As part of the annual renewal process at the National Registry, sponsors are required to submit a certificate of completion from a course offered in the previous year. The National Registry team has continued to see noncompliance with the Standards on the submitted certificates.    

Boards of Accountancy often reach out to the National Registry regarding mistakes or incomplete information on the certificates of completion submitted by their CPAs. Since the certificate of completion is typically the only document that is reviewed by a state board, sponsors should ensure all information supplied on the certificate is accurate and complete. Certificates of completion must include:

• Sponsor name and address
• Participant's name
• Program title
• Field(s) of study for the program
• Date program offered/completed
• Location of program
• Instructional delivery method
• Amount of CPE credit earned
• Signature of CEO or individual responsible for administration of continuing education programs
• Registry sponsor identification number
• Registry time statement

Common mistakes are misclassifying the field of study, not using the current field(s) of study classifications provided by NASBA and not allocating CPE credits into multiple fields of study classifications.

There are also errors in determining the CPE credit for the program, such as measuring on a 60-minute hour instead of the 50-minute hour as required, or not rounding down to the nearest whole, one-half or one-fifth increment.

Sponsors may round down to the nearest one-fifth, one-half, or whole credits at their discretion and as appropriate for the instructional delivery method. However, the credit increment must be consistently applied to the CPE program. For example, if the CPE program consists of 4 sessions for a total of 4.5 CPE credits, then all sessions should be rounded down to the nearest one-half credit. You are not permitted to have sessions for 1.0 credit, 1.4 credits, 1.6 credits and 0.5 credit.

If there are questions regarding required elements of the certificate of completion, additional information can be found in the Sample Templates section on nasbaregistry.org or by reaching out to the Registry team.