New CPA Essentials: Ethics, Connections & Communications

MBAexpress provides essential business savvy over the course of 6 1-hour online learning modules.

Building a Stronger Professional Network – V 2.0: Having a strong network will assist you in launching a new idea or plan, developing new business and clients, reducing costs in recruiting, and leveraging your career.

Communicating for Connections with Coworkers, Clients, and Customers – V 2.0: This course will discuss different personality styles and demonstrate the different ways to communicate information to them.

Listening for Leaders - V 2.0: Listening is harder than you think. It’s not about you, it’s about the audience – about the person you’re talking to. Listening is about setting aside our issues, our concerns, our biases, and our judgment so that we can truly listen to what someone else is saying.

Powerful Presentation Skills – V 2.0: Discover how to stand in front of an audience, project confidence, and knowledge, all the while making a connection and capturing your audience’s imagination to be powerful and persuasive.

Presenting Financial Information – V 2.0: In this course, you’ll learn general tips, common mistakes and ways to improve your financial presentations.

The Art of Effective Writing – V 2.0: Your company is only as good as your writing. Despite all your efforts, are you still trying to explain the difference between good and bad writing?

This course has been developed by the Business Learning Institute. The Business Learning Institute, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be addressed to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Suite 700, Nashville, TN, 37219-2417. Web site: www.nasba.org.

Ethical accounting is nonnegotiable

Honesty, objectivity, and professional conduct are crucial components of the accounting and finance profession. Understand the fundamentals of ethical accounting, including how to:

• Objectively view and analyze ethical matters
• Apply the AICPA independence rules regarding personal financial interests, loans, employment, and business relationships that relate to you and your immediate family
• Adhere to the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct and apply the code’s conceptual framework

Along with the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, you’ll learn about:

• Independence rules from regulators, including the SEC and PCAOB
• Rules that apply to government auditors and audits of employee benefit plans, federally funded charitable organizations, financial institutions, and insurance

Last but not least, you’ll learn when to apply the appropriate ethics rules when you provide professional tax services. Appropriate ethics rules could entail

• AICPA Code of Professional Conduct
• Statements on Standards for Tax Services
• U.S. Treasury Department’s Circular No. 230;
• Internal Revenue Code (IRC) provisions applicable to federal tax practice.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT YOUR CPE CREDIT:

Many states do not accept the AICPA course to meet the ethics requirement for earning or maintaining a CPA license. Please contact your state board to determine which ethics course is required to earn your license. If you are taking the course for licensure you must pass with a score of 90 percent or higher to qualify towards earning your CPA license. If you are taking the course to maintain your existing license you must pass with a score of 70 percent or higher.

Professional Ethics: The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' Comprehensive Course (For Licensure) is offered online. To purchase the version of this course for licensure, select the item on this page.

Who Will Benefit

• Accounting and finance professionals earning a CPA license
• CPAs maintaining their CPA license

Key Topics

• Introduction to the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct
• Conceptual framework of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct
• Independence rules from the AICPA and other regulators
• Ethics rules per the AICPA and the U.S. Government
• Activities that discredit the profession
• Ethics interpretations issued by PEEC

Learning Outcomes

• Recognize the bodies that set ethics rules and regulations for the accounting profession.
• Recall the “General Standards Rule,” the “Compliance with Standards Rule,” and the “Accounting Principles Rule” of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.
• Recall how to respond to pressure when preparing and reporting information.
• Recall how to apply the conceptual framework.
• Recognize the fundamental concepts underlying the “Independence Rule” of the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.
• Identify situations in which the independence rules apply to you and your family.
• Identify the requirements for performing nonattest services for an attest client.
• Recall the types of business relationships with clients that create threats to independence.
• Indicate AICPA ethics interpretations on integrity, objectivity, confidentiality, and advertising.
• Identify SEC, PCAOB, GAO, and other regulatory and independence rules.
• Recall the standard-setting bodies and regulators relevant to tax practice.