Training is becoming increasingly important as part of a company's control environment. This is due to a complex business environment and an ever-growing list of accounting standards and regulatory pronouncements. Training is therefore not just for Continual Professional Development (CPD) requirements, but a key business control.
Further, training will help deliver a high performing finance team, with better quality reporting, reduced risk and audit queries, and will improve staff performance and retention.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) has recently updated its CPD requirements, and from 1 November 2023, the ICAEW requires that some of these learning hours must to be verifiable.
New ICAEW CPD requirements
What are the changes?
The ICAEW requires you to complete a minimum number of CPD training hours annually. The specific number of hours are determined by which category you fall under. Read CPD categories | ICAEW for further guidance.
A proportion of these hours must be verifiable and include 1 hour of ethics training. A CPD record with evidence of training must be kept and retained for at least 3 years after the CPD year ends.
What counts as verifiable hours?
CPD training includes a wide range of activities so long as evidence is obtained to explain how it is relevant and how it helps meet your learning needs. Examples include courses, webinars, podcasts, coaching, problem solving, reading articles and panel discussions.
In order to be verifiable for CPD, the activities must meet the following:
- It needs to be objective and fact based rather than personal perspectives
- It should be capable of being corroborated
- It should be retained, documented and stored in an observable format
KPMG provides verifiable training on a range of topics.
What is best practice?
Training is part of a strong controls environment. Finance teams need to be upskilled for changes to accounting standards, evolution in the business model, FAQs from the business, identified risks and audit findings.
Best practice is to include training as part of a suite of financial controls. Businesses will have detailed accounting policy manuals, these manuals should be maintained and finance teams should be trained on these manual updates.
Key benefits include:
- Reduced risk of accounting errors, from improved ability to identify and address accounting issues, and staying current on changes to accounting guidance
- Awareness of hot topics will pre-empt queries from auditors and regulators such as the FRC
- Personal development for your employees – increase your team’s confidence to contribute, and improve staff retention
- Improve the quality of your financial reporting and documentation of judgements
- An upskilled team will reduce audit queries and achieve faster and better resolution of technical queries
- Building a high performing finance team
- Demonstrate verifiable CPD hours for compliance with the requirements of your professional body
How can KPMG help?
KPMG offers bespoke training and workshops on accounting and financial reporting. Training is part of a strong controls environment and is essential to meet your verifiable CPD requirements.
We have experience in running from small group workshops, upto learning programmes for thousands of staff across global organisations.
Our content is tailored to meet your specific requirements, using worked examples for your business.
Common areas include:
- A refresher on specific areas of IFRS, UK GAAP and US GAAP as required (e.g. revenue, provisions, leases, impairment, acquisition accounting)
- Annual updates on hot-topics - heading into your reporting season (e.g FRC priority areas, common sector issues, areas of auditor query)
- ESG reporting updates which can be tailored to your needs based on geographical locations and size
- New accounting standards and forthcoming amendments, to support your impact assessment process
- Workshops on new contracts/commercial arrangements in your business – to brainstorm and work together on technical challenges
- Treasury – financial instruments, hedging – both accounting, and best practice for policies and processes
We have a full range of sector experts and subject matter experts to support your specific training needs.
If you would like to explore your learning options to meet the CPD requirements, please do not hesitate to contact KPMG’s On Call Accounting team.
