Course ID: ICPAS

Innovation for CPAs: Practical Creativity for Better Insights, Advisory, and Processes

Creativity isn’t “art class”—it’s the first step in innovation. It is a disciplined way for CPAs and finance professionals to solve persistent problems, improve processes, and generate clearer insights while staying within ethical, quality, and control requirements. This interactive 4-hour course also shows you how to turn creativity into innovation: selecting ideas with risk-aware criteria and converting them into practical, low-risk experiments you can implement in the next 30 days. Why take this course? Because finance teams that can modernize how work gets done—faster close cycles, fewer errors and rework, better forecasting conversations, and more decision-ready reporting—deliver greater value, reduce avoidable risk, and increase their influence across the organization

Note: This course can be customized to provide between 2.0 and 4.0 CPE credits.

Learning Objectives

Recall how creativity works (divergent + convergent thinking) and why it matters in finance work.
Select at least three structured idea-generation tools to a real finance problem (e.g., close bottlenecks, reporting clarity, forecasting inputs, client advisory).
Recognize a simple evaluation method to select high-value, low-risk ideas (impact/effort/risk) and define guardrails for compliance, quality, and control.
Identify a 30-day “micro-experiment” plan (hypothesis, measures, stakeholders, and next steps) to move an idea into action.

Major Topics

What “Applied Improv” means in a business context (and what it does not mean)
Presence and “in-the-moment” focus: staying effective under uncertainty
High-stakes listening: hearing intent, constraints, and opportunities
Collaboration behaviors: sharing the floor, inviting contributions, reducing idea-killing dynamics
Adaptability and responding to the unexpected: agility in conversations and plans
Constructive disagreement: shifting from “Yes, but…” to “Yes, if…” to move work forward
Translating exercises into work scenarios: meetings, feedback, client/stakeholder discussions, change moments
Personal action plan: 2–3 “micro-habits” to apply in the next week (e.g., listening cue, meeting move, response phrase)

Advanced Preparations

None

Who Should Attend

CPAs in public accounting or industry; controllers; FP&A; internal audit; finance transformation; accounting ops; finance leaders and high-potentials.

Fields of Study

Personal Development

Prerequisites

None

Provider

Business Learning Institute

CPE Credits

4.0

Level

Basic

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