By Francesca Zampaglione, CPA, former PICPA Vice President, Professional Education

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Here at the PICPA we have a new member president each year. One particular president had a certain way of adding a comedic twist to what he said. We called this habit “Lazorisms” (after Bill’s last name, Lazor.) Although some of you may believe that there is no such thing as a free lunch, Bill felt otherwise. One of his favorite sayings was “If it’s free, it’s for me!”

The PICPA offers our members a free service to schedule courses in their offices, which we call on-site training. A lot of our members may not know that this service is available. We’re doing our best to let them know by using our marketing vehicles and of course, this blog post.

There are several advantages to having a course in your offices. The most obvious is saving time and money on staff travel to a public seminar, but just as important, and sometimes overlooked, is the ability to discuss confidential client matters while learning how to adopt a certain accounting or tax rule.

In addition to training your own staff, on-site training can also be used to train your clients. In fact, just recently, the clients of accounting consultant AC Lordi and tax consultant GTM gave the gift of free CPE at a recent on-site program. You see the teams at AC Lordi and GTM decided that now that ethics is a requirement for Pennsylvania CPAs, why not treat clients and employees to four hours of ethics credit for free?

The program was a tremendous success, and it was a win-win all around. The clients were thrilled to get their ethics credits taken care of, eat lunch, network, and then return to their offices for a productive day. AC Lordi and GTM were pleased because they would certainly see a return on their CPE investment. The PICPA was thrilled to be the sponsor for the program and provide our members with a high-quality education experience.

Free CPE and lunch for your clients; how about it? Contact the PICPA for your next program and let us schedule the course at your location; secure the instructor and materials; and issue the continuing education credits. All you have to do is send the invitation to your clients and employees and enjoy the show!