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CPE Credits for CPAs |
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Pursuing CPE (Continuing Professional Education) is a mandatory requirement that every CPA has to fulfill in order to keep their license active. CPE requirements may vary from one state accountancy board to another. However, every CPA must earn a certain number of CPE credits to meet their respective board’s CPE requirements.
In simple words, CPE credit is something that all CPAs must consider a top priority throughout their professional career. However, earning CPE credits in an efficient manner isn’t as simple as it may sound. This is because several crucial aspects are associated with the process.
If you, as a CPA, want to navigate the process efficiently, you’ve to be well aware of all the related aspects. From the importance of CPE credit and what are CPE credits to several other factors, you need to have a clear comprehension of all the important things.
If you’re wondering what are the crucial things that you need to understand, this ultimate guide is for you. Whether you’re an experienced CPA or have just received your license, this guide to CPE credits will help you build a solid understanding of all the vital things associated with them.
Whether you’re compliant with your CPE requirements or not is determined by evaluating whether or not you’ve earned the number of CPE credits required by your state board. In case you fail to earn the minimum number of CPE credits, as defined by your board, within your licensing renewal period, you’ll be considered non-compliant with your CPE requirements.
Here’re some real-life reasons you must prioritize earning CPE credits always.
· In your effort to earn CPE credit, you get to stay on top of all the happenings in the accounting industry.
· Once you become aware of all the happenings in the industry, you can serve your organization/clients in the most efficient manner.
· When you consistently deliver quality services, it greatly helps strengthen your position in the industry and accelerate your growth as a CPA.
Now that you’re aware of the importance of CPE credits for CPAs, let’s see the answer to a fundamental question.
We’re going to break down the answer to the question, what are CPE credits in two parts. First, we’ll answer what is CPE and credits after that.
In the real world, CPE is another name for lifelong learning for CPAs. As long as you want to use your CPA designation officially, you’ve to continue pursuing CPE and earning CPE credits.
So, what is a CPE credit? A CPE credit is the acknowledgment that you receive for completing a learning activity approved for CPE. However, depending on the programs you complete, you get to earn multiple CPE credits in one go.
Now that we’ve answered the questions about what is CPE and credits after that, it’s time to see some quick facts related to CPE credit.
These are the general guidelines that you must remember throughout your professional career.
· Although exact CPE requirements may differ from one board to another, in general, all CPAs need to earn 40 CPE credits each year.
· If you’re a member of the AICPA, you’ve to earn 120 CPE credits every three-year period to maintain your membership.
· Some CPE programs such as webinars don’t mention the number of credits that the attendees will receive after completing them successfully. Instead, organizers of those programs mention their duration. If you attend such programs, fifty minutes of approved learning will help you earn one CPE credit.
Once you know what is CPE credit, it’s very important to understand two more things. First, you’re fully responsible for reporting your CPE credits for CPA. And second, when it comes to maintaining all the pieces of evidence of completion of the programs taken to get CPE credits, CPAs must keep them for a minimum of five years.
When it comes to earning CPE credits, it’s extremely important to ensure that you choose the right provider. This is because while there are lots of options available, not all providers follow the same quality standards.
Choosing the wrong provider to earn CPE credit can easily jeopardize your entire plan. For instance, if you complete a program from a non-accredited provider, your state board will not consider the CPA CPE credit that you’ve earned.
So, after you get to know CPE credits meaning, you need to focus on choosing the right provider to earn them in a hassle-free manner.
Perhaps you already know that NASBA’s Registry of Sponsors is the best place to find accredited sponsors. However, even in that list, some providers are better equipped than others in terms of meeting the particular needs of different CPAs. So, it pays to consider some important things before making a final decision.
· Has the provider received accreditation from NASBA?
When it comes to CPE credit meaning, it’s very important to note that there are also other professional organizations such as ISACA that need their members to earn CPE credits. So, you’ve to ensure that the learning activities you want to complete will help you earn NASBA CPE credits.
Ideally, before finalizing a provider, you should ensure that its courses or programs will help you earn CPE credits NASBA. Otherwise, you may end up earning CPE credits for CPA that won’t get counted toward meeting your CPE requirements.
· Do the CPE methods align with the requirements of your state board?
In the context of pursuing CPE, just understanding what are CPE credits isn’t enough. This is because different state boards have different guidelines regarding approved learning activities. In almost all states, CPE credit from specific methods cannot exceed specific amounts.
For instance, in some states, CPAs can earn all of their required CPE credits through self-study courses. On the contrary, some states allow their CPAs to earn just half of their required CPE credit amounts. When it comes to CPE providers, not all of them offer all learning methods. Some only offer self-study courses, while others offer both self-study courses and webinars.
So, when choosing a provider, make sure that the learning methods offered by it align with the guidelines of your state board.
· Does the provider offer affordable and fair pricing?
It’s a known fact that the cost of earning CPE credits CPA can be quite high. However, it’s possible to reduce some of the burdens by comparing the costs of earning CPE credits from different providers.
With some providers, you may end up paying thousands of dollars, while a few others, including CPEThink.com, offer highly affordable alternatives. If your employer doesn’t reimburse your cost of earning CPE credit, cost should be one of the driving factors in your decision.
One highly effective method to get CPE credits for CPA at reasonable costs is to focus on earning online CPE credits by taking self-study courses. Remember that when it comes to earning CPE credits online, it covers webinars and virtual conferences/seminars as well.
While webinars tend to be slightly more expensive than self-study courses, online conferences/seminars are among the costliest options to get CPE credits. So, if you want to earn CPE credit at reasonable costs, see how many of them you’re allowed to earn through self-study courses.
If you’re thinking something like “how many CPE credits do I need for license renewal or can I earn all of them through self-study courses?” check with your state board. Alternatively, you can check NASBA’s website to learn about the approved methods that you can use to earn your CPE credits.
· Can the provider help you meet your learning goals?
Affordable and fair pricing alone should never be the only major factor that you need to consider when selecting a provider to earn CPA CPE credit. Since you’ll be spending a lot of time and money, you must try to get something out of the process, apart from just maintaining the active status of your license.
CPE is the best method to learn constantly and continue updating your skills. You must focus on doing these things, especially if you want to keep pace with the ever-changing accounting industry. However, without a quality provider by your side, doing so is very difficult.
· Is the platform easy to use?
This is a major factor that you must consider when you choose to get CPE credits online. If the platform has lots of unnecessary features, then finding the most important ones quickly sometimes becomes a problem.
For example, if you need to search the homepage thoroughly to find the CPE credit login button or to find the chat option, it might be a waste of your time. Ideally, the interface of the platform should be simple enough with just the essential features visible and searchable easily.
· Does the provider offer useful customer support?
This is another factor that becomes extremely important when you decide to earn online CPE credits. Since the delivery of online courses depends on several technological aspects, problems can always arise. And when a problem occurs, proper customer support needs to be readily available.
Therefore, it’s prudent to ensure that your shortlisted provider has a knowledgeable customer support team and you can reach it whenever required. You should also be able to contact the team through various channels like online chat, email, and phone.
Since license renewal generally requires a significant amount of money, it’s absolutely natural to search for options to earn free CPE credits. However, when it comes to choosing CPE credits free options, you should keep some important factors in mind.
Here, we’ve mentioned the key factors associated with both paid CPE credits and free CPE credits to help you make an informed decision.
· Free options
First of all, a limited number of providers, including CPEThink.com, have courses that’ll let you earn free CPE credits. This means you won’t be able to compare a significant number of providers to choose the best CPE credits free option.
Second, courses that let you earn free credits don’t usually cover the latest or very important topics. And third, earning free CPE credits for CPA in ethics, which is a mandatory CPE requirement for all CPAs, is virtually impossible. This is because there’s hardly any provider that offers free CPE courses on ethics.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of planning to earn free CPE credits is that you can test the quality of a provider without paying anything. This becomes extremely helpful if you want to take its paid courses to earn CPE credit.
· Paid options
When it comes to paid options to earn CPA CPE credit, there are several methods available out there. And you can choose what fits your learning style the best. From self-study courses and webinars to conferences and seminars, you can choose anything as per your budget. If you follow the pointers that we discussed in the above section, you should be able to earn paid CPE credits at reasonable costs.
However, in our opinion, you should try to earn free CPE credit whenever possible because it’ll help you lower your CPE cost.
So, now you’ve got a clear idea of the importance of CPE credits, things to consider when choosing a provider to earn CPE credit, what are CPE credits, and other crucial things associated with your CPE journey.
At CPEthink.com, we offer a large collection of top-quality courses that are designed to help every CPA earn CPE credits for CPA at highly affordable costs. If you want to start earning CPE credits CPA right away, start browsing our entire course catalog.
CPA professionals continue to choose us as their CPE self-study provider because they know that we provide the tools and resources that are needed to get classes that will fully meet their needs. We don’t compromise and neither should you.
For what other CPAs and IRS EAs, as well as Tax Preparers, have experienced check out https://www.cpethink.com/cpe-reviews and see what you think.
Customer that have purchased have the opportunity to leave reviews after they have completed a course on Cpethink.com.
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