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Continuing Ed for CPA's

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Dec 11, 2008 4:25 am

MinimumVariance

Joined: Offline

I have this brilliant (maybe -- what do you folks think) idea for referals / networking among CPA's.

CPA's are required to accumulate 40 hrs of CE / yr. It's expensive and not popular with the greeneye shade types because they have to learn about things like substantive consolidation rules under FAS 86 and crap.

It turns out that there are a bunch of people who do sales courses - basically - that gives the CPA's CE credit. Here's what I did: went to the state AICPA, presented them w/a 2 hr course outline for one of my favorite subjects, asked for it qualify for CE credit, and presto! DONE.   Now I go to the CPA firms with a bunch of accountants and offer them a hard to pass up deal --  you get your CPA's together, I talk for 1 1/2 hrs on my approved topic, you get 2 hrs credit, I get some attention and everyones e-mails, maybe a referral, maybe an invite to their golf outing, maybe a new 7 series?   Now tell me why this won't work -- and you can't use the "Accountants are A** H**** either".
Dec 11, 2008 12:39 pm

Hank Moody

Joined: 2008-11-10Offline

I think you’re onto something. 

Dec 11, 2008 2:26 pm

B24

Joined: 2008-07-08Offline

I have presented this idea to CPA’s in my area.  Not that it is a BAD idea, but most of them told me they (a) prefer to get their hours done in big chunks, for example a one or two-day course that will give them 5-15 hours, so that they aren’t constantly going to little “workshops” one or two hours at a time, and (b) like the CE courses to actually be interesting and something they don’t already know (or something new).

  So I think this would work if you do it repetatively on different topics, so that the CPA's can knock out more than 1 or 2 hours.  For only a few hours of credit, it needs to be at a convenient time and location for them.  This might be good for the smaller, solo-type CPA's, but I am not sure that the larger firms will have much interest, as theya re the one's that can afford to go to the big full-day or multi-day sessions.   Now, this is only feedback from the CPA's that I know.  I may be totally off-base.  So your best bet is to just ask them what they think.  That's what I did, and that's when I got the lukewarm response.