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Why Having A CPE Network Is Good For CPAs and How to Find One |
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The Last Self-Study CPE Website You Will Ever Need (Click for Subscriptions) |
A CPA career can be far more diverse than many people can think. Today’s CPAs are handling several leadership roles and challenging jobs. From chief financial officers and financial advisors to tax accountants, internal auditors, and forensic accountants – one can find CPAs in several essential roles.
Unquestionably, the thing that helps CPAs carry out a number of challenging professional responsibilities is their extensive knowledge in different accounting fields. And this knowledge can only be gained through pursuing CPE and having a good CPE network.
Now, you may think something like, “isn’t it enough to pursue CPE from any accredited sponsor?” The answer is “not in today’s competitive landscape.” To outperform your competitors in the industry, it has become very important to have an exceptional CPE network for CPAs.
Keeping the importance of having the best CPE network by your side in mind, we’ve created this post. Here, we’re going to answer all the common questions related to the CPE network.
Your CPE authors form your CPE network, meaning the professionals who prepare the materials of the courses you take to earn CPE credits are the backbone of this network. While you can always try to build an offline CPE network, an online CPE network is more effective and easily accessible than that.
The reason behind this comes down to the differences between offline CPE courses and online CPE courses. With offline courses, it’s much more difficult to reach out to the authors than it’s with online courses. And when it comes to leveraging or seeking help from your CPE network for CPAs, easy and fast accessibility is the key to success.
Some may say that having separate authors for separate CPE courses may trigger confusion for students. This is mainly due to the differences in teaching styles of different authors. However, according to our experience, having a solid CPE network can greatly help you in pursuing CPE as a whole.
Here’re some key reasons why you should focus on building a CPE network for CPAs.
· Efficient CPE management
At CPEThink.com, we’ve developed a robust team of more than thirty eminent authors. Each of them creates and manages their own CPE courses independently. CPAs are generally required to earn 120 CPE credits every three years. This means you need to take a large number of different courses to meet your requirements.
When individual authors are responsible for their own courses, it helps you to manage your CPE more efficiently. In the case of a query or confusion, you clearly know whom to approach without wasting any time.
· Diversified teaching methodology
The diversity in the fields of expertise of different authors in a CPE network leads to varied teaching methodologies. This diversity will encourage you to take new courses based on your requirements and personal preferences.
However, the benefit doesn’t stop here. In a complex field like accounting, one author can only design a limited number of courses efficiently. One author can design a significant number of courses on different topics, but then there’ll be the risk of designing poor-quality study materials.
When you have multiple authors designing multiple courses, you can rest assured of learning the best materials in the industry in an engaging way.
· Flexible schedules
This becomes particularly useful when you plan to attend live webinars to earn your credits. When you have multiple instructors hosting webinars from different time zones, it becomes much easier for you to manage and maintain your schedule.
You don’t need to think about choosing one webinar over another or missing one that you’ve been planning to attend for a long time. You only need to maintain a calendar, attend the webinars, and that’s it.
· Better sharing of insights
Perhaps you’ve heard of the proverb that says, “two heads are better than one,” and here, we’ve got an entire bunch of them. Our authors proactively maintain continuous interaction between them.
This free flow of thoughts results in lots of creative ideas bouncing back and forth together with sharing of insights about which methods can be used to make the courses even more effective. For you, this means getting to learn the best content in the industry.
· Easy management of CPE credits
Managing your CPE credits isn’t an easy task, and that becomes even more difficult when you join different sponsors to take different courses. However, sticking to just one CPE network will make it easier for you to manage your CPE network credits.
When you join multiple sponsors, you need to maintain all the details of each course. These details typically include the name of the provider, the name of the course, the number of credits you earned from it, and its duration.
If you want to see how many credits you’ve already earned and how much you’re still required to earn, you’ve to go through all those details thoroughly to get a clear picture. On the contrary, when you use a single CPE network for CPAs to take all courses, you’ll only need to write down the name of the course and the number of credits.
There’ll be no need to maintain multiple manual files or Excel files. Whenever required, you can see that one file and tell where you’re in your CPE journey for a given reporting cycle. In the case of webinars, just convert the CPE network hours into credits, and you’re done.
· Guidance on CPE
This one is a major advantage of having a robust CPE network when it comes to deciding on which courses you should take to get the most of your CPE. Practically, you can take many different courses to meet your CPE requirements. But, not each of them is well-suited for each CPE.
You must choose the courses that help propel your career and expedite your professional growth. And that’s where the value of having a CPE network for CPAs steps in.
For instance, you can think of our authors as your mentors, and you can reach out to them for anything related to your CPE. As each of them comes with years of experience in their respective fields and is well-informed of the industry trends, you’ll always get the best guidance.
In the ever-changing accounting field, effective authoring requires more skills than just having expertise in a particular field. Authors in this field have to be able to design their courses in such a manner that helps the learners absorb complex topics easily in an interesting way.
Here’re the factors that help us maintain our position as the best CPE network in the whole industry.
· Our authors stay focused
Our authors prepare their course materials with the objective of motivating the students to master new concepts, not only to complete their CPE requirements. They stay focused and constantly try to find innovative ways to help their learners see what’s interesting in their courses.
· They explain complex concepts in simple ways
Our authors understand that it’s quite normal for the takers of their courses not to have any prior knowledge of the subject. Therefore, they put their best foot forward to help the learners master the concepts within a reasonable time.
· They keep you active
It’s a fact that unless learners actively use a concept, they won’t be able to internalize it. That’s why the authors of our online CPE network keep aside some time for problem-solving exercises at the end of each course. Not only will this help you engage with the material but also to clear the final exam easily.
· They’re available to clear your doubts
This is perhaps the most vital factor that makes our CPE network stand out. With many CPE sponsors, CPAs find it difficult to contact the authors of their courses when they get stuck at complex concepts. But with CPEThink.com, you can reach out to the authors using multiple channels of communication.
The shift to online CPE has made it more important than ever for CPAs to devise a clear plan to make the most of a CPE network for CPAs. You can use the following tips to come up with a well-designed plan to achieve this goal.
· Define your career goals
CPAs can have different career goals, and hence, it’s vital to outline yours before you start creating a plan. You can start by thinking about where you want to reach in the next five or ten years. If you’ve got difficult goals in mind, it’s best to break them into smaller, easily achievable ones to make your CPE journey a little easier.
· Identify the skills required at each stage
To align the capacity of your online CPE network with your CPE, identify which skills you’ll need to acquire to achieve each goal. For example, if you’re working for a company and want to reach a management position within five years from now, figure out which skills are required to carry out the responsibilities associated with that position.
On the other hand, if you want to have your own firm down the road, you should focus on developing skills in business management, leadership, etc. If you want to follow a specialized field like auditing or taxation, you should consider developing the skills associated with them as well.
As mentioned earlier, CPE authors generally have robust experience in their respective fields, so you can seek their guidance regarding this. And when you’ve got an exceptional CPE network like CPEThink.com by your side, you’ll get the best pieces of advice no matter which field you choose.
· Incorporate the skills that you need to brush up on
While CPAs need to master many different topics when clearing the Uniform CPA Exam, they sometimes fail to maintain the level of expertise in them. See if you need to revive any such skills to strengthen your position as a CPA. If there’s anything, be sure to include it in your CPE plan.
· Incorporate both technical and non-technical skills
To experience all-round growth, you must develop expertise in both technical and non-technical skills. This is very important in both scenarios, whether you’re working for a company or running your own firm.
· Create a personalized plan
Learning styles, aspirations, and interests vary greatly from one CPA to another. Therefore, instead of going with the flow, create a personalized CPE plan considering these things. In terms of learning styles, see whether you learn better by attending webinars or taking self-study courses.
Regardless of your state board’s license renewal cycle, you should chalk out an annual growth plan. This will help you monitor your growth and stay on track.
· Create a realistic budget
Once you’ve created the right CPE plan, figure out the cost that you’ll need to pay to follow it. If you’ve already created a budget, try not to exceed it. If you want to use CPEThink.com as your CPE network, you’ll get several effective options to stay within your budget or lower the cost of your CPE to a great extent.
You can purchase our subscription packages and bundled packages. Our unlimited subscription packages will let you access our entire course library, including ethics courses and free webinars, for one or two years. Our bundled packages contain a number of courses that are available together at a discounted price.
As you can see, having a solid CPE network has become imperative these days to rise above the competition. When strategically used, it can help shape your CPA career exactly the way you want it to be. If you want to start reaping the benefits of our CPE network for CPAs right away, feel free to contact us.
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