This is the first part of a mini-series covering changes to the 2026 ProAdvisor Awards Application process. The intent of this mini-series is to prepare award participants for the changes prior to actually starting the process.
Each year, Insightful Accountant strives to improve the ProAdvisor Award process. A few years ago, we changed from ‘SurveyTown’ to ‘Zoho Survey’ as the tool that supports our application form(s). There were numerous enhancements made possible by the change, including the ability to build in the ‘scoring’ within each question, and using ‘logic’ to turn on or off questions (or entire pages) based on the answers to prior questions. Another function of the logic capabilities afforded by Zoho Survey is ‘preliminary criteria screening’ at various points, which precludes an applicant from completing the entire survey if they fail to meet the minimum criteria early in the question process.
Even with this functionality, as well as enhancements since we started using Zoho Survey, the application form has become exhaustive from the perspective of maintaining the question applicability, and supporting the total number of applicants and their data.
One example of 'too exhaustive to maintain' is the section on ‘training' which encompassed more than 800 line items in the 2025 application across all of the award application forms (Domestic and International).
Even so, participants would ask "why wasn't this webinar, or that podcast listed," or "why can't I include my own trainings I provide?"
The answer was simple, "we can't list every training opportunity 'on the planet', especially if we don't know about them."
So, while we provide questions that gave participants the ability to list other training credits or hours, many of those participants overlooked those question.
But training is essential for Accountants, Bookkeepers, Consultants, and ProAdvisors, and it is one of the fundamental criteria found within each of our Award 'Standards,' and we want to provide a mechanism that allows every participant with the ability to maximize their training hours, CPE and CE credits earned during any 'awards year.'
We also recognize the the importance of 'training' in our profession, as do many of our participants, because most of the ‘credentialing’ agencies require a specific number of training hours (CPEs or CEs) annually to maintain accreditation. In fact, Intuit requires every ProAdvisor to pass a recertification examination annually. To facilitate the recertification process, Intuit offers “live webinars,” “recorded webinars,” or “self-paced training.” I just passed my recertification exam this past weekend; hopefully, you have done so too.
For the 2026 Awards, Insightful Accountant is implementing a significant change in the way we request ‘training information’ as part of the application process. This year’s Awards Application forms will no longer have long lists* of training events ranging from webinars to conferences, from podcasts to live events, and essentially everything in between.
The new application will let you ‘fill in the blanks’ about the training you attended (or instructed) during 2025. As you can see in the ‘Gold box’ below, you can provide the Training Course Name (like “Intuit Connect”, or “Scaling New Heights”, or even “QB Talks Webinars”. You also give the training Sponsor’s Name, such as “Intuit”, “Woodard”, or “Insightful Accountant” for the courses just discussed.
It is entirely appropriate and recommended that you lump related training into a single listing. For example, you don’t need to list every session you attended at Intuit Connect or Scaling New Heights. If you had a total of 12 hours (or 12 CPEs) of training, list those total hours. If you attended 7 months of QB Talks, then list it once, and specify 7 hours (or CPEs).
You will list the completion date for all training listed, as shown in the first column of the 'Purple box' below. Returning to our examples above, if you only attended one day of the Intuit Connect event, then list the last day attended. If you attended every day of Scaling New Heights, list the last day of the conference. If you only attending 7 months (randomly) of QB Talks over 2025 and your last webinar was in October, list the October date.
Don’t get ‘hung up’ on the specific trainings I have listed in this article. Remember anything of value to you as an accountant, bookkeeper, consultant, or ProAdvisor in the way of training is acceptable. Please don’t include your ‘violin lessons’ or ‘art classes’ unless you are prepared to demonstrate the professional value to you as a ProAdvisor.
As part of documenting your training, you will also need to tell us the training method (also in the purple box above). We need to know if the listed training was “Live In-person”, like a conference session, roundtable, or meet-up; “Virtual (Live)”, like a webinar presented live, a live podcast or webinar series; “Virtual (Recorded)”, like a pre-recorded podcast, or a webinar replay; or a “Self-paced” training that allows you to consume the information at your own pace, typically with knowledge checks along the way.
Most importantly, do not forget to report either the number of CE credits, CPE credits, or ‘hours’ of training. You can report valuable training hours even if CE or CPE credits were NOT issued.
Lastly, if you ‘instructed’ the training you list, be certain to ‘toggle’ the “Instructed Event” column for any applicable event. The toggles are shown in the 'Red box' above. And if you provide training through your practice to your clients, don't list each training session or each client's training individually, simply consolidate that training as "Client QuickBooks Training" (or something similar), list your firm as the sponsor, and the total number of hours instructed, making sure to flip to the toggle to 'instructed.'
If you need to report more than the initial twelve (12) training opportunities, click the“Do you need to Report more Training” toggle (shown in the 'Green box' above) to the Yes position to open another 12 fill-in-the-blanks set of questions. An opportunity to add more training becomes available after each block of twelve. You can report up to a total of forty-eight (48) training opportunities.
Even though the maximum number of reportable opportunities is 48, you are not limited in the number of hours you can report for each opportunity. So, please remember to consolidate similar trainings and post the total hours as of the last date completed.
We firmly believe that this method of "training" documentation will simplify the reporting of this critical component of award scoring and provide the maximum flexibility to our participants over trying to hunt for specific training courses from limited sources.
With that said, we look forward to YOUR participation in the 2026 ProAdvisor Awards process.
Thanks to our ProAdvisor Awards Sponsors (shown below).
You can find out more about our sponsors and request information by visiting our ProAdvisor Awards Sponsors webpage!
Footnotes and Disclosures:
* - Some application forms may have specific 'categorical training' requirements, which will be listed in separate sections of the application form. In addition, some Tax or International training requirements may be listed in a separate section or pre-listed in one of the write-in sections of the applicable application form.
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