Accounting CPE Courses
All certified public
accountants (CPAs) practicing in the United States must first pass an
entry-level CPA exam that tests their accounting knowledge and skills. After
successful completion of this CPA exam, accountants must meet state
requirements for licensure. These CPA requirements include education, experience, and ethics.
After obtaining their licenses,
accountants must receive continuing profe ssional education and develop
new skills. To prove this, accountants must obtain mandatory accounting
continuing professional education (CPE) credits in order to maintain their
membership in the AICPA and keep up their licenses in
their home states.
Example: Some
states such as Texas require accountants to complete 120 hours of accounting CPE credit
within a 3-year period. A minimum of 20 accounting CPEs must be earned each year.
Each state has minimum
accounting CPE
requirements. To view the CPA CPE requirements for continuing professional education
in your state, please visit www.cpemarket.com.
In recent years, the National
Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) has approved
different types of CPE credit. Formerly there were "self-study"
and "interactive self-study" courses. Self-study courses were originally
non-interactive since participants did not receive feedback. However, with
advancements in computer-based education, NASBA created a new category
called "interactive self-study." These courses simulated
classroom instruction as there was interaction provided through feedback
to study questions. Called remediation in DLC courses, this
feedback tells you if your answer to each study question (which we call a memory
jogger) is correct or incorrect and why.
At the start of 2004, NASBA introduced
their New
Standards for CPE credit. Because NASBA considers interactive self-study
to be a higher form of learning than non-interactive, it eliminated
non-interactive self-study as an option for CPE credit. Now they call
interactive self-study simply "self-study" (since there is no
longer "non-interactive self-study" available).
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The ERI
Distance
Learning Center is registered with NASBA as a sponsor of
continuing professional education
CPE self-study credits.
DLC courses used
to provide CPE interactive self-study credits,
however this category is no longer used by NASBA, as ALL
self-study courses must be interactive to be approved for CPE. |
What is QAS? NASBA began a separate accreditation
program in 1998 at the request of the Florida Board of Accountancy. Called
the Quality Assurance Service (QAS), it holds self-study providers to a
higher standard through stricter requirements. These requirements include
a minimum number of final exam questions per credit hour. The ERI Distance
Learning Center is registered with NASBA as a QAS sponsor of continuing professional education.
The ERI Distance Learning
Center offers online accounting courses that focus on the field of compensation
administration. The material covered in these CPE courses is crucial to the practice of
an accountant, as payroll
expenditures account for 2/3 of many organizations' budgets. Accountants who
have a firm grasp on the field of compensation can better serve their clients,
increasing their value to their current and future accounting employers. These online CPE courses can be an excellent resource for your
career development and accounting CPE continuing professional education.
Over 40 Distance Learning Center
online accounting courses provide continuing professional education
CPE Registry credits. Some courses also provide continuing professional education
CPE QAS credits. As described above, these online accounting CPE courses provide self-study credit (formerly called interactive self-study
credit).
Accountants who wish to view a
list of Distance
Learning Center courses that provide CPE Registry credits in their states
should use our
CPE Registry Course Credit Map or, to view a list of Distance
Learning Center courses that provide CPE QAS credit, use our
CPE QAS Course Credit Map. All Distance Learning Center CPE courses are worth 1-4 hours of CPE credit.
Some states require 2 hours or
more of CPA CPE credit. As each Distance Learning
Center online course is worth 1-4 CPA CPE credit hours, you may need to select 2
or more courses within a subject area to complete your CPA CPE requirements.
In order to pass an online
accounting course final exam for CPA CPE credit, you must receive a score of at
least 70%. Due to accreditation regulations, the Distance Learning Center
is NOT allowed to communicate your final score to you. You will only receive
notification of "pass" or "fail."
For more information about
Distance Learning Center online accounting CPE courses and CPE credits administration, please
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