For more than 100 years, the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy has set standards for professional accountants. Making a professional class out of a necessary trade skill, accountants play a crucial role in society. One aspect of their training is ethics courses. A part of continuing professional education (CPE), accountants and other professionals take courses to stay up to date on the best possible practices. Below we briefly review Texas ethics CPE to see just how ethics courses help make accountants better at their jobs.
The CPE Model
Whether it is in accounting, architecture, or engineering, continuing professional education (CPE) courses ensure that professionals never stop learning. Well after they leave the classroom and become fully certified and licensed, CPE courses help to make sure that they know up to date information on their profession. CPE courses can cover a wide range of topics. One important topic for many professions is ethics.
Texas Ethics CPE
In Texas, every accountant must also legally be a certified public accountant (CPA.) A requirement of the CPA is that every member must take ethics courses every other year. This amounts to a 4-hour course where the basics of ethics in the profession are reviewed. Texas ethics CPE is an easy way to make sure accountants know about changes to the law that may affect how they interact with their clients or what their clients can do financially. It helps to keep the accountant working within the confines of the law, allowing them to provide the best possible accounting assistance.
Ethics is a subject rarely covered in most professions. Until recently, it was considered a low priority when compared to factual information designed to make professionals better at the jobs. However, over the past two decades there has been a movement to ensure that more and more professionals have ethics training. While only 4 hours every other year is spent on the subject, it is still a good reminder to professional accountants what they can and should do in certain situations. In addition to providing answers to direct and tangible issues, they also create the framework for identifying and resolving issues that are harder to figure out.
Where Does That Leave Us?
Texas ethics CPE is the best way to ensure that accountants have professional competence. With a standard requirement for all accountants in the state, the board in charge of mandating ethics courses can ensure that every CPA member will be equally capable of dealing with ethics challenges during in their work.