0
Free CPE |
| The Last Self-Study CPE Website You Will Ever Need (Click for Subscriptions) |
By pursuing continuing professional education, you can remain relevant, enhance your professional competence, and provide your clients with exceptional services. However, meeting your CPE credit requirements year after year isn’t a cheap affair. This means if you want to experience your CPE journey with minimal financial difficulties, trying to earn free CPE is the best option.
CPE free programs offered by reputable sponsors can help you unlock new opportunities and may let you obtain free credits. Since CPE is another name for lifelong learning, you may achieve long-term success by utilizing free CPEs throughout your professional career.
As a leading CPE sponsor, we frequently receive many questions related to free CPE for CPAs. Instead of answering them in separate emails, we decided to create this page. Here, you’ll get answers to all your important questions about free CPE for CPA.
So, let’s get started.
Here’re the key reasons countless accounting professionals try to take CPA free CPE programs.
On average, CPAs need to obtain 40 credits each year to meet their CPE requirements. Aside from the massive time commitment, this turns out to be a significant financial commitment as well. This is because the cost of obtaining CPE credits varies greatly, from highly expensive to free.
You know that you can obtain CPE credits through offline and online methods. If you take the offline route and attend conferences and in-person programs, your cost will be significantly higher than that of online programs.
While attending conferences may require you to pay a couple of thousand dollars in just one year, you can obtain the same number of credits by paying a few hundred dollars by completing online programs, especially the self-study ones.
However, if your company doesn’t bear the cost of your CPE, you should try to save some of it. And that’s exactly where the importance of pursuing free CPE CPAs comes into the picture.
Needless to say, you cannot obtain all your required credits by completing free CPE programs. But you can certainly fulfill some of your requirements with their help.
Some CPE providers, including CPEThink.com, offer CPE free programs to help learners to evaluate the quality of their content. By completing a free CPE course from such a provider, you can decide two things. First, whether or not the quality of the content matches your expectations. And second, if it suits your learning style.
The ability to evaluate a sponsor’s quality is another key factor that maximizes the popularity of free CPE courses.
Here, it’s important to mention that not all free CPE programs offer free CPE credits. If possible, you should try to pursue free CPEs that come with free credits. This is because while you don’t need to pay anything for the program, you still have to invest your time and effort to complete it. Even just one free CPE credit is far better than nothing.
If you do a quick online search using the key phrase “free CPE,” you’ll see that free CPE for CPAs is offered through two main options. These are free CPE webinars and free CPE courses for CPA. While taking your pick from these two options depends on your personal preferences, there are some important things you need to know about them.
The majority of CPE free programs come in the form of sponsored webinars. This means when you’re attending a free CPE webinar, you’ll most likely hear a commercial for a sponsor together with the actual session. And these commercials typically promote a particular product or service offered by the sponsor of the webinar.
There’s absolutely no harm in attending CPE free webinars as long as they cover important topics and/or let you obtain free CPE credits. It’s just that you may have to answer sales calls for the next few years.
Free CPE courses generally refer to free CPE self-study programs. These programs are typically designed to let the learners pursue free CPE for CPAs while allowing them to assess the quality of the content.
One major benefit of these programs is that you don’t necessarily have to hear a commercial to complete them and/or obtain your credits.
As you can see, whether you take a free CPE course or attend a free CPE webinar, it’ll help maintain your competitive edge as long as you do it from a reputable sponsor.
Despite all the benefits offered by free CPE accounting programs, you need to be aware that the privacy of your personal information may be compromised when taking them. Some free CPE may misuse or sell your personal information to monetize their services. For instance, your sensitive information may be used by the sponsor for unauthorized purposes such as targeted advertising.
Here’re two things you can do to safeguard your privacy before enrolling in a free CPE program.
Before you start pursuing free CPE for CPAs, it’s a must to research each provider thoroughly. You should get a clear idea of this by going through the reviews from its past customers. If you find anything suspicious, you should avoid taking any kind of CPA free CPE programs from the provider.
By reading the terms of service and privacy policy of your shortlisted sponsors, you’ll get a clear understanding of how they’ll handle your personal information. Ultimately, you should get an assurance that they’ll not misuse or sell your data. You must pursue free CPE for CPA from providers that view user privacy as a top priority.
Since a number of CPE sponsors offer free CPE programs these days, it often turns out to be a time-consuming task to spot the right one. To help you out, we’ve done a comparison of four leading sponsors of CPE free programs.
One of the Big Four firms, KPMG offers free CPE webinars covering a varying range of topics, from financial reporting and tax to advisory. To ensure proper participation, KPMG free CPE webinars often come with interactivity checks. You need to respond to pop-up notifications during them rather than answering a certain number of polling questions.
Webinars offered by Deloitte are known as Dbriefs. Similar to KPMG, Deloitte free CPE webinars also cover many different topics. Just note that if you want to obtain free CPE credits by attending free CPE Deloitte webinars, you must meet some viewing requirements. These include attending a session for a certain period of time and answering a specific number of polling questions.
AICPA free CPE programs are mainly available through live webinars. This means they’re hosted on specific dates and hence, you cannot take them at any time. It’s also important to note that the AICPA doesn’t offer any state-specific ethics programs. Therefore, if you need to fulfill a state-specific ethics requirement, you’ve to join another CPE sponsor.
At CPEThink.com, we currently offer three free CPE programs. Each free CPE course will let you obtain one free CPE credit. One of these covers the technical field of study while the other two cover the non-technical field of study.
Even if it’s a free CPE program, you need to consider several factors to determine which CPE sponsor you should join. Here, we’ve created a checklist that you should consider before making a final decision.
If a CPE sponsor doesn’t have the right approvals from NASBA and your state board of accountancy, taking CPE free programs will hardly benefit you. Proper accreditation and approvals help you get an assurance that the programs offered by the sponsor meet strict standards of quality and your free CPE credits will be recognized by the professional entities.
Regardless of the type of free CPE programs you want to take, make sure that they cover topics that are relevant to your professional career and aligned with your future goals. Even if the sponsor offers free CPE webinars or free CPE courses on a few relevant topics, its actual course library needs to be diverse.
You should also try to ensure that the sponsor keeps on adding courses to its library and modifying the content of its existing courses as and when required. If you decide to take paid courses from the sponsor down the road, this will help you learn the emerging trends and the latest changes to accounting standards.
Learning styles and professional schedules vary from one CPA to another and hence, you should join a sponsor that offers free CPE programs through different delivery methods. As discussed above, you can pursue free CPEs mainly through webinars and self-study courses.
Both delivery methods come with some unique factors that you need to consider to have a rewarding learning experience.
This is one of the most crucial things that you need to check before joining a sponsor to pursue free CPE for CPAs. Highly skilled instructors with adequate industry experience have the ability to provide their learners with practical insights and explain complex topics to them in an easily understandable manner with the help of real-world examples.
You may also get significant networking opportunities by interacting with such instructors. In short, if you want to receive quality education along with some invaluable benefits, be sure to check the background of the instructors and authors of your shortlisted CPE sponsors.
Another vital factor that you need to consider is the reputation of the sponsor of your free CPE programs. You should thoroughly check the feedback the sponsors have received from their past customers. Third-party review websites and professional forums can provide you with important insights into the quality of their programs.
You can also talk to your mentors and peers to get valuable pieces of advice. A well-reviewed CPE sponsor with a large number of positive ratings is more likely to help you meet your expectations.
If the platform of a CPE sponsor is difficult to understand or comes with a complex navigation process, it’s unlikely that you’ll have a smooth learning experience even if you take just a couple of free CPE courses from it. So, make sure that the platform has a simple user interface and lets you reach its customer support team easily.
Ideally, you should be able to reach customer support through multiple modes of communication. The ability to get help whenever required will help you get an enjoyable learning experience.
While you don’t have to pay anything to pursue free CPE for CPA, ensuring that you enroll in high-quality programs is a must. If you take low-quality programs just for the sake of free CPE credits, ultimately they won’t help you much in expediting your professional growth. However, by following the above checklist, you should be able to find sponsors for quality CPE programs, making the most out of your time and effort.
Over the decades, CPEThink.com has established itself as one of the leading sponsors of free CPE programs. We take great pride in our ability to provide CPAs with the opportunity to take CPE free programs and enhance their knowledge and skills.
We offer both free CPE courses and free CPE webinars to match the varying learning styles of different CPAs. We also boast a robust team of highly experienced authors and instructors, meaning you can rest assured of getting the latest information by taking our programs.
If you want to learn more about how our team can help you pursue free CPEs, feel free to contact us.
These are reviews many of our recent and previous clients have left.
Login/Register