ICAEW CPD deadline 31 October: how to get your hours done in time

If you are an ICAEW member, your CPD year ends on 31 October, two months before most of your friends at ACCA or the CPA bodies. That gap catches people every year. They plan around December because everyone around them does, and find in late October that their year has already closed.

If you’re reading this in September or October, you have enough time to finish properly. Here is a five-week plan.

Week 1: Know your number

ICAEW’s 2023 regulations set your hours by the work you do. There are three categories, each with a different split for members in practice and members in business:

• Category 3, the default for most members: 20 hours a year, with 10 verifiable in practice or 5 in business

• Category 2, 30 hours, with 20 or 10 verifiable

• Category 1, the highest-risk work: 40 hours, with 30 or 15 verifiable

Whatever your category, at least one of your verifiable hours must be ethics training. The full definitions are on our ICAEW requirements page.

Then open your ICAEW online CPD record and write down three numbers: total hours logged since 1 November last year, verifiable hours, and whether you have your ethics hour.

A worked example. A Category 3 member in business needs 20 hours, 5 of them verifiable, including 1 ethics hour. She has logged 14 hours, 2 of them verifiable, and no ethics. Her gap is 6 hours in total, of which 3 must be verifiable, and one of those 3 must be ethics.

In this example, as for many members, total hours are nearly there. The real gap is the verifiable part.

Week 2: Get the ethics hour done first

The ethics hour is the one requirement no other learning can fill. Nothing else you do in October counts toward it, so settle it first while there is plenty of choice.

It needs to be verifiable and aligned with ICAEW’s Code of Ethics. Firm training, ICAEW’s own ethics content and structured ethics courses with a certificate are the usual sources. Once it’s done, it also counts toward your verifiable total.

Weeks 2 to 4: Fill the verifiable gap with evidence that holds up

ICAEW calls an hour verifiable when the evidence is:

• Objective: based on facts, not your own opinion of what you learned

• Corroborated: capable of being confirmed by a third party or a system

• Retained: documented and kept

Most October mistakes come from learning that fails one of those tests. Some examples:

The pattern: learning becomes verifiable when something other than you can confirm it happened. ICAEW needs only one piece of evidence per activity, so you don’t need a stack of paperwork for each hour.

Week 5: Record everything before 31 October

Log each activity in your online CPD record as you finish it, with the evidence attached. Don’t leave it for the last evening.

Three October mistakes

Working to December. Hours completed on or after 1 November count toward the next CPD year, not this one.

Counting learning you can’t evidence as verifiable. It can still count toward your total hours, but not toward the verifiable minimum.

Missing the ethics hour. It is required every year, in every category.

Turning your October learning into evidence

Most accountants already watch technical videos and read updates during the year. Without evidence, that learning counts as non-verifiable at best.

CPDProof turns it into evidence that meets all three tests. You pass a short quiz on the specific video or article (objective), receive a certificate that anyone can check through a QR code and public link (corroborated), and download it as a dated PDF for your CPD record (retained).

ICAEW decides what satisfies its rules, and relevance to your role is your call, so no provider can guarantee acceptance. But if you are short on verifiable hours in October, it is the quickest way we know to turn learning you would do anyway into hours you can prove.

Try 2 hours free

Sources: ICAEW, CPD categories · Ross Martin, ICAEW changes to a verifiable CPD model · KPMG, New ICAEW CPD requirements