CPE Catalog & Events

Why an open mind and the ability to doubt helps make great predictions. Why it is better to be a fox than a hedgehog. How non-conformists change the world. How to focus on what matters. How to learn from the past without hindsight bias.

Overview of the current landscape for AI in business. History of ChatGPT and generative AI. Fundamentals of generative AI technology and related nomenclature. ABC's of how to use ChatGPT. Demonstration of practical ChatGPT applications for accounting, finance, and tax. A word of caution: What you should be concerned about. Developing a ChatGPT usage policy for your firm.

Qualified shareholder requirement. Trusts as shareholders. Estates as shareholders. Qualified tax exempt shareholders. Tax planning ideas to accommodate economic investments by disqualified investors. Special rules for counting the number of shareholders. One class of stock requirement. Indirect preferences creating risk of failing one class of stock requirement. Disqualified corporations. Making an effective S corporation election. Relief for late or defective elections. Inadvertent termination relief for involuntary terminations.

Communication. Social media. Marketing. Publicity. Public relations. Business strategy.

Why great predictions are not intuitive but the result of critical thinking, gathering information and updating predictions when needed. How to separate correlation from causation. How to recognize and overcome bias. Who is Thomas Bayes and why he matters.

The shift to "predictive accounting" for Decision Making, Planning, and Budgeting. Problems with traditional annual budget processes. Develop a driver-based "operational budget" based on resource capacity planning. Classify resource capacities and their expenses as sunk, fixed, step-variable, and variable. Create closed loop capacity plans. Forecast demand for budgeting and rolling financial forecasts. Integrating enterprise risk management (ERM) with management accounting. Applying target costing for cost estimating.

How to know your specific obstacles to becoming rich. Why people use poor marketing and investment strategies, and how to overcome such limitations. The most effective marketing methods, and how to implement them. The power of being super motivated, and 3 methods to keep you motivated long term towards your goals. Having a vision for your business and life that will keep you on the right track.

KPIs. Performance measures. Metrics.

A taxonomy of accounting: tax, financial, managerial. A spectrum of direct and indirect absorption costing. Fact-based Data with Activity Based Costing (ABC). Why do we need advanced management accounting techniques, such as ABC?. How the ABC cost assignment network structure connects costs to products and sales channels. Learn to use ABC to manage product, service-line, channel, and customer profitability. Understand two views of costs: (1) process view versus (2) product view. Comparing ABC with time-driven ABC, resource consumption accounting (RCA), lean accounting, and other costing techniques. Operational Costing to Optimize Process Costs - How driver-based budgets and rolling financial forecasts lead to productivity improvement and cost reduction. Applying "Attributes" to assess "value-added costs" and "costs of quality (COQ)". The Shift in ROI's Source from Tangible to Intangible Assets. Increasing the ROI from information - with Corporate Performance Management (CPM) as a Value-Multiplier. Accelerating the Rate of Adoption for Implementing and CPM. Understand the barriers that slow the adoption rate of CPM: technical, misperceptions, model design, social, and cultural. How to overcome behavioral resistance to change.

Communicate more powerfully with clients and other CPA's by understanding human behavior. How to judge if your communication is effective in motivating someone. How to create trust and get people to like working with you - inside and outside the firm. The 3 most important keys for getting someone to feel rapport with you. Why rapport is so important, and how to use it to profit in your work. How to quickly solve problems with people once you have their rapport. Secret techniques that super-successful communicators use. How to persuade people without them knowing they are being persuaded. The three most important keys all successful communicators use. Why great service is better for your business in the long run. How to know what's most important to your client or boss-so you can focus on that.

Review legal and care giving options that are available to individuals and their families for when the individual can no longer live alone and needs some assistance. Review caring for the individual at home by family caregivers, outside agencies, and others, including household employee and homeowner's insurance issues, family caregiver respite care and adult day care. When care is no longer feasible in the home, we go through various living arrangements and financing options, including assisted living facilities, adult foster care homes and nursing homes and review how to protect family assets in such situations.

Why auditors fail to detect fraud. Usual vs an unusual transaction. Why fraud and stupid often look exactly the same. The importance of establishing the Perception of Detection. The number one reason fraud occurs. Looking for things that should be there. Looking for things that should not be there.

The AICPA Code of Professional Conduct and key Washington differences. New developments at the national and state level. Best practices for CPAs in public accounting and industry. Emerging issues.

Review of the Excel interface. Basic data entry tasks using the fill command, range selection and copy and paste. Basics to creating formulas.

Networking. Relationship management.

Family Medical Leave Act - full time and intermittent. Americans With Disabilities Act . Special rules for managers . Handling fraud, abuse, and performance issues in connection with a leave of absence.

Emotional intelligence. Management skills. Teamwork. Customer relations.

Triple bottom line. Sustainable business practices. Incorporating sustainability into every business decision.

Persuasion. Influence.

Update on latest cases, rulings, and regulations including the final regs. Legislative update on retirement plan changes of the SECURE Act 2.0. How to handle liabilities of LLCs. Planning opportunities and pitfalls in determining basis and amounts at risk -- recourse and nonrecourse debt issues for LLCs. and much more. Section 199A pass-through deduction planning. Partnership planning -- Structuring partnership distributions and transfers of interests. Optional basis adjustments -- Schedules 754 and 732(d). Planning for the utilization of Schedule 179 and for the scheduled phase out of bonus depreciation beginning in 2023. Basis, distribution, redemption, and liquidation issues of S corporations. Compensation in S corporations. Sale of a partnership -- the best planning concepts. What you need to know about family pass-throughs -- Estate planning, family income splitting, and compensation planning. Partnership and LLC allocations. A brief look at possible future changes to the taxation of pass-through entities.