Over 9 billion data records have been lost or stolen since 2013. With a frequency of almost 5.5 million records exposed every day, it is no longer a question of whether your firm has been compromised, but more a question of when it will happen. Are you ready? Do you have the cybersecurity knowledge and auditing skills to prevent or mitigate the next big breach? In the first half of the program, you will learn the basics of cybersecurity awareness and safeguarding sensitive data, how to address cybersecurity threats within your firm, and how to use AICPA best practices to manage and obtain assurance of cybersecurity risks. By its conclusion, you will know how to address cybersecurity threats with reasonable assurance in audit engagements.
In the second half, the course will help identify best practices and top trends for accounting firms to help establish highly effective, efficient and successful practices. We will explore best practices in various service areas to enable practitioners to provide high value- added services while maintaining client confidentiality and protection of confidential information and data, and development through implementation of procedures and processes to ensure accounting firm practice success. In the words of Albert Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
DESIGNED FOR
CPAs within firms that provide audit, tax, financial statement compilation, and/or consulting services. Practitioners in small to medium-sized public accounting firms, as well as CPAs looking to launch/start an accounting practice, and who desire to build a quality- oriented and successful practice in both attest and/ or nonattest professional services.
BENEFITS
- Explain the cybersecurity threat landscape and its economic costs
- Identify state regulatory and legal rules related to cybersecurity
- Apply the core principles of cybersecurity awareness to limit cybersecurity risk
- Describe the AICPA’s cybersecurity risk management framework and CPA responsibilities
- Understand the requirements to provide reasonable assurance related to third-party consultants and cloud providers
- Educate the firm and clients on cybersecurity basics, risk management, and best practices
- Identify potential enhancements to existing practice areas to raise controls, efficiencies and the value of provided professional services
- Identify potential new practice areas to organically grow and expand valuable client services
- Identify the complementary practice needs to professionally diversify the practice beyond core compliance services, while ensuring quality controls and due-professional care necessary to ensure greater value-added results for clients
HIGHLIGHTS
- Ransomware
- Identity theft
- Social engineering attacks
- Safeguarding taxpayer data
- Security protections in SOC 3® reports
- AICPA’s PCPS Cybersecurity Toolkit
- AICPA Professional Code of Conduct Disclosing Information to a Third-Party Service Provider (1.700.040)
- Best practice alternatives and recommendations for providing tax preparation and compliance, including desktop versus cloud controls
- Controls and compliance in SAS, SSARS and SSAE services
- Establishing and maintaining a system of quality control for a CPA accounting and auditing practice
- Ideas and recommendations for establishing, providing and maintaining client accounting services
- Policies and procedures for conducting consulting and advisory services
- Key concepts in developing service niches and in client acceptance and continuation
COURSE LEVEL
Intermediate
PREREQUISITES
None
ADVANCE PREPARATION
None
ADDITIONAL NOTES
NJCPA Goes Green - Registrants Save $20
New for 2018, course materials will be distributed electronically and we're passing the savings along to you. All 8-hour seminar pricing has been reduced by $20. To access, visit your
My Events page. Download to your laptop or tablet prior to your seminar. Handouts are added as received.
Help Feed Those in Need- The NJCPA Emerging Leaders Council is hosting a Food Drive to benefit the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. Please bring your nonperishable items and canned goods to this event. Peanut butter and tuna fish are always needed.