Training Opportunities

IRA Institute is a training program that provides in-depth instruction on the “need-to-know” aspects of Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP plans and SIMPLE IRAs. IRA Institute integrates extensive IRA material, objective-based training methods, and practical applications of the rules to create the ideal learning environment.

This six-week online course provides the tools to build a solid IRA knowledge base and become certified as a Certified IRA Specialist (CIS) I. Topics include establishing an IRA, contributions, Traditional and Roth IRA distributions, and portability.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Minnesota Bankers Association, present an HSA workshop in Eden Prairie, MN covering both essential and advanced HSA topics.

With IRA reporting requirements constantly changing, it is vital for your financial organization to stay up to date on the latest requirements. This course provides an in-depth review of key IRA reporting topics, including required minimum distribution statements, fair market value statements, account statements, and IRS Forms 1099-R and 5498. Our experts also review the electronic reporting requirements, beneficiary reporting requirements, procedures for requesting extensions, and IRS penalties for improper reporting.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Minnesota Bankers Association, present IRA workshops covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with LSCU & Affiliates, present virtual IRA workshops, covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Michigan Credit Union League, present virtual IRA workshops, covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Illinois Bankers Association, present IRA workshops delivered onsite and virtually covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

HSA University creates an industry standard in HSA expertise with the accredited Certified Health Savings Professional (CHSP) designation. Expand your HSA knowledge in 75 minutes a week over 5 weeks in a format that is flexible to fit your busy schedule.

Our experts will outline the top 10 IRA topics we get questions about on Ascensus’ consulting lines. Join this webinar to see what makes this year’s Top 10 list!

IRA Institute provides in-depth instruction on the need-to-know aspects of Traditional and Roth IRAs, and small business IRA-based SEP and SIMPLE IRA retirement plans. The IRA Institute includes objective-based training methods, extensive materials, and practical applications of the rules.

IRA Essentials gives attendees a solid foundation of IRA knowledge.

Advanced IRAs builds on the attendees’ basic IRA knowledge to address some of the more complex IRA issues that their financial organizations may handle.

The SECURE Act made significant changes to IRA rules, that included adding complexity to the beneficiary rules. Is your financial organization finding it difficult to understand the options that are available to IRA beneficiaries? This is part one of a two-part comprehensive course covering in-depth aspects of Traditional and Roth IRA beneficiary options that addresses all the changes resulting from the SECURE Act, including essential topics of beneficiary election deadlines, distribution rules and restrictions, reporting requirements, and year-of-death required minimum distribution issues.

Diving deeper into the beneficiary options covered in IRA Beneficiary Distributions – Part 1, in this session you will take a more hands-on approach into handling death year RMDs, beneficiary portability, separate accounting rules, and beneficiary reporting requirements that includes special death year reporting.

Is your financial organization’s IRA program in compliance? Ascensus has conducted countless compliance reviews for financial organizations across the U.S., oftentimes finding compliance concerns that could result in substantial IRS penalties. Being in compliance means following all the IRS requirements for documents, federal and state withholding, and reporting. This course will guide you through these areas of compliancy and provide checklists to help manage the compliance process, helping to ensure IRS penalty-free IRA program.

Financial organizations are frequently dealt beneficiary death claims and may wonder how to resolve some of their more complex beneficiary issues, where there may be no or limited regulatory guidance. This comprehensive course covers in-depth aspects of Traditional and Roth IRA beneficiary issues and best practices on how to handle death claims while mitigating risk. This course covers advanced aspects of IRA disclaimers, distributions to trust beneficiaries, reporting issues, disputes, minors as beneficiaries, and other compliance concerns.

Although financial organization personnel do not give tax advice to their clients, IRA administrators still may find themselves fielding legal questions. Generally, there is no IRS guidance on how to handle IRA legal issues. This course covers some of the more common legal issues that may arise with IRAs, such as powers of attorney, guardianships, creditors, beneficiary issues, and divorce; as well as how to handle these types of transactions to help mitigate risk for your organization

The rules and regulations governing IRAs, HSAs, and other tax favored savings accounts are constantly evolving, and can be challenging to keep up with. Rely on our industry experts to bring you up to date on recently proposed legislation and regulatory updates that may affect your organization and your clients.

Trust beneficiary questions are one of the most popular topics that come into our consulting lines. Trusts can be used for many reasons, such as estate planning, avoiding probate, and maintaining control over assets. Trusts have become more popular in being named as beneficiary by IRA owners. This course reviews IRC and Treasury Regulations guidance for distributing IRA assets to a trust beneficiary. We also cover compliance concerns that are frequently encountered, and the risks financial organizations should be aware of in this legal grey-area.

Want to manage a successful HSA program more effectively? During this course, our experts teach on the fundamentals of HSAs and basic HSA compliance rules. You will gain an understanding of HSA benefits, eligibility requirements, documentation and reporting requirements, contribution rules and limits, portability rules, and the difference between qualified and nonqualified distributions. For a deeper dive into HSAs, see HSAs – Advanced. 

Ascend is the industry’s most comprehensive education conference offering basic and advanced courses on: retirement, health, and education savings plans and industry trends.

Take your knowledge of HSAs to the next level with a review of difficult HSA issues regarding eligibility requirements, employer contributions, excess contributions, prohibited transactions, mistaken distributions, and reporting. For a refresher on HSAs, see HSA Fundamentals. 

For the first time in nearly 20 years, due to the SECURE Act, the IRS is requiring all IRAs to be amended in 2022. To avoid IRS penalties, financial organizations must use the correct and properly amended IRA opening documents. This course provides information on how to properly establish Traditional and Roth IRAs and how to amend IRAs.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Nebraska Bankers Association, present virtual IRA & HSA workshops covering both essential and advanced IRA topics and essential HSA topics.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Kentucky Bankers Association, present IRA workshops covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

IRA owners, employer plan participants, and financial organizations can face significant IRS fines and tax ramifications result of a prohibited transaction. This course examines the prohibited transaction rules and common exemptions as they apply to IRAs and employer plans, and financial organizations. Join this session to learn how to identify and prevent prohibited transactions, and possible ways to resolve them once they occur.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Credit Union Association of New York, present IRA workshops in Albany, NY covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

This course is a must if you are new to IRAs to help build a foundation of the most common IRA transactions and rules. Learn the fundamentals of Traditional and Roth IRAs from contributions and distributions to portability—including the rules associated with rollovers between employer plans and IRAs. For a deeper dive into IRAs, see IRA Advanced.

This course walks through everything you need to know about excess contributions, including handling recharacterizations. This course covers how excess contributions occur, different excess correction methods, and how you can help an IRA owner correct an excess contribution.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Hawaii Credit Union League, present virtual IRA workshops, covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

Understanding the complex withholding and reporting requirements applicable to Traditional and Roth IRA distributions is critical to maintaining a compliant IRA program. From federal tax implications, including how the early distribution penalty tax applies to IRA owners to how IRA distributions are paid out, our expertise provides the know how to get you there.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Tennessee Credit Union League, present virtual IRA workshops covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

Are you confident that you’re adhering to all federal and state withholding rules? The SECURE Act significantly increased penalties for improper withholding notifications. This course covers the requirements for both federal and state withholding, how to properly notify IRA owners of their withholding rights, what to do with the withheld assets, the foreign withholding requirements, and the potential penalties for improperly following the withholding rules.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Iowa Bankers Association, present IRA workshops covering essentials IRA topics.

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Iowa Credit Union League, present IRA workshops in Des Moines, IA (and delivered virtually), covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

Our experts will outline the top 10 HSA topic eligibilities we get questions about on Ascensus’ consulting lines. Join this webinar to see what makes this year’s Top 10 list!

Our highly skilled Ascensus trainers, in partnership with Utah Credit Union Association, present IRA workshops in Salt Lake City, UT covering both essential and advanced IRA topics.

RMD rules changed recently resulting from the SECURE Act, the CARES Act, and most recently the new life expectancy tables. RMDs make up a large part of most financial organizations’ IRA services and will continue to increase as baby boomers age. Attend this course to ensure that your organization is handling RMDs according to the most current rules. Course topics include RMD calculations, excess accumulation penalty taxes, financial organization responsibilities, and reporting.

For individuals with an HSA and soon to be eligible for Medicare, it’s critical for them to understand how enrolling in Medicare will affect their HSA. This course will help you gain crucial understanding of effective timing of Medicare enrollment, HSA contribution implications, and how individuals can use their HSAs to pay qualified medical expenses in retirement.

Retirement plan portability is one of the most popular topics fielded on our consulting lines. Attending this course will help ensure that you are up to date and handling these transactions properly. You will learn the difference between transfers and rollovers and direct and indirect rollovers, as well as acquire an understanding of Roth retirement plan assets and portability with Roth IRAs.

The cost of attending one of America's colleges is certainly not getting any cheaper. This course will review the various options for setting money aside to help pay for this high-cost venture. Learning objectives include discussing the concepts and benefits of Coverdell ESAs, tax benefits and allowable education expenses for ESA and 529 plans, the difference between 529 college savings plans and prepaid tuition plans and understand how UGMA and UTMA accounts have been used to fund college education.

eLearning provides you with access to convenient and effective training through an online library of courses on qualified retirement plans, Traditional and Roth IRAs, SEP and SIMPLE IRA plans, heath savings accounts, and education savings accounts. Individual courses are available through our learning management system (LMS), Ascensus University, or for use within your LMS.

IRA Essentials OnDemand is the perfect solution for those who need an introduction to IRAs but cannot attend a face-to-face training session. IRA reference materials, job aids, quizzes, and videos blend together to create an immersive educational experience. Explore six educational tracks: Introduction to IRAs, Establishing an IRA, Funding, Portability, IRA Distributions, and Reporting.

Simplified employee pension (SEP) plans remain a popular alternative for small employers. SEP plans are easy to maintain and offer employers a chance to make deductible contributions at their discretion. This webinar provides an in-depth review of SEP plans, including information on plan documents, eligibility requirements, contribution limits, and distribution requirements.

Get the benefit of our experienced instructors and extensive curriculum without leaving the office with an on-site HSA workshop. From basic to comprehensive, our HSA Fundamentals and HSA Workshop offer flexibility and customization and give practical understanding of critical rules and operational issues.

Get the benefit of our experienced instructors and extensive curriculum without leaving the office with our on-site IRA workshops. Our IRA Essentials, Advanced IRAs, and Frontline Fundamentals curriculum offer flexibility and customization and give practical understanding of critical rules and operational issues.

For our IRA Administration subscribers, Ascensus has two IRAdirect® workshops that give general users and advanced users the foundation they need to work confidently with this software.

IRAdirect® is a registered trademark of Ascensus, LLC.

Fulfill your career, obtain IRA knowledge and skills, and become indispensable to your organization by earning two professional designations in less than 12 months.

Step 1: Register for IRA University and the CIS I exam.
Step 2: Register for for Ascend and the CIS II exam.
Step 3: Participate in the IRA University and pass the CIS I exam.
Step 4: Attend Ascend and pass the CIS II exam.

Click the Register for IRA University button to register for IRA University or to learn more about IRA FastTrack.

Are you missing out on opportunities with small business owners who could recognize substantial tax and retirement benefits by setting up a SEP plan? Join this webinar to see why so many small business owners establish SEP plans, especially small, family-owned or independent businesses. SEP plans are easy to establish and maintain and offer business owners a chance to make deductible contributions at their discretion. The employer contribution limit is greater than the regular IRA contribution limit and does not prevent IRA owners from making regular eligible contributions to their IRAs. This course provides an in-depth review of SEP plans, required plan documents, eligibility requirements, contribution limits, and distribution rules.

SIMPLE IRA plans are ideal for small employers who are looking for an easy-to-maintain plan that allows employees to save for retirement out of their own paycheck. SIMPLE IRA plans, however, are not that simple! This course reviews what you need to know when it comes to being the trustee or custodian of SMIPLE IRA plans, while adhering to IRS requirements to remain compliant, including operational procedures, required plan documents and participant notices, eligibility requirements, contribution limits, portability, and distribution rules.

In this exclusive webinar, we’ll summarize the key provisions—so you don’t have to, identify what’s most relevant to your organization, and share the timing of when your organization should be ready for change.