2022 was the first renewal period in which individuals renewing their CPA license were required to report their completed CPE through the Washington State Board of Accountancy’s new CPE Tracker, which is located within the online licensing system.

Your colleagues using the required tracker for the first time this renewal learned:

1. First and foremost, don’t forget about your 20-hour minimum annual CPE requirement. So many of you needed to request a CPE extension after not completing at least 20 hours of CPE in one or more years of your CPE reporting period. Keep in mind, if you used a CPE extension in 2020, you are not eligible for a CPE extension in 2023.
2. Log your CPE in the WBOA CPE Tracker throughout your reporting period. If you wait until after your CPE reporting period ends, you may not realize that you have missed part of your CPE requirement (i.e.: Washington State Board approved ethics course, minimum annual CPE requirement, etc.) and entering your CPE will take more time (at least it will seem this way if done all in one sitting).
3. Do not wait until the last minute to log your CPE and complete your renewal application. If you run into problems or have questions, you will not be able to reach us after 5:00 p.m. on June 30. The next day is too late — your license will already be lapsed.
4. Use the separate “Add WA Ethics” link to enter your Washington State Board approved ethics course. If you use the “Add CPE” link used for all other CPE, the tracker will not recognize that you have completed a required WA ethics course, and you will not be able to move past the CPE section in the renewal application.
5. If you are requesting a CPE extension, or you are selected for the random CPE Audit, you must upload your course completion certificate (or other acceptable CPE documentation) to each course listing.
6. Everyone must log their CPE (enter each individual CPE course completed), we strongly advise attaching your certificate of completion at the time you log your courses. Only those who request a CPE extension, or are selected for the CPE Audit, are required to upload (attach) the course completion certificate to the course listing. For those of you renewing in 2023 and 2024, this will be your first required CPE Tracker use.

You have the advantage of lessons learned from your predecessors — take heed. Learning new systems or ways of doing things can be difficult, but together we will get through it. It will become second nature soon enough.

If you have any questions about the WBOA CPE Tracker*, please email us at customerservice@acb.wa.gov.

Published with permission of the Washington State Board of Accountancy.

Find CPE

*If you would like to share feedback with the WSCPA on the WBOA CPE Tracker, please send it to feedback@wscpa.org. 

This article appears in the fall 2022 issue of the Washington CPA magazine. Read more here.