CPE & Event Calendar

The barber, blacksmith, butcher, baker and candlestick maker used to have an intimate knowledge their customers. This tacit knowledge got lost in the Industrial Revolution. It is now coming back. The world is moving from products and services to subscriptions, favoring access and transformations over ownership and deliverables. McKinsey reports that the subscription ecommerce market has grown by more than 100% per year for past five years. Further, subscription-based companies are growing eight times faster than the S&P 500 Index (17.6% vs. 2.2%), and five times faster than US retail sales (17.6% vs. 3.6%). The advantages to a subscription model include predictable revenue, collective knowledge of your customers, one-to-one marketing, forecasting for demand and planning more effectively, breaking down silos and creating a true "one-firm" model.

Please join us for our monthly MAP committee meeting. If you have any questions, please contact Julia at jekelund@masscpas.org.

How to pay for the cost of long-term care remains a primary concern for most clients over the age of 50. Explore clients' motivations, misconceptions and objections to purchasing long-term care insurance, and a look at the latest long-term care solutions, including hybrids. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

* This course is #9 in the Microsoft Power BI series of webinars. Click button in Program Content section below to see suggested viewing order. * What good is data analysis if you can't share it? This course will focus on using Microsoft's cloud-based sharing/publishing platform, PowerBI.com. You will learn the interface as well as the benefits of using PowerBI.com. You will learn how to use PowerBI.com to leverage the work performed in Power Pivot or Power BI Desktop. Using PowerBI.com to create visuals is very similar to Power BI Desktop, so we will only review this feature. If you want detailed instructions on creating visualizations, please attend the Power BI Desktop course. This class can be taken with no Excel or Power BI Desktop knowledge, but some concepts will be a repeat from those classes and will serve as a knowledge reinforcement for experienced users. Many data analysts may create models in Power Pivot or Power BI Desktop, so we will spend time to learn how to share that data with PowerBI.com. This will ensure that everyone is looking at the same data, no matter the toolset. PowerBI.com adds the ability to create and share dashboards, so we will demonstrate how to create visualizations that can be turned into dashboards that allow users to customize their PowerBI.com with dashboards that are meaningful to them. This session is presented using Excel 2019/Office 365. Regardless of the version you are using, most concepts covered in this course apply to all versions of Excel. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Most business ethics courses focus on concepts like “tone at the top”, “integrity”, “code of conduct”, “values”, and “ethical culture." These are extremely important concepts and must be understood But often, when a professional finds they are in a potential “ethical” situation, they question “What should I do?” It is not as easy as flipping a coin. Ethics aren’t always black and white and there are many variables that can impact both the issue and the outcome This course presents real-life ethical scenarios then challenges you to put yourself in the place of the professional to truly think about “What would I do?” The scenarios are all true…. the names have been changed to protect the innocent You will come away from this training with a new view of putting ethics into practice

Schedules K-2 and K-3 are promulgated by the IRS in order to standardize the reporting of foreign-related tax information for pass-through entities. Even pass-through entities that have no foreign activities, investments, or partners may have a reporting requirement. Schedules K-2 and K-3 for reporting partners' income, deductions, and credits from foreign activity are now required for passthrough returns (Form 1065, 1120-S and 8858). This requirement starts with returns with a tax year that ends in 2021. This course discusses each part of these schedules and explain these new reporting obligations in detail. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

With the AICPA's heightened focus on enhancing audit quality, increased oversight of the peer review process and the auditor's overall responsibility to provide high quality services, the focus on compliance with professional standards has never been greater. Recent peer reviews have indicated that auditors are often failing to perform and/or document certain critical components of an audit such as the auditor's assessment of risk and linking the results of the assessment to substantive procedures performed. In addition, auditors are not adequately documenting their consideration of fraud, expectations in analytical procedures and the appropriate level of work needed to understand an entity's internal control. Now is time to revisit the way that auditors are performing and documenting the work performed to meet professional standards since nonconforming engagements can result in an auditor's referral to the AICPA Ethics Committee. The ASB has not made significant changes to its quality standards since 2006. There are currently three standards on quality management in exposure draft that are expected to be issued in the second quarter of 2022. These changes will be substantive. This course will discuss the new standards. This course will also focus on the most significant items resulting in deficiencies identified in the peer review process. We will also discuss the applicable audit standards, documentation requirements and best practices. The objective of the course is to provide the insights necessary to help an auditor improve not just the quality of their work but also the perception of the accounting profession as a whole.

If you have ever had someone just read you the rules in an ethics class, you know there is a better way. Cases in Corporate Ethics reviews 10 real life cases and puts you in the position of someone in the middle of it all. You'll learn about conflicts that corporate financial professionals often encounter, you'll gain skills for dealing with a boss who is behaving badly and find out where to go for help. Once you have studied ethics using real world cases, you'll never want to do it any other way. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Participants will go over the changes on preparation, compilation and review engagements using SSARS rules, followed by a general overview of how to perform these services. This interactive workshop is designed for practitioners in small and medium-sized CPA firms and will include a lecture with generous time for questions and case studies.

We have all heard the statement that it is the people that work at a company that gives it value. It is, sometimes and unfortunately, also the people that provide fraudsters with an entry point into an organization that can lead to hardship. This is even more true now because cyber-attacks on both organization and individuals have increased notably. Many highly publicized corporate hacking events are successful, at least in part, because an individual was targeted. In this session, we look the types of fraud that take aim at individuals with a special focus on the growth of cyber-attacks. We then discuss measures that can be put forth to help employees protect both themselves and the organization. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Fringe benefits are just another way of paying your employees. Do you know how to correctly track fringe benefits, as well as apply and report the various withholding tax rules for those fringe benefits? The IRS says fringe benefits must be included in and reported as a part of employee pay, but with any good tax law, there are always exclusions to that rule. Knowing how to handle fringe benefits can be complicated, especially in an area that changes on an annual basis. Attendees will leave with an understanding of what the requirements are around fringe benefits, what constitutes a fringe benefit, and whether it is taxable or not. We will also explore the evergreen areas of reporting S-Corp Shareholder Health, HSA, and when cash is not taxable compensation. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

Accounting and finance professionals routinely encounter a broad range of legal issues while advising clients or performing routine job functions. Contract law tops the list as the most frequent issue that intersects with the accounting and finance professions. As trusted advisors, it is wise to understand the fundamentals of contract law for both personal and professional benefit. This course provides a broad overview of contract law basics geared specifically toward the accounting and finance professions. From contract formation to enforceability, this course offers an interesting look at how contract law intersects with accounting and finance. Participants should walk away with a better understanding of common issues that arise when reviewing contracts.

PivotTable is a fancy term for an Excel report that summarizes data. If you have not yet had the good fortune of exploring PivotTables, it is about time. In this session, we'll dig into PivotTables, understand the report layout options, and examine PivotTable formulas.

This course is designed to provide accountants with a comprehensive understanding of the subscription pricing model. As the business world increasingly shifts toward subscription-based models, it's crucial for accountants to understand the financial implications and strategies associated with this pricing approach. This course will cover the basics of subscription pricing, how to set prices, and how to analyze the financial impacts of these decisions, as well as the specific impacts to your business. By the end of this course, participants will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to effectively manage the implementation of subscription pricing to their practice.

Embezzlement happens often to many small businesses. Unfortunately, the lack of internal controls allow the embezzlement to remain undetected for years. But when it is discovered, the small business owner will most likely contact their CPA for advice. What should you do when your client contacts you about their employee embezzling money from their business? What options should you present to your client? How can your client protect themselves, while investigating the embezzlement? What steps need to be taken about preserving any documents, emails, texts, or phone calls? This course teaches how to engage the client, properly identify the evidence needed to prove the crime, how to write the report for civil and criminal trial, and best practices in preserving electronic and paper evidence. This event may be a rebroadcast of a live event and the instructor will be available to answer your questions during the event.

In April 2016, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Auditing Standards Board (ASB) issued the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) No. 18, Attestation Standards: Clarification and Recodification, to supersede the former standard SSAE 16 This course will help you if your organization has the need to obtain or provide a SOC (Systems Organization Control) report or if you wonder what changes the new SSAE 18 standard will bring to the process. SSAE 18 is effective for SOC report opinions dated on or after May 1, 2017, and early adoption was permitted. This course focuses on the specific requirements of SSAE18 and highlights changes from SSAE16 In today’s economic environment, many companies utilize outsourced services to perform varied functions. These functions can span from payroll and accounts payable to information technology processes or even call center functions. The list can be endless however these services are often a critical component to the internal control environment of the organization A service organization should implement a robust third-party vendor management policy if one is not already in place. Often, initial vetting occurs of the subservice organization however that same diligence is not maintained as the service continues. It is just as important to ensure that subservice organizations are monitored on an ongoing basis using the methods outlined in SSAE 18.

Cover case studies and engage in discussion questions that cover professional ethics, fair positions in tax returns, ethical issues in tax practice, fairness in financial reporting, and integrity. This course fulfills the four-hour ethics education requirement.

Explore how economics can be used to explain everyday behavior in a myriad of real-life situations. Discuss the work of the most influential and seminal minds in the economics profession. Most people think of economists as seers who try to predict the future of the stock markets, government deficits, unemployment, etc.-a far too parochial view of what economists do. Fascinating economists are engaged in the study of human behavior. The most fertile minds in economics today deal with observing the world and trying to understand it, not predict it. Attendees will gain an appreciation for how the economist views the world and the power of their theories to explain why people behave the way they do.

Gain hands-on knowledge while focusing on the trust administration process on the death of the single settlor and the first spouse in a joint settlor trust. In today's estate tax environment, with a change of the exemption in 2026, the answers to core questions concerning whether to file an estate tax return, make a portability election or make a QTIP election may surprise you. Learn what clauses to look for in the trust; when and how to make portability and QTIP elections; when to use the "Delaware Tax Trap" in place of QTIP election; how to educate the client concerning trust administration; and how to deal with assets outside the trust. Using checklists and forms, understand how to create a practical system for administering the living trust after death.