With tax season over, many practitioners will turn their attention to professional development. Nigel Harris puts the case for online courses and presents an overview of current providers.

CPD may be a chore, but for those living outside the major cities it can consume a disproportionate amount of chargeable time. Video conferencing may not have caught on yet, but this year all the major CPD providers to the accounting profession will be offering some of their normal update courses online, presented by the speakers we have all become familiar with on the live CPD circuit over the years.

The advantage of webinars is that you view them from your desk, so a one hour course will take just 60 minutes of your time, zero travelling involved. And, if like me you have in the past travelled a couple of hours to a course which has quickly turned out to be a complete waste of time, if a webinar turns out not to be for you, you can just click the web page closed at any time and get back to work. Although sold on a single-user basis, all these services become even cheaper per head if you gather a group of people around one PC to share a webinar. You can then get additional value out of it by discussing it and sharing learning points afterwards.

Here’s a quick overview of what the main players are offering for 2009:

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CCH eCPD [1] has been running for a number of years and offers two hours of new CPD training each month, which is added to a library which can be accessed at any time, either online or sent monthly on CD-ROM. Training is delivered in 10-15 minute modules and each month includes modules on business, practice management and tax topics, plus quarterly audit and accounting modules . The presentation is a little dull compared with the other providers, an audio track with accompanying slides, but no interaction with users as material is not presented live. However, each month’s material includes a selection of commentary and source materials, taken from CCH’s flagship information products the ‘British Tax Library’ and the ‘British VAT Library,’ designed to complement and expand on the material in the modules. An additional feature is the unique “webride” tab which takes you away from the CCH site on a tour of websites related to the topic that you are learning about - for example: IFRS webride takes you to all the related links on this topic without having to search yourself. You can finally test yourself on the knowledge that you have absorbed with the lecture quizzes at the end of each section. Cost: £329 pa for a single user.

Tolley [2] have been running Tolley Seminars Online since 2005 and have a loyal following. They provide five or more 15 minute webinars each on business and personal tax topics each month plus 10 auditing and accounting topics quarterly. Like CCH these are pre-recorded audio presentations which you can run at any time - the archive back to 2006 is all available to subscribers. On-screen slides are presented using Shockwave and there are comprehensive PDF notes (50+ pages per month) and interactive tests. Best of all, the speakers are drawn from a veritable Who's Who of lecturers, including Robert Jamieson, Chris Jones, Dean Wootten, Mike Thexton, Bob Trunchion and Francesca Lagerberg. Cost: £375 pa for a single user.

LexisNexis [3] launched the separate Tolley Webinars last year aimed at larger firms and has expanded them into two eight-webinar series in 2009 covering private client tax, and corporate and business tax separately. These are part of a wider series of law webinars run by LexisNexis. There is an emphasis on large corporate and offshore tax topics which may not be relevant to smaller firms. However, the presentations comprise video and sound plus on-screen slides, and is made more dynamic by the use of two or three speakers who interact and discuss points with each other, as well as responding to questions submitted online by delegates. Webinars are recorded and accessible for at least six months after the event and notes can be downloaded. Cost: £75 per webinar, or less if purchased as an annual subscription package.

SWAT [4] is a newcomer to online CPD this year, offering four titles in its CPD series, plus a further 20 technician and staff level courses on practical auditing and tax topics which represent a very cost-effective way to deliver training on core technical skills to unqualified staff and trainees. Courses are presented live via WebEx with printed course notes posted to delegates in advance. Delegates listen to the speaker online using a VOIP audio feed and view Powerpoint slides on screen, with a facility to submit written questions using the WebEx text chat box. Courses are recorded so that the audio and slides can be accessed afterwards if you are unable to make the live presentation. Cost: £110 each per delegate or from £55 for season ticket holders

Mercia [5] is also offering online CPD for the first time later this year. It currently has five topics scheduled for 2009 at £75 per participant. They will be streamed live using Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro and shown on a split-screen with a small live video of the speaker and Powerpoint-type slides. Again, delegates can submit written questions online, and notes and slides can be downloaded after the event. Webinars are recorded and will be available for a month after the live presentation for delegates to watch again, or catch up if they missed it. Cost: £75 per webinar for a single delegate.

Now Training [6] is a new training website by veteran tax lecturers Tim Good and Giles Mooney, and currently offers web-based courses on Money Laundering and Entrepreneurs relief from £19.99 for one delegate. They have also started a monthly audio-visual tax update service from the beginning of 2009. The MP3 download “e-ssential tax updates” at £7.99 per month, come complete with on-screen slides and printable notes so you can either run them on your desktop PC or just listen on an MP3 player. The content is extensive – for example, the February edition covers Capital allowances - changes that affect the SME, share options, medical check ups and tax, Class 3 and 4 changes, Entrepreneurs' relief changes, protecting pensions and pricing an annuity.

Low-cost webconferencing services have now brought online presentations within the reach of any organisation. Other groups using them from time to time include the 2020 Group which runs member briefings from time to time using GoToMeeting [7], while Mindshop are big WebEx [8] users. Most webconferencing technology runs into problems if you have a slow Internet connection, or share it with a lot of other users. Services where audio is delivered directly through your PC using VOIP seems, in my experience, to be better and less prone to breaking up than others which use a separate dial-in telephone line.

I have tried most of these online CPD services and would recommend that you try at least one of them this year to complement your live seminar bookings. They are a very low-cost, quick and effective means of ensuring that you stay up to date with all the key changes in tax, accounting and auditing issues and help you meet your institute or association’s annual CPD requirement.