Professional Development and Event Catalog

Blockchain technology offers the promise of digital truth. When appropriately implemented, it provides a transparent, permanent, immutable, and high-speed record-keeping system. The possibilities are endless, from managing the logistics of supply chain networks to facilitating international commerce. The adoption of this technology is growing, with millions of new users every year. Organizations adopt this technology daily to help improve their existing operations through its ledger capabilities or by executing smart contracts. Cryptocurrency is one example of blockchain technology, and its growth and value have exploded to over $2 trillion in the last few years. This growth has helped fuel the adoption of Wall Street traders and traditional investors. While more popular than ever, few business professionals understand these technologies and their capabilities, risks, and potential impacts on business operations and processes, such as contract execution, recording and maintaining real estate ownership records, and supply chains. Unfortunately, this incredible technology is a mystery for most accounting professionals. This course will provide an in-depth look at this technology, including a detailed overview of the underlying technology, the benefits, the risks, the major players, and many practical applications. By participating in this session, you will gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of this technology and recommendations for getting started.

Discover the real-world power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and equip yourself with the skills to conquer modern challenges in accounting and finance. In this engaging course, we demystify AI and unveil its practical applications, transforming it from theory into a hands-on tool. Learn the essential AI fundamentals and unlock its remarkable potential to boost your productivity and effectiveness alongside your team. Explore the specific problem-solving capabilities of AI, tailored to address the unique challenges faced by accounting and financial professionals. Gain expertise in leveraging AI features integrated into everyday applications, including the ubiquitous Excel. Uncover how these features enable you to effortlessly detect fraud, identify potential transaction errors, and elevate your financial operations to new heights. Witness firsthand how AI is reshaping the present and future of your profession, positioning you at the forefront of this revolutionary wave.

The QuickBooks platform - including the desktop and online environments - is one of the leading accounting solutions for small and growing businesses. Further, Intuit has incorporated numerous advanced features and changes into the tools over the past few releases. This seminar will teach you how to use many new and advanced features in the desktop and online environments to help you solve critical issues. For example, you will learn advanced inventory management techniques, including changing the default costing methodology and implementing lot and serial number tracking. You will also learn how to build complete sets of financial statements in Excel that link in real-time to underlying QuickBooks data files and how to create multi-company financial statements. Additionally, you will learn how to use the Client Data Review feature to streamline how to identify and correct errors and close accounting periods in QuickBooks. Knowing how to take advantage of the advanced tools and features available can determine your level of success when working with QuickBooks. So, take advantage of this opportunity to learn about QuickBooks' "deep" features to maximize your effectiveness with QuickBooks.

Fraud plagues businesses at epidemic levels, and technology control failures are a major contributing factor. Using a case study approach, in this session, you will learn about the pervasiveness of fraud, the control failures that contribute to fraud, and what you can do to mitigate fraud risk. A specific focus of this course is the application of information technology general controls and information technology application controls. In this course, you will examine numerous reported fraud cases and identify the general control and application control failures that contributed to each fraud. By learning through these real-world case studies, you will be better positioned to reduce fraud risk.

Are you and your team members prepared for a business disruption? Natural disasters, technology glitches, human failures, sabotage, and terrorism threaten businesses of all sizes today. In this course, you will learn how to develop and implement a business continuity plan (BCP) to help manage the risks associated with business interruptions. In addition, you will learn how to address critical issues related to staffing, how virtualization can speed recovery times, and how Cloud-based storage, synchronization, and mirrored databases can help ensure that you always have access to your critical data and applications. Most importantly, you will learn to identify your organization's significant risks and create an effective plan to address these contingencies. Today's technology-dependent organizations must have a plan for operating when facilities, power, communications, or technology fail or become compromised. Unfortunately, many companies only learn about critical infrastructure weaknesses after experiencing an outage. Participate in this course and learn how to identify, understand, and develop strategies for mitigating risks of business interruption.

Microsoft Access is an enigma to business professionals, primarily because many try to use Microsoft Office Access as they use Excel. Unfortunately, they fail to understand that the two applications are decidedly different tools, and they become frustrated when they do not realize their intended results. In this course, you will learn about tables and queries - two cornerstone pieces of databases. You will also learn how to link data between multiple tables and why your choice matters. Moreover, you will learn how to design and create a complete database, including one with Forms and Reports. If you're serious about using Microsoft Office Access to manage larger volumes of data, this course is for you.

The QuickBooks platform is robust with features and capabilities that many users are unaware of or do not know how to utilize effectively. This course helps you get more out of QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online and resolve the issues even experienced QuickBooks users struggle with, such as locking down prior periods. This program starts fast with a chapter covering the top issues accountants face with QuickBooks. Then, the day continues with practical guidance and solutions designed to help accountants get the most out of QuickBooks for themselves or their clients. You will learn about issues like setting up a new company, configuring and customizing QuickBooks preferences, and enabling system security and password protection features. Also, you will learn how to lock down transactions in prior periods, use the audit trail, customize reports, export reports to Excel, and extend QuickBooks' usefulness with tools such as the Fixed Asset Manager and Loan Manager.

We tend to focus on fighting today's fires without spending adequate time on bigger, more important risks inherent in today's inter-connected, competitive world. This seminar drills down into four commonly overlooked business risks, looking at how to anticipate, manage, mitigate or exploit them. We will discuss the professional obligations of the board and executive management to assess risks and the responsibility of internal and external auditors to evaluate the adequacy of these assessments.

*IMPORTANT:  This is a virtual conference being run in partnership with the Ohio Society of CPAs Don't let the bad guys undermine your organization. Stay ahead of the fraud game by learning to detect, investigate and prevent dubious deeds. At the Fraud and Forensic Conference, CPAs and related professionals who implement, assess, or consult on fraud controls will receive essential fraud and risk management updates. • Uncover novel ways of finding fraud• Investigate strategies to diagnose irregularities in bankruptcy• Witness methods of tracking fraud between fiat and cryptocurrencies• Find effective manners of investigating money laundering• Examine current trends and updates to fraud cases throughout finance and more! "A hacker attack happens every 39 seconds." - LexisNexis"Organizations lose 5 percent of revenue to fraud every year." - ACFE Please note that the Class Pass does not apply to this program.

This course is designed for firm partners and managers to explore ways to incorporate data analytics and related technologies in their audit practices. Participants explore how small and mid-size firms are using these tools to improve engagement efficiency and quality while providing opportunities for value-added services to clients. All of AHI's courses rely heavily on participant interaction and these virtual programs have co-opted many of Zoom's features to preserve the same strengths of the in-person training: visual interaction between the instructor and all participants (plan to be "on screen" throughout the program); breakout rooms to ensure small group engagement; and instructor interaction screen share for small group presentations, easy delivery of video presentations, and fillable PDF for online note-taking in the course materials.

This 2-hour mini course is from our Level V course, which highlights leadership skills and situations that are common for managers and senior managers in CPA firms. Participants will be encouraged to examine and challenge their beliefs and approaches to managing and leading people. Leading Others - Coaching & Developing Staff - prioritizing the coaching and development of staff in a post-pandemic work environment, including delegation for development, effective feedback, and managing virtual employees. Building Leadership Communication Skills - strategies to influence and lead others through effective communication in both individual and group settings. Helping the Firm Grow - the three levels of helping the firm grow and how to involve the entire team in expanding services to existing clients and generating referrals to new clients. All of AHI's courses rely heavily on participant interaction and these virtual programs have co-opted many of Zoom's features to preserve the same strengths of the in-person training: visual interaction between the instructor and all participants (plan to be "on screen" throughout the program); breakout rooms to ensure small group engagement; and instructor interaction screen share for small group presentations, easy delivery of video presentations, and fillable PDF for online note-taking in the course materials.

This 2-hour mini course introduces how data analytics can be used to improve engagement quality and efficiency. Participants explore the use of data analytics to assess risk, support financial statement assertions, assess internal controls and uncover fraud. Apply the ADA IDEASc approach to using data analytics on engagements to ensure compliance with audit and review standards and to provide value-added services to clients. All of AHI's courses rely heavily on participant interaction and these virtual programs have co-opted many of Zoom's features to preserve the same strengths of the in-person training: visual interaction between the instructor and all participants (plan to be "on screen" throughout the program); breakout rooms to ensure small group engagement; and instructor interaction screen share for small group presentations, easy delivery of video presentations, and fillable PDF for online note-taking in the course materials.

Most organizations manage their income statement, but many virtually ignore the balance sheet until balance sheet problems create seemingly insurmountable emergencies. This session discusses how to analyze and manage your financial statements more holistically, allowing you to identify and correct balance sheet issues early. How do you choose whether to raise debt or equity? What are the key considerations and the advantages of each? What is the cost of capital? What are the `hidden' balance sheet risks? We will also examine several crucial ideas you can incorporate into your analyses to enhance performance and reduce risk. If you want to enhance your corporate finance skills, this session is for you.

Are you managing your cash, or is your cash managing you? Can you effectively project cash position a week, month or year from now? This seminar demonstrates how to develop long and short-term cash management processes, allowing for productive days and restful nights. This session provides timeless cash management techniques and strategies.

This course may assist those who want or need to remain up to date on recently issued and effective guidance impacting the accounting and auditing of small privately held businesses.

New features in Excel provide tremendous opportunities to improve Excel-based operational and financial reports. For example, Data Models, Power Query, Data Analysis Expressions, Power Pivot, and many others can help you create more powerful summaries and schedules in less time than ever. Bundle these tools with some of Excel's "legacy" features, and you have significant new opportunities to improve your Excel-based reporting environments. In this fast-paced seminar, you will learn about the importance of using Power Query to link data into Excel data models and how you can manage these data models to facilitate better and more efficient reporting. Additionally, you will learn how to incorporate Key Performance Indicators, Slicers, and Timelines into your reports to enhance the analytics and understandability of the data. Further, you will learn best practices to format your spreadsheets quickly and efficiently to give them a polished and professional appearance. This course should be at the top of your professional development list if you use Excel for any reporting process.

This course is designed for firm partners and managers to explore ways to incorporate data analytics and related technologies in their audit practices. Participants explore how small and mid-size firms are using these tools to improve engagement efficiency and quality while providing opportunities for value-added services to clients. All of AHI's courses rely heavily on participant interaction and these virtual programs have co-opted many of Zoom's features to preserve the same strengths of the in-person training: visual interaction between the instructor and all participants (plan to be "on screen" throughout the program); breakout rooms to ensure small group engagement; and instructor interaction screen share for small group presentations, easy delivery of video presentations, and fillable PDF for online note-taking in the course materials.