CPE Catalog & Events

Navigating the challenges of estate and gift taxation can be overwhelming for practitioners, especially those lacking extensive experience in this field. In this comprehensive course, participants will undergo a practical exploration through the preparation of the Federal Forms 706 and 709 - line by line. Through hands-on instruction, attendees will gain invaluable insights into the complexities of tax compliance, equipping them with the skills and confidence needed to seamlessly integrate estate and gift tax preparation into their practice. With a focus on practical application, this course offers participants a unique opportunity to master the preparation of crucial tax returns, enhancing their professional expertise and strengthening client service offerings. From a detailed overview of the Federal Forms 706 and 709 to insights on complying with "Portability" and navigating postmortem estate planning issues, attendees will emerge with a newfound proficiency in estate and gift tax preparation, ready to excel in their practice. **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. Speaker - Arthur Werner

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In order not to perform an excessive number of audit procedures (over audit) auditors must perform procedures in order to determine in what areas are there weak internal controls that could result in a risk that the financial statements would be materially misstated and not be detected.  SAS No. 122, AU 300 – 499, Measuring Audit Risk provides guidance as well as required procedures that must be performed in every audit in order to determine the risk of material misstatement.  No longer can the auditor state that they assess the risk of material misstatement at maximum without having a basis for making such assessment.  As a result, the standards now require that the auditor make such an assessment of a material misstatement of the financial statement on every audit in order to have a basis for such assessment.  This program is an overview of the statement documentation requirements in assessing such a risk. Speaker - Dennis Dycus

Organizations that use primitive costing methods make predictable mistakes. They allocate too much cost to easy, high-volume "gravy" products and too little cost to difficult, low-volume "dog" products. This puts the organization with inferior information at a significant disadvantage against a competitor who has a better cost model. The secret to having a great cost model is learning how to deal with overhead. This webinar will show you how to assign 16 key categories of overhead. Whether you work in a wholesale, retail, health care, service or manufacturing business. This session will give you important insights into how to handle overhead. If you get your costing right, you will be able to give the "dogs" to your competitors and keep the "gravy" for yourself. Speaker - John Daly

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Join us for an in-depth webcast on Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRTs) and the essential aspects of preparing Form 5227.  This course will provide a comprehensive overview of CRTs, including their purpose, benefits, and practical considerations. Moreover, we will delve into the intricacies of Form 5227, the informational return for charitable remainder trusts, ensuring you have the necessary knowledge to accurately complete and file this crucial document. During this webcast, Art Werner will guide you through the fundamental concepts of Charitable Remainder Trusts, illustrating how they can be utilized as a strategic tool for tax planning. We will explore various types of CRTs, their formation, and the different scenarios in which they are most beneficial.  A significant portion of the webcast will be dedicated to Form 5227, the reporting requirement for charitable remainder trusts. We will provide an in-depth analysis of the form's components, line by line, ensuring you gain a comprehensive understanding of the information it requires. From trust assets and income to distributions and charitable beneficiaries, we will cover each section, discussing common pitfalls and best practices for accurate reporting. Mr. Werner will address the recent updates and changes to Form 5227, enabling you to stay up to date with the latest compliance requirements. Speaker - Arthur Werner

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Organizations that use primitive costing methods make predictable mistakes. They allocate too much cost to easy, high-volume "gravy" products and too little cost to difficult, low-volume "dog" products. This puts the organization with inferior information at a significant disadvantage against a competitor who has a better cost model. The secret to having a great cost model is learning how to deal with overhead. This webinar will show you how to assign 16 key categories of overhead. Whether you work in a wholesale, retail, health care, service or manufacturing business. This session will give you important insights into how to handle overhead. If you get your costing right, you will be able to give the "dogs" to your competitors and keep the "gravy" for yourself. Speaker - John Daly

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Many organizations struggle to keep budgets current in an ever-changing business climate.  Twenty-first century performance metrics focus on determining what budgets should be rather than what they were in the past.  Using performance metrics effectively reduces work, reduces politics, provides flexibility and substantially improves the performance management process.  This session will show you powerful techniques to drive your organization’s performance. Speaker - John Daly

The budgeting process can be a time consuming and frustrating process for accountants.  The constraints and pressures can lead to poor decisions in both the technical and human components.  This session will cover: Building Flexible Budgeting Models: Walking Through and Crunching The Numbers •    We can all learn from others and improve our budgeting process by listening to our colleagues’ wisdom and experience.  This session takes a unique review of the fundamental budget issues faced by all and walks through a detailed modeling process intended to generate discussion and best practices to improve your organization’s financial planning.  Speaker - Bob Mims

Sustainability Accounting is now a recognized professional skill of increasing importance in larger organizations. It is the process of finding, measuring and managing the material metrics for sustainable performance and risk management. The goal is to bring these metrics into regular financial statements so leaders can act on them.  This course teaches Sustainability Accounting basics with example from the restaurant industry.   It is suitable for any professional or student who wants to learn fast about sustainability issues in specific industry sectors and how to integrate sustainability metrics into financial accounting and reporting. Speaker - Burt Hamner

Critics have claimed that traditional managerial accounting is at best useless and at worst dysfunctional and misleading. Most line managers do not trust their management accounting data. 21st Century management accounting develops cost/unit metrics that are useful for budgeting, cost analysis and control. Activity-based costing (ABC) brings truly accurate fact-based costing visibility. ABC does not broadly allocate overhead, but traces costs by identifying cause-and-effect relationships. Such information can provide the ability to reveal true profit margins for products, service-lines, specific sales channels and customers. The same information also helps reduce costs and improve productivity by reporting unit costs that you can use to monitor cost trends and benchmark against your competition. Removing the barriers caused by your current management accounting techniques can provide huge rewards. Speaker - Gary Cokins

Many practitioners dealing with government and not-for-profit issues are asked to serve as expert witnesses in courts of law or other adjudicatory venues.  This session will discuss key issues you need to know when you are asked to serve in this capacity, including: Applicable standards and other engagement acceptance considerations. Preparation requirements and techniques. Dos and don'ts of testifying. Avoiding commons traps and tricks designed to undermine your effectiveness. The session will conclude with a “mock cross-examination” with participants serving as the jury to identify what our witness does right and what he does wrong. Speaker - David Cotton

Inventory is a wonderful place to both hide fraud and commit fraud.  The reasons that inventory is subject to so much fraud is the it is often very large, spread out over a large area, and many people have access to it.  When there are little or no internal controls related to inventory control, you are begging employees to steal it.  No with so many ways to dispose of stolen inventory via the internet, i.e., EBAY, inventory fraud is much more appealing to a lot of individuals. The more common ways to commit expense fraud and how to cover it up will also be discussed.  Travel and entertainment are some of the favorite areas of committing expense fraud.  In addition, payroll fraud will be discussed.  Although there are many ways to commit payroll fraud, it is very easy to prevent. This presentation is designed to familiarize the participants with the many ways to commit inventory, expense and payroll fraud, how to detect it, and more importantly, how to prevent it. Speaker - Dennis Dycus

Business Intelligence (BI) is perhaps the hottest topic in most professional circles in today's business climate. Increasingly, organizations of all sizes seek to take advantage of the data available to them to identify previously undiscovered insights and gain competitive advantages thought to be out of reach just a few short years ago. A growing array of tools - from Excel add-ins to dedicated solutions such as Power BI - now allow you to leverage your existing knowledge and skills to create powerful, interactive dashboards and analyses unthinkable until recently. This program will teach you to implement "do-it-yourself business intelligence" using various techniques and tools. First, you will learn to use advanced Excel data query and summarization features to create Excel-based dashboards. You will then learn how to leverage that knowledge to build even more powerful BI objects using Microsoft's Power BI tools. If gaining better insights into your data to make better decisions interests you, then join us for a fast-paced look at how you can take advantage of these fantastic tools.Speaker - Lawrence "Mac" McClelland

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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. Speaker - Arthur Werner

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Anne Oestriecher is back with an update to SECURE 2.0....it's been out for a while, but there are new regulations that could impact your or your clients' or company's retirement plans. Get the latest info and tips on how to best structure your plans to maximize your retirement and to take advantage of the tax credits available to small businesses. Benefit from Anne's real-world examples that help put concepts into perspective.  This lunchtime, 2-hour program gives you time to take care of business before and after the presentation. And it all happens live — giving you the chance to ask presenters the questions you need answered. Qualifies for 1.67 CLE credit NOTE: This product is for the individual Webcast Lunch & Learn course. Save when you buy the Lunch & Learn Webcast Bundle! Learn more. 2025 Lunch&Learn Small Business Series includes: May 20 Cybersecurity: Managing Evolving ThreatsLes Nettleton • IT ConsultantCategory: TechnologyJune 17 SECURE 2.0: Impacts to Retirement Savings PlansAnne Oestriecher, CPA, CFP • Advisory RepresentativeOestriecher Financial Management Services • Alexandria, LACategory: Taxation • 2 CPE credits/1.67 CLE creditsJuly 22 Hot Topics in Employment Law in the Current Presidential TermMag Bickford, JD • Managing Member, New Orleans OfficeMcGlinchey Stafford • New Orleans, LACategory: Management • 2 CPE credits/1.67 CLE creditsAugust 19 Louisiana Tax Legislative Update, Tax Reform and MoreRobert S. Angelico, CPA, JD • ShareholderLiskow • New Orleans, LA Category: Taxation • 2 CPE credits/1.67 CLE creditsSeptember 16 Fraud in the Real World: Assessing Risk & Response Ralph A. Litolff, Jr., CPA/ABV/CFF, CVA, MBA • FounderRAL Forensics, LLC • Metairie, LACategory: A&A • 2 CPE credits/1.67 CLE creditsOctober 21 Succession Planning: Strategies for Business Continuity & GrowthNene Glenn Gianfala, CPA/ABV, ASA-BV/IARiley J. Busenlener, CPA/ABV, ASA, AEP®, JDChaffe & Associates • New Orleans, LACategory: Management • 2 CPE credits/1.67 CLE creditsNovember 18 Federal Tax Update Greg Booth, CPA • PartnerEisnerAmper • Metairie, LACategory: Taxation • 2 CPE credits/1.67 CLE creditsDecember 16 Year-End Economic Outlook: Cheers or Jeers? Stephen D. Morgan • Senior Vice President, Investment Director?Hancock Whitney  • New Orleans, LA Category: Specialized Knowledge

Quality management (QM) implementation Q&As The fast-paced and interactive QM series offers condensed, high-impact Q&As and live participant-driven discussions on focused topics that change each session. You will get practical answers to your specific QM implementation questions to support effective QM implementation within your organization. This series is free for AICPA members.Speaker - Renee Rampulla

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Imagine being able to see into the future with confidence.  The ability to be a great forecaster is not innate but learned.  By examining great forecasters, we can learn to improve our ability to predict the future.  We will examine best practices and current research to improve our ability to predict events that will affect our business.   Speaker - John Levy

We all make predictions in our personal and professional lives.  We base our decisions to marry, buy a house, launch a new product or hire staff on expectations about the future.  In the past few years, research into improving predictions has advanced. We will look at this research and current best practices in forecasting to help us prepare better budgets and projections.  Speaker - John Levy

Audit Risk Assessment in Plain English, is a 2 hour webcast highlighting the AICPA’s clarified risk assessment standards, along with a new Statement on Auditing Standard (SAS 145) related to understanding the entity, the entity’s environment, the entity’s internal controls, and assessing the risks of material misstatement.  This session will attempt to simplify the requirements using common sense examples and language. Speaker - Frank Crawford, Christopher Pembrook

The increasing number of natural disasters, the COVID 19 Pandemic, unexpected events , and continuing legislative and financial changes are bringing about changes in the dynamics of tax and financial planning, especially for areas like Louisiana prone to weather events. Conventional planning methods and techniques may not serve the needs of clients for these changing circumstances.The "Master of Disaster" Jerry Schreiber will look at the considerations for practitioners in analyzing client needs and offer considerations for future planning. This program also qualifies for 50 minutes of CLE. Purchase this webcast as an individual program, or get the members-only First Look Bundle and save! 2025 First Look Webcast Series May 28401k & Employee Benefits Update Mary Hogan • Director, Advisory - HR Advisory & OutsourcingEisner Advisory Group LLC • Pittstown, NJCategory: Management   CPE: 1 credit   CLE: 50 minutes June 18 Disaster Planning Beyond the Calculations Gerard H. Schreiber, Jr., CPA • PartnerSchreiber & Schreiber, CPAs • Metairie, LACategory: Taxation   CPE: 1 credit   CLE: 50 minutes July 30Investment Strategies in a Volatile Market Tom Stringfellow, CFA®, CPA®, CFP®, CIC • Chief Investment StrategistArgent Trust Company • San Antonio, TX  Category: Management   CPE: 1 credit  August 27SSARS Engagements – What You Need to Know Kurt Oestriecher, CPA • Managing PartnerOestriecher & Company, CPAs • Alexandria, LA  Category: A&A   CPE: 1 credit   September 27Managing Change in a High-Speed World Laila Morcos Zissis, PCC, NBC-HWC, CMC • OwnerLaila Morcos Zissis, LLC• New Orleans, LACategory: Personal Development   CPE: 1 credit   October 29Creating a Positive Workplace Culture Jim Schneider, CPA, CIA • President & Managing PartnerThe Personnel Consulting Group • New Orleans LACategory: Management   CPE: 1 credit   November 12Tax Credit Shake-Up: What the New Incentives and ITEP Rules Mean for You Keri Hart • Senior Manager, Business IncentivesKim Wallett  • Senior Manager, Business IncentivesAdvantous Consulting, LLC • Baton Rouge, LACategory: Taxation   CPE: 1 credit   CLE: 50 minutes December 9Practical Accounting Automation Using AIAndrew Schwartz, PhD • ProfessorStephenson Department of Entrepreneurship & Information SystemsLouisiana State University  Category:  Technology   CPE: 1 credit   CLE: 50 minutes

Many business professionals consider PivotTables the most powerful feature in Excel, yet most accounting and financial professionals do not use them in their day-to-day activities. If you are ready to learn how to take advantage of PivotTables or extend your existing knowledge of PivotTables, then plan to participate in this course. You will learn how to build PivotTables, group data inside PivotTables - including grouping options for fiscal periods - and create user-defined calculations in your PivotTables. You will also learn advanced PivotTable techniques, including building PivotTables that consolidate data from multiple data ranges and PivotTables that connect dynamically to external databases and financial accounting systems. Additionally, you will learn to take advantage of other Excel features associated with PivotTables, including Slicers, Power Query, and Power Pivot. You will be a master of Excel PivotTables at the end of the day! This course is for you if you have been leery of working with PivotTables or have struggled to realize their many benefits. With some information, guidance, and coaching from your K2 instructor, you will be ready to use PivotTables to analyze and report on extensive data sets in a fraction of the time you spend completing such tasks.Speaker - Lawrence "Mac" McClelland

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