Cpe And Cpa: Planning And Personalizing Choices

By Author: JohnReiling
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CPAs are true knowledge workers, so it only follows that CPE and CPA is required. In the accounting profession, so much knowledge is required, and the nature of an individual's choices depends on the specialty, goals, and aspirations of the individual CPA. For planning purposes, there are three categories of skills for CPE and CPA: 1. 'technical skills' in one's specialty, 2. 'hard skills' in related business domains, and 3. 'soft skills' to develop greater personal savvy. Here's a more in depth look at these three skill areas.

Technical Skills for CPE and CPA
By technical skills, I am talking about the areas related to the CPA's specialty. Some of these skills are of a broadening type within the

accounting body of knowledge, such as accounting for capital budgeting, or general operating budgeting. But more often than not, they involve expertise in accounting rules, usually involving changing legislation as well as best practices, in certain specialties. For example, one CPA may want to deepen and maintain up-to-date knowledge about inheritance taxation. Another may need to keep abreast of unique ...
... accounting complexities in, for example, the construction industry. Still another may be intensely involved with international business and require broader knowledge of how to handle transactions between countries.

CPE and CPA for Objective Hard Skills
Separate and distinct from the technical skills are hard skills in areas like software, such as MS Office, accounting software, or even enterprise management software. Other hard skills include business skills such as project management, portfolio management, business analysis, Six Sigma, and much more. These skills are get beyond the domain of accounting, but can greatly increase the effectiveness of a CPA and fuel new business objectives.

CPE and CPA for Soft Skills
Soft skills are critically important, and working with clients, within a large or small business, or in the public domain demands top soft skills. Indeed, it is well-documented that a large - maybe even vast majority - proportion of success is determined by soft skills. These skills include leadership, communications, team building, and technical writing and speaking in public.

Personalizing an Approach to earning CPE and CPA
A CPA has about 40 hours to work with each year for fulfilling the requirements. Ideally, this will be accomplished by some sort of combination of technical training related to the specialty, hard skill development to broaden skills in targeted areas, and soft skill development to round out the skill set. The good news is that there is plenty of training out there to achieve all of these objectives and satisfy CPE requirements simultaneously.

One More Thing
The 'multiple sources' strategy is something that brings great advantages to those that use it. A 'multiple sources' strategy describes the strategy of learning a subject from several vantage points - which is realized by absorbing the material from several distinct sources. Each of these sources will usually approach the subject from a different angle, enabling the learner to deepen understanding of the subject. While many materials - including the online training that we provide - try to embed the 'multiple sources' approach, in the end the individual learner needs to decide their optimal approach.
John Reiling provides hundreds of NASBA-approved CPA CPE and CPA online training courses on the site CPEtrainingonline.com. John has earned multiple licenses and certifications - licensed Professional Engineer (PE), several IT certifications, and current Project Management Professional (PMP) and Six Sigma Green Belt (SSGB). He provides additional professional online training under PROtrainingonline.com