The FAE: Take Advantage of a Premier Educational Resource

The FAE: Take Advantage of a Premier Educational Resource

By Jo Ann Golden

Continued from the Home Page

A goal of every CPA should be to maintain and improve our competencies in order to offer the best services possible to the public, our employers and our clients. We can be proud to look to the FAE as a premier source of continuing professional education programs that satisfy this purpose.

The strength of the programs that the FAE provides is well known. And the variety of courses offered has broad appeal. The scope of the curriculum is always developed with the principal goal of improving skills and increasing knowledge, particularly in the face of ever-changing rules and regulations.

The FAE board works hard to find ways to improve this already highly regarded educational service. The board has established several task forces to better serve the membership, as well as their clients.

A task force, chaired by former NYSSCPA President George Foundotos, to attend to the obligations of public schools and their auditors has been formed and is getting off the ground.

A second task force focusing squarely on our members in industry is well under way, too. The FAE’s Industry Curriculum Task Force, chaired by FAE trustee and former NYSSCPA board member Sharon Sabba Fierstein, and the Society’s CFO Committee have conducted research and made recommendations that are helping to shape the content of many new courses.

As a result of the task force’s work, the FAE will launch a multiyear initiative to specifically address the education needs of CPAs in industry.

While industry-specific course offerings should be relevant to the current environment, particular attention must also be paid to acquiring skills beyond accounting that can help CPAs advance their career. A framework for the curriculum was developed based on the American Institute of CPAs’ Competency Assessment Tool for finance professionals, which divides the skills of a finance professional into four basic areas: personal attributes, leadership qualities, broad business perspective and functional specialty.

Many new courses in the coming year will concern the honing of the first two skill areas, personal attributes and leadership qualities. The range of courses will expand in the future to include ones that cover broad business ideas as well as niche competencies. The FAE will continually assess the course selections and add courses when it identifies specific skills and abilities that are crucial to our industry members.

The steady development of a relevant curriculum for members in industry will be a permanent focus of the FAE. Courses will be applicable to all of our industry members, whether they are recent graduates, mid-career professionals or senior management.

The FAE also continues to create courses relevant to current events that affect all CPAs. We continue to read with dismay about certain failures in the accounting profession. With that in mind, the FAE is exploring options to provide additional course offerings in critical areas that are associated with those failures.

And finally, the FAE continues to work with NYSSCPA committees and chapters to produce topical conferences, which provide a way to keep abreast of timely topics and serve as tremendous networking opportunities.

The FAE network is comprehensive, providing NYSSCPA members and others with quality educational tools to perform their jobs with total competence. We encourage all CPAs in the state to take advantage of this educational resource.