by Margaret Herriges, MSCPA Communications Director

I joke with the Board that for years I have been dreading planning the 101st Annual Meeting.  I mean, how do you follow up the gala celebration at the 100th Anniversary?! But as I worked with this year’s planners I got more and more excited for the 101st Annual Meeting. We have such great things planned for you . . . and it starts with a new registration process.

We recently had new registration software built that resides on our website and communicates with our database. It’s a huge technological step for us and one we are pretty excited about because it should make registration for our conferences and annual meetings easier than ever!

Step 1
When you register I encourage you to be logged in. That way most of your information will auto-fill making your experience so much faster and convenient. If you’ve never logged in before simply use your email address and your membership number (usually the same as your license number)

Step 2
When you first land on the 101st Annual Meeting page hit the register button (upper right corner) even if you are just looking for more information.  You can find the prices for all the different types of registration on the right side of the page. We have registration options for:

• full convention (members & nonmbrs)
• ethics only (live or webcast)
• students
• guests (full registration, combination of events or just individual events)

Please note that these prices are good through June 6th. After that prices go up $50.

STEP 3
If you scroll down the page you will see a blue box with a small check box that says “Register Yourself”. If you are already logged in, that box will automatically be checked. Proceed by choosing your registration type–if you are bringing a guest that part of the registration is coming. Just select YOUR registration type.

Step 4
Next, more check boxes will appear based on the registration type you selected. Do you have special dietary needs? Will you be hanging out in the CPA Lounge Wednesday evening? Make your menu selection for the Distinguished Service Awards luncheon, and so on. You will need to make these selections for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

BONUS!!!
This year for the first time ever (!) we are offering the Opening Keynote “The Good Ones: 10 Crucial Qualities of High Character Employee” by Dr. Bruce Weinstein as a webcast. That means if you can’t go to the entire convention you can sign up to take this class as a LIVE webinar  or attend just this session and fulfill your ethics requirements.

We only have one set of current sessions and that’s on Thursday afternoon. Be sure to select the “Covenant Not to Compete” panel OR Dr. Bruce Weinstein’s second session.  Don’t pick both!

Step 5
After you’ve made all your selections you can register someone else:  your guest or someone else from your office. The cool factor on this part of the registration is it will show other members linked to your office and if they’ve already registered, making it easier for the person doing all the registering (especially firm administrators). Once a selection is made you’ll be asked what the additional person is registering for and the appropriate check boxes will pop up for you to complete.

Step 6
Something new we added to our registrations as so last year was the Emergency Contact Information. This is a risk management strategy that we’ve adopted as a best practice.

Step 7
The last step before payment will be to decide if you want your annual meeting handouts as electronic documents (emailed to you prior to the event) or as a printed copy (in your packet at the event).

If you need to make a change to your registration or add a guest after you have registered, please contact MSCPA directly at mscpa@mscpa.org or call 800.272.0307. In fact we invite you to contact us if you have any questions at all. We are here for you and we’d be delighted to help any way we can.

I can’t wait for the 101st Annual Meeting. Watch for future posts about the exciting speakers we are bringing in just for you as well as the fun we’ve got planned. I have a feeling this could turn out to be my favorite annual meeting experience. I hope I get to share it with you!

P.S.  Be sure to make your hotel reservations by May 30th to get our discounted rate.