Continuing professional education (“CPE”) is an important aspect of being a professional, and CPAs have one of the most robust CPE requirements of all professionals. The basic requirement for CPAs to maintain their license is 80 hours in a two year period. These 80 hours can cover a variety of topics such as tax alerts, ethics, leadership, etc. With the ever changing tax laws and accounting standards, one can easily understand why so many hours are required.

Additionally, if a CPA performs specific types of engagements, he or she may be required to meet even more stringent standards. For example, our St. Augustine CPA firm performs non-profit audits in which our clients annually expend greater than $500,000 of federal funds. These clients are required to have an OMB A-133 audit. Auditors who perform these types of audits are required to have 80 hours specifically related to improving his or her skills in auditing. This is important, but if these auditors do CPE in areas other than auditing, they result in having a greater number of credit hours. For example, Todd Neville did 18 hours of CPE on the Neville Breidestein’s tax software. Although these hours counted toward his general requirements, they didn’t count toward his A-133 requirements.

Todd Neville and Justin Breidentstein both just completed their two year reporting period on June 30 and are pleased to report that they met the A-133 requirements.