CPE Catalog & Events

Navigating the complexities of business transactions requires a deep understanding of tax and estate planning strategies. In this comprehensive course tailored for financial professionals, participants will explore the intricacies of creative approaches to buying, selling, or gifting a business. Through real-world scenarios and practical insights, attendees will gain invaluable expertise in identifying tax risks, minimizing liabilities, and safeguarding assets. From evaluating valuation methods to exploring the details of stock versus asset purchases, this course equips you with the essential tools to provide informed counsel to clients. Discover the potential for strategic success as you master topics including estate transfer and tax implications, gifting strategies, and the utilization of various trusts and partnerships. Whether you're a CPA, EA, attorney, or financial planner, this course offers indispensable knowledge to elevate your practice. With a recommended 8 credit hours of Continuing Professional Education (CPE), this intermediate-level course is designed for professionals with a foundational understanding of business tax and estate planning. Join us and immerse yourself in a journey towards mastery in the vibrant landscape of business transactions. **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.

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.

How you onboard a new employee is critical in ensuring they understand your company culture and are immersed properly in your organization. On the flipside, in the event you are dealing with an employee termination, this too is critical in handling with care and sensitivity.  

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Bard, and Copilot are available to everyone and offer great promise for improved productivity. Learn how you can begin to take advantage of these tools by participating in this session.

Your home is now the digital center of your world, and even if you go to an office every day, you have more options to help you manage everything from shopping lists to email accounts. Unfortunately, many new devices your family connects to your WiFi can create security risks and may make remote work and school less secure. For example, tracking devices and services can help parents monitor children and seniors, but outsiders can use the same tools to stalk their loved ones digitally. This session will help you learn about devices, services, and app suites for families, share files, organize photos, manage passwords, and keep your home secure. Attend this breakout and learn about innovative new tools to help you stay safe and make the most of your time away from the office.

The ACFE/COSO Fraud Risk Management Guide (FRMG) was published in 2016 (and updated in 2023).  It has quickly gained acceptance as the set of best practices for preventing, detecting, and thus deterring fraud. The fraud landscape is constantly changing and evolving. The FRMG sets out a rigorous set of principles and leading practices for managing fraud risk for forward-thinking organizations to follow.  It covers: How to establish fraud risk management governance. How to conduct rigorous fraud risk assessments. How to design and implement fraud control activities. How to establish reporting mechanisms and investigative procedures. How to monitor the overall fraud risk management program. Fraud risk can be managed.  All anti-fraud and accountability professionals will benefit from this session's focus on effective fraud risk management.

“How will I EVER get this all done?"  It’s a question I often hear from clients and on a particularly stressful day, I can hear myself saying these words!  Instead of helping us focus, it's a question that leads to stress, anxiety and overwhelm! Regardless of where we are in business and in life, we will run into challenges and problems as we navigate business growth, leadership, work life balance and our quest for success and happiness. This workshop will explore the 7 HIGH QUALITY questions that lead to relief, enthusiasm and success.  It will be an interactive exploration that will leave you with a game plan to use right away, as well as an opportunity to practice the mindset that the most successful and happiest people use daily.    This program is for both the entrepreneur who wants to be more effective in their day as well as team leaders who want to stand out in their organization.  For the business owner or staff member you can expect a new way to work with your day so that it's profitable, productive and happier.  For leaders, you will learn new up- leveled skills to increase your efficiency, communication and productivity.  You and your team will shine.  Your staff will feel appreciated and connected to their value as well as the company's goals. Albert Einstein said 'we can't solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them'.  The quality of your question will impact the quality of your solution.  Learn the 7 questions that take you from confused and frustrated to creative and focused. 

Power Query and Power BI offer great opportunities for accessing your data and making it more useful in reporting scenarios. Learn how to benefit from these tools in this session.

Using Outlook for email management is routine for most business professionals these days. But unfortunately, using this tool for so long may cause some to perpetuate bad practices and habits when working in Outlook and exploring new options Outlook offers. In this session, you will discover ten valuable tips to take you to the next level of your email and work management.

In this dynamic session, Sharrin Fuller, Entrepreneur and CEO, will share her insights on managing with a CEO mentality. Sharrin will guide participants in developing the mindset and skills necessary to excel as managers. Through real-life examples and practical strategies, attendees will learn how to adopt a CEO mindset, think strategically, and make informed decisions that align with long-term business goals. Additionally, valuable techniques will be presented for inspiring and motivating teams, fostering a culture of accountability, and driving high performance within their organizations. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Are you running around with a fire extinguisher permanently strapped to your back? Do everyday crises run your life, both at work and at home? Do you find yourself consistently taking care of everyone else with no time left to take care of you? In this session, we dive into controlling your chaos and managing your energy. Make no mistake, this isn't your father's time management class. It’s an energy management class developed on behalf of and with tired, frustrated, and burned out HR professionals like yourselves! If you find yourself drained and drinking far too much coffee, this is the session for you!

Emerging from the pandemic is a workplace culture governed by values. Far from a soft approach, it can drive significant business results. Organizations that embrace an empathetic culture increase performance and decrease turnover, while their customers report a more positive experience. Additionally, being more “person-focused” strongly correlates with more effective ethics and compliance programs. These insights can provide a roadmap for the "new normal" as the world emerges from the crisis. How employees and management move forward from this experience will shape the workplace for decades to come.

ProActive Response Group's Active Shooter Response Training course educates participants in current trends of active shooter incidents, how to recognize early warning signs of violence, appropriate actions to increase chances of survival in an active shooter event, and how to use basic medical equipment to save the lives of victims.   *****(Warning: This video contains simulated graphic scenes that some viewers may find disturbing)*****

This program provides an update to the latest tax developments, rules and regulations impacting individual taxpayers, with a review and integration of the numerous 2021/22 legislation. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

FASB ASC 842, *Leases* explained Understanding lease fundamentals is essential to applying FASB lease requirements appropriately. As such, you'll delve into key concepts that define what a lease is, as well as basic lease accounting topics, such as: Contracts containing leases Lease classification Amortization of the right-of-use asset Impairment considerations Lease presentation and disclosure requirements Comprehensive examples and case studies will guide you through approaches to help you adopt accounting guidance for FASB ASU 2023-01. You'll also review the presentation and disclosure requirements, and other topics, including: Lease versus non-lease components Sales-type lease Direct financing lease Operating lease Lease terminations

This course provides in-depth information to enable the practitioner to make a well-informed decision as to whether a trust is the appropriate vehicle for a client’s financial, estate, and/or asset protection plan, and, if so, how the trust can best be implemented and operated. Participants will learn about the many different types of trusts that can be harnessed to save clients income, estate, generation-skipping, and other taxes, at both the federal and state level.

For CFOs and Controllers, the emergence of regulatory, fiscal, and monetary policy directly impacting their organizations' costs, competitiveness, and financing options, are causing them to understand the effect of shocks well outside of their control. The Dodd-Frank Act, health care reform, shortfalls in Social Security, unfunded pension liabilities, and deficit spending will all be explored relative to their impact on the CFO/Controller and your organization.

We are now officially in the era of digital communications, collaboration and knowledge sharing. Is your organization prepared to embrace it? This course will show you how to do just that by strategically deploying the Microsoft Office 365 ecosystem of applications with the Teams app at the core. Office 365 provides the tools to digitally transform your workflows to increase efficiency, as well as to provide the ability for your team to work from anywhere, at any time, on any device. We will review how you can leverage specific Office 365 apps to foster online communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing among your team members, as well as externally with clients, customers and service providers. You will leave this course with a solid understanding of how to tap into Office 365 to take your business digital. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Payroll is among the most common tasks an employer undertakes in the course of running their business. At its most basic level, payroll consists of an agreement between an employer and employee related to compensation for services. Once you pull back the curtain, there is so much more to payroll, including various kinds of compensation, payroll taxes and required reporting on various government forms. This course will provide a general introduction to the payroll cycle of life, including real life examples of how to process payroll, the withholding and payroll tax deposit regime, common payroll forms, and tips and tricks for tying it all together. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Between 2010 and 2020 a parade of Court Cases, IRS Factsheets, Job Aids and Internal Memos, plus Heightened IRS scrutiny and Preparer Penalties has brought the issue of 'Reasonable Compensation for S Corp's out of the shadows and placed it forefront as a priority issue for CPA's, EA's, Tax and Financial advisors to cover with their clients. We will explore key court cases, IRS guidelines, preparer penalties and some of the obscure tools the IRS has put in place. We debunk common myths and fiction on how reasonable compensation should be calculated and replace it with facts and methodologies that the IRS relies on. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.