I love our clients! I know what you’re thinking, “You’ve got to love your clients because, without them, you don’t have a business.” That’s true, but I love them today for a whole different reason! I learned that if I actually stop talking and start listening, they just might give me an idea for a new service to better serve them and, as a result, others in similar situations. However, what’s interesting was that this “new” service wasn’t new at all. In fact, it’s probably the poster child for everything that is wrong with training!

KPMG in the Cayman Islands has been a client of GAAP Dynamics for over 10 years. However, they are more than just a client. They’ve become a quintessential business partner that values providing quality training to their professionals. In addition to their annual accounting training, we’ve frequently acted as a sounding board for their professionals when working through IFRS and GAAP accounting issues. In return, they willingly pass along their world-class expertise in the Investment Management industry. They also provide ideas for case studies and courses, most recently our Improving Audit Quality course, that help us improve our training for other firms.

Last fall, I was teaching the IFRS Update course in the Cayman Islands when one of the partners asked me if I could spend some time talking about business combinations. A client was involved in a business combination and the engagement team had some specific questions related to IFRS 3. No problem! I don’t mind going “off agenda” to cover a topic that is “on point” for the participants. In fact, isn’t that the point of good training? Providing relevant information at the learners’ time of need.

After the business combinations “detour” was finished and the participants were satisfied that they were armed with the information necessary to resolve their issue, the partner said to me:

“Mike, it would be great if you could provide us with training throughout the year at our moment of need. When an issue arises, we could engage you to facilitate smaller, shorter sessions on specific topics. Obviously, this would have to be done remotely, perhaps via conference calls, video conferencing, or webinars.”

Interesting, using webinars to provide “just-in-time” IFRS and U.S. GAAP training. However, I had two vital questions related to this possible new service offering:

1. Can we grant continuing professional education (CPE) credits?
2. How do we engage participants in a webinar format?

Granting CPE credits

GAAP Dynamics is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. While our registration currently only applies to Group Live programs, we are in the process of preparing our application related to the Group Internet Based and QAS Self Study delivery methods.

I learned that whether a program is classified as group live or group internet based is determined by how the participant consumes the learning, not by the technology used in program delivery. Therefore, if the participants are in a group setting and we are facilitating the course in “real-time,” we can grant CPE credits provided we have the required elements of attendance monitoring and engagement.

You learn something new every day! This means we can already grant CPE credits for such training as long as participants are in a group setting. I immediately signed up for GoToWebinar as the online conference software we will use for such webinars. Please contact us today to schedule yours!

Engaging participants in a webinar format

Unfortunately, in life, you get what you pay for, and in this case of cheap or even free webinars, that tends to mean an hour (or more) of your life that you’ll never get back.

I don’t know about you, but the accounting webinars I’ve attended are typically pretty poor. Incessant talking with boring, static PowerPoint slides loaded with too much information. Either there is no video, or worse, a constant, poorly lit talking head. Or there are distracting echoes and background noises coming from using internal computer microphones. No engagement. No fun. No thanks!

We’re different. Just like our instructor-led classroom sessions, expect engagement and lots of it - plenty of relevant cases and examples highlighting specific application issues, encouraging peer-to-peer learning through chat pods, use of polling questions to highlight learning gaps and knowledge checks to ensure the information is sinking in, responding to all participant questions, either during or after the session. And, of course, the energy associated with facilitators from GAAP Dynamics is incomparable! No teachers from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off here!

And the quality will be superb. We’ve retrofitted an entire room with sound panels and acoustic curtains. We’ve invested in top-of-the-line audio and video technology. We have professional lighting. We’ve spared no expense to ensure your experience is top notch.

I’m excited about our new service offering, which will fit in nicely with our Revolution. We’ve planned our first webinar covering the ASUs effective in 2018 on Thursday, May 3, 2018 at 11:00 am EST. We’re offering it for FREE to the first 500 participants. Contact us today to register!

Disclaimer  

This post is published to spread the love of GAAP and provided for informational purposes only. Although we are CPAs and have made every effort to ensure the factual accuracy of the post as of the date it was published, we are not responsible for your ultimate compliance with accounting or auditing standards and you agree not to hold us responsible for such. In addition, we take no responsibility for updating old posts, but may do so from time to time.