CPD Requirements and Compliance Audit
Continuing Professional Development
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is important for all CPA to develop and maintain professional competence necessary to perform their roles as a professional accountant throughout their career and thereby to strengthen public confidence and trust in the profession.
This material provides a comprehensive overview of the CPD requirements and the CPD compliance audit process.
For details on CPD requirements, please refer to Statement 1.500 Continuing Professional Development.
CPD Compliance Audit
Every year, when members renew their membership, they are required to declare that, among other things, they have complied with the Institute’s CPD requirements. In this connection, certain members would be selected for audit on CPD compliance and will be asked to submit CPD records and documents to the Institute.
CPD is of crucial importance for our profession and the audit is a necessary step to ensure members maintain and enhance their professional competence and technical knowledge. To help members understand the audit, we summarize the essential information of the audit below:
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Members selected for the audit will need to provide documentation to support their CPD activities, including attendance or completion of their verifiable CPD activities. All underlying documents will be checked in order to evaluate whether the reported CPD activities were undertaken. They will also need to explain why the CPD activities undertaken are relevant to their professional work.
Note:
- MyCPA provides a user-friendly platform to help members manage their CPD records. Simply click the "CPD Activity summary" tab under "Development" after logging in to MyCPA. Such record could easily be transferred to the CPD record form if members were selected for audit.
- Members should provide the required documentation by the stipulated deadline. A handling fee would be applied, when appropriate, for late submissions.
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The audit will determine if members have complied with the CPD requirements by assessing the relevance and adequacy of the CPD activities undertaken based on the information and documents furnished by members. Any non-compliance identified would fall under the following two categories and in respect of which follow-up actions are to be taken:
Shortfall of CPD hours in relevant CPD activities
First-time non-compliance: The member will be re-selected in the next audit to ensure compliance. In addition, s/he will also be required to complete a mandatory course on CPD requirements as part of the required remedial actions.
Repeated non-compliance: Without a reasonable explanation*, the member's registration may be revoked under section 27(1)(a)(iii) of the Professional Accountants Ordinance (PAO), or disallowed for renewal for the subsequent year under section 28(2)(c) of the PAO.
* Explanation of merely not understanding or overlooking the CPD requirements would not be considered as a reasonable excuse.
Non-completion of or non-responding to audit
The member will not be allowed to renew his/ her membership for the subsequent year if s/he has not responded to/ completed the CPD compliance audit.
CPD Compliance Audit result
The Institute completed the CPD Compliance Audit for the period from 1 December 2020 to 30 November 2023 (“2023 CPD Compliance Audit”). In this audit, over 800 members were selected via a risk-based process and the results are as follows:
* Any verifiable CPD activities claimed without sufficient supporting documents would be considered as shortfall.
In 2023 CPD Compliance Audit, 4% of the selected members (all being non-practising certificate holders) who (i) did not complete the audit or (ii) did not complete the remedial actions for the non-compliance by the specified time were not allowed to renew their membership and their names were removed from the register of certified public accountants. All responsible persons of registered Public Interest Entity auditors selected for audit showed full compliance.
