Engaging with Specialists: Supporting Complex GAAP Estimates and Auditor Expectations ON DEMAND
Available Until
Your Desk
4.0 Credits
Member Price $116.00
Non-Member Price $133.00
Overview
This course focuses on the use of specialists in financial reporting and the accounting areas where their input is often necessary. It helps CPAs recognize when to engage valuation, legal, actuarial, or tax experts to support management’s assumptions in complex or high-risk areas. The course covers transactions such as business combinations, impairments, share-based compensation, and legal or environmental contingencies. It also explains how to evaluate a specialist’s work, document key judgments, and respond to auditor expectations. This course provides lasting insight into the intersection of technical accounting and expert input, helping professionals navigate complexity with confidence.
Highlights
Understanding the role of specialists in accounting. Drivers behind specialist use. Evaluating specialist qualifications. Standards that reference or imply specialist use. Transactions involving valuation and economic specialists. Transactions involving legal, actuarial, and tax specialists. Reviewing specialist work and interactions with auditors. Management’s role in evaluating specialist work. Communicating with auditors about specialists.
Prerequisites
None.
Designed For
CPAs, CEOs, CFOs, controllers, and other financial managers.
Objectives
Recognize circumstances where management may need to engage a specialist. Differentiate between the types of specialists commonly used in financial reporting. Identify the requirements with respect to evaluating a specialists qualifications. Distinguish between management’s responsibilities and the specialist’s role. Recognize accounting topics and transactions where specialist input is frequently applied.
Preparation
None.
Notice
None.
Leader(s):
Leader Bios
Kelen Camehl, Western CPE
Kelen is a recognized author and reviewer of CPE courses and has authored over 85 courses (225+ CPE credit hours) covering a range of accounting, auditing, financial reporting, regulatory, and ethics topics. His courses are available for purchase from many online CPE providers including the AICPA. Kelen has also remained involved in CPA exam content development for nearly 10 years and has authored more than a thousand multiple choice questions for various sections of the CPA exam. He also serves as an Editorial Advisor for the AICPA’s “Journal of Accountancy”.
Kelen has over 15 years of progressive finance and accounting experience. He currently serves as an Accounting Policy Consultant with HP, Inc. in Dallas, TX. Most recently he was located in Budapest, Hungary on a three-year international assignment and served in the company’s Houston, TX location prior to this assignment. Prior to HP, he served in multiple accounting roles in the oil & gas industry with ConocoPhillips including technical accounting policy, SOX compliance, and internal audit. He also gained public accounting experience with PricewaterhouseCoopers, working with various clients in the energy, electric, power, gas, and utility sectors.
Non-Member Price $133.00
Member Price $116.00