. This season the Foundation has developed educational opportunities spanning the spectrum of relevant fields. From auditing to ethics, these courses will equip practitioners with the information necessary to stay abreast of professional developments.

First and foremost, the FAE offerings will dissect the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on the accounting profession. By attending the new course FAE’s Audit Committee Training: Fulfilling Responsibilities Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, public company audit committee members will learn about the expectations they will have to meet under the act’s provisions. Similarly, FAE’s CFO Training: Internal Controls, Structure, and Process, Fulfilling Senior Management’s Responsibilities Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act will address provisions of the act that place new burdens on corporate senior management. By focusing on the importance of the control environment, the course highlights the duties the chief executive and chief financial officers must discharge in preparing their company’s financial statements.

CPAs in public practice may also want to consider two other new FAE courses. 2003 IRS Actions Affecting S Corps, Partnerships, and LLCs is fundamental to understanding major tax law changes, while AMT/IRS Actions Affecting Individuals in 2003 examines the complexities of the alternative minimum tax and how CPAs can help their clients avoid the impact of the individual AMT.

Other practical courses include FAE’s New York State Empire Zones, which is essential for any practitioners who have clients operating within one of the Empire Zones. The course explores the range of tax advantages associated with businesses located in a particular Zone, possibly resulting in significant savings. Another new course, FAE’s Design and Implemention of a Financial Control System, also will help assure maximum financial gain. Through the course, CPAs learn to comprehend, design and implement an effective internal control system that could be critical to the avoidance of financial mismanagement. Using exercises on laptop computers, Budgeting: Managing Financial Processes for Optimal Results explores the budgeting process in the hopes of improving decision-making practices by firm management. This is the first time that FAE registrants will bring their laptops with them and use template software examples that teach the skills they need and then become a reference for future use.

FAE also will provide courses covering topics of longstanding interest and debate. For example, this season the Foundation is devoting several new courses to the issue of ethics. FAE’s Tax Ethics and Tax Practice in the 21st Century introduces participants to the latest technological resources and advancements to meet ethical standards, while also addressing the ethical stipulations of professional societies, governmental agencies and federal and state rules. In addition to four hours of CPE credit in tax, the course provides four hours of CPE in tax ethics, for those who choose a tax concentration as the way to satisfy their CPE requirement.

In addition to the courses previously mentioned, FAE also is introducing the following new CPE offerings:

• Activity-Based Costing and Management: Explores the benefits of ABC, including operational improvement and improved product and customer costs.
• Banks and Other Lending and Depository Institutions: Auditing in a Regulatory Environment: Unravels recent developments in the banking industry.
• Business Valuation: The Use of Discounts and Premiums: Reviews the key areas, methods and studies in calculating discounts and premiums.
• Business Valuation in New York State in Dissenting Shareholder and Oppression Shareholder Suits: Introduces the theory, statute and state law relating to valuation in dissenting shareholder and oppression shareholder suits.
• Charitable Trusts and Annuities: The Solution to Your Client’s Financial Triangle: Explains the complicated rules associated with charitable trusts.
• College Financial Planning for Any Income Level: Teaches practitioners how to provide financial aid services for their clients.
• Excel: Advanced: Offers advanced coverage of Microsoft Excel.
• Excel: Beyond the Basics: Offers general coverage of Microsoft Excel.
• Extra-Strength GASB No. 34: Addresses more difficult aspects of GASB No. 34.
• Fraud and the Financial Statement Audit: Auditor Responsibility Under the New SAS: Explains how to meet the new fraud standard.
• Fraud: 11 New Scary Cases: Details 11 items that can create liability for CPAs.
• How You and Your Staff Can Look Forward to Going to Work Every Day: Maximizing Productivity and Satisfaction: Addresses motivational, productivity and satisfaction issues.
• Income and Estate Planning with Retirement Assets: Advanced Issues: Enables CPAs to advise clients on reducing income and estate taxes and protecting retirement assets.
• Information Systems Security and Privacy: Presents an overview of security and privacy issues to enhance overall technology and information asset protection strategies.
• Information Technology Management: Enables practitioners to discuss “boardroom” IT issues with their clients.
• FAE’s Internal Controls for Practitioners and Controllers: Provides information for recommending, designing and evaluating internal control systems.
• Introduction to Technology Assurance: Cultivates an understanding of technology assurance, professional standards and IT audit procedures.
• Legal Toolkit for Business Owners, Controllers, and CPAs: Reviews important legal issues for controllers, business owners and CPAs as advisors.

For detailed course descriptions and registration, visit FAE’s online course catalog at www.nysscpa.org.