Continuing professional development (CPD) is mandatory for registered BAS agents and for members of the professional associations that represent Australian bookkeepers. But beyond the compliance minimum, investing in professional development is one of the most direct ways a bookkeeper can improve their service quality, attract better clients, and justify higher fees. This guide covers the requirements, the best resources, and how to track it all.
BAS Agent CPD Requirements
The Tax Practitioners Board (TPB) requires registered BAS agents to complete CPD that is relevant to their BAS services. The current requirement is:
- A minimum of 90 hours of CPD over a three-year registration period.
- At least 45 hours must be structured CPD (formal courses, seminars, workshops, or assessed learning).
- The remaining hours can be unstructured (reading industry publications, attending webinars without formal assessment, peer-to-peer learning).
The three-year period runs from the date of your registration renewal. If you renew on 1 March 2025, your CPD period runs to 28 February 2028 and you need 90 hours completed by then — including 45 structured hours. Leaving it to the last six months is a common and avoidable problem.
Importantly, CPD must be relevant to the services you actually provide. A BAS agent who only provides bookkeeping and activity statement services does not need CPD in legal trust accounting — though it might still be useful. Document the relevance of each CPD activity in your log.
ICB and AAT CPD Requirements
Many Australian bookkeepers hold professional membership with either the Institute of Certified Bookkeepers (ICB) or the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT). Both have their own CPD requirements in addition to the TPB requirements.
ICB: Certified Bookkeeper (CB) members are required to complete 20 hours of CPD per year. Fellow members (FICB) have a higher requirement. ICB distinguishes between CPD related to bookkeeping/accounting skills and CPD related to business skills (practice management, software, client communication) — both count.
AAT Australia: Members are required to complete a minimum of 40 hours of CPD per year, with at least 20 hours being structured or formal. AAT's CPD framework covers technical competencies, professional skills, and digital skills — which includes learning new software and automation tools, increasingly important as cloud accounting evolves.
If you hold both BAS agent registration and professional membership, you do not need to do twice the CPD — the same activity can meet multiple requirements simultaneously. Track it once and record which requirements it satisfies.
What Counts as Structured CPD
Structured CPD must have a defined learning outcome, be delivered by a qualified provider, and usually involve some form of assessment or verification. Common examples:
- Courses delivered by the ICB, AAT, CPA Australia, or Chartered Accountants ANZ
- Tax and BAS-specific courses from the ATO's Tax Practitioner Education program
- Registered Training Organisation (RTO) short courses (for example, units from the FNS Financial Services Training Package)
- Industry conferences with identified CPD hours (the major software vendors — Xero, MYOB, Intuit — run annual conferences that award CPD hours)
- Webinars with a formal assessment component and a certificate of completion
Note that simply watching a recorded webinar without an assessment element is typically unstructured CPD. Many providers now add a short quiz after webinars specifically to qualify the activity as structured — look for this when choosing learning resources.
Free and Low-Cost CPD Resources
Professional development does not have to be expensive. High-quality free resources include:
ATO website and training: The ATO's Tax Practitioners section has free courses, updated guidance documents, and webinars on specific topics (STP, FBT, BAS preparation, cryptocurrency). These are directly relevant to BAS agent obligations and clearly count as CPD.
Xero and MYOB learning platforms: Both Xero Central and MYOB Academy offer free courses to users of their platforms. Many of these are assessed and come with certificates. Xero's certification courses are particularly comprehensive — covering payroll, inventory, and advanced reconciliation features.
ICB and AAT member resources: Both associations provide free CPD for members through their member portals. This typically includes recorded webinars, technical updates, and legislative summaries. Check the member portal regularly — resources are added year-round.
Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) and CPA Australia: While these associations primarily serve accountants, many of their CPD offerings are relevant to bookkeepers and BAS agents. Some offerings are available to non-members at a cost, but members of the ICB and AAT may have access through reciprocal arrangements.
Logging CPD: What You Need to Record
The TPB requires you to maintain your own CPD records — they do not track it on your behalf. For each CPD activity, record:
- Date and duration of the activity
- Name and provider of the course, seminar, or resource
- Whether it was structured or unstructured
- A brief description of the learning content and how it is relevant to your BAS services
- Any certificate or evidence of completion (retain the actual certificates)
The ICB and AAT have online CPD logs in their member portals that simplify this. If you are not using a member portal, a simple spreadsheet works — but make sure you can produce the evidence if the TPB requests it at renewal. Failing to demonstrate CPD compliance at renewal is one of the most common reasons BAS agent registrations are not renewed.
Making CPD Work for Your Practice
The bookkeepers who get the most value from CPD treat it as a deliberate investment, not a compliance exercise. A practical approach: at the start of each registration year, identify two or three areas where you want to deepen your knowledge — maybe it is payroll tax, agricultural bookkeeping, or getting better with a specific software tool. Then find structured CPD in those areas and plan it into your schedule before the year fills up.
Learning a new specialisation through CPD and then actively marketing it to clients turns an obligation into a revenue opportunity. The bookkeepers I have seen build the most profitable practices are consistently the ones who invest the most deliberately in their own development.