In most states, Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are required to earn continuing professional education (CPE) credits to maintain active licenses. The fundamental purpose of continuing professional education is to maintain and/or increase professional competence. The National Association of State Boards Accountancy (NASBA) serves as a forum for the 54 U.S. boards of accountancy. NASBA maintains a National Registry of CPE Sponsors, a program that recognizes sponsors that are approved to offer CPE in accordance with nationally recognized standards. It is universally known among state boards, CPAs and firms that NASBA approved CPE program sponsors provide a higher standard of continuing professional education to the CPA profession.

SkillSoft is approved by NASBA to provide CPE

SkillSoft is registered with NASBA as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors.  Note that Skillsoft is not a NASBA QAS sponsor, so the courses sold on this site are not currently eligible for CPE credits for CPAs who are licensed in Florida, Tennessee, Minnesota, Oregon, or South Carolina.  See the bottom section for more detail.

NASBA’s rules for sponsors

As of January 1, 2004, a more stringent set of requirements went into effect for NASBA’s continuing education sponsors. These are meant to ensure the high quality of continuing education received by CPAs. In order for continuing education to be approved by NASBA for CPE credit, it must adhere to a set of specific criteria:

• Courses must meet specific guidelines regarding development, presentation, measurement and reporting to qualify for NASBA approval.

• Once these technical guidelines are met, sponsors must pilot each course with at least three CPAs who are independent of the program development group, before the course can be approved for CPE credit.

SkillSoft’s compliance with 2004 rules

In 2004, SkillSoft invested in a significant effort to update all of our current business and desktop courses that are relevant for CPAs, to comply with NASBA’s updated requirements. Additionally, each of these courses has been piloted by the necessary CPAs. To date, over 1,400 courses have completed the process and are compliant for CPE credit.

Commitment to NASBA compliance

SkillSoft continues to develop all new business and technical courses according to NASBA’s updated standards. During the second half of every year, a CPA pilot program is held for all new courses in subjects relevant to accounting professionals, to make the newest content available for CPE credit.

SkillSoft’s NASBA approved courses

SkillSoft has worked with NASBA to certify all of the business and technical courses on this site, as they are in subjects relevant to the accounting profession. Today, over 1,400 SkillSoft courses meet NASBA’s guidelines and are available through CPE Training Online for over 3,450 combined CPE credits.

Simplify NASBA continuing education with SkillPort Credentialing

SkillPort is a simple and flexible learning management platform that currently supports hundreds of our customers around the globe through such sites as CPETrainingOnline.com, PMTrainingOnline.com, and LeanSixSigmaTrainingOnline.com. SkillPort Credentialing is available to help professionals simplify the management of their professional credentials, including the CPA. CPE Training Online's own Skillport learning portal, combined with this web site focused exclusively on NASBA approved CPE training, provides learners with a specialized NASBA catalog and a complete set of online learning resources. Learners can also access NASBA-specific progress reports to monitor CPE progress and can print certificates for completed courses to submit to their state accounting boards toward CPA renewals.

Additional Notes on Skillsoft Courses and NASBA QAS Sponsorship

Certain state boards of accountancy (specifically Florida, Tennessee, Minnesota, Oregon, or South Carolina) only accept CPE credits from self-study training if the training provider is a QAS sponsor.  SkillSoft is not a QAS sponsor.  SkillSoft applied for QAS sponsorship approximately two years ago, and the application was not approved.  At that time, Skillsoft concluded that it could not justify the changes that would be needed to the courseware and Player. 

Recently, however, NASBA has made some changes to its general standards that are intended to go into effect on 11 January 2011.  Skillsoft is currently advancing engineering work to meet these new standards, which we address the key issues that negatively affected the original QAS application.  After all of these changes go into effect next year, Skillsoft will likely re-apply for QAS status.

The bottom line is that the courses sold on this site are not currently eligible for CPE credits for CPAs who are licensed in Florida, Tennessee, Minnesota, Oregon, or South Carolina.  This may change in 2011, and we will announce this as soon as we know.