Another round of CPA Exam candidates have received their passing scores and are ready to take on the world. Congratulations to all of you, but the hard work and education is just beginning. Now that you have stretched your mind to its absolute limit, you can relax for a while, but soon you will need to start thinking about CPE for CPAs.
Depending on which state you are licensed in, you will need to complete somewhere around 120 hours of continuing professional education every three years. In addition, requirements state that you must earn at least 20 of those hours every year - no waiting until the last minute - and you must have a certain number of ethics credits as well. So even though you are exhausted from your education and studying for the exam, it would be wise to begin thinking about how, when and where you are going to earn those first CPE credit hours.
CPEs can be earned in any number of different ways - seminars, webcasts, classrooms, book study or any other way you can review the information and take the quizzes. As technology continues to grow, the most popular way of earning CPEs is by way of the online course.
Online courses allow the CPA to log into an account of their own and choose which course(s) he or she wishes to take. Once chosen, a series of videos is watched by the user and a final quiz is taken to assure the CPA understood the material. Once complete, if the CPA passes the quiz, they will be given a certificate which they can print out right there from their computer, or the CPE company will mail the certificates to them.
The main CPE areas covered in most cases are:
Accounting
Auditing
Ethics
Management
Taxation
Miscellaneous Specialized Areas
Again, most states require a specific number of CPEs for Ethics. Some states may even require other areas of study. The best thing for you to do, as a new CPA, is to get in touch with your state's Board and get the exact requirements to maintain your CPA license.
Once you have documented these requirements, it is best to formulate a plan of action as soon as possible. Ideally you should take around 40 hours per year, although only 20 per year is required in most cases. If you were to only take 20 per year in your first two years, then this would leave you scrambling to get 80 hours of CPE done in your last few months - and although it is possible, it is definitely not recommended. If you should run into health problems, or anything else that may keep you from earning your CPEs, then that license you've been working so hard to get could be in jeopardy. Don't let that happen!
Since you are reading this article from a computer, chances are that the best way for you to earn most of your CPE credits is via an official online CPE website. You can literally earn all of your CPE credits using a single website. Using Bisk Education's CPEasy platform, you will be given an account that will keep track of all your CPE hours for you. Of course, you should also keep separate records for yourself. They have plenty of online courses to choose from as well as monthly and quarterly webcasts, books, software and audio files. Take a tour of Bisk Education's CPEasy today. They even have free demo courses you can take to get a feel for how their online courses work.
Once again, congratulations on earning your CPA license. We know how tough it is, and we know it takes a special person to make it this far. Take a few days off, but get your CPE plan down on paper and execute it before that first three years sneaks up on you!
Author Resource:
At Bisk, our commitment to providing exceptional continuing professional education in accounting and the finance industry is unparalleled. We specialize in providing training and resources for taxation, accounting and auditing, regulatory ethics, management and specialized knowledge.
This includes CPE credits for CPAs in a self-study format providing tax and accounting courses, as well as CPE training for firms. Search our extensive inventory of courses to buy now or try our free demo today!
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