Dear CCH Learning Center Subscriber,

Welcome to the first issue of Focus on Learning, a newsletter you will receive every other month as part of your CCH Learning Center subscription. The goal of this communication is to provide useful information about how to use the Learning Center to your full advantage and quickly update you on new courses and features. Each issue will highlight a course (or series of courses) on a timely topic, and list new courses released in the Learning Center. We will also inform you of new useful features, provide helpful tips on existing features, and help you use the CCH Learning Center to meet your educational and CPE needs.

Course Spotlight

Forensic Accounting Series. In the first quarter of 2004, CCH released a series of six courses that cover investigative and forensic accounting topics. This series is designed for accounting and auditing practitioners wishing to gain expertise about fraud, or considering forensic accounting as a specialty practice. The courses focus on preventing fraud as well as detecting fraudulent actions in all types of organizations. The courses included in this new series are:

• Cybercrime: Loss Valuations
• Cybercrime Management: Legal Issues
• Employee Fraud: The Misappropriation of Assets
• Fraudulent Financial Reporting
• Indirect Methods of Reconstructing Income
• Money Laundering and Transnational Flows

These courses can be used to meet your accounting / auditing CPE requirements, or the Fraud continuing education requirement now required for California CPAs who perform audit, review and compilation.

If you are interested in a more detailed review of the forensic accounting area, we refer you to CCH's Forensic and Investigative Accounting book. Written by three top accounting and forensic experts, this comprehensive resource covers all the important underpinnings, as well as the substance of forensic accounting. It covers both litigation support and investigative accounting, examining the practical aspects of these two areas, as well as many of the newer technological areas.

New Courses

CCH is committed to keeping you up-to-date and knowledgeable on the latest issues that impact your firm or corporation. In addition to the forensic accounting titles, CCH has released many other new courses to the Learning Center in 2004, including several accounting / auditing titles. New or revised Learning Center titles include:

• Capital Gains and Losses: Taxation Fundamentals
• Corporate Taxation Fundamentals
• Depreciation Course (2004 Edition)
• Ethics and Independence: New Rulings
• FASB No. 132: Employers’ Disclosures About Pensions and Other Postretirement Benefits
• FASB No. 150: Accounting for Financial Instruments with Characteristics of Both Liabilities and Equity
• Military Tax Breaks
• Partnership Sales and Distributions: Making Sense of the Complex Rules Part 1 — Sales of Partnership Interests
• Partnership Sales and Distributions: Making Sense of the Complex Rules Part 2 — Property Distributions and Elections
• Partnership Taxation Fundamentals
• S Corporations: Formation and Liquidation
• Strategies for Reducing the Self-Employment Tax
  

Future Courses

We will release a lot of new courses to the CCH Learning Center in the weeks and months ahead to give you more choices and more value. Among the more than 50 new and updated courses that are in development now, look for courses in the following areas soon:

• Vacation homes and REITs
• Sarbanes-Oxley tax implications
• Compilation and review
• Accounting and financial reporting — current developments
• Auditing
• Corporate distributions
• Home office expenses and deductions
• Travel and Entertainment expenses and deductions
• Sales and use taxation
• Kess on Financial and Estate Planning (five-course series)

Did you know…

You can get detailed information on course topics. All citations in the CCH Learning Center taxation courses are linked to the full text of the source documents in CCH® Tax Research NetWork™. Links take you to Internal Revenue Code sections, Regulations, cases, IRS publications, and other content discussed in Learning Center courses. The links help you quickly research the course topic, as well as related areas covered in each course. You must be a subscriber to the CCH^® Tax Research NetWork™ to take advantage of this powerful content integration functionality.

The Learning Center has several search alternatives. To find a course that covers a specific area of interest, click on the Course Catalog tab on the left side of the CCH Learning Center screen. The course catalog is divided into various topic areas: accounting/auditing, business taxation, financial and estate planning, individual taxation, retirement planning and tax preparation. Select the topic area that best meets your needs. The Learning Center courses are listed alphabetically within each topic area and short descriptions are provided for each course. Scroll down until you find a topic of interest and click on the title of the course. You will be taken to a more detailed description of the course. If the course description meets your needs, begin the course.

You can search all of the courses in the Learning Center by selecting View all Tax & Accounting Courses. The View New Courses section gives you a convenient listing of just the most recently released Learning Center courses.

The search bar at the top of the Learning Center screen allows you to search for more specific topics that interest you. Simply type the term for the topic you wish to learn more about in the search bar. A list of courses covering that topic, complete with short descriptions of the courses that cover it, will be displayed on your screen.

Help with the Learning Center

If you’re not sure how get up and running with the CCH Learning Center, or have a question related to getting the most use from it, here are a few quick tips:

“Getting Started” tab. Click on this tab at the top of the CCH Learning Center Welcome Page to get a quick overview of how to begin using the Learning Center. You can get guidance on enrolling in a course, resuming a previously started course, and more.

Frequently Asked Questions. Answers to more than 25 commonly asked questions can be accessed by clicking on the FAQ link on the left hand side of the Welcome Page. You’ll get guidance on questions such as:

• Can I get interactive credit for CCH Learning Center courses?
• Is there a hard copy, or printable version of the course available?
• How long will it take to complete a course?
• How can I see what courses I've completed?

CCH Learning Center Flash Demonstration. Need a quick two-minute overview of what the CCH Learning Center is and what it can do for you? Just click on the “Learn More” link on the left side of the Welcome Page.

CPE requirements and course / sponsor accreditation. Not sure of your continuing education rules and how the CCH Learning Center can help you meet your licensing requirements? Just click on the “Accountancy Boards” and “Accreditation” links on the left side of the Welcome Page to get some guidance.