Guest Blog: Central Virginia Chapter Finds Success with ACFE On-Site Trainings

By Charles Lawver, CFE, CIA
Central Virginia Chapter President

The Central Virginia ACFE Chapter is one of the oldest in the country. Over the years, we have experimented with every type of training available to meet the needs of our diverse and professionally sophisticated membership. One of the most challenging issues was the acquisition of an adequately equipped, conveniently located venue. We solved that problem by partnering with the Virginia State Police; they made their modern training center available to us gratis and, in exchange, we provided selected members of their staff with access to ACFE on-site training events at our expense.

For many years, our chapter, in partnership with the ACFE, has provided current, well-documented on-site training events conducted by members of the outstanding ACFE on-site training staff, to our community. Perhaps the most obvious advantage to our Central Virginia Chapter members of the ACFE on-site training is the avoidance of travel-related expenses such as transportation, lodging, and, to some degree, food and beverage services, not to mention the resources individual CFEs spend on the simple search for high-quality training. This savings becomes more significant as the training needs for individual CFEs increase. Protecting the bottom line via on-site training isn’t just about cost avoidance. It’s also about obtaining access to the highest quality training available for our members and for the Central Virginia fraud examination community at large. The highest quality training available is what the ACFE has consistently provided us.

In addition to cost avoidance and the provision of high-quality training, ACFE on-site training minimizes the loss of valuable time in the office for our members. Think of an audit or fraud examination team; if they're taken out of the field, every second they’re in training and not auditing, our member’s employers are losing money. Their accessibility to the office during our 2-day, ACFE-conducted sessions also allows participants to quickly address any business needs that may arise. On-site training also enables nonparticipating staff at the attendee’s local home offices to make impromptu contributions to the training.

Based on post-training evaluation comments from participants, ACFE on-site training has made the entire training experience much more special and memorable for our attendees, not only due to the environment of the training venue and the high quality of the training, but also because the interactive nature of ACFE training makes for a richer overall experience.

Finally, ACFE on-site training has directly resulted in a significant increase in chapter memberships. Many attendees are so impressed by the training that they decide to join our chapter as permanent members. Every event we hold with the ACFE results in an increase of 7-12 new permanent members for our chapter!

For more information on ACFE On-Site Training, please visit ACFE.com/OnsiteTraining.