How can you unlock your full potential at work without uncovering your blind spots, strengths, passions, career goals, and next steps?

To do this, you must tap into your own wisdom and resourcefulness, and the insights and knowledge of those around you. To thrive in today’s ever-changing world of uncertainty and ambiguity, we must all become more coachable.

During this hands-on, interactive workshop, we’ll explore the following questions, and you’ll walk away with your own personalized coachability plan to help you get the most out of your conference experience and your career!
- What is coachability, and why does it matter?
- What does it mean to be coachable (or not!)?
- How could you intentionally solicit and implement the feedback, coaching, and mentoring you need to succeed?

Learning Objectives:

• Define the concept of coachability and explain its importance in navigating uncertainty, professional growth, and workplace performance.
• Identify personal strengths, blind spots, and development opportunities by applying a structured self-reflection process and feedback-seeking techniques.
• Develop a personalized coachability plan that outlines specific actions for intentionally soliciting, receiving, and implementing coaching, mentoring, and feedback to advance career goals.

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

Empowering individuals and families to make informed, confident decisions is essential at every stage of life. This session explores practical strategies for helping clients take ownership of their choices—both for themselves and for their children—while navigating evolving personal, financial, and family needs. Participants will learn how to recognize meaningful planning opportunities across the lifespan, from early childhood through retirement, and how to guide clients in aligning these decisions with their long-term goals. The session will also highlight a range of creative and effective alternatives for achieving family objectives, enabling professionals to offer flexible, client-centered solutions that adapt to changing circumstances. Attendees will leave with actionable insights and tools to support stronger, more empowered decision-making in every phase of life.
In addition to core content, this interactive session provides ample opportunity to ask questions, exchange insights, and share best practices with peers. Participants will leave with actionable tools and a stronger network of ideas to support empowered, family-focused decision-making in every phase of life.

Learning Objectives:

• Determine ways to empower your clients to make the best decisions for themselves and their children at each stage of life
• Recognize planning opportunities from young adults to retirement
• Identify alternatives to achieve family objectives

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

Selling a business is one of the most financially significant events an owner will ever experience—and the tax landscape around that sale can create tremendous opportunity or costly pitfalls. This session equips advisors with the technical insight and practical strategies needed to guide clients confidently through every stage of a business sale.

We will break down the full life cycle of planning around a transaction: how to position a business for a tax-efficient exit, how to model and structure deals to maximize after-tax outcomes, and how to coordinate post-sale planning to preserve and grow the client’s newfound liquidity. Attendees will learn the essential pre-sale steps (entity clean-up, reasonable compensation, timing considerations, QSBS qualification, state tax ramifications, buyer vs. seller priorities, and due-diligence readiness) as well as the tax strategies most commonly overlooked during and after a sale (installment planning, rollover equity, charitable planning, trust structures, estimated tax management, and advanced wealth strategies).

Whether your clients are in the early stages of thinking about a sale or actively working through a transaction, this session provides the framework, tools, and actionable guidance you need to elevate your advisory value and help clients achieve tax-optimized outcomes.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key pre-sale planning steps that influence tax outcomes, including entity structuring, ownership clean-up, compensation planning, and preparation for buyer due diligence.
• Evaluate tax-efficient deal structures—such as asset vs. stock sales, installment arrangements, rollover equity, and QSBS planning—to optimize after-tax proceeds for clients.
• Apply post-sale income tax strategies including estimated tax management, charitable planning, trust structures, and long-term wealth planning to help clients steward liquidity after a transaction.
• Guide clients through the full transaction life cycle by integrating business, tax, and financial planning considerations to enhance advisory value and improve client decision-making before, during, and after a business sale.

This hands-on workshop gives CPAs, CFOs, financial advisors, and tax professionals a practical guide to implementing the power of generative AI into your daily work using popular tools such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. The session is built for beginners who want a safe, structured starting point, as well as professionals with some AI experience who want to sharpen their skills. You will work directly in these tools on your laptop, learning how to draft better prompts, analyze financial data, create client-ready materials, and streamline common accounting and tax workflows.

Attendees will complete guided exercises designed around real-world professional tasks, including research, documentation, workpaper preparation, financial analysis, and communication. By the end of the workshop, you will understand core AI concepts, know how to evaluate outputs responsibly, and walk away with practical skills to apply immediately. To get the most from the experience, participants should create an account in Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, or ChatGPT before attending—free versions work, though paid subscriptions offer additional features that enhance the exercises.

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. THE FOLLOWING PRE-WORK IS REQUIRED BEFORE ATTENDING THE SESSION: 1) Purchase a license for either ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini (note: free versions can be used but will have limitations). 2) Bring your laptop to follow along with each use case. 3) Download materials that will be provided to registered workshop attendees via separate email.
Beginner - Intermediate)

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the opportunity to apply generative AI across all of your professional responsibilities
• Identify specific generative AI applications in finance, accounting, tax and client advisory services (CAS)
• Distinguish between safe and unsafe practices for using generative AI with confidential information

It is time to move past chatbots and into AI workflows. This advanced, hands-on workshop focuses on designing and executing agent-based AI systems for complex accounting, finance, and advisory use cases. Rather than one-off prompts, participants will learn how to structure AI as digital team members with defined roles, execution logic, and controls.

Attendees will work in small groups on their laptops to design and test AI agents that perform multi-step tasks such as analysis, documentation, review support, and workflow coordination. Exercises will cover defining agent roles using structured instructions, orchestrating agent execution across tasks, and managing context, permissions, and data boundaries. Examples of integrating agents into existing workflows will be demonstrated.

By the end of the workshop, participants will understand how agentic AI differs from traditional generative AI, how to design repeatable AI-driven workflows, and how to apply appropriate control, review, and risk considerations in AI-assisted work.

This is an advanced session intended for attendees already comfortable using generative AI. No programming experience is required, but familiarity with advanced AI concepts is expected.

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. THE FOLLOWING PRE-WORK IS REQUIRED BEFORE ATTENDING THE SESSION: 1) Purchase a license for either ChatGPT, Anthropic Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini (note: free versions can be used but will have limitations). 2) Bring your laptop to build along with each use case. 3) Download materials that will be provided to registered workshop attendees via separate email. All examples will be done in Chat GPT or Claude.

Learning Objectives:

• Design and configure agent-based AI workflows by defining agent roles, system instructions, execution logic, and context boundaries.
• Orchestrate and evaluate agent execution across workflows, to ensure accuracy, consistency, and alignment.
• Apply governance, control, and risk considerations to agentic AI systems.

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

Reviews the basics of the income taxation of estates and trusts including the distribution system and potential elections available to the fiduciary

Learning Objectives:

• Learn what sections of the Internal Revenue Code govern the income taxation of estates and trusts.
• Learn the concepts of distributable net income (DNI), trust accounting income (TAI), taxable income (TI) and why they are important and how they differ from each other.
• Learn the ditribution system for trusts and estates and how the distribution system governs who gets taxed and what they get taxed on.
• Learn the elections that are available to fiduciaries to minimize the tax consequences to estates and trusts and their beneficiaries.

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

Selecting the right audit methodology is a high-stakes decision for any firm, yet the process can be overwhelming without real-world insight. Join us for a dynamic, practitioner-led panel where senior leaders who have recently navigated this journey will share their candid experiences, not presentations from vendors, but direct accounts of what worked, what didn’t, and what they wish they’d known at the start.

Each firm on our panel has selected a different audit methodology or vendor, ensuring a wide range of perspectives across various firm sizes and solutions. Through guided discussion, you’ll get a side-by-side comparison of selection processes, key considerations beyond just cost, and practical tools to apply back at your own firm. Expect an honest look at challenges, ROI calculations, and essential stakeholder conversations. Attendees will leave with actionable questions to ask vendors and a framework to help define their firm’s unique needs.

This session is designed for any firm with an audit department whether you’re just starting to explore your options or ready to make a change. You'll gain practical insights no matter where you are in the process.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify and compare the critical factors firms should consider when selecting a new audit methodology, including cost, features, support, and stakeholder alignment.
• Analyze real-world experiences to determine common challenges and effective practices during the audit methodology selection process.
• Apply a structured approach for evaluating potential solutions and articulating firm-specific requirements.
• Identify an actionable plan for engaging stakeholders and implementing a new audit methodology within your firm.

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

This interactive half‑day workshop equips CPAs with knowledge, tools, and confidence to successfully launch or expand personal financial planning services within their practices. Designed specifically for tax and planning oriented professionals, the session highlights why CPAs are uniquely positioned to deliver high‑value financial planning and how integrating these services can strengthen client relationships and create new revenue opportunities.

Topics include pricing models (hourly, retainer, AUM, and project‑based), operational processes, and strategies for integrating planning work smoothly into existing tax workflows. Marketing and growth techniques tailored for CPAs will help participants position their value and uncover planning opportunities among current clients.

The workshop concludes with a practical action plan, empowering participants to take concrete steps toward launching or enhancing their planning services, supported by additional resources from the AICPA PFP Section.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key benefits of integrating financial planning services within a CPA practice and describe how these services enhance client value.
• Differentiate between standalone and integrated financial planning service models
• Recognize the regulatory, licensing, and compliance requirements.
• Apply key elements of practice infrastructure—including pricing models, engagement documentation, and onboarding processes—to support the delivery of planning services.

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

This advanced blended learning program prepares experienced CPA financial planners and PFS candidates to apply integrated planning judgment across complex client scenarios. The program consists of four live virtual case workshops followed by a capstone workshop and exam session at ENGAGE 2026.

Each virtual session is a facilitated integration lab focused on a core case study representing a different stage of the planning lifecycle. Participants evaluate competing priorities, sequencing decisions, behavioral influences, and professional tradeoffs while reinforcing the reasoning patterns required for advanced planning.

The ENGAGE capstone session synthesizes the case experience into high-impact judgment anchors and prepares participants for the PFS exam. Rather than re-teaching technical fundamentals, the program emphasizes prioritization, proportional decision-making, and integrated professional reasoning across retirement, estate, risk management, and investment planning.

Participants leave with stronger planning confidence, clearer integration frameworks, and reinforced readiness for both the exam and real-world professional application.
Program structure
Virtual Case Workshops (Live, 2 hours each)
Tuesday, May 5 — Young Family Case
Tuesday, May 12 — Pre-Retirement Family Case
Tuesday, May 19 — Retired/Elderly Family Case
Tuesday, May 26 — Business Owner / Advanced Planning Case
ENGAGE 2026 Capstone Workshop & Exam
June 8, 2026 | 8:00 AM – 11:30 AM ET
Total instructional time: 10 CPE hours

Learning Objectives:

• Apply prioritization and sequencing principles to complex client scenarios
• Evaluate integrated tradeoffs across retirement, estate, investment, and risk planning
• Interpret case facts using advanced professional judgment
• Recognize behavioral and emotional influences that distort planning decisions

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

Partner compensation and governance are closely connected yet often addressed separately. This session helps firm leaders understand how governance design, decision rights, evaluation processes, and transparency shape partner behavior and compensation outcomes. We’ll focus on how firms can assess whether their governance structures support fairness, accountability, and strategic alignment to drive sustained partner performance and growth.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate how current governance structures influence partner behavior, performance evaluation, and compensation outcomes.
• Identify and apply the right mix of KPIs and behavioral measures to align partner actions with firm strategy.
• Design governance-informed approaches to partner evaluation and compensation that promote fairness, transparency, and sustainable growth.
• Learn from a panel of partners on their lived experiences.

Part 1: Decode the SOC 2 Privacy category—when to apply it, what controls matter, and how to audit effectively.

Part 2: Navigate HIPAA compliance for CPAs serving healthcare clients, with practical guidance on risk, rules, and remediation."

**INCLUDED IN ALL-ACCESS PASS | IN PERSON ONLY**

The award-winning AICPA Town Hall Series - the profession’s leading resource for timely updates, real-time analysis, and actionable strategies - takes center stage for the first time as the opening keynote at ENGAGE’s 10-year celebration. Airing LIVE from the conference, this high-impact broadcast will deliver the latest news, expert insights, and practical guidance to help accounting and finance professionals understand and respond to the most pressing issues shaping the profession and drive long-term success.

AICPA Update

Mergers and acquisitions continue to play an important part of the capital markets. Deal structures continues to evolve, resulting in accounting complexities. In this session, participants will learn about emerging issues in accounting for business combinations including recognition and measurement of intangible assets, valuation of contingent consideration, and other current topics.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify current challenges in applying ASC 805, Business Combinations as a result of new or emerging deal structures.
• Properly apply the accounting accommodation found in ASU 2014-08, Accounting for Identifiable Intangible Assets in a Business Combination, including determining the scope of this pronouncement.

As the importance of estate tax planning fades, the importance of getting the details right grows. For many years, managing a family’s estate tax liability was an all-encompassing concern. It was prudent to focus on at the time and complications were considered merely incidental. As the number of families affected by the estate tax decreases, the “little things” can no longer be ignored. This course will focus on mathematics of planning and compliance involved with planning for “gray” divorce, S-corporations, and vacation homes.

Learning Objectives:

• Estate planning and the potential for divorce, considerations for the CPA.
• Practical estate planning and tax compliance S-corporation shareholders.
• Structuring ownership of family vacation homes for efficient taxation and administration.

Artificial intelligence is transforming investment management—from research and security selection to tax planning, rebalancing, and client communication. But planners often see only the extremes: either black-box “AI robo” marketing or discrete AI tips like “use ChatGPT to summarize earnings calls.”

This session goes deeper. We’ll examine how advisors can incorporate AI into the entire investment process—as a research assistant, portfolio analyst, risk evaluator, tax optimizer, scenario-generator, and client explainer—while maintaining human judgment, fiduciary standards, and compliance controls.

We’ll walk through practical examples you can use immediately, plus governance considerations that ensure AI augments your process safely and intelligently.

Advisors will leave with an actionable roadmap for building an AI-augmented investment process, not just a collection of tools.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify use cases for AI in investment research, including generating summaries of regulatory filings, comparing portfolio products, detecting financial anomalies, and developing structured due‑diligence workflows.
• Apply AI‑enabled tools to portfolio construction and optimization, such as asset‑allocation modeling, factor‑exposure analysis, Monte‑Carlo scenario enhancement, and client‑specific portfolio narrative creation.
• Evaluate how AI can support tax‑aware investing, including tax‑loss harvesting guidance, identifying cross‑account tax drag, and reviewing client‑specific bond ladder or municipal bond strategies.
• Leverage AI to improve client communication and education, translating complex investment concepts into plain language, generating personalized materials, visualizing risk or volatility, and enhancing quarterly review conversations.

This isn’t your typical M&A session - it’s a candid panel of firm owners who’ve lived it. Some sold. Some merged. One walked away from deals altogether. Hear what worked, what went sideways, and what they wish they’d known before signing. Whether you're exploring growth through acquisition, planning your exit, or skeptical about private equity altogether, this session gives you a front-row seat to the real stories behind the headlines.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the Real-World Dynamics of M&A Decisions Gain insight into the practical challenges and opportunities firm owners face when selling, merging, or walking away from deals.
• Identify Key Lessons from Successful and Unsuccessful Transactions
  Learn what worked, what went sideways, and the critical factors that influence outcomes in mergers, acquisitions, and private equity deals.
• Evaluate Strategic Options for Growth or Exit
  Explore how to assess whether acquisition, merger, or alternative strategies align with your firm’s goals—and what questions to ask before signing.

What do tires, fine dining, and CPA firm growth have in common? More than you think. Michelin created demand not by selling products, but by reshaping experiences. The results? More demand, more value, and more sales. Inspired by Michelin’s bold marketing move, this session unpacks how CPA firms can position for growth beyond compliance, create demand for high-value services, and provide an elevated client experience.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize how value positioning can drive firm growth.
• Develop strategies to elevate the client experience, shifting from transactional relationships to trusted advisor.
• Identify opportunities to repackage existing services as high-value offerings.

This dynamic presentation introduces CPAs to an ancient but proven model utilizing a powerful framework for designing a career filled with purpose, passion, and impact. Participants will explore how to align their professional paths with four key elements: what they love, what they excel at, what the world needs, and what they can be paid for. Through interactive exercises, real-world examples, and practical strategies, individuals will learn to identify their unique strengths, uncover meaningful opportunities in the accounting field, and overcome common career challenges like burnout or lack of fulfillment. Attendees will leave with a personalized roadmap to build a rewarding career that balances personal passion with professional success, along with actionable steps to sustain long-term growth and satisfaction in their work.

Learning Objectives:

• Individuals will learn to identify their unique strengths and abilities and how to apply them to their work.
• Uncover meaningful opportunities in the accounting field without starting all over.
• Overcome common career challenges like burnout or lack of fulfillment by applying purpose and passion to daily tasks.

Qualifying for the estate tax marital deduction by making a QTIP election seems simple. However, the election is full of technical requirements and traps for the unwary. This session will explore the QTIP requirements including what types of interests qualify, who makes the election, how to QTIP an IRA, how to cure a defective QTIP election and recent cases that deal with Section 2519 and terminating a QTIP trust and much, much more.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn who makes the QTIP election and how to make it.
• Learn what type of interests qualify for the QTIP election.
• Discover how a "Clayton" QTIP can provide flexbility as to who can benefit from a trust for which a QTIP election is not made
• Discover the many planning opportunities that are available with a QTIP election.

A well-structured estate plan relies on properly drafted legal documents that align with planning strategies and comply with tax regulations. This session will provide a comprehensive review of key legal documents used in common estate planning strategies, focusing on compliance with tax requirements, identification of potential tax and non-tax issues, and strategies for mitigating risks. Through in-depth discussion and case studies, we’ll explore best practices for analyzing trust agreements, entity structures, and other planning documents to ensure they achieve the intended objectives while minimizing exposure to unintended consequences.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess key legal documents.
• Interpret tax and non-tax issues.
• Evaluate risk mitigation strategies.

Navigating S corporation rules for estates and trusts can be complex—missing an election or misinterpreting shareholder eligibility may result in compliance challenges. This course provides practitioners with essential information about trust and estate S corporation shareholders.
You’ll gain clear guidance on when and how long estates and trusts may hold S corporation stock, what makes a trust or estate eligible as a shareholder, and the practical considerations involved with shareholder elections. Real-life scenarios will help you identify and address common issues, such as missed elections or inadvertent terminations, before they escalate.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify eligible estate and trust S corporation shareholders.
• Understand when an S corporation shareholder election is required.
• Describe the income taxation of a trust or estate S corporation shareholder.
• Identify relief provisions for inadvertent S corporation terminations.

This session will be a high-energy recap of SOC School. This session bridges foundational concepts with real-world application, emphasizing the SOC 1 guide and practical takeaways for practitioners navigating complex client environments.

Gigantic tax legislation in 2025 brought both temporary and permanent opportunities for individual taxpayers. In a fast-paced session, we’ll guide you through the year’s most impactful tax changes, as well as offer planning tips on critical legislation that comes into effect during the 2026/27 year. Two of America’s top update presenters will unveil key strategies for your high-income clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to work with and around new limitations on charitable deductions and overall itemized deductions
• Identify deferral/exclusion techniques (Opportunity Zones, Farmland Sales, QSBS) for tax planning engagements
• Analyze the new SALT limitations to make PTET and payment timing decisions

Stay ahead of the ever evolving landscape of state and local taxation with this concise, high impact session that translates the latest 2025–2026 legislative changes into clear, actionable guidance. You’ll explore emerging nexus standards—examining recent court rulings and statutes that redefine “economic presence” and trigger new filing obligations—while comparing modern apportionment methods like single factor sales and market based sourcing. We’ll also track key conformity dates and “decoupled” OBBBA provisions across major states.

Learning Objectives:

• 1. Recognize the ability of a state to tax out-of-state businesses.
• 2. Review the impact of state taxation on remote employees.
• 3. Identify planning opportunities to minimize the impact of multistate taxation.

Recent tax reform complicates strategies for tax-efficient charitable contributions. Using actual client experiences, this presentation explores practical solutions and innovative ways to help donors evaluate their options and make good decisions about tax-effective giving. During the program, you’ll get an in-depth look at charitable IRA rollovers, legacy IRAs, CRTs, charitable gifts from trusts and estates, donor advised fund distribution requirements, purpose trusts, 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, and “charitable LLCs.”

Learning Objectives:

• Learn the optimal process to help clients understand and implement charitable planning strategies.
• Identify how you can use IRAs, CRTs and non-grantor trusts for tax-efficient charitable planning.
• Understand the potential benefits and limitations of private foundations, donor advised funds, and charitable LLCs.

Staying current with today’s technology is no longer optional; it’s essential. Tech Update 2026 offers accounting professionals a clear and strategic view of the evolving tech landscape, enabling you to cut through the noise and make informed decisions. This forward-looking session is built for practitioners who want to leverage innovation to enhance client service, boost operational efficiency, and remain competitive.

Explore the most impactful trends in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, automation, and cloud-based ecosystems. Understand how technologies like Microsoft 365 Copilot, generative AI tools, industry-specific SaaS platforms, and blockchain are reshaping the profession. Learn to identify which solutions align with your firm’s goals—and which are just vendor hype.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify emerging technology trends in AI and SaaS that impact the accounting profession
• Evaluate technology solutions strategically
• Distinguish innovation from vendor hype
• Develop a high-ROI technology roadmap

As workplaces evolve, attracting and retaining younger team members has become essential for fostering innovation, collaboration, and long-term success. This session takes a deep dive into strategies to create an environment where younger professionals feel valued, supported, and inspired to stay. Key focus areas will include identifying strategies to bring in new team members and encourage long-term growth, recognizing organizational culture aspects that appeal to younger employees, and tailoring workloads and job roles to meet their needs. Additionally, we will explore how to cultivate a workplace where different perspectives are respected, behaviors that foster a sense of belonging are modeled, and self-awareness around varying backgrounds and experiences is encouraged. Join us for actionable insights and practical tools to help your organization attract, engage, and retain the next generation of talent.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify strategies that will bring in new team members to grow and stay at an organization
• Recognize cultural aspects of an organization that appeal to younger team members
• Recall how to tailor workloads and job roles to meet the needs of younger professionals

This session breaks down the practical implications of SSARS 27 for CAS practitioners. Attendees will walk away with a clear understanding of: When AR-C 70 requirements are triggered and when they’re not; how to properly scope and document CAS engagements that include financial statement prep; why this guidance is a pivotal moment in aligning standards with the realities of CAS.

Firms don’t lose momentum because of bad decisions - they lose it because of misaligned conversations. In this session, Rom Lakritz (Anchor) and Dan Luthi (Ignite Spot) will introduce the concept of Intentional Communication - a practical framework for aligning goals, clarifying expectations, and reducing the noise that holds teams back.

Through a leadership lens, attendees will explore how to speak with purpose, listen for “metadata,” and build communication rituals that create real alignment and accountability across the firm. Whether you lead a team or advise clients, this session will upgrade how you show up in every conversation.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the concept of Intentional Communication and its role in effective firm leadership.
• Apply structured communication techniques to clarify goals and align expectations before key conversations.
• Use reflective listening and silence as tools to foster trust, engagement, and accountability.
• Implement recurring communication rituals that reinforce clarity, reduce friction, and drive team momentum.

A discussion of the most recent cases, rulings and legislative changes that impact the estate, gift and generation-skipping tax areas. Planning ideas to consider in light of the "One Big Beautiful Bill" and other tax law changes will also be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand what changes to the estate, gift and generation-skipping tax laws have been made in the past year.
• Learn how to plan in light of those recent changes to the law.

New accounting standards and new agenda priorities are on the horizon for the FASB. During this session, FASB Member Sue Cosper, FASB Vice Chair Hillary Salo, and FASB Supervising Project Manager Jenifer Wyss will focus on what you need to know about recently issued and upcoming accounting standards. The panelists will provide a progress report on the 2025 Invitation to Comment: Agenda Consultation and how the Board is addressing issues that were identified by stakeholders. Finally, they will discuss the continued importance of your feedback on the Board’s cost-benefit analysis of potential and existing accounting standards.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify recent/upcoming final guidance issued by FASB
• Recognize FASB's progress on other priority topics identified by stakeholders during the 2025 agenda consultation
• Indicate progress on other standard-setting activities relevant to investors, preparers, and auditors

AI has many use cases in audit but also brings up valid concerns - data privacy and fidelity, accuracy, hallucinations - we'll discuss the latest advances, how to leverage them, and what to watch out for.

Note: Due to the nature of the evolving nature of AI, this session description will be updated to reflect the topical nature most relevant to firms based on AI use cases. This session will include practical application of AI, using use cases, suggested resources for practitioners and will be an application-based session, based on real use in firms.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify use cases of AI and data analytics in audit practices and how AI tools are currently being used to improve audit quality, efficiency, and risk detection.
• Analyze the benefits and limitations for AI to streamline workflows and enhance insights, while recognizing issues like bias, hallucinations, and overreliance on automation.
• Explore best practices and governance models to ensure AI tools are implemented in a way that maintains audit standards, transparency, and professional skepticism.

This session will cover the latest thinking on how to effectively construct multi-asset portfolios for investors with a goal-oriented focus - whether this a retirement, college savings or other future-expense funding goal that requires an accumulation and decumulation-focused asset allocation. We will discuss how to tailor investment design for individual characteristics and circumstances and review recently emerging trends in the portfolio construction landscape and their potential to help investors more effectively meet their goals.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand principles for constructing portfolios for goal oriented-investors and how portfolio construction principles have evolved to better meet investor needs and preferences.
• Understand recent trends in portfolio construction for goal-oriented investors, the pros/cons of these approaches and the types of investors for whom these solutions are the most applicable.

-The evolving definition of the family office (and different ways to think about it)
-What a traditional family office progression typically looks like and typical structures (size and complexity)
-The important functions (core vs concierge) "getting things done"
-The rationale, risk mitigation, and opportunities for the family choices
-The importance of an accounting spine (and other core functions)
-The family office role in intergenerational communication and development
-The scale, institutional knowledge, and tax advantages for internalizing functions
-The costs (upfront and ongoing), staffing, technological, security and unanticipated difficulties in seet-up and maintenance
-Insiders vs outsiders (and family/board governance and time horizons)
-The type of wealth and the Integration with multiple constituencies
-Archetypes where it has worked (and where there are challenges)
-Should the family office look like a business?
-Taking a family (and their advisors) through the analysis
-MFO, Hybrid, SFO solutions . . . . where do many families land?
-International vs Domestic?
-Bringing on other families?

Learning Objectives:

• Putting structure and definition around the term "Family Office" and the different types of offerings in the marketplace.
• Having a good handle on the functions that family offices provide, their structures and business models.
• Have an understanding of the operational challenges for the space going forward and sources of opportunity for innovation and service.
• Understanding the UHNW and Family Office market for the purposes of serving it profitably.

Financial exploitation is now one of the fastest-growing threats facing older adults, and CPAs are uniquely positioned to detect warning signs before the losses become catastrophic. In 2023 alone, Americans filed 880,000 fraud complaints with losses exceeding $12.5 billion, including $3.4 billion lost by adults over 60 — an 11 percent jump from the prior year. And because only one in 25 cases is ever reported, the real exposure is far greater.

In this session, Robert Powell will walk CPAs through the most urgent fraud and scam trends affecting clients today, from AI-enhanced impersonation and “pig butchering” schemes to tech-support fraud, government impersonation, romance scams, and cryptocurrency deception. Drawing on research from the FBI, SEC, FINRA, NASAA, Wayne State University, and a nationwide adviser survey, he will explain who is most at risk, why these schemes are becoming more sophisticated, and the behavioral, cognitive, and financial factors that make older adults vulnerable.

CPAs will learn practical steps they can take immediately, including how to:
• Spot early indicators of diminished financial decision-making and undue influence.
• Use trusted contacts, financial-vulnerability tools, and structured conversations to assess risk.
• Build firmwide processes to verify suspicious transactions, stop fraudulent transfers, and educate clients.
• Incorporate evidence-based screening tools from OlderAdultNestEgg.com to document concerns and protect both clients and practitioners.
• Create ongoing systems — from newsletters to Google scam alerts — that keep clients informed and safer.

Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to strengthen their role as trusted financial gatekeepers and to better safeguard their clients’ wealth, dignity, and financial independence.

Learning Objectives:

• • Spot early indicators of diminished financial decision-making and undue influence.
• • Use trusted contacts, financial-vulnerability tools, and structured conversations to assess risk.
• • Build firmwide processes to verify suspicious transactions, stop fraudulent transfers, and educate clients.
• • Incorporate evidence-based screening tools from OlderAdultNestEgg.com to document concerns and protect both clients and practitioners.

Discover how the CITP credential can amplify your impact in SOC and third-party risk engagements. This fireside chat unpacks the credential’s value, pathways to certification, and its strategic role in a tech-driven assurance future.

The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) introduces substantial changes to U.S. international tax rules, most of which will first apply in the 2026 tax year. This session will provide an overview of the international tax provisions that practitioners need to understand now—including the transition from GILTI to Net CFC Tested Income (NCTI), updates to FDDEI, modifications to foreign tax credit rules, and structural changes such as the reinstatement of Section 958(b)(4) and the permanent look-through rule. The session will also highlight key regulatory developments. The session will further provide practical guidance to help taxpayers of all sizes prepare for the transition, including considerations for modeling, provision work, and future compliance.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the major international tax reforms enacted in the 2025 OBBBA, including changes to GILTI/NCTI, FDDEI, and foreign tax credit rules.
• Explain the implications and timing of structural updates such as the reinstatement of Section 958(b)(4) and the permanent look-through rule.
• Evaluate recent and anticipated regulatory developments and how they may affect 2025 and 2026 returns.
• Develop transition-year planning approaches to incorporate legislative and regulatory changes into future modeling, reporting, and cross-border tax strategies.

The passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has reshaped the tax planning landscape, creating both new opportunities and new challenges for advisors and their clients. In this session, Dr. Riskin will focus on using visuals to better translate a variety of complex planning concepts and enhance client conversations for different client groups, such as young families, young professionals, business owners, and high-income/high-net-worth individuals who are focused on "planning with purpose" by using philanthropic and multi-generational tax planning strategies to reach their immediate and long-term goals.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key provisions of the OBBBA that significantly alter individual, business, and multi-generational tax planning strategies.
• Understand how visuals can be used to simplify and communicate complex planning concepts for diverse clients - ranging from young families and professionals to business owners and high-net-worth individuals.
• Evaluate tax-efficient approaches to "planning with purpose" - including philanthropic giving, legacy design, and multi-generational wealth transfer strategies under the new rules.
• Integrate the OBBBA's planning implications into a holistic advisory process that enhances client understanding, engagement, and decision making.

This session zeroes in on the three things firms must get right now: how today’s §174 R&E rules (domestic expensing vs. amortization and foreign amortization) interact with the §41 R&D credit and drive cash-flow and P&L outcomes; what the updated Form 6765 means, especially expanded disclosures and business-component reporting that many filers will encounter beginning with 2026 filings; and why rigorous documentation is non-negotiable. We’ll translate the rules into a practical playbook you can take back to your team: aligning §174 and §41 choices, preparing for the new 6765 requirements, and building claim files (component narratives, QRE tie-outs, and evidence of experimentation) that hold up under scrutiny.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain how current §174 treatment (domestic vs. foreign) interacts with the §41 credit and affects cash flow and financial statements.
• Identify who is impacted by the new Form 6765 requirements for 2026 filings and summarize what must be reported (QRE summaries, business-component detail, key elections).
• Define the elements of defensible documentation—component narratives, project/QRE matrices, and supporting exhibits—and apply a simple structure for audit-ready files.
• Implement a practical cadence: mid-year estimates, real-time artifact capture during sprints/testing, and coordination of §280C and (if eligible) QSB payroll offset, all backed by proper documentation.

Data Foundations in Power BI: Getting It Right Before the Visuals

Learning Objectives:

• Apply core data-modeling principles in Power BI to build scalable, repeatable reporting structures.
• Analyze how proper data relationships, star schemas, and field organization improve cross-system connectivity and performance.
• Determine the impact of poor vs. strong data foundations on report flexibility, refresh speed, and long-term scalability.

As small to medium-sized accounting firms increasingly rely on digital platforms to manage sensitive financial data, the convergence of cybersecurity and privacy has become a critical concern. Speakers will discuss how these two domains intersect, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities for accounting businesses.

Learning Objectives:

• Awareness of security issues around sensitive data
• Reasons why cybersecurity and Privacy have become great concerns to practitioners
• Knowledge on how the two domains intersect.
• Knowledge about the unique challenges and opportunities for accounting firms and those in private

For this session, a panel of diverse professionals who want to help break the notion of a stereotypical CPA career in public or private… some who have actually done it and others who are doing things to motivate and inspire the next generation. The course will focus on early career choices that lead them to their current role. The course will include what we could be doing now to impact the next generation to spread awareness. The course will also touch upon career growth and trajectory.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify non-traditional career paths available to accounting professionals by examining real-world examples from diverse panelists who have transitioned beyond stereotypical public and private CPA roles.
• Evaluate key early-career decisions and skill-building opportunities that influence long-term career trajectory and open doors to innovative or less traditional professional pathways.
• Develop actionable strategies for mentoring, educating, and engaging the next generation of accounting professionals to broaden awareness of the profession’s evolving career possibilities and support their long-term growth.
• Assess methods for fostering inclusive and future-ready workplace cultures that attract and retain emerging accounting talent while supporting diverse career aspirations.

This session will see the return of one of our highest-rated speakers, John Tousley, CFA from Goldman Sachs. His presentation Responsibly Bullish will discuss the latest in macroeconomic and market conditions, including the common topics of artificial intelligence (bubbles and it's impact on the labor market), recession risk, tariffs, inflation, monetary policy, geopolitics, US mid-terms, valuation, and volatility.

Learning Objectives:

• To confidently navigate the chronic uncertainty of global capital markets.
• As we approach US mid-terms, to elevate your understanding of the historical relationships between elections and the markets.
• To simplify market complexity and takeaway a few helpful analogies to use with clients.

As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly transforms business operations, CPAs are uniquely positioned to guide clients through its responsible and effective adoption. This session equips CPAs with the knowledge and language needed to discuss AI opportunities, risks, and best practices with clients across industries.

Attendees will learn how to frame AI as a strategic tool—not just a buzzword—by focusing on its practical applications in finance, accounting, risk management, and decision support. The session will provide a clear overview of key AI use cases such as automated reconciliation, fraud detection, financial forecasting, and enhanced analytics.

Participants will also explore frameworks for evaluating AI tools, with emphasis on data privacy, governance, and regulatory compliance. The discussion will include talking points for managing client expectations and ethical considerations when recommending AI solutions.

Additionally, CPAs will gain best practices for integrating AI into their own firms’ operations, from enhancing productivity with AI-assisted workflows to ensuring appropriate human oversight. Real-world examples and case studies will be shared to illustrate successful implementations and common pitfalls to avoid.

By the end of this session, CPAs will be prepared to serve as trusted advisors on AI adoption, helping clients and their own organizations harness AI’s potential while safeguarding financial integrity and public trust.

Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will learn how to frame AI as a strategic tool.
• Attendees will gain best practices for integrating AI into their own firms’ operations.
• Attendees will understand how to incorporate AI work with workflows to ensuring appropriate human oversight.
• Attendees will be prepared to serve as trusted advisors on AI adoption, helping clients and their own organizations harness AI’s potential while safeguarding financial integrity and public trust.

When a business owner dies, income tax issues do not stop with the filing of the final individual return. Instead, fiduciary income tax considerations quickly arise as ownership interests pass to an estate or trust and entity-level income continues to be generated. This program explores the fiduciary income tax issues that commonly occur following the death of a shareholder or partner, including the allocation of income between the decedent and the estate, basis adjustments, income in respect of a decedent (IRD), and entity-specific considerations for S corporations and partnerships. Attendees will gain practical insights into common pitfalls, planning opportunities, and coordination challenges faced by fiduciaries and their advisors when administering business interests after death.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key fiduciary income tax issues that arise upon the death of a shareholder or partner, including IRD, income allocation, and basis considerations.
• Distinguish between the post-death income tax treatment of corporate stock and partnership interests, including the impact of §754 elections and fiduciary shareholder rules.
• Apply practical planning strategies to minimize fiduciary income tax exposure and avoid common administration mistakes when estates or trusts hold business interests.

The Private Company Council (PCC) helps improve the financial accounting and reporting standards for private companies and evaluates whether private company alternatives to existing GAAP are necessary. The PCC takes a proactive approach to its mission, engaging with private company stakeholders through various channels and providing important feedback to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to help it develop standards that provide more relevant information to users of private company financial statements.

This interactive, town hall-style forum will provide participants with the opportunity to engage directly with PCC members, FASB members, and FASB staff by providing feedback on the PCC’s current projects and future agenda priorities and discussing potential improvements to financial reporting for private companies.

The panelists will facilitate the discussion by providing an overview of the PCC’s agenda priority process, which ensures its efforts are aligned with the evolving needs of private company stakeholders and are focused on identifying solutions to their most pervasive and impactful financial reporting challenges. They will engage participants in a dialogue on the PCC’s current research projects resulting from previous private company Town Halls, stakeholder liaison meetings, and other stakeholder discussions and solicit input from participants on future PCC agenda priorities. Panelists will explain how the PCC evaluated and prioritized private company stakeholder feedback provided to the FASB during the Board’s 2025 agenda consultation process. Finally, they will highlight how you can share your views with the PCC on an ongoing basis and why your input is critical to its current and future projects.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the PCC’s agenda priority process
• Obtain an understanding of the PCC’s current projects and its future agenda priorities
• Obtain an understanding of how the PCC helps the FASB develop standards

As the audit landscape continues to evolve, firms must adapt by embracing new strategies, technologies, and leadership approaches to stay competitive. This session will provide an in-depth look into the modern audit practice of the future with overview of what a modern audit practice will look like in the future with a focus on strategic vision and leadership. Attendees will explore how emerging trends such as automation, AI, data analytics, and shifting client expectations are reshaping audit practices. We’ll also discuss the leadership skills required to guide firms through these transitions, drive innovation, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. With insights on long-term planning and positioning, this session will equip participants with the tools to lead their firms confidently into the future of auditing, ensuring sustainable growth and resilience in an increasingly complex environment.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain a strategic understanding of the future of audit practices and the key drivers of change, including technology, regulatory shifts, and client demands.
• Understand how creating and leveraging technologies like automation and AI can enhance audit quality, efficiency, and insights.
• Explore Understand the importance of a client-centric approach and how to adapt audit services to meet evolving client expectations.
• Learn Understand how to future-proof your audit practice, focusing on scalability, innovation, and sustainability in the face of industry disruption.

Join an industry thought leader on FASB ASC 606, Revenue from Contracts with Customers, as he explores continuing areas of difficulty for reporting entities with revenue recognition. Among other items, the session will cover auditing best practices, regulator focus areas, and peer review findings.

Learning Objectives:

• Apply technical literature and other practice guidance relevant to addressing the topics covered in this program.
• Recognize best practices and avoid common pitfalls when applying the principles of FASB ASC 606.
• Evaluate the various strategies and best practices available for auditing the revenue

Join Bill Pirolli, a 4o plus year practitioner, firm and profession leader, as he explores practical real-world best practices for increasing your firm’s profitability by working smarter, not harder.

In this fast-paced, popular session, Bill will review the seven drivers of profitability, including client selection and dismissal, billing and collection, building client leverage, avoiding scope creep, and more. Learn how deepening your efforts on client service lines and industry concentrations can lead to greater efficiency and profitability.

Bill's insights into Firm profitability comes not only from his years as a practitioner, partner and his firm administration roles but also from consulting with many individual firms across the country in his role at Succession Institute as Director of Firm Services. What are the attributes of highly profitable Firms? Is your Firm a high achiever?

In times of employee and capacity shortages, are you making the right decisions that will maximize client leverage as a Most Trusted Advisor? Come join the discussion!!!

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze key insights into the drivers of today’s most financially successful firms.
• Identify key takeaways that you can implement in your firms to enhance firm profitability.

Explore the evolving landscape of peer review and quality control in SOC engagements. Learn how to build resilient quality systems, prepare for external inspections, and leverage technology to enhance consistency and reduce risk across your firm.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain an understanding of peer review and enhanced oversight review (what are they? How are they structured, etc.)
• Identify common findings from recent peer reviews and learn how you can prevent these on your next peer review.
• Discuss the growing role of technology in a system of quality control.

In the wake of recent tax law changes and extensions, the landscape of entity structuring has shifted dramatically. This session dives into the core principles of entity selection and explores how recent legislative changes have reshaped the tax, liability and growth implications for businesses and their owners. Attendees will gain practical insights into the advantages and pitfalls of common entity types - including sole proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations, C corporations and LLCs - while learning how to align entity choice with strategic business goals. Through real-world examples and case studies, this session will equip practitioners to guide clients in making informed decisions that optimize tax outcomes, protect personal assets, and support long-term growth in today's evolving regulatory environment.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop strategies for advising clients on entity selection and restructuring in response to changing tax laws and evolving business needs.
• Analyze practical scenarios to determine the most advantageous entity structure for clients based on their unique business goals, risk tolerance, and growth plans.
• Identify key tax, liability, and operational considerations when selecting an entity type, including the impact of pass-through taxation, entity-level taxation, and liability protection.
• Understand how recent legislation has altered the relative benefits and drawbacks of different entity structures for business and their owners.

With the IRS's budget and staffing levels in seemingly constant flux, it can be easy to lose track of the current state of IRS enforcement efforts. This session will provide an update on current enforcement trends and recent notable cases, as well as some timely suggestions for working with the IRS during this resource-strapped era.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the IRS's current enforcement priorities.
• Explore the practical effects of recent tax case law.
• Determine which strategies are most likely to success in dealing with today's IRS.

This session delivers a fresh, energizing perspective on leadership by connecting three core pillars of professional success: Conation, Leadership, and Relationships. In this interactive and thought-provoking session, it explores how high-performing individuals and teams can leverage their natural instincts (conation), elevate their leadership presence, and build meaningful relationships, both in and out of the workplace.

Accountants and financial professionals are often tasked with more than technical expertise. They must communicate across departments, lead under pressure, and drive results in a people-centric world. This session introduces attendees to the science of conation, helping them understand how their instinctive approach to problem-solving directly impacts their leadership style, team dynamics, and personal relationships. We pair this with real-world leadership strategies and practical relationship-building tools that professionals can apply immediately in client meetings, team collaborations, and their personal lives.

Participants gain insight into how self-awareness and conative strengths can unlock better decision-making, reduce burnout, and increase workplace harmony. The session is designed to be engaging, insightful, and packed with practical takeaways—perfect for the modern finance professional who wants to lead with greater purpose and authenticity.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the core components of conation and how they influence individual decision-making, leadership effectiveness, and interpersonal dynamics in a professional setting.
• Apply relationship-building strategies that enhance workplace communication, team collaboration, and client engagement.
• Evaluate leadership behaviors and conative strengths to improve self-awareness, reduce friction, and align team roles for optimal performance.

This session will explore the new rules and benefits of the Opportunity Zone Program (version 2.0). It will provide planning opportunities for individuals with capital gains and interesting ways to combine the OZ Program with other capital gain management tax rules.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the tax benefits available to clients through the Opportunity Zone program 2.0 (as compared to 1.0).
• Learn rules and requirements for clients investing in the Opportunity Zone program 2.0.
• Evaluate risks and due-diligence considerations.
• Apply the rules through case studies.

What do you get when you mix one of the nation’s top tax writers with a seasoned IRS insider? A specially brewed “Tea Time” discussion between Forbes columnist Kelly Phillips Erb and long-time IRS communications chief Terry Lemons.

During this chatty and informative session, Erb and Lemons will spill the tea on a fun, wide-ranging session covering everything from insider IRS stories, the latest tax law developments, the state of the media, what really happens in Congress, the best barbeque in the country and whatever else comes up.

This discussion will feature a unique perspective from Erb, the “Taxgirl” famous for her high-profile columns and influential social media work, and Lemons, the former behind-the-scenes guy at the IRS who created the Dirty Dozen tax scams list and launched the agency’s social media program.

Flavoring the conversation will be their different backgrounds and career paths. Erb started in tax and law before becoming one of the industry’s top journalists. Meanwhile, Lemons began his career as a reporter covering the White House and Congress before joining the IRS and the tax community.

Learning Objectives:

• Get the latest updates and thinking on major tax law issues, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
• Learn more information about how the IRS operates and approaches dealing with the tax community, taxes, Congress and the media.
• Get a better understanding of the operations of the media and Washington that play a major role in affecting tax policy, tax administration and the work of the tax professional community.

The transition from Controller to CFO is one of the most significant—and often misunderstood—career leaps in the finance profession. While controllers excel in accuracy, compliance, and operational excellence, CFOs are expected to shape strategy, influence enterprise-wide decisions, and serve as a trusted advisor to the CEO and board. This session provides a clear, practical roadmap for finance leaders preparing to step into this expanded sphere of impact.

This session demystifies the differences between the two roles by examining how responsibilities, expectations, and measures of success shift at the executive level. Participants will explore how the CFO role extends beyond financial stewardship to include strategic planning, organizational leadership, risk navigation, and cross-functional partnership. Through this lens, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of what organizations truly need from their next CFO—and how to position themselves as that leader.

Attendees will be guided through an assessment of common gaps that can hinder the transition, including leadership presence, strategic thinking, communication with non-financial stakeholders, and influencing without authority. The discussion will highlight how controllers can begin closing these gaps long before stepping into the CFO seat by broadening their exposure beyond finance, developing stronger business acumen, and sharpening their ability to translate data into insights that drive action.

The session will also provide practical guidance on building an intentional development plan tailored to the CFO role. Panelists will share actionable strategies for cultivating executive presence, earning credibility across departments, and positioning oneself as a trusted strategic advisor. Topics will include leveraging stretch assignments, engaging in cross-functional initiatives, strengthening board-level communication, and seeking out mentors, sponsors, and coaches who can accelerate growth.

By the end of the session, participants will have a clearer understanding of what differentiates a successful controller from a successful CFO—and how to bridge that gap with purpose and confidence. Whether attendees are actively pursuing a CFO role or preparing for future opportunities, this session will equip them with insights and tools to step into the next chapter of their leadership journey with intention and impact.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe the key differences between the controller and CFO roles in terms of focus, expectations, and influence.
• Assess gaps in leadership, strategic thinking, and communication that must be addressed to step confidently into the CFO role.
• Outline a development plan to build the executive presence, cross-functional credibility, and business acumen required of a CFO.

This lecture focuses on the application of the U.S. tax laws as they relate to identifying a client's foreign versus domestic trust structure, and how to identify whether such trust is a grantor or nongrantor trust for U.S. tax purposes. Properly identifying a trust is essential to ensuring that the appropriate IRS forms are filed. Failure to do so could lead to various penalties.

This lecture outlines a roadmap from which to analyze trust deeds and discusses some of the key nuances in the grantor trust rules that cause the practitioner to reexamine the trust based on direct/indirect transfers to the trust or changes in the income tax residency of the relevant parties.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize whether your client's entity qualifies as a trust for U.S. tax purposes.
• Identify the appropriate IRS classification for your client's trust to ensure proper compliance with IRS reporting obligations.

Numbers inform decisions but stories are what move people.
Yet most financial presentations stop at the numbers.

In this high-impact session, you’ll discover the six stories every accounting and finance leader should master to drive clarity, confidence, and action inside their organizations. You’ll learn how to use contrast, connection, strategy, vision, benchmarks, and narrative reframing to turn your financial insights into stories executives can rally behind.

If you’ve ever felt your message wasn’t landing, your recommendations weren’t adopted, or your presentations lacked engagement, this session will show you how to fix that with simple, practical story frameworks you can apply immediately.

Get ready to elevate your influence and become the strategic finance leader your organization trusts.

Learning Objectives:

• Strengthen communication by structuring financial messages around strategy, explaining not just what the numbers say, but why they matter and where the business should go next.
• Construct compelling narrative-driven financial communication, using contrast, context, vision, strategy, and human connection, that makes recommendations more memorable and actionable.
• Identify and apply the six essential story types used by high-impact finance and accounting leaders to clarify insights, influence decision-making, and drive organizational alignment.

This session covers frequently asked A&A questions asked by members of the Private Companies Practice Session’s (PCPS) Center for Plain English Accounting (CPEA) in the areas of audit, compilation, and review engagements, with a focus on private company issues. Get answers to technical questions that are impacting practitioners and their clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze technical literature and other practice guidance relevant to addressing the topics covered in this session.
• Determine answers to common A&A technical questions in the areas of audit, compilation, and review engagements.
• Identify recent developments related to current A&A issues.

U.S. GAAP isn’t the best financial reporting framework for all entities. This issue is a common peer review finding when financial statements are prepared in accordance with special purpose frameworks (such as, cash-basis, modified cash-basis, tax basis and the AICPA's FRF for SMEs). This session will cover the special purpose frameworks that are available, how they differ from U.S. GAAP (including recent changes to FRF for SMEs), and the common peer review findings.

Learning Objectives:

• Distinguish the differences between special purpose frameworks.
• Analyze the reporting requirements in AICPA Professional Standards when financial statements are prepared in accordance with a special purpose framework.
• Understand the common peer review findings for special purpose frameworks.
• Understand the recent changes to the AICPA's FRF for SMEs.

The “sandwich generation” is redefining the future of financial planning, as professionals, firms, and clients alike juggle the competing demands of aging parents, growing children, and complex financial realities. This session explores the latest technology, consulting tools, and evolving resources designed to support caregivers and families in navigating this journey.
We’ll examine the challenges from every angle—clients we serve, the firms and teams we lead, and our own lives as professionals—covering critical areas such as retirement and tax planning, estate strategies, and long-term care. Beyond the technical, we’ll dive into the human side of planning: difficult family conversations, care coordination, and the dynamics that shape decision-making. Attendees will leave with practical insights, out-of-the-box strategies, and a toolkit of emerging solutions to better guide families through the longevity economy.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify emerging tools and technology that support the sandwich generation in managing financial, caregiving, and family responsibilities
• Evaluate planning strategies across key domains—including retirement, tax, estate, and long‑term care—to better serve clients balancing multigenerational needs.
• Apply practical approaches to the human side of planning, such as facilitating difficult family conversations, navigating care coordination, and addressing complex family dynamics
• Incorporate innovative consulting resources and products into firm practices and personal planning to strengthen resilience for clients, teams, and professionals themselves.

As client needs shift from compliance to advisory, many accountants feel stuck—they know the numbers but struggle to lead strategic conversations. This high-energy, interactive session uses foundational improv techniques to build the communication muscles accounting professionals need to thrive in today’s environment.

Through practical exercises, small-group activities, and real-life client scenarios, participants improve their listening, learn to handle curveballs, and practice having value-driven conversations. No performance required—just a willingness to grow.

This session is especially powerful for firms developing advisory services or looking to increase team confidence and client trust. Participants consistently report feeling more confident in high-stakes client conversations after applying these techniques.

Learning Objectives:

• Apply foundational improv techniques to strengthen real-time communication, active listening, and responsiveness in client and team conversations.
• Build confidence in leading unscripted conversations with curiosity, including handling client objections, unexpected questions, or high-stakes discussions.
• Use simple, repeatable exercises to improve collaboration, psychological safety, and trust within teams.

Put your SOC knowledge to the test in this fast-paced, interactive gameshow. Compete with peers, tackle real-world scenarios, and walk away with bragging rights and practical insights into SOC guidelines and best practices.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand Core SOC Principles: Gain a solid grasp of foundational SOC guidelines and best practices.
• Translate Insights into Practical Application: Learn how to apply SOC concepts to real-world scenarios for better operational outcomes.

Every new client is an adrenaline rush, but if it’s a high profile or high-net-worth client, it’s even more exciting— until a dispute arises. Learn why working with the rich and famous may result in expensive and time-consuming claims and hear strategies for reducing the impact on your firm.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn what kind of professional liability claims can arise when delivering services to the rich and famous
• Understand why claims made against CPAs by the rich and famous can be difficult to defend
• Learn strategies to help manage those risks

CPA firms are moving fast with AI, but most are trying to layer it on top of scattered data, inconsistent workflows, and years of workarounds. This session shows how to fix that foundation without turning it into a massive project. You’ll learn how to build a smarter data ecosystem that supports accuracy, efficiency, and practical AI adoption.
We start by looking at the real issues firms are dealing with today. Files live in too many places. Core data like client info, engagement setup, and workpapers isn’t defined the same way across teams. Processes vary by partner. Staff spend too much time looking for information, reworking tasks, and navigating unclear systems. These challenges existed before AI, but AI is now magnifying them.
From there, we introduce a simple framework you can apply immediately. The first layer is data governance, which gives your firm clarity about what data matters, who owns it, and what “good” looks like. The second layer is process quality. When steps, handoffs, and workflows are consistent, you reduce rework and make it possible for automation to perform reliably. The third layer is enablement. With good data and better flow, you can start unlocking real AI gains, such as faster prep work, improved review, and more confidence in final outputs.
You’ll work through a real firm scenario that highlights how governance, process, and automation come together. In small groups, you’ll identify the root cause, define the data owners, outline the process fixes, and consider a small AI win that becomes possible once the foundation is in place. The exercise gives you a practical feel for how this framework works in day-to-day situations.
The session closes with a three-week action plan you can take back to your firm. Week one focuses on choosing one data domain to clean up and assigning ownership. Week two walks through mapping and improving one workflow. Week three offers simple automation or AI ideas that show quick impact without requiring a major investment. This plan is realistic for firms of any size and helps build momentum without overwhelming staff.
You’ll leave with a clearer view of what a smarter data ecosystem looks like and how it supports reliable AI. You’ll also have a practical starting point to begin improving your firm’s data, processes, and decision-making.
By the end of the session, you’ll understand why good data is your firm’s greatest asset, why process consistency matters more than ever, and how small, thoughtful steps can set you up for better AI use and better results for clients and staff.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to describe the three-layer framework for building a smarter data ecosystem (data governance, process quality, and enablement) and explain how each layer supports accurate, consistent, and AI-ready firm operations.
• Participants will be able to analyze a real-world firm scenario to identify root-cause data and workflow issues, assign appropriate data owners, and outline targeted process improvements that reduce rework and support automation.
• Participants will be able to develop a three-week action plan that prioritizes a key data domain, maps and improves one workflow, and selects a small, high-impact automation or AI enhancement to demonstrate early value.

Join us for a guided exploration of the AICPA ENGAGE exhibit hall, where you'll discover the cutting-edge technologies transforming the accounting profession. This interactive session takes you on a curated journey to select exhibitors showcasing innovative solutions that address today's most pressing accounting challenges.

Throughout this 50-minute tour, you'll:

- Get hands-on demonstrations of emerging technologies from leading providers
- Learn how these tools can streamline your workflow and enhance client services
- Engage directly with technology experts to ask questions specific to your practice
- Discover integration opportunities between different platforms
- Connect with fellow practitioners facing similar technology decisions

Our knowledgeable guide will provide context for each stop, helping you understand how these solutions fit into the evolving accounting ecosystem. Whether you're looking to modernize your practice, solve specific operational challenges, or simply stay ahead of technology trends, this guided tour offers valuable insights in an efficient format.

Perfect for firm leaders, technology decision-makers, and forward-thinking practitioners seeking practical technology solutions. Limited spots available — reserve your place today!

Learning Objectives:

• Identify emerging technologies that can automate routine accounting tasks and improve practice efficiency.
• Evaluate potential technology investments based on ROI metrics, implementation requirements, and integration capabilities with existing systems.
• Develop a practical technology adoption roadmap specific to your firm's size, client base, and service offerings.

Leadership isn’t built in isolation, it’s cultivated through meaningful relationships, intentional networking, and the presence of influential advocates. This session will explore how professionals can move beyond transactional connections and begin building strategic, trust-based relationships that support long-term growth. Participants will learn how to identify and nurture networks that align with their goals, how to show up with purpose in relationship-building, and how to develop and sustain sponsor relationships that open doors to visibility and advancement.Whether you're emerging in your career or stepping into higher leadership, this session will provide practical tools to strengthen your influence and position yourself for growth, intentionally.

Key Topics:
* The difference between mentors, coaches, and sponsors—and why each matters
* Shifting from transactional networking to strategic, purpose-driven connection* Building trust and credibility as the foundation for meaningful relationships
* Identifying high-impact relationships that align with your goals
* Cultivating and maintaining sponsor relationships with authenticity
* Navigating relationship-building in hybrid and virtual settings
* The role of influence and visibility in leadership advancement

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the differences between mentors, sponsors, and other key professional relationships, and their unique roles in leadership development.
• Recognize the characteristics of intentional, strategic networking that support long-term career growth
• Identify opportunities to build trust and credibility as the foundation for high-impact relationships.
• Recall methods for cultivating and maintaining sponsor relationships with authenticity and purpose.

Generative AI continues to transform how business professionals approach research, writing, analysis, and decision-making. As these tools become more advanced and deeply integrated into platforms like Microsoft 365 Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, and others, mastering prompt engineering has become a core digital skill. This session reveals the proven techniques for crafting effective AI prompts that yield faster, clearer, and more actionable results—whether you’re generating reports, analyzing data, or creating client communications.

Rather than relying on trial and error, participants will learn to structure prompts with precision, effectively leverage context, and understand the nuances of interacting with various AI systems. With intelligent prompting, you’ll unlock higher-quality output and maximize your return on AI investment.

Learning Objectives:

• List the four key components of AI prompts
• Identify examples of prompts used for tasks, context, expectations, and output
• Name at least four types of tasks that generative AI tools can do when prompted correctly
• Apply generative AI to accounting tasks

As organizations increasingly integrate AI-powered tools from third-party vendors into their operations, the risks extend far beyond technical vulnerabilities. Ethical considerations – such as bias, transparency, accountability, and data privacy – are now central to responsible AI adoption. This session equips participants with a framework for evaluating AI tools (i.e. ISO 42001) not just for functionality, but for ethical integrity. Attendees will learn how to ask the right questions during vendor onboarding, assess risk across compliance and reputational dimensions, and implement governance strategies that align with organizational values and regulatory expectations. The session will also explore how these considerations impact SOC engagements — both in evaluating vendors included in the report and in assessing third-party tools used by companies to gather and process information for the controls.

Existing irrevocable trusts often lack the needed flexibility to achieve certain goals. This session will explore why clients are interested in modifying trusts, the mechanics and techniques used to modify trusts as well as the tax and fiduciary concerns associated with modifying trusts.

Learning Objectives:

• Common reasons why clients want to modify irrevocable trusts
• Tax considerations in connection with modifying irrevocable trusts

For closely held and family-owned businesses, succession planning is one of the most important—and most commonly deferred—elements of advanced estate planning. A successful transition requires far more than technical tax work. It demands alignment of the owner’s personal goals, business objectives, family dynamics, valuation considerations, and long-term wealth strategy.

In this session will outline a practical framework for advising clients on ownership and leadership transitions. The session emphasizes actionable planning steps that advisors can implement immediately, supported by real examples drawn from client engagements.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key elements of an effective business succession plan and evaluate how owner goals, exit timelines, and family or stakeholder dynamics influence the planning process.
• Distinguish between internal and external succession options and analyze the tax, valuation, and structural implications of each pathway.
• Apply advanced estate, gift, and income tax strategies—including sales, gifts, trusts, buy-sell agreements, and hybrid structures—to support tax-efficient ownership transitions.
• Develop a practical advisor workflow using checklists, governance considerations, and liquidity planning tools to help clients prepare their businesses for ownership and leadership transition.

This session will provide an overview of the Professional Ethics Executive Committee (PEEC) and projects, including such hot topics as alternative practice structures, artificial intelligence, and harmonization with international ethics standards.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the purpose and purview of PEEC.
• Identify ongoing projects PEEC has undertaken to keep the Code of Professional Conduct fit for purpose.
• Distinguish how new and revised guidance will affect practice.

This session covers frequently asked A&A questions asked by members of the Private Companies Practice Section’s (PCPS) Center for Plain English Accounting (CPEA) in the areas of accounting and financial reporting, with a focus on private company issues. Get answers to technical questions that are impacting practitioners and their clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze technical literature and other practice guidance relevant to addressing the topics covered in this session.
• Determine answers to common A&A technical questions in the areas of financial reporting and accounting.
• Identify recent developments related to current A&A issues.

CPAs are redefining their roles by providing holistic financial guidance as needs expand beyond traditional tax preparation. With growing complexity in retirement and estate planning, professionals are increasingly asked whether annuities and life insurance can provide effective solutions.

This session explores how these tools can be strategically applied in tax planning, retirement income strategies, and estate preservation. Attendees will gain practical insights into structuring annuity contracts for predictable cash flow, leveraging life insurance for wealth transfer and asset protection, and navigating the regulatory and ethical considerations surrounding these products.

Through practical case studies and actionable frameworks, CPAs will learn how to incorporate annuities and life insurance into comprehensive planning. These strategies not only deliver reliable retirement income but also safeguard assets, support long-term care needs, and ensure efficient estate preservation. By embedding them into broader financial plans, CPAs can help reduce tax burdens, protect wealth across generations, and provide guidance that truly resonates. Participants will leave equipped with strategies they can immediately apply in practice.

Learning Objectives:

• Categorize different types of annuities and life insurance products according to their tax, retirement, and estate planning applications.
• Formulate advanced strategies that integrate annuities and life insurance into comprehensive financial plans for different client scenarios.
• Contrast the benefits and limitations of annuities versus life insurance in addressing longevity risk, asset protection, long-term care, and legacy goals.
• Assess and Evaluate case studies to determine the most effective use of annuities and life insurance, with an emphasis on compliance and ethical considerations.

The session will cover the different options available to existing CPA firms or individual CPAs to add Financial Planning services. It will include options where the CPA manages assets as well as does planning only.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess options to offer financial planning
• Determine steps to take within your existing practice

The CPA profession is experiencing one of the most active, complex, and transformative M&A cycles in its history. Private equity, consolidators, and nontraditional investors are reshaping the competitive landscape, while traditional mergers continue to accelerate across all firm sizes. This session will unpack what is happening in today’s market—why the volume is so high, what is driving valuations, and how the entrance of new capital is changing the rules of the game.
But this conversation doesn't stop with “Who is being acquired?” or “What deal happened last week?” We will also reframe M&A as a proactive growth strategy—one that every firm can leverage to acquire talent, expand advisory capabilities, gain scale, strengthen independence, and build long-term enterprise value. Rather than viewing M&A only through the lens of sellers, attendees will explore how future-ready firms use M&A to shape their destiny. This is an opportunity to replace fear with insight and replace uncertainty with strategy—so leaders walk away understanding both the current market and their path forward in it.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain the current M&A environment in the CPA profession
• Interpret the strategic implications of current market activity
• Assess ways firms of any size can participate as acquirers
• Evaluate internal readiness factors—such as governance, capital, culture, leadership discipline, and integration capability

Form 1099-DA is new for 2025 along with new basis tracking and identification rules effective starting in 2025. Many digital asset transactions will not be reported on this new form but still have tax consequences taxpayers and their tax advisers need to understand and apply. Legislative changes likely in the 119th Congress will be covered along with questions to ask clients to help identify the tax rules applicable to their digital asset activities.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain how to use information on Form 1099-DA and what digital asset tax information is not on a Form 1099-DA
• Explain how to identify digital asset tax rules relevant to clients.
• Apply key IRS guidance on digital asset taxation and any recent legislation changes in this area.

Having a Written Information Security Plan (WISP) is a legal requirement for tax professionals — but in today’s threat environment, simply checking the box isn’t enough. This session brings together a data breach survivor and an IRS insider for a gripping exploration of what it truly takes to protect your firm from evolving cyber risks.

While templates and boilerplate language may technically satisfy compliance, they often leave firms dangerously exposed — to attackers, regulatory scrutiny, denied insurance claims and reputational damage. Through compelling storytelling, expert guidance and real-world examples, you’ll discover how to:

• Transform your WISP from a static document into a living cybersecurity blueprint
• Create a culture of security accountability across every level of your firm
• Prepare your team to serve as a resilient first line of defense—not a weak link
• Avoid common mistakes that can void cyber liability insurance coverage
• Establish safeguards for secure data sharing with third-party vendors and partners
• Learn more about emerging scams and threats aimed at professionals like you.

This session is ideal for firm owners, compliance officers and security leads who want to operationalize their WISP into a practical, breach-ready strategy. It also equips all professionals — regardless of their role — with a deeper understanding of WISP components and how to integrate them into day-to-day practice

Learning Objectives:

• Explain the core requirements and intent behind the federally mandated Written Information Security Plan (WISP) and what makes one truly effective.
• Apply practical strategies to transform the WISP into an active, daily defense mechanism against common cyber threats.
• Conduct a real-world risk assessment that includes employee training, phishing awareness and vendor oversight.
• Evaluate how to align cybersecurity practices with insurance coverage, vendor contracts, and data-sharing protocols to reduce financial and reputational exposure in the event of a breach.

It’s no secret that the relationship between bookkeepers and CPAs is often tense – but does it need to be that way?

Instead of throwing the financial statements "over the wall”, let’s create common ground by collaborating throughout the year. We’ll learn to leverage technology and build systems to share information at the time it’s most actionable – rather than only at tax-time, when the pressure’s on and it’s too late to address certain types of issues. Highly-skilled and educated bookkeepers can go a long way toward solving the pipeline crisis as well as closing the tax gap.

Be inspired to establish a workflow that effectively communicates a) who is responsible for what; b) whether or not a task is complete; and c) where the source documents can be found. This process (whether internally at a CAS practice or between firms) can replace the proverbial wall between practitioners with a workflow accessible to everyone.

Who wins when we tear down the wall? CPAs, Bookkeepers, and most of all – our clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Address the most common pain-points between bookkeepers and tax pros to minimize common accounting issues, such as: posting into prior periods, negative Balance Sheet items, W-2 and 1099 information return reconciliations, and personal expenses hidden in the Profit & Loss.
• Learn tips & tricks for establishing effective workflows, processes and communication between tax professionals and bookkeepers.
• Explore strategies for involving the client as a participant on the accounting team.
• Develop solutions for the CPA pipeline by involving non-traditional talent to alleviate the tax pro workload; better understand what bookkeepers and CAS practitioners don’t already know (and why) and how you can help level up their skills.

Join us for a guided exploration of the AICPA ENGAGE exhibit hall, where you'll discover the cutting-edge technologies transforming the accounting profession. This interactive session takes you on a curated journey to select exhibitors showcasing innovative solutions that address today's most pressing accounting challenges.

Throughout this 50-minute tour, you'll:

- Get hands-on demonstrations of emerging technologies from leading providers
- Learn how these tools can streamline your workflow and enhance client services
- Engage directly with technology experts to ask questions specific to your practice
- Discover integration opportunities between different platforms
- Connect with fellow practitioners facing similar technology decisions

Our knowledgeable guide will provide context for each stop, helping you understand how these solutions fit into the evolving accounting ecosystem. Whether you're looking to modernize your practice, solve specific operational challenges, or simply stay ahead of technology trends, this guided tour offers valuable insights in an efficient format.

Perfect for firm leaders, technology decision-makers, and forward-thinking practitioners seeking practical technology solutions. Limited spots available — reserve your place today!

Learning Objectives:

• Identify emerging technologies that can automate routine accounting tasks and improve practice efficiency.
• Evaluate potential technology investments based on ROI metrics, implementation requirements, and integration capabilities with existing systems.
• Develop a practical technology adoption roadmap specific to your firm's size, client base, and service offerings.

Leadership is demonstrated in the everyday moments, how we communicate, follow through, take ownership, and handle challenges. This session focuses on how emerging professionals can lead through their presence and actions, even before they hold formal authority. Participants will learn how to build professional credibility, communicate with clarity and confidence, and approach problems proactively to move work forward. Through scenario-based discussion and reflective prompts, attendees will identify practical ways to show leadership in their current roles and strengthen the impact they have on their teams and organizations.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop Influence Without Authority – Participants learn how to build credibility and trust through AUTHENTIC and EMPATHIC interactions, enabling them to lead and impact decisions without a formal leadership role.
• Enhance Communication Skills – Participants will discuss persuasive communication strategies that help them gain support, foster collaboration, and drive change.
• Strengthen Emotional Intelligence – Participants identify key emotional intelligence traits (heavy on motivation through goal setting, empathy, self-awareness, and mitigating biases) that enhance workplace relationships and leadership presence.
• Apply Practical Leadership Techniques – Participants leave with actionable strategies to inspire others, lead with confidence, and create meaningful impact in their organizations.

This session will cover the importance for those with estates under $15 million to have an estate plan. It will also cover key post-mortem tax elections available to small estate owners including the portability election, along with pertinent federal and state elections and planning when preparing the decedent's final income tax return and the first return for the estate or trust. Finally, we will cover the options when the decedent was a partner or shareholder of an S corporation at the time of death.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain an understanding of the numerous reasons why an estate plan is important for those, including estates under $15 million.
• Gain an understanding of post-mortem elections, including the mechanics of the portability election available for smaller estates.
• Gain an understanding of the various federal and state elections and planning opportunities when preparing the decedent's final income tax return and the first tax return for the estate or trust.
• Gain an understanding of selecting the options and elections to be considered when the decedent was a partner or shareholder in an S corporation.

Many practitioners assume that Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS) under Section 1202 is straightforward. In reality, it contains nuanced rules and common misunderstandings.

This session will walk through the key challenges involved in determining whether a corporation qualifies as a Qualified Small Business and highlight the traps that can prevent shareholders from claiming the Section 1202 exclusion. We will cover both the corporate-level and shareholder-level tests, some of which apply at a single point in time, while others must be satisfied on an ongoing basis.

We will also explore how various shareholder transactions can either preserve, enhance, or inadvertently eliminate eligibility for the QSBS exclusion.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will gain a clear understanding of the detailed requirements a corporation must meet to be considered a Qualified Small Business, including the factors that may jeopardize this status.
• Participants will be able to identify the shareholder-level considerations involved in acquiring, holding, and maintaining QSBS eligibility.

Bridging the Gap: Integrating SOC Findings into Financial Audits (NAA, SOC)

Learning Objectives:

• Gain an understanding of SOC engagements including scope and reporting.
• Identify key areas of SOC reports that can add immediate value to a risk-based approach to financial audits.
• Learn best practices related to SOC report incorporation into a financial audit.

Four speakers will discuss aspects of a current issue facing the advanced estate planning community. Each speaker will have 15-18 minutes to present their sub-topic and answer questions.

Learning Objectives:

• See Mary Kay Foss's description
• See Mary Kay Foss's description

A briefing by the Chief Auditor and Chair of the Auditing Standards Board (ASB) highlighting the Board’s recent activities, key standard-setting initiatives, and priorities. The presentation will provide insights into current and emerging issues affecting auditing practice and the ASB’s role in maintaining high-quality auditing standards.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain knowledge of ASB activities as well as proposed and new standards.
• Comprehend the impacts of proposed and new standards.

Asset Retirement Obligations (AROs) accounting guidance was originally issued in response to power plant decommissioning, but the guidance has implication well beyond power plants. Today many lease contracts, and statutory guidelines establish asset retirement obligations which if not identified may go unrecognized in the financial statements. Causing inaccurate financial reporting, regulatory compliance issues, and lack of confidence in the financial statements. that may go undetected.

Learning Objectives:

• Develop an understanding for when an Asset Retirement Obligation exist.
• Learn the initial accounting for recognition of an Asset Retirement Obligation and related disclosures
• Understand the complexities in subsequent recognition and measurement of an Asset Retirement Obligation and related disclosures
• Understand the settlement of Asset Retirement Obligations and related disclosures

Strategies for maximizing retirement income while minimizing impact on Medicare IRMAA and income tax deductions. Focus on aligning Social Security, Medicare, retirement plan distributions/conversions and tax deductions into a unified retirement income strategy.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn a holistic approach to timing of retirement income and plan distributions to protect against longevity risk and minimize impact of income taxes.
• Strategies to plan for Medicare IRMAA and deduction phase-outs.
• Enhance learning through case studies showing impact of various retirement income decisions.

Focusing on High-Net-Worth Investors (HNWIs) and elevating the definition of your ideal client is not a new idea, but in today’s environment, how do you refine this focus and create greater momentum with wealthier families? Are you pulling the right growth levers to accelerate your business? How are you delivering the advice and solutions needed from these demanding, discerning, and diverse HNW investors?

Learning Objectives:

• Understand How to Attract, Serve, and Retain HNW clients
• Understand the importance of Legacy planning and connecting with NextGen investors
• Understand the key aspects of working with HNW clients and how to re-tool your practice to capture this future opportunity

If clients create too much risk for your firm or drain your time, energy, or profits—it may be time for them to go. Learn how to evaluate problematic clients and put them on the path to rehabilitation or termination to help reduce risk and make space for those that are a better fit for your firm.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify situations where client termination should be considered
• Recognize practices to terminate clients professionally and in a manner that helps lessen the risk of a retaliatory malpractice claim
• Select new client opportunities that fit the firm’s risk profile

You've heard that CAS is the fastest growing service in the accounting profession, but you're wondering how to adapt CAS best practices to your small firm while still serving your current clients. This session will focus on how you can define services and right-fit clients, create capacity with staff and technology, and share the CAS opportunity with clients, all with a staff of ten or fewer!

Learning Objectives:

• Understand that the value of CAS lies in its standardized approach.
• Plan to create a dedicated team that can serve clients at both the transactional and advisory levels.
• Define a strategy to limit referrals to your identified industry niche and "right-fit" clients.

Analysis of key business provisions of H.R. 1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act/OBBBA) as well as significant court decisions, federal tax regulations, and IRS rulings of the past year relevant to all types of businesses and entities. Developments covered include new and revised deductions, §174A R&D expensing, the reinstated bonus depreciation landscape, updates to §163(j), interactions with PTET regimes, changes affecting Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZ), and refinements to §1202 QSBS. Additional focus is given to new employee benefit considerations, self-employment tax guidance, entity-level planning, and compliance obligations. Throughout the session, due diligence, documentation, and practical planning opportunities are emphasized to help practitioners translate these changes into meaningful guidance for their business clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify tax planning and compliance points from significant federal developments of the past year relevant to businesses, with a particular focus on H.R. 1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) updates involving new deductions, §174A R&D expensing, PTET interactions, §163(j) interest limitations, Qualified Opportunity Zones (QOZ), and §1202 qualified small business stock (QSBS).
• Identify due diligence actions highlighted by these developments, particularly under H.R. 1 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act/OBBBA), including documentation, modeling, basis considerations, financial-statement impacts, and entity-level structuring issues for corporations, partnerships, and S corporations.
• Apply planning strategies that integrate legislative, regulatory, and judicial changes into ongoing and multiyear business planning, transaction structuring, compensation design, and risk management.

Strategic guide to building a future-proof, AI-enabled infrastructure without drowning in tools or distractions. Explore how do you strike the right balance between a best-of-breed approach and platform consolidation; what’s critical to invest in now—and what can wait.; how should firms think about sequencing their technology investments.

Learning Objectives:

• Share a strategic guide to building platforms and solutions that will be future-proof
• Knowledge on how to strike the right balance between a best-of-breed approach and platform consolidation
• What’s critical to invest in now—and what can wait
• Knowledge on how firms should think about sequencing their technology investments today and tomorrow.

Join us as we play Family Feud with the topic of a reality-based ransomware attack.

Two lucky teams will compete with the audience, including our virtual attendees, to see who is indeed the best at navigating a cyber attack. To start, we will set the stage with a ransomware situation and reveal the details bit by bit. We will walk through what actually happens during an attack, what decisions need to be made, and lessons which are typically learned. Topics covered will include incident response, attorney contact, cyber insurance, forensics and remediation.

Contestants and audience members will have the opportunity to participate and uncover, piece by piece, the elements of an attack and your organization’s response. The goal of this program is for participants to take away a high-level understanding of how incident response works, what to consider, how to prepare, execute on your incident response plan and pattern corporate lessons learned into your overall cybersecurity program.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the basic flow of a cybersecurity incident
• Understand the elements of responding to a cybersecurity incident
• Leverage lessons learned to improve your cybersecurity

In a profession built on precision, pressure, and constant change, finding internal stillness can feel impossible. In this session I share my personal journey, not as an expert, but as a business leader, father, and partner, searching for greater clarity and calm. What began as casual reading and small experiments slowly reshaped how I lead teams, handle stress, and approach everyday choices. Simple practices like “control what you can” and “pause before reacting” became daily habits that helped me show up with more presence, patience, and purpose at work and at home. This session isn’t a lecture on theory, it’s a practical, story-driven look at habits that quietly improve decision-making, improve team dynamics, and make leadership more sustainable.

This seesion will take the attendee beyond the basics and explore the more complex situtations that a practiioner may encounter. Among the topics to be discussed are including capital gains in DNI, dealing with the fiduciary income tax deduction under Section 642(c), the income tax issues of funding bequests, how to calculate and allocate DNI on the death of a beneficiary, dealing with estates and trusts holding interests in partnerships and S corporations and more.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn how to handle the allocation of DNI when an estate or trust beneficiary dies.
• Learn how the income from a partnership or S corporation is handled when the estate or trust holds an interest in a partnership or S corporation.
• Explore the technicalities of qualifying for a fiduciary income tax charitable deduction.
• Discover how to avoid mistakes when dealing with estates and trusts with complex assets.

As digital assets reshape financial services, SOC auditors must adapt. This session demystifies blockchain auditing, asset verification, and transaction tracing, equipping CPAs with the tools to confidently assess digital asset environments.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand what digital assets are and the types that may be the subject of an audit report.
• Recognize publicly available tools for auditing existence.
• Establish basic principles for thinking about audit objectives when digital assets are involved.
• Review unique risks posed when auditing digital assets.

Modern CPAs need more than technical accuracy. They need the ability to turn data into a clear, compelling story. This session builds on the foundation of your Power BI data modeling skills and shows you how to translate numbers into insights leaders can act on. We’ll focus on how to highlight what truly matters, connect financial results to the broader business narrative, and elevate your reporting from informative to influential. Attendees will walk away with practical strategies to communicate financial performance with clarity, confidence, and impact.

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze financial data to identify the key drivers and insights that matter most to stakeholders.
• Determine the most effective way to present financial results so decision-makers can quickly understand performance and trends.
• Apply storytelling techniques to enhance clarity, relevance, and impact in financial reporting.

Change rarely fails because of strategy—it fails because of people dynamics leaders underestimate. In this session, global finance executive and author Pascal Kornfuehrer reframes change leadership through the lens of a modern business fable, revealing what truly happens inside teams when transformation begins. Drawing on his international CFO career, Post-Merger Integration leadership, startup advisory work, and forthcoming book, Pascal introduces a practical, story-driven model for leading change when the path ahead is unclear.

Participants will explore why clarity is a leadership responsibility—not an outcome—how trust forms through vulnerability, and why resistance often signals misalignment rather than capability gaps. Through relatable characters and real-world lessons, Pascal offers a refreshingly human perspective on transformation that goes far beyond traditional change management frameworks.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand why the change leader themself is the most critical success factor in change initiatives
• Learn what matters most in change initiatives

The automatic allocation (GST trust) rules under section 2632(c) are some of the more complex rules in the federal wealth transfer tax law. Yet, since the enactment of section 2632(c) in 2000, the IRS has issued no regulations and very little guidance interpreting the rules. As a result, there are many common situations where GST exemption is applied to trusts that are unlikely ever to need it and where GST exemption is not applied to trusts that are likely to need it. Additionally, there are situations where the application of automatic allocation is ambiguous. This presentation will discuss these ambiguous, unwanted and unexpected automatic allocation results and what you can do to remedy them.

Learning Objectives:

• Ability to apply the automatic allocation rules to a trust to determine whether automatic allocation has been allocated to any given transfer to a trust.
• Understanding how and why to elect in or out of automatic allocation.
• Understanding under what circumstances the IRS will grant relief to make a missed GST election, the standards for the IRS's grant of relief, and the basics of how to apply for relief.

This presentation explores how adopting modern reconciliation standards and processes, utilizing new methods and technologies, enhances financial accuracy, efficiency, and compliance. It outlines key strategies, benefits, and steps for updating reconciliation practices independently of specific software solutions.

Learning Objectives:

• Applying modern reconciliation standards and processes utilizing new methods and technologies to enhance financial accuracy, efficiency, and compliance.
• Distinguishes key strategies, benefits, and steps for updating reconciliation practices independently of specific software solutions and important considerations for successful implementation.

With the issuance of SAS No. 149, Special Considerations—Audits of Group Financial Statements (Including the Work of Component Auditors), firms face significant changes in how group audits are planned, performed, and documented. This session will highlight the most impactful updates—particularly around risk assessment, component auditor oversight, and coordination—and offer practical guidance to implement the standard effectively.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key provisions and changes introduced in SAS No. 149 and their impact on audit planning and performance.
• Describe best practices for coordinating and supervising component auditors in compliance with the new standard.

We are witnessing a shift from "crypto speculation" to "digital finance infrastructure." While the headlines focus on volatile coin prices, the underlying technology is quietly overhauling how money moves and how assets are owned, and how the economic system will work. This session looks beyond Bitcoin to the structural changes coming to the accounting and financial planning professions.

We will explore how Real World Assets (RWA)—like real estate, private credit, and private equity—are moving onchain to unlock liquidity and create new collateral opportunities. We will examine how stablecoins are modernizing settlement from "T+2" to "T-Instant," and how Artificial Intelligence combined with Blockchain will eventually allow for hyper-personalized portfolios. Prepare your practice for an era of self-custody, on-chain identity, and 24/7 global markets.

Learning Objectives:

• How Bitcoin changed our views on money: Understand how the advent of Bitcoin changed our idea of money, and what that means for the future of investments
• Evaluate the Tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA): Explain how traditional investments (real estate, private credit) are moving onchain to increase transparency, liquidity, and collateralization capabilities for clients
• Assess the impact on client portfolios: Identify how portfolios and opportunities will evolve asset allocation beyond standard mutual funds and ETFs
• Prepare for practice modernization: Recognize how "OnChain Identity", 24/7 markets, instant liquidity will change options, financial planning, and money movement

Asset protection trusts are frequently used in the context of elder care and special needs planning. We will discuss strategies to address challenging trust tax structures and diverse assets such as IRAs, real estate, annuities, and business interests. We will compare available tax opportunities, highlight lurking tax traps, and compare techniques to maintain tax benefits. Optimizing tax basis step up and residential tax
exemptions will be covered.

Robert S. Barnett and Stuart H. Schoenfeld will present an in-depth presentation focusing on the intersection of tax law with elder care and special needs planning. Topics will include the following:
*How to insure that the Medicaid trust does not result in adverse tax
consequences.
*Domicile issues to be considered with elder care planning
*§1014(a) Basis of trust property and protecting the step up upon death
*Potential tax pitfalls of using joint trusts
*Incorporating QTIP and credit shelter provisions to a Medicaid protection trust
*Proper drafting for compliance with grantor trust rules
*Elder care planning with annuities
*Taxation of Supplemental Needs Trusts and
*Supplemental Needs Trusts after the Secure Act.

Learning Objectives:

• Applying techniques to ensure compliance with grantor trust rules.
• Identifying potential tax pitfalls of using joint trusts.
• Incorporating estate inclusion, QTIP, Credit Shelter and other estate tax savings techniques into Medicaid planning.
• Elder Care planning with annuities and assets with challenging tax structures.

This presentation is designed to assist the participant in assessing the firm's current partner evaluation and partner compensation processes. It is designed to challenge the participant to identify where the current evaluation and compensation plans reinforce or hinder the firm's strategy and vision. Are they aligned? Pillars to be discussed are growth goals, accountability, team development, profitability, succession planning, and strategic initiative participation. Additional coverage will include Compensation Committees, closed compensation, and overcoming partner objections to modifications to the evaluation and compensation plans.

Learning Objectives:

• Evaluate the firm’s current partner evaluation and compensation systems to determine how effectively they support—or hinder—the firm’s strategic goals, including growth, accountability, team development, profitability, succession planning, and participation in strategic initiatives.
• Identify and apply practical strategies for improving partner evaluation and compensation models, including the use of Compensation Committees, closed compensation structures, and techniques for addressing partner resistance to change.

This session equips emerging professionals with the mindset and tools to lead themselves and others through the lens of servant leadership. Participants will explore how to build trust, give constructive feedback, set SMART goals, and plan their careers with intention. Through real-world case studies and interactive exercises, attendees will learn how their work impacts others, how to navigate accountability, and how to foster a culture of growth and collaboration. Whether you're supervising your first engagement or planning your long-term career, this session will help you “get better” by focusing on purpose, process, and people.

Learning Objectives:

• Apply servant leadership principles to real-world scenarios to foster trust, collaboration, and accountability within teams.
• Analyze different approaches for giving constructive feedback and determine which techniques best promote growth and accountability.
• Identify intentional career planning strategies and select methods that align personal goals with organizational objectives.
• Differentiate between various trust-building techniques and choose actions that strengthen team relationships and performance.

This session provides a comprehensive review of the myriad of tax and financial issues involved in the administration of a client’s estate, including first steps to take upon learning of a client's passing; coordinating efforts among the financial advisors assisting the family; planning for and preparing Federal and state estate tax returns, including the federal portability election; planning for and preparing federal and state individual income and fiduciary income tax returns, including a review of the various income tax planning issues and elections that arise; discussing various financial planning issues that the family faces, including qualified retirement plan distribution options; and advising on any generation skipping income tax elections and issues.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the tax and financial planning issues involved in the administration of a client's estate
• Determine the tax compliance issues faced in the administration of an estate
• Recognize how the CPA can provide value to the family in the administration of a client's estate

This seminar equips advisors with practical strategies to navigate the evolving landscape of estate planning following the enactment of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Whether your clients have modest estates or complex, multigenerational wealth, this session will address the Act’s impact on core estate planning principles and provide actionable guidance tailored to a broad range of client needs.
Key topics include:
• Tax law changes affecting estate and charitable planning
• Tailored planning strategies for clients with varying degrees of wealth
• Techniques to maximize basis step-up for income tax purposes
• Modernizing existing irrevocable trusts given the increased exemption

Learning Objectives:

• Analyze the Impact of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Estate Planning

  Participants will be able to identify and explain the key changes introduced by the Act, particularly as they affect core estate planning principles and practices.

• Apply Tax Law Changes to Estate and Charitable Planning

  Participants will learn to evaluate recent federal tax law changes and integrate them into effective estate and charitable planning strategies for clients with varying levels of wealth.

• Develop Strategies to Maximize Basis Step-Up for Income Tax Purposes

  Participants will be able to recommend and implement techniques to optimize basis step-up opportunities, thereby minimizing income tax liabilities for beneficiaries.

• Modernize Existing Irrevocable Trusts in Light of Increased Exemptions

  Participants will gain practical skills to review and update existing irrevocable trusts, ensuring they are aligned with the new exemption amounts and current best practices.

Forget everything you've been told about retirement. The 40-year grind followed by 30 years on a golf course? That's a 20th-century invention, and it's quietly dying with the generation that perfected it.

This presentation challenges the narrative we've inherited and offers a more sustainable framework for the life you're actually living: one where student loans, fluctuating housing markets, climate uncertainty, and maybe no kids are more the reality. One where you value experiences in your 40s as much as security in your 70s. One where your body's prime years aren't sacrificed to an arbitrary finish line.

We'll explore the surprising history of how we got sold on the "work-then-stop" model (spoiler: it's newer than you think), why it's unsustainable for Millennials and Gen Z, and how extending your earning years across a longer lifespan can actually buy you more freedom, not less. The secret? Strategic financial and career planning that gives you permission to take a sabbatical at 45 instead of waiting until your knees give out.

Through personal narrative and practical frameworks, you'll discover how to design a career that breathes with space for mini-retirements, location flexibility, and the radical idea that working until 70 might be the best decision you ever make... if it means truly living during your 50s.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify key financial planning tools and liquidity strategies that enable flexibility throughout your career without sacrificing growth.
• Reframe career longevity as a strategic advantage by designing a flexible earnings timeline that prioritizes peak health years over rigid work-stop transition.

Join tax litigator Keri Brown for a discussion of hot topics that the IRS is focusing on in their transfer tax audits and litigation.

This session will focus on current issues and trends at the audit level, appeals, and in litigation, including the IRS’s current darlings (formula clauses, split-dollar life insurance, QTIP terminations, and penalties), as well as the old standbys (section 2036, valuation, and adequate disclosure), and more. We will discuss recent cases (including Elcan and McDougall), the IRS’s positions, and how to best position clients at the planning level.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the IRS’s developing focus areas.
• Recognize how to position your client for audit success at the planning level, including how to minimize the effect of a privilege waiver.

Charitable gifting starts with the best intentions. However, all too often the law undermines the tax benefits. This presentation will cover income tax and estate tax issues advisors should be aware for charitable planning. It will also cover specific asset situations.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognizing, understanding and appreciating unique circumstances in income tax and transfer charitable planning.
• To develop awareness of recent cases and IRS guidance relating to tax planning for charitable gifting.

Climbing the finance leadership ladder today demands more than strong technical skills, it requires strategic career decisions, a compelling personal brand, and a clear understanding of the evolving talent market. With remote work reshaping workplace dynamics, critical skills gaps widening, and generational differences influencing hiring preferences, finance professionals face unprecedented career navigation challenges. In this candid, multi-perspective panel discussion, experts share their firsthand insights: a senior finance executive who recently transitioned roles, a recruiter specializing in finance talent, a corporate HR leader overseeing hiring trends, and a mid-level professional who successfully changed companies.

Together, they'll unpack what's driving hiring decisions in today's competitive market, reveal the red flags and green flags that make-or-break candidacies, explore how companies are adapting their recruitment strategies, and share insider perspectives on the complete job search process, from application to offer. You'll discover how candidates can stand out beyond their resume, what companies are really looking for when filling finance roles, and how professionals at all levels can intentionally manage their career trajectory to align with market demands.

Whether you're growing a finance team, navigating the hiring process as a candidate, or considering your next strategic career move, you'll walk away with practical guidance you can apply immediately to shape your future in this evolving landscape.

Learning Objectives:

• Decode Current Hiring Priorities: Understand what finance employers are prioritizing in today's market, including the specific technical skills, soft skills, and leadership qualities that differentiate successful candidates. Learn how remote work and generational preferences are reshaping what companies value most.
• Master the Complete Job Search Process: Gain insider knowledge of each stage from application to offer, including how to navigate applicant tracking systems, excel in virtual interviews, and avoid common red flags that eliminate candidates. Discover what recruiters and hiring managers are really evaluating at each touchpoint.
• Build a Strategic Personal Brand: Learn how to position yourself effectively in the market by crafting a compelling professional narrative that resonates with both recruiters and hiring managers. Understand how to leverage LinkedIn, networking, and other platforms to increase your visibility to the right opportunities.
• Navigate Market Disruptions and Skills Gaps: Identify how to turn current market challenges—including skills shortages, remote work dynamics, and evolving finance roles into career opportunities. Learn which emerging competencies to develop and how to position yourself for high-growth areas within finance.

Leveraging Controls to Increase Efficiency

Learning Objectives:

• How strategic control reliance can reduce substantive audit work
• Efficiency decision when controls are strong and predictable

This session will include a discussion of current fraud schemes, methods for preventing, detecting and deterring fraud, the influence of artificial intelligence on fraud-related risks and enabling tools for combatting fraud, and the continued importance of professional skepticism in light of the expanding use of emerging technologies.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify current common fraud schemes and prevention and detection strategies
• Recognize fraud-related challenges and risks associated with a client’s use of artificial intelligence along with the opportunities for leveraging artificial Intelligence to prevent, deter, and detect fraud
• Identity strategies for testing clients’ use of artificial intelligence
• Recognize the continued importance of professional skepticism as the use of emerging technologies expands

Building a tech stack can feel like a full-time job—researching apps, chasing demos, and second-guessing every decision. It’s easy to get overwhelmed, overpay, and still end up with tools no one uses. This session cuts through the noise and helps you focus on the tech that actually works. We’ll show you how to build a simplified, efficient tech stack that supports your firm without running your life.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify at least three common inefficiencies in tech stack selection that lead to overwhelm, overspending, or tool underutilization
• Construct a simplified tech stack strategy by selecting essential tools aligned with firm needs, minimizing redundancy, and prioritizing ease of adoption.
• Learn how AI is empowering small firms to create bespoke apps and automations that fit their specific use cases.

Join a dynamic panel of SOC veterans as they share candid insights, lessons learned, and bold predictions for the future of SOC reporting. This interactive session invites audience participation and real-time Q&A to spark meaningful dialogue.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain an understanding of current trends in SOC including common challenges for service auditors and service organizations.
• Discuss the future of the SOC reporting landscape including the near-term impacts of AI incorporation.

The taxation of employee compensatory stock options can be quite complex. Proper planning in this area can also be filled with potential traps. This fast-paced session will help you fully understand the different tax rules for the entire alphabet soup of options: RSUs, NQs, ISOs and ESPPs. You’ll also take away detailed examples of how to strategize these transactions with your clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the various types of employee stock options.
• Determine the taxation of the different kinds of options.
• Master planning tips for your clients with stock options.
• Analyze the interaction of stock options with qualified small business stock, divorce or death.

Rapid Fire Apps - Speeding Up

The shift to remote, hybrid, and offshore work is permanent, with cloud-based operations, virtual collaboration tools, and distributed team management becoming essential for firm competitiveness and talent retention. This session will explore strategies for managing workflows across global and offshore teams, leveraging platforms that enable seamless collaboration regardless of location. Topics include workflow management systems, virtual client service delivery, team collaboration tools, and cybersecurity measures tailored for distributed and offshore operations. Attendees will gain insights into optimizing productivity, maintaining compliance, and fostering engagement in a globally connected workforce.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify and evaluate key technologies that support workflow management and virtual collaboration for distributed and offshore teams.
• Develop strategies to maintain compliance and cybersecurity in cloud-based operations across global environments.
• Apply best practices for fostering engagement and productivity within remote and hybrid teams to enhance talent retention and client service delivery.

This session explores a deeply human and refreshingly personal approach to goal-setting—one that begins with who you are, not just what you want to accomplish. Instead of the traditional SMART goals or productivity hacks, Emma Ball shares how choosing a single word to guide her year has shaped her development as a leader, mother, and creative professional. Through storytelling and gentle structure, attendees will learn to reflect on their own personal and professional seasons, identify what they want more of, and create a growth goal that resonates on a deeper level. This session is especially relevant for emerging leaders or values-driven professionals who want to show up more fully and intentionally in their work without sacrificing their humanity. Key takeaways: How to use seasonal reflection to track personal growth A practical, repeatable method for choosing a “word of the year” that aligns with your current chapter. How self-awareness and emotional intelligence support confident, grounded leadership. How to stay connected to your theme throughout the year using rituals, playlists, or journaling. This session is heartfelt, engaging, and rooted in real life. It meets attendees where they are—mid-growth, mid-shift, or mid-struggle—and offers a powerful, doable way to re-center and move forward with purpose.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key elements of seasonal reflection that support personal and professional growth.
• Recall common practices—such as rituals, playlists, or journaling—that help maintain connection to a chosen theme throughout the year.
• Identify ways emotional intelligence and self-awareness support grounded, values-driven leadership and sustained personal growth.

With the new Quality Management Standard (QM-1) taking effect on December 15, 2025, this session provides a timely and practical guide for firms performing attestation services. The content will be drawn from several suggested topics to provide a comprehensive overview. This session will delve into the ongoing process of monitoring and remediation for a firm's system of quality management, which is required to be performed in 2026. The discussion will cover the requirements for monitoring, how to perform a root cause analysis, evaluating findings, and remediating deficiencies. The importance of proper communication and documentation will also be addressed.

We will also explore the annual evaluation of a firm's system of quality management, a requirement of QM section 10. The session will outline the requirements of this evaluation and the necessary supporting documentation.

Additionally, the session will address the needs of all firms including sole practitioners, small firms and middle market firms. It will cover how these firms are required to implement QM section 10 and operate a system of quality management. The session will also discuss the additional requirements in QM section 20 concerning engagement quality reviews and how these apply specifically to a sole practitioner.

Learning Objectives:

• To better understand the Monitoring component of QM1 and the impact to a firm's risk assessment process.
• Understand how the implementation of QM will impact your firm's peer review.

Learning Objectives:

• Define Agentic AI and distinguish from traditional AI models.
• Understand real-world application of Agentic AI technology in the workplace.
• Identify key considerations for implementing Agentic AI responsibly, including vendor selection, governance, risk management and ethical implications.

AICPA advocates for good tax policy, including on trust, estate, and gift tax issues. This session will cover the many developments and projects the TRP is advocating for in the estate and trust area. Contacts with Treasury, IRS, and Congress are emphasized.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify planning areas and recommendations.
• Recognize estate and gift tax issues that affect your clients.

While many professional advisors know about the basic rules of Roth IRAs, they do not understand the economic/tax intricacies associated with them. Unfortunately, the failure to understand the mathematical fundamentals of Roth IRAs can lead to making disastrous decisions. However, with a good working knowledge of the quantitative “forces” which drive Roth IRA conversions, professional advisors will be able to give cogent, straightforward advice to their clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the factors that impact Roth IRA conversions the most.
• Understand the taxation of Roth IRA conversions and Roth IRA distributions.
• Understand other outside factors (such as the estate taxes and post-death elections) which make Roth IRA conversions more effective.
• Understand how to model Roth IRA conversion analyses to make the most prudent decisions.

Similar to data analytics and other enterprise technology solutions, AI projects can’t be managed by IT alone. AI in particular has additional governance, risk, adoption, and ethical considerations that accountants and internal auditors should be involved in assessing when an organization is considering an AI project or using a technology that includes embedded AI. Attend this session to understand how you can add value to AI-related discussions and decision-making, ensure that AI-related risks are properly managed, and that ROI considers the broader picture and impacts of AI technology.

Learning Objectives:

• Define the elements of IT Governance
• Identify the elements of a Gen AI Governance model
• Describe the role of Management Accountants in IT Governance

Advanced Accounting & Auditing Q&A.

Learning Objectives:

• Q&A Informing participants of A&A matters addressed at Engage
• Panelist discussion of current and future standards

What if the "Cadillac" health insurance plans that employers tout as premier benefits are actually holding your clients back from building wealth? When clients who are generally healthy and financially stable select health insurance that offers higher coverage than they need, they are doing themselves and their futures a disservice by pre-paying for healthcare they may never use.

The alternative is selecting high-deductible HSA-eligible healthcare plans and then maxing out Health Savings Accounts, investing those accounts and saving them to use later in life. Using HSA best practices can enable early retirement, the ability to make career shifts later in life with less regard for healthcare benefits or can allow clients to self-fund their own long-term care.

But there is a critical factor missing from this strategy: the need for healthcare financial literacy and what that means and how it works.
This session will cover the strategic use of HSAs, but it will also get into how to use these plans without exposing clients to catastrophic financial risk.

We’ll talk about how healthcare services are priced, why shopping around can make all the difference during accumulation years and how to help clients manage their health and longevity in a cost-effective way that allows them to let their HSAs build and grow tax-free income throughout their earning years.

You'll leave ready to position HSAs as a wealth-building cornerstone that could add six figures to your clients' retirement savings.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify which clients are ideal candidates for HDHP/HSA wealth-building strategies based on health status, financial stability, and risk tolerance
• Analyze healthcare service pricing to guide clients in making cost-effective medical decisions during accumulation years
• Calculate potential retirement savings impact when clients strategically manage healthcare spending and invest HSA contributions

Our clients want to hold certain investments that your traditional IRA trustee will not hold. This can include digital assets such as cryptocurrency or Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs), real estate, or closely held businesses. What are the requirements for a self-directed IRA (SDIRA)? We will identify the assets that can be held in the SDIRA and assets that cannot be held in an SDIRA. We will review the tax benefits and common pitfalls of SDIRAs. What are the pros and cons of owning a business or real estate in an SDIRA? We will learn from a real-life case study of a movie star who had an SDIRA.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify requirements for SDIRAs.
• Identify assets that can be owned by an SDIRA.
• Summarize the tax benefits of SDIRAs
• Outline common pitfalls of SDIRAs.

There is a wide array of federal and state-specific tax planning opportunities available to individuals in retirement. While some opportunities might be for the current tax year, others are longer-term in nature.

Additionally, tax planning goals can vary by client, where some want to minimize taxes for themselves, while others might want to minimize taxes for their eventual beneficiaries via tax-efficient wealth transfer.

There are no universal tax planning opportunities that apply to all individuals in retirement. But there are nonetheless opportunities that are common among many retired individuals. This session will discuss the common retirement tax planning opportunities for individuals, the mistakes people often make regarding those opportunities, how to avoid those mistakes, and how to correct them (if possible).

The session will focus on the following retirement tax planning opportunities, and common mistakes around them:

• Underpayment penalties & interest
• Required Minimum Distributions (“RMDs”)
• Beneficiary designations
• Roth withdrawal rules
• IRA non-deductible “basis” and the pro rata rule on distributions and conversions
• Charitable giving
• Managing MAGI for purposes of Affordable Care Act Premium Tax Credits and/or Medicare Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (“IRMAA”) surcharges
• State-specific income tax and planning considerations

Learning Objectives:

• Develop awareness of the major federal and state-level tax planning opportunities often available to individuals in retirement, and the common mistakes made around those opportunities
• Obtain knowledge in avoiding the common retirement tax planning mistakes, as well as knowledge in rectifying the mistakes

What if I told you a picture of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich could outperform a $10,000 marketing campaign? Well, it can. And honestly, it makes sense.

In a world full of cookie-cutter captions, AI-generated nonsense, and overpromised ROI, the accounting industry is being sold the idea that you can buy your way to influence. Spoiler alert: you can’t. And anyone promising to make you or your firm “go viral” overnight is selling more fantasy than function.

This session is for the firm owners, marketers, and professionals who are curious about using social media the right way, not the loud way. I’ll walk you through how to build real traction without outsourcing your personality or emptying your budget. You’ll learn how to:

• Avoid getting scammed by overpriced social “experts” who don’t understand this industry
• Find your voice online without sounding like a try-hard LinkedIn bot
• Use organic content to build connection and trust (and yes, it works)
• Start showing up on social with what you’ve got, even if it’s just a few hours a month

If you’ve ever wondered whether people care what you have to say online, they do. You just have to say it like a human. This session will give you the tools, strategy, and confidence to stop overthinking and start connecting with the audience that actually matters to you.

Ditch the vanity metrics, the buzzwords, and the fake polish. Because popularity isn’t for sale, but connection is always here to stay.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify common red flags of overpriced or misleading social media marketing offers in the accounting industry.
• Recognize the characteristics of organic social media content that builds trust and connection with an audience.
• Distinguish between vanity metrics and meaningful engagement when evaluating social media performance.
• Select practical starting points for creating consistent, authentic social media content with limited time and resources.

Get the inside scoop from SOC 1 and SOC 2 working groups. This session highlights upcoming initiatives, standard updates, and collaborative efforts shaping the future of SOC reporting and third-party risk assurance.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss recent, ongoing, and future initiatives from the SOC 1 and SOC 2 task forces.
• Discuss recent changes to standards and how they affect SOC engagements.

Sales and use tax obligations are evolving faster than many clients can keep up with and they are increasingly turning to their CPAs to flag risks long before an auditor does. Yet for many accounting and consulting professionals, sales tax remains one of the most challenging areas to assess because the rules vary widely between states, change frequently, and can be triggered by even small shifts in a client’s operations. The stakes are high: failing to identify nexus, misapplying exemptions, or overlooking a client’s exposure in a new market can lead to costly assessments, penalties, and unexpected liabilities that undermine both the client relationship and the CPA’s value as a trusted advisor.
This session takes a practical, actionable approach to navigating today’s multistate sales-tax landscape. We’ll break down the most common and costly pitfalls facing clients from unnoticed economic nexus thresholds, to misclassified services, to overlooked digital product taxability, to gaps in exemption certificate management. Even sophisticated clients may not recognize when their business model, product mix, or geographic footprint has triggered new obligations, leaving CPAs in the critical position of asking the right questions at the right time. This session will help you do exactly that.
You’ll learn a clear, CPA-friendly framework for identifying red flags and assessing sales tax risk quickly and confidently. We’ll walk through the core areas where exposure tends to hide: nexus creation through remote employees or inventory; taxability issues involving digital goods or services; multichannel selling complications; drop-shipment challenges; registration and filing inconsistencies; and the real-world audit triggers. The presentation also highlights how small operational changes like outsourcing fulfillment, shifting to subscription models, expanding into marketplaces, or completing mergers and acquisitions can dramatically alter a client’s tax obligations without anyone realizing it.
Beyond technical rules, the session focuses on how CPAs can embed simple but effective sales tax review steps into their existing client processes. You’ll gain practical language for asking the right discovery questions, strategies for minimizing surprises, and insights into when deeper analysis or specialist support may be needed. The goal is not to turn CPAs into sales tax experts, but to equip them with the tools and confidence to identify exposure early, reduce risk proactively, and elevate the value of their client advisory services.
Attendees will receive a sales tax risk checklist designed that can be incorporated into client onboarding, annual planning meetings, SALT reviews, advisory engagements, or internal quality control processes. It offers a structured way to evaluate sales tax risk giving firms a consistent, repeatable method for protecting clients from significant liabilities.
Whether you regularly advise clients on state and local tax or simply want to strengthen your risk identification approach across your broader client base, this session will provide the clarity and tools you need. You’ll leave with a stronger understanding of how sales tax exposure develops, how to spot risks early, and how to guide clients toward compliance with confidence before an auditor forces the issue.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess a client’s operations including business model, product/service mix, and geographic footprint to identify potential sales tax nexus and exposure triggers (e.g., remote sales thresholds, marketplace activities, physical presence, services vs. goods).
• Evaluate common sales tax risk scenarios (such as misclassification of services, exempt vs. taxable sales, resellers, and out-of-state customers) and apply decision making criteria to recommend appropriate compliance or restructuring strategies.
• Design and propose a practical, firm level sales-tax risk management process including documentation, periodic reviews, client intake protocols, and red flag checklists to help your firm identify risks facing your clients.

Influencers, content creators, and NIL earners represent a rapidly growing client segment that most tax professionals are unprepared to serve. These individuals manage complex, multi-stream revenue models including ad revenue from platforms, brand sponsorships, affiliate marketing, digital product sales, merchandise, and NIL licensing deals. Their unique business structures and the intentional blurring of personal brand with business operations create significant tax compliance challenges and advisory opportunities for practitioners willing to develop specialized expertise in this niche.

This session will provide attendees with practical knowledge to confidently serve these clients. We'll begin by breaking down how influencers, content creators, and NIL earners actually generate income and the reporting complexities they face. You'll learn about entity structure considerations to help you make strategic decisions for these clients and understand the unique factors that apply when working with this demographic.

The session will address the critical challenge of distinguishing legitimate business expenses from personal expenditures in an industry where the line between personal brand and business is intentionally blurred. We'll explore areas of heightened IRS scrutiny for influencers, content creators, and NIL earners. You'll learn documentation standards that protect these clients during audits and understand how hobby loss rules apply when they're building their businesses.

In this session you will see how these tax concepts apply in practice and gain confidence addressing the unique situations these clients present. You will be provided actionable strategies for attracting and retaining influencer, content creator, and NIL clients, and shown pricing models that work for this client type.

Whether you're exploring this niche for the first time or systematizing your existing practice with these clients, you'll leave with practical insights to help you serve this dynamic segment effectively and position your firm as a recognized leader in this lucrative and underserved market.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize the unique operational structures and revenue models utilized by influencers, content creators, and NIL earners.
• Differentiate between personal and business expenses within the influencer and content creator industry (including NIL earners) for taxation purposes, and assess areas of increased IRS scrutiny related to influencer activities.
• Develop strategies to position your firm as a recognized leader in providing tax advisory services to influencer, content creator, and NIL clients.

In 2026, privacy is no longer just about protecting your credit card—it is about managing the risk to your reputation, your family, and your firm as a critical component of executive cyber hygiene. As AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini become commonplace, the public data you leave online (your "digital footprint") is increasingly used to fuel targeted attacks that can bypass corporate firewalls.

This session skips the technical complexity to provide a practical, non-technical guide to digital self-defense. We will audit your personal exposure the way a bad actor would—looking at data brokers, social media, and AI platforms—and provide a checklist of simple settings to lock them down. Whether you are a partner, a sole practitioner, or simply a privacy-conscious person, you will leave with actionable steps to better secure your digital life and your business.

Learning Objectives:

• Recognize how AI tool & attacker research techniques utilize public information to create targeted fraud and reputation risks.
• Identify the specific components of a "digital footprint"—including data broker listings and metadata—that expose personal information.
• Select appropriate privacy settings to secure personal accounts, mobile devices, and Generative AI platforms.
• Explain the relationship between personal digital hygiene and the broader security risks to your firm.

To navigate globalization, every business decision-maker weighs economic variables when considering overseas investments or market exposure. But to spot crucial opportunities and manage risk, they must also understand the political factors and trends changing our world in real-time. Whether it’s increasingly contentious relations between China and the United States, the war in Ukraine, a more complex regulatory environment in Europe, a newly global focus from India, surges of populism in Latin America, heightened competition in Africa, or dozens of other politically driven trends, political analyst and entrepreneur Ian Bremmer will detail how political risk is creating new sets of business winners and losers.

Learning Objectives:

• How to spot political risk on the horizon and balance it against economic opportunities.
• How to understand the opportunities, and dangers, of multilayered relations between Washington and Beijing.
• How to identify the broader trends remaking tomorrow’s global balance of power.
• How to process the technological changes now transforming geopolitics.

Join Mark Peterson, Executive Vice President – Advocacy at the AICPA, for a timely Washington Update that breaks down the latest legislative, regulatory, and policy developments impacting the CPA profession and the broader business community. This session will provide insights into key federal issues, emerging priorities on Capitol Hill, and what advocacy efforts mean for firms and finance leaders in the year ahead. Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of what’s happening in Washington - and how it may affect their organizations and clients in 2026 and beyond.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the key legislative, regulatory, and policy developments in Washington that are most likely to impact the CPA profession and the broader business environment in 2026.
• Evaluate how current federal advocacy priorities and actions may influence firms, finance leaders, and their clients, enabling informed planning and decision-making.

If running your firm feels harder than it should, you are not alone. This session breaks down the core building blocks that small firms must get right to thrive in today’s landscape. We’ll dig into smarter processes, intentional org design, client segmentation, tech that actually reduces workload, and practical ways to build advisory capacity. You’ll leave with a playbook of ideas, clarity around what to fix first, and confidence to evolve your firm into one that grows sustainably without burning you or your team out.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the essential operational and organizational components required for small accounting firms to operate efficiently in today’s environment.
• Recognize current firm processes to determine where inefficiencies, bottlenecks, or capacity constraints exist.
• Identify among client types to develop or refine a client segmentation strategy that improves service delivery and profitability.
• Recognize the principles of intentional organizational design and how to apply them to strengthen team structure, roles, and responsibilities.

Stepping into new and unfamiliar territory is where real development happens. This session explores how to recognize when we’re staying “safe,” reframe discomfort as growth, and intentionally pursue stretch opportunities. Participants will learn practical strategies to build confidence, resilience, and adaptability, unlocking new capability and accelerating career progression.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the comfort zone and the growth zone
• Identify the tools needed to shift mindsets and build confidence
• Explore the benefits of getting out of your comfort zone

Hot Valuation Topics for Estate Planning

Learning Objectives:

• Estate planning
• Gift tax reporting

This session will address the importance of understanding financially significant business processes and their reliance on IT. It will focus on the often overlooked risks and controls associated with the input, interfaces and output of IT systems and their impact on inherent risk and financial assertions.

Learning Objectives:

• To learn how to identify the risks and controls within the entire financially significant systems process (input, edit, update and output)
• To understand the impact of these risks and controls on the audit approach and financial assertions (e.g. completeness, accuracy and validity)
• To learn if, when and how we test the controls
• NA

Is your firm subject to peer review? Do you want a better understanding of the types of issues peer reviewers encounter and how they come to their conclusions? This session will be a hands-on review of situations frequently encountered with peer reviewers facilitating conversations in small groups. You’ll discuss the situations with your peers to learn how others deal with similar issues while having the opportunity to ask questions of your facilitator and gain a deeper understanding of the thought process for coming to conclusions and how peer review standards impact the result.

Learning Objectives:

• Better understand issues commonly arising during peer review and how to prepare your firm to avoid them
• Recognize how the peer review standards impact peer review conclusions
• Determine possible outcomes to various case studies using peer review standards

Fee model choice is not just a pricing decision. It is a business strategy decision that shapes service quality, capacity, profitability, and long term durability. This session compares the primary fee structures used in the RIA space, including AUM, hourly, project fees, flat retainers, subscriptions, complexity based pricing, and hybrid approaches. It shows where each model works best, where it breaks down, and how to select the right model based on the kind of firm you want to build, from a high autonomy lifestyle practice to an enterprise scale advisory business.

The session uses real world client scenarios to illustrate a common problem: AUM is often a poor proxy for workload and responsibility. A household with significant assets can require very little ongoing planning, while a high income household with modest investable assets can create intense planning, tax, and coordination demands. Attendees learn how to avoid hidden cross subsidies, reduce scope creep, and build pricing that matches the way work actually shows up in an advisory firm.

The presenters share practical implementation and governance techniques that make alternative fee models sustainable, including service tier design, clearly defined deliverables, decision rules for what is included versus project work, annual fee review cadence, and guardrails that limit fee volatility for clients. The discussion also addresses how investment solution access and advanced planning implementation can be aligned to pricing tiers so that client outcomes remain strong while team capacity and margins remain predictable.

Attendees leave with a clear decision framework they can apply immediately to evaluate their current pricing approach, select an alternative fee structure, and communicate pricing confidently to clients, prospects, and internal teams.

Learning Objectives:

• Compare major RIA fee models (AUM, hourly, project, flat retainer, subscription, complexity based, hybrid) and differentiate which models best align with lifestyle practice versus enterprise firm goals
• Determine common failure modes in non AUM pricing, including scope creep and cross subsidies, and choose service design controls that mitigate them
• Apply pricing governance practices, including annual review cadence and guardrails on fee changes, to improve predictability and client retention
• Analyze a client fact pattern and select an appropriate pricing approach and communication framing based on complexity, workload drivers, and firm strategy

An individual’s TOTAL portfolio includes MORE than just financial assets, e.g. stock, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs. It includes wonderful assets like human capital and real estate. Unfortunately, it also includes a type of soft liability, the net present value of future consumption, i.e. a retirement income. For better or worse, this is reality.

TOTAL PORTFOLIO = FINANCIAL ASSETS+REAL ESTATE+HUMAN CAPITAL – LIABILITIES

This is the individual’s economic balance sheet.

Rather than optimizing financial assets in isolation (the common MVO practice), all investor’s (or their planners/advisors) should embrace a TOTAL portfolio optimization approach that includes all of the elements of the economic balance sheet. We call this type of holistic balance sheet optimization, Net Worth Optimization or NWO because…

NET WORTH = TOTAL PORTFOLIO
NET WORTH = FINANCIAL ASSETS+REAL ESTATE+HUMAN CAPITAL – LIABILITIES

All investors and advisors should move from MVO to NWO!

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the key elements of an individual’s economic balance sheet, including human capital and a liability.
• Explain at a high level how one would calculate the net present value of an individual's human capital.
• Explain how different careers might influence how one chooses to model human capital.
• Understand how to extend the traditional Markowitz mean-variance optimization process (aka Modern Portfolio Theory), to a more holistic economic balance sheet optimization process (aka net worth optimization).

Not all numbers are worth tracking. This session breaks down the key metrics that actually move your firm forward and explains why they matter. Designed for business leadership teams, CEOs, founders, and firm owners, this session will help you focus on the KPIs that influence profitability, performance, and long-term value. Learn how to connect the right metrics to your strategic goals and use data to drive confident decisions and sustainable growth.

Learning Objectives:

• Explain why selecting the right key performance indicators (KPIs) is critical to achieving firm profitability, operational effectiveness, and sustainable growth.
• Differentiate between leading and lagging indicators and describe how each influences strategic decision-making.
• Assess how core firm metrics impact long-term firm value, client relationships, and talent management.
• Evaluate how aligning KPIs with strategic priorities drives accountability, focus, and organizational momentum.

AI-powered tax research has evolved from an experiment to an essential part of tax practitioners’ workflows. At the same time, this technology is also reshaping the role of those practitioners and the future of their firms. Drawing on fresh data from Blue J and CPA.com‘s 2026 AI Tax Research Outlook Report, this session explores trends in AI-powered tax research adoption, the advantages this technology poses over legacy tools, and how AI-powered tax research is fundamentally transforming the way tax experts work.

Learning Objectives:

• Recall current adoption trends in AI-powered and legacy tax research tools
• Define the competitive advantage AI-powered tools are creating for firms
• Understand how AI invites new ways of working and how to adapt accordingly

Many firms use Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, or similar AI tools—but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. This session explores what comes after the initial AI assistant adoption: how to evolve from basic task support to firm-wide, intelligent workflows.

You will learn about:

* Expanding from AI-optimized tasks to AI-optimized workflows
* Successfully leveraging AI beyond initial time savings — such as improved decision-making, elevated client service, unlock new value for clients, and deeper insights
* Emerging tools and best practices to orchestrate multiple apps and agents (Copilot agents, custom GPTs)
* Setting up appropriate guardrails and "human-in-the-loop" checks with increasingly sophisticated agents and customGPTs usage
* New inspiration, templates, and ideas to immediately integrate AI tools deeper inside their firm.

Attendees will learn what the next wave of AI enablement looks like and how to build toward it while keeping their AI investments safe, scalable, and practical.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the shift from task-level AI usage to end-to-end, AI-driven workflows across a firm.
• Identify emerging orchestration methods for coordinating multiple tools and agents while maintaining control and oversight.
• Understand how advanced AI adoption improves judgment, client experience, and value creation beyond basic efficiency gains.
• Specify the guardrails, governance patterns, and integration templates required to expand AI safely and pragmatically inside a firm.

Advanced analytics and visualization tools have helped countless audit teams to enhance their risk assessments, increase efficiency in audit execution and deliver more meaningful insights to clients/stakeholders. Success stories from large firms and Fortune 500 companies have been well documented. However, the path to success for smaller organizations can be daunting.

In this session, we will draw on the presenter’s personal experiences and journey from managing large engagement teams supported by the resources of a Big 4 firm to leading smaller (5-10) person Internal Audit departments with limited budgets at both public & private companies. We will discuss practical use cases for leveraging analytics in risk assessments and audits, as well as how to get your program off the ground and on the path to incorporating analytics as a fundamental component of your audit strategy.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify common pitfalls, challenges and keys to success when beginning your analytics journey
• Techniques for identifying key risk indicators (KRIs) and expected outcomes to help build your models
• Identify strategies for effectively developing and selling your business case for investment
• Identify concrete actions to help get your program up and running

This session explores the role of forensic accountants within the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from case inception to conviction. Using two real-world case studies, the presenters will demonstrate investigative techniques, internal control weaknesses, and professional responsibilities to enhance fraud detection and prevention. The first case study is a textbook example of employee embezzlement in a corporate environment, emphasizing the importance of red flag identification and separation of duties. The second highlights how failures in internal controls can have a recurring impact on nonprofits, as seen in cases where the same individual exploited similar vulnerabilities at multiple organizations.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify common types of corporate fraud schemes.
• Recognize key red flags and behavioral indicators.
• Explain the role of forensic accountants in fraud detection, investigation, and litigation support.

This session will be a debate style session, exploring the pros and cons of a remote, hybrid, and in person workforce. The panel will showcase and get the audience to consider all sides. Each panelist will bring helpful tips for how to lead remote, hybrid, or in person teams.

Learning Objectives:

• Clearly distinguish between hybrid, remote, and in-person staffing approaches, including their key characteristics and operational differences.
• Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each staffing model as they relate to productivity, collaboration, employee satisfaction, and client service in accounting firms.
• Identify factors that influence which staffing model is best suited for different types of accounting firms, considering firm size, client needs, service offerings, and organizational culture.
• Explore practical steps and best practices for successfully adopting and managing hybrid, remote, or in-person teams, including technology, communication protocols, and workflow adjustments.

As you evaluate new technology to support service lines, firms often struggle with a fundamental question: should they refine their processes first or implement technology to drive efficiency? In this session, you will learn insights and hear experiences on balancing process optimization with technology adoption, focused on areas like CAS where technology is foundational to the service. Attendees will learn how to align their firm's workflows and tech stack to maximize productivity, improve client outcomes, and avoid common pitfalls, such as implementing technology designed for one service firm wide. This session will provide a roadmap for firms looking to integrate technology and process seamlessly for long-term success.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the interplay between process and technology and how each impacts efficiency and scalability.
• Identify key considerations for determining whether to optimize processes or implement new technology first.
• Explore real-world examples of firms that have successfully balanced process improvements with tech adoption.
• Learn best practices for selecting and integrating technology that aligns with firm workflows and client needs.

AI can crunch numbers and generate financial plans—but it can't coach humans through the emotional complexity of money decisions. Smart financial planning professionals are evolving into Wealth Coaches who guide clients from head to heart—and thriving.

This 75-minute session reveals how neuroscience-based coaching transforms you from traditional advisor into a high-impact facilitator who helps clients make better decisions. Learn why even "perfect" financial plans fail and how brain science unlocks the coaching approach that actually changes behavior, and choices. This methodology applies across all advisory contexts—from personal financial planning to wealth management to Fractional CFO services.

You'll Walk Away With:
• Battle-tested framework for neuroscience-based financial coaching
• Practical tools to help clients move from goals to purpose-driven intention
• Techniques to engage clients in their own discovery process (not just deliver answers)
• Real-world case examples from successful financial coaches
• An action plan for transitioning your practice model

Perfect for Financial Planning Professionals Who:
• Know AI is disrupting traditional advisory models
• Want to 10x their impact
• See the need to move from number-crunching to a new sustainable model
• Ready to see light bulb moments that truly drive clients truly to act in their own best interest

Learning Objectives:

• Identify how cognitive biases and brain science impact client financial decisions.
• Apply practical coaching techniques that move clients from resistance to action.
• Implement a structured coaching methodology that transitions client interactions from prescriptive advice-giving to collaborative
• Design differentiated service offerings apply across financial planning, wealth management, and business advisory contexts including Fractional CFO services.

Stay ahead of legal risks with this update from a CPA-focused attorney. Learn about emerging litigation trends, common pitfalls in attest engagements, and how to protect your firm from reputational and financial exposure.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify current litigation trends in public accounting with particular emphasis on attestation engagements.
• Identify key defensive strategies to incorporate into your firm to stay out of the headlines.

An esteemed panel of Tax Strategies, Advanced Personal Financial Planning, and Advanced Estate Planning conference committee members will provide attendees with the most current planning strategies to discuss — and immediately implement — with clients.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the most important planning strategies to discuss with your clients given the current state of tax, estate, and personal financial planning
• Determine the top tax strategies to implement before year end
• Analyze top planning topics that need to be considered with your clients on an annual basis

In today’s digital landscape, CPAs are prime targets for cybercriminals due to the sensitive financial and personal data they manage. This session is designed to equip accounting professionals with the knowledge and tools needed to recognize, prevent, and respond to cybersecurity threats that impact their firms and clients.

This session will explore the latest cyber threats affecting the accounting industry, including phishing scams, ransomware attacks, business email compromise (BEC), and data breaches.

Participants will learn how these threats evolve, how to identify vulnerabilities in their systems and workflows, and how to implement practical, cost-effective cybersecurity measures. Beyond technical defenses, this session emphasizes the importance of communication - how to talk to clients about cybersecurity risks, how to respond to incidents, and how to build trust through transparency and proactive planning.

Whether you’re a solo practitioner or part of a larger firm, this session will help you strengthen your cybersecurity posture and become a more resilient, trusted advisor.

Succession isn’t a retirement plan—it’s a growth strategy. And yet, most firms treat it like a last-minute handoff. In this deep-dive session, we’ll dismantle outdated succession mindsets and reframe it as an intentional, leadership-centered process that fuels talent development, firm relevance, and sustainable growth.

Drawing from real firm case studies, practical frameworks, and decades of hands-on experience, we’ll unpack what’s getting in the way of meaningful succession planning—and how progressive firms are shifting from reactive to regenerative leadership pipelines.

This isn’t about choosing the next partner. It’s about creating a firm that’s always ready for what’s next.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify common barriers that impede effective succession planning in accounting firms
• Distinguish between formal succession documentation and actual leadership readiness
• Apply a future-focused framework to assess leadership pipeline strength and sustainability