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Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Required Hours

Retired Members

What Learning Qualifies as CPD

Verifiable Learning

Tracking and Reporting CPD

What Happens if I Fail to Comply with the CPD Requirement

Required Hours

Retired Members

Retired means the member has ceased full-time practice, full-time employment or full-time business activity and the sum of the member’s age and the total number of years of aggregate membership in the Institute or the Institute and another professional accounting body equals or exceeds “85”.

Retired Members Exempt from CPD Requirements

Members who are retired from full-time employment, full-time practice or full-time business activity, do not hold a public accounting licence and do not provide reliance services are exempt from the continuing professional development requirements. 

Retired Members Providing Reliance Services

There are continuing professional development requirements for retired members who are providing reliance services as follows:

• If gross annual income from reliance services exceeds $75,000, the minimum level of CPD is 20 hours per year, and 120 hours over the three-year period, or
• If gross annual income from reliance services exceeds $25,000 but is less than $75,000, the minimum level of CPD is 10 hours per year, and 60 hours over the three-year period,

There are continuing professional development requirements for retired members who are serving on the board or governing body of a reporting issuer as follows:

• If serving on the board or governing body of a public interest entity that has annual gross revenue greater than $100,000, or that is a deposit-taking institution irrespective of the amount of gross annual revenue, the minimum level of CPD is 10 hours per year, and 60 hours over the three-year period.
• If serving on the board or governing body of a reporting issuer that has either market capitalization or total assets of $10,000,000 or more, the minimum level of CPD is 20 hours per year, and 120 hours over the three-year period.

At least half of the annual and triennial requirement must be met through verifiable CPD.

Retired members subject to full CPD requirement

A retired member will be required to complete the CPD requirement of 20 hours of which at least 10 hours must be verifiable and the minimum three-year CPD requirement of 120 hours of which at least 60 hours must be verifiable, if the member is:

• Licensed to practice public accounting, or 
• serving on the board or governing body of a reporting issuer that has either market capitalization or total assets of $10,000,000 or more (“reporting issuer” for this purpose is as defined in Rule of Professional Conduct 204), or
• Providing accounting services to the public or other professional services and the aggregate gross annual revenue from such services exceeds $75,000.

Retired members subject to reduced CPD requirement

A retired member will be required to complete a reduced CPD requirement of 10 hours of which at least 5 hours must be verifiable and the minimum three-year CPD requirement of 60 hours of which at least 30 hours must be verifiable, if the member is:

• serving on the board or governing body of a public interest entity that has annual gross revenue greater than $100,000, or
•  providing accounting services to the public or other professional services and the aggregate gross annual revenue from such services exceeds $25,000 but is less than $75,000.
• Public interest entities for this purpose include deposit taking institutions, not-for-profit organizations, charities, foundations, hospitals, health authorities, publicly funded educational institutions, social service agencies and cooperative business enterprises.

Free Institute CPD offerings for some retired members

A retired member is eligible to register for up to three full-day Institute CPD courses each year without being required to pay the registration fee if he or she:

• is not licensed as a public accountant;
• does not provide any professional services for which he or she is remunerated; and
• does not receive remuneration, such as directors’ fees, for serving on the board or governing body of a reporting issuer or public interest entity.   

What Learning Qualifies as CPD

Each member should undertake continuing professional development relevant and appropriate to the member’s work and professional responsibilities to develop and maintain the member’s competence necessary to provide high quality service to clients, employers, and other stakeholders.  To be recognized towards your CPD requirement, all learning activities must:

• be quantifiable, meaning that it must be specifically identifiable and be able to be expressed in terms of a specific time requirement;
• be directly related to the competencies needed to carry on the member's employment or practice; 
• be relevant to the member's current professional needs and/or long-term career interests; and
• contain significant intellectual or practical content.

A licensed public accountant must ensure that their CPD activities directly relate to the competencies needed to provide public accounting services.

Verifiable Learning

Verifiable CPD means that the learning can be objectively verified by a competent source and may include:

• participation in courses, conferences and seminars;
• organized employer-based in-house training sessions;
• research or student projects in areas that expand professional knowledge and that result in presentations, reports or similar documentation;
• research, including reading professional literature or journals for specific application in a professional role;
• participation and work on technical committees;
• published professional writing or academic work;
• writing technical articles, papers or books;
• teaching a course or a continuing professional development session in an area that is relevant to a professional role;
• participation as a speaker in conferences, briefing sessions or discussion groups;
• formal study such as leading to a degree or diploma;
• pre-professional re-examination or formal testing;
• self study involving successful completion of an examination or leading to a designation.
  

Unverifiable CPD

Unverifiable CPD means independent and informal learning activities and may include:

• on-the-job training for new software, systems, procedures or techniques for application in a professional role;
• self study that does not involve an examination or other objective certification of completion, such as conference reference material or self-study by electronic media or device;
• casual reading of professional journals or magazines that is not part of research for a specific application in a professional role.

Tracking and Reporting CPD

Members need to keep a record of their CPD activities and retain the supporting documentation.  The Online CPD Log is available for members to use as a tool to record and keep track of their CPD hours throughout the year.  A manual CPD log is available here to help you track your CPD. For verifiable CPD activities, you will need to provide the date, course name, the name of the course provider or sponsoring organizations, and the number of hours that you attended. Retain back-up documents (for example, the course description or outline) and records of enrolment for a total of seven years for possible review by the Institute. 

For other CPD activities, you should record the nature of the activities (e.g. the research topic, the specific new competency acquired through on-the-job training) and the source, and the number of hours.

Each year, in conjunction with the Annual Membership Fee process, members will submit a CPD Declaration form, declaring whether they met the CPD requirement, did not meet the requirement or are exempt from the requirement.  The supporting documentation and CPD log are not filed with the Institute – you retain these, unless requested. 

On an annual basis the Institute will select members to be audited for compliance with the CPD requirements. 

What Happens if I Fail to Comply with the CPD Requirement

If you don't meet the CPD requirement, a plan of action form or an exemption request must be filed.   The plan of action indicates that you agree to complete the minimum verifiable and unverifiable CPD requirement within 120 days of the acceptance of the plan of action AND that you agree to notify the Institute once the required CPD has been completed.    Failure to complete an approved plan of action within 120 days or failure to file the compliance declaration with 120 days of the plan’s acceptance date will result in membership suspension.   In order to apply for reinstatement, the applicable reinstatement fee and compliance declaration attesting to having completed the required amount of CPD must be provided to the Institute.   The Institute’s bylaws regarding reinstatement also apply.

Exemptions, in certain situations, may be approved if a member was not working for a total of 6 months or more between January 1^st to December 31^st of the previous year and was not involved in any activity in which it was reasonable to believe that another party relied upon the member’s skills as a chartered accountant for a total of 6 months or more during that time.  This would include situations such as parenting, family care, medical leaves, unemployment or other extraordinary circumstances.