Georgia CPE Courses for CPAs

Your Ultimate Handbook of Georgia CPE

When you’re working as a licensed CPE in Georgia, it becomes a must for you to pursue Georgia CPE. Not only does this help keep your license in active status but also maintain your professional competence.

However, Georgia CPA CPE requirements are notably different from those in many other jurisdictions. This means if you want to meet your Georgia CPE requirements efficiently and in a hassle-free manner, you must have a clear comprehension of them.

To help you out, we’ve created this page with all the important details you need to know to pursue Georgia continuing education. Here, we’ve included everything, from basic Georgia Board of Accountancy CPE requirements to detailed ones and more.

So, let’s get started!

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Georgia CPE: Basic Outlines

Here’re the fundamental Georgia CPE guidelines you need to remember when meeting your Georgia Society of CPAs CPE requirements.

• Georgia has a biennial license renewal period. This ends on December 31 of the odd years.
• The CPE reporting period is also biennial in Georgia. This runs from January 1 to December 31 of odd years.
• You need to obtain at least 80 CPE credits every two-year period. You must earn at least 20 credits each year.
• 20 percent (16 credits) of your total credits needs to be in subjects related to accounting and auditing.
• If you’ve obtained your license in less than one year, you don’t need to pursue CPE in Georgia to renew your license for the first time.
• If you’ve received your license in more than one year but less than the two-year period before your first renewal date, you need to obtain at least 40 CPE credits. In this case, 20 percent (8 credits) of these credits need to be in subjects related to accounting and auditing.
• The state doesn’t have any ethics requirements.
• If you fail to fulfill Georgia CPA CPE requirements by your renewal period’s end, your license will expire. In that case, you’ll need to reinstate it to make it active again.
• If you’re 70 years old, you aren’t required to pursue Georgia CPE.
• You can carry forward a maximum of 15 CPE credits to meet the requirements of a subsequent renewal period. However, these credits cannot be used to fulfill your auditing and accounting requirements.
• You can obtain all your required CPE credits by completing self-study programs successfully.
• The board doesn’t pre-approve any programs or sponsors for CPE. You and your chosen sponsors are solely responsible for ensuring that the programs are eligible for helping you meet your Georgia CPA CPE requirements.

Georgia CPA CPE Requirements: Auditing and Accounting Subjects

When meeting your Georgia CPE requirements in auditing and accounting, make sure that the programs fulfill these guidelines.

• Programs related to auditing subjects must help you develop or improve your knowledge of generally accepted auditing standards, especially which are associated with reporting on financial statements.
• Programs related to accounting subjects must help you develop or improve your comprehension of generally accepted accounting principles, especially which are associated with the presentation of financial statements.

Georgia CPE Requirements: Acceptable Subject Matters

When pursuing CPE in Georgia, you can choose from these subject matters as long as they meet the CPE standards established by the NASBA or the Georgia State Board of Accountancy.

• Auditing and accounting
• Taxation
• Computer sciences
• Management services
• Statistics and mathematics
• Written and oral communications
• Business law
• Economics
• Administration of an accounting practice
• Specialized industries (construction, agriculture, real estate, etc.)
• Functional fields of business (personal relations, marketing, finance, production, business management, etc.)

You can also choose subject matters other than these if you can prove to the board that they help improve your professional competence. In that case, you’re solely responsible to substantiate that the programs meet the standards.

Choosing Programs to Pursue CPE in Georgia

You can choose from these programs to pursue Georgia CPE.

• Technical sessions at meetings conducted by authorized state and national accounting organizations, as well as their chapters.
• Professional development programs conducted by authorized state and national accounting organizations.
• College or university courses.
• Non-credit courses from a university or college.
• Formally organized multi-firm or in-firm programs. Note that you cannot include portions of meetings dedicated to firm matters or administration.
• Programs conducted by other authorized organizations (e.g., professional, industrial, and accounting).
• Breakfast, luncheon, and dinner meetings conducted by authorized accounting organizations, as long as they fulfill the requirements mentioned in the next section.
• Individual or formal correspondence study programs as long as they’re created and presented by competent persons. These programs also need to have a registration process and a method to prove their successful completion. Additionally, they need to be pre-tested to figure out the average completion time.

In addition to these, you can write and publish books and articles that help enhance your professional competence.

Georgia Board of Accountancy CPE Requirements: Choosing Programs That Need You to Meet Attendance or Take Classes

As mentioned above, if you choose programs that have classes or programs that you need you to meet attendance to fulfill your Georgia CPA CPE requirements, they need to meet these guidelines.

• The program director should prepare the program’s outline in advance and you should retain it.
• A competent instructor with enough experience and formal training should conduct the program.
• You only receive full credits for completing the programs.
• The provider of the programs should maintain a record of attendance and registration of the attendees. You should also retain a copy of this record.

Georgia Society of CPAs CPE: Credit Limitations

Here’re the credit limitations you need to remember when meeting your Georgia CPE requirements.

• For published books and articles

Using this method, you can obtain a maximum of 25 percent of your total credits on the basis of a self-declaration. In certain circumstances, you may submit your book(s) or article(s) to the board to claim additional credits if you feel that’s justified.

• Blended learning

If you choose blended learning methods to pursue CPE in Georgia, the board should be able to measure the programs as per its rules.

Pursuing CPE in Georgia: Methods to Calculate Credits

These are the methods to calculate Georgia CPE credits.

• College or university programs

If you complete credit courses from an accredited college or university, you’ll get 10 CPE credits for finishing a quarter hour and 15 credits for finishing a semester hour.

• Non-credit courses from a university or college

You’ll receive one CPE credit for completing every classroom hour.

• Individual study or formal correspondence study programs

Your credit will be one-half of the pre-determined average completion time. You’ll be able to use these credits in the renewal period during which you complete the programs. You’re also required to obtain proof of your satisfactory completion of them from your program sponsors.

• Programs that have classes or equivalent methods

You’ll get credits only for your time in classes. You won’t get any credit for preparation. All programs are measured using fifty-minute contact hours or segments. If you attend a continuous convention or conference that doesn’t have 50-minute-long individual segments, the sum of all the segments will be considered the entire program. For instance, five 40-minute individual segments will be equivalent to 200 minutes and you’ll get four credits for them.

• Service as a discussion leader or lecturer

If you serve as a discussion leader or instructor of an approved formal program, you’ll get two CPE credits for each hour of your service. If you repeat the same program, you won’t receive any credit. You can also obtain credits by serving as a speaker, discussion leader, or instructor for attending any meeting or similar engagements if the session helps the attendees fulfill their CPE requirements. For every one hour of teaching, you’ll receive two CPE credits. However, we won’t get any credits for preparation or for repeating the same program.

• Preparation of books and articles

For every hour of your time of preparation for books and articles, you’ll get one CPE credit.

Georgia CPA CPE: Maintaining Records

You must keep all records related to Georgia CPE for at least five years of completing the programs. You’re required to submit them to the board if it needs you to do so. If it finds out that your Georgia CPA CPE requirements haven’t been met, you may get an additional period of time to fulfill them.

Here’re the records that you need to maintain and may have to submit them to the board if required.

• You must provide the board with a signed statement confirming that you’ve met all your Georgia CPE requirements. Note that committing perjury will attract a penalty.
• You should maintain the following records to prove your successful completion of Georgia CPE programs:
  • Name of the organization, firm, or school that conducted the program
  • Description of the content of the program or its title
  • The program’s location
  • Outline of the program
  • Duration of the program (starting and finishing dates)
  • CPE credits claimed for the program
  • Proof of satisfactory completion

• If you write and publish books or articles to pursue CPE in Georgia, you must maintain the following information:
  • Title of publication
  • Publisher
  • Dates of publication
  • Content’s description
  • Credits claimed for the books or articles

Georgia CPE: Exemptions

If you haven’t reached 70 years of age, you can still get exemptions from the Georgia Board of Accountancy CPE requirements on the basis of these grounds.

• You’re a retiree
• You’ve left the workforce for a temporary period of time
• You’re a licensee without current employment
• You’ve formally mentioned the status of your license as “inactive.”

The board may also grant you waivers for exemption because of these grounds.

• Military service
• Health issues
• Extreme natural disasters
• Other situations like these

Not that the last two grounds are subject to board determination.

Meeting Georgia CPA CPE Requirements: Choosing Between Offline and Online Programs

As discussed above, there are various methods to pursue Georgia CPE. From in-person programs and conferences to webinars, self-study programs, and more, you get a broad range of options to choose from as per your preferences.

However, offline and online methods carry their own advantages and disadvantages. In this section, we’ll discuss them to help you make an informed decision.

• Offline methods

These methods are ideal for CPAs who learn better in a classroom-like environment. Another benefit of choosing them is that you get to interact with the instructor and fellow attendees face-to-face. Not only does this help to have your queries clarified quickly but to build your professional network as well.

A lack of flexibility is one major disadvantage of choosing offline programs. For busy CPAs, it may not be a feasible option to travel to and from another location to attend pre-scheduled sessions. Also, these programs are often significantly more expensive than online programs, especially the self-study courses. For instance, you can fulfill all your Georgia CPA CPE requirements by paying a couple of hundred dollars if you choose to take self-study courses. But if you choose to attend a physical conference to earn your credits, you may have to pay nearly a thousand dollars just for one event.

• Online methods

In the context of online methods, you get two main options: self-study courses and live webinars. Self-study courses give you the maximum flexibility to fulfill your Georgia CPA requirements as per your convenience. With these programs, you can continue with your study whenever you want from any place. Some leading CPE sponsors, including CPEThink.com, provide courses in downloadable PDF formats. Once you have them downloaded, you won’t even need to be online to read them.

Live webinars are more expensive than self-study courses and you must attend them on a pre-specified date and time. Also, if you cannot attend them properly due to technical issues, you won’t be able to obtain any credit.

Closing Thoughts

We hope that this page has given you enough information to pursue Georgia CPE confidently. If you want to start meeting your Georgia CPA CPE requirements immediately, start browsing our collection of courses.

If you want to obtain more information about Georgia CPE requirements, feel free to contact us.

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