General Help

Please have your IT group whitelist our domains and IP addresses:

You can check whether our website is live by clicking here.

To activate a recording within your account, login and click the green "Activate Additional Training" button. Under Recordings, click Activate. Or click the live session from our calendar, enter your email address, and click the "Change" link next to the current date. Select "Recorded Presentation" from the dropdown menu.

Notes:

• Once activated, each recording is good for 30 days. Recordings can be activated before the live session, after the live session, or anytime. Unless the topic is brand new, the recording already exists.
• A recording can be paused or stopped and restarted.
• Please check to be sure your speakers are active and the volume is set properly. The recording video and audio are synchronized and the audio plays through the computer speakers.
• If you miss a live session (the credit goes unused), we will convert the live session to a recording at no charge and send an email with access instructions. Just let us know by sending a note to support@shockproof.com.

Once activated, the course will appear within your account. Once you click the course, there are four steps:

• Step 1: Overview
  
• Step 2: Access Resources (download course materials here)
• Step 3: Play Recording
• Step 4: Review Solutions (plus feedback link)
• Step 5: Take Quiz (access multiple choice quiz)
• Step 6: Summary

Note: If you have a group of users you wish to take the quiz, please click the "Testing" and enter their email addresses. Or email contact information (name/email) for each to support@shockproof.com.

Recordings last for 30 days from activation.

Yes, you can back up and restart each recording. We suggest you test the recording before any group presentation to ensure the technology works on the system to be used with the group.

We encourage you and anyone attending our courses to complete the optional quizzes and exams. As you know testing offers the opportunity to practice concepts and helps with retention. You might be interested in a study on why testing is the best way to learn. Or this article on How Tests Make Us Smarter.

Testing is included with the course and, for live or recorded courses, available to anyone in the room. The test is taken individually; if there are other test-takers in your location, please send a note to support@shockproof.com with the name and email address of each participant, and we will activate the quiz for each and send an email.

Note: there is a credit charge to retake a test.

Review quizzes consist of either five or ten multiple choice questions, available after each session.

Final exams consist of 50 multiple choice questions. You will receive two scores back, an overall score and a key questions score. Key questions reflect core concepts.

For Credit College courses, if you decide to take the review quizzes following each session, you need to submit all of the session review quizzes in the course to generate a composite score comprised of your session review quiz scores and your final exam score. If you decide to skip the review quizzes following each session, you can still take the final exam, and your course score will be based on the final exam score only.

To prepare, we recommend participants login, print the exam and check their answers offline. When complete, login again and submit all of the answers at once. You can also use the partial 'save' option to store your answers before submission.

At our end, there is no score required for passing though a score of 80 and above suggests mastery of the material. We suggest participants review the explanations for questions missed along with the associated course materials and solution set.

Yes. A "credit" will be used each time the retake button is clicked and confirmed.

Some number of the questions will be different (and/or in a different order). We suggest participants review the explanations for answers missed as well as the associated course materials. In general, it helps to review the course solution set before submitting the test for the course.

Finally, some institutions consider the quizzes practice and the final exam to be a truer representation of knowledge learned. At our end, there is no score required for passing though a score of 80 and above suggests mastery of the material.

Upon request, we will email a "Certificate of Completion" to anyone that attends a course. If a participant scores 80 or above on a quiz or exam, the certificate reads: "Certificate of Mastery".

To request a certificate, please send an email to support@shockproof.com with the name and email address of the participant(s) along with the course name.

Yes, we are a NASBA sponsor for select live webinars and credit college sessions.

During the session the instructor offers polls to which course participants respond electronically. For CPAs attending the live sessions, they must respond to the polls. For group sessions, there is only one person logged into the session that is recorded. Since other CPAs in the room do not answer the polls directly, the person logged in will need to attach a statement vouching for attendance of others.

National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) policy: "S16 – 04. Small group viewing of group internet based programs. ... Participation in the group must be documented and verified by the small group facilitator or administrator in order to authenticate attendance for program duration."

No, our courses have not been certified for college semester credits. We do offer certificates of Continuing Education Units (CEU) which are used by some folks to maintain a professional license. And we offer Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits for CPAs.

Annual memberships are normally activated in 24 hours or less. The membership period runs 12 months forward from the date of the membership initiation.

On activation of the membership, we send two emails, one with your individual account information and, for institution memberships, a second email with a blank roster in case you want us to load folks into the system in bulk. Or, individual accounts can be created on our website by following these steps:

• visit http://www.shockproof.com
• click the "Log On" button in the upper right corner
• click "Create Membership Account" under the "Login" button

Additional credits can be purchased a) as add-on pools of 10 credits for $1,000.

When annual membership is renewed, unused credits carry forward into the next period. Otherwise, unused credits expire at the end of the membership period.

The videos below demonstrates how you use the Genova Groups to send the emails on the "Day of" the live presentation to all enrolled partiicipants (link below): 

Sending course materials - Friday 8 minutes 

Sending course materials - morning of the sessions via gmail backup (4 minutes long)

The status of the credit pool and usage reports are available when you login as an administrator. Once you login, click the Administrator/Activate button, then Reporting, then Detailed Usage Report.

Yes, we recommend completing the name and email for a mentor. A few practical considerations:

• A mentor is copied on test results so he/she can view areas that may need review and reinforcement. For many institutions the mentor is a manager or other employee that can work with the participant on credit issues.
• Everyone in the system needs an account to enroll in a course. During account creation, a mentor can be assigned. If the mentor fields are left blank (no mentor was added) during account creation, the 'default' mentor for the institution account will be assigned. If you wish to change the default mentor, please send a note to support@shockproof.com with the name and email address of the default mentor.
• Some institutions require course test results be included in the participant's record. A few require a score of 80 or above.

To download the complete calendar as an Adobe PDF file attachment, click here to visit the calendar page, then in the left panel, near the top, click the PDF icon just to the left of 'Sort for:' filter to download a PDF of the calendar.

To download a single month of calendar entries:

• At the top of the calendar are icons for two different displays, calendar and list. Click the list display.
• Next to the name of each month is an icon that allows you to copy just that month to the clipboard.

Note: At the top of the screen, use the 'Sort for:' to narrow your search for live courses, e.g., webinars or specific colleges.

Once in your account, click the green Administrator/Activate button menu option, then in the left panel, click 'Users in System', then click 'Organizational Admins and Mentors' in the center of the screen.

Or send a note to support@shockproof.com with the name and email address of the administrator(s).

Once you login to your account, in the left panel, select the green Administrator/Activate button and then select "Edit Existing User Accounts" from the "USERS IN SYSTEM" block in the center of the screen.

Institutions with successful rollouts have most of these characteristics:

• Executive support.
• Allow usage into other areas of the bank.
• Integrate coursework into career maps or plans as well as performance goals and the review process.
• Promote the coursework on an institution intranet page. Include a participant testimonial with benefits achieved.
• Forward course suggestions to relevant manager and groups.

The basis for commercial credit analysis and commercial lending is accounting. A bit dry, but it really is the foundation. And unless you have taken accounting recently and feel comfortable with it, you might start there. We offer a 4-part Accounting Essentials course that kicks off live every quarter. Please check our calendar for the next kick off date.

Please click here to read about the Accounting Essentials course (90-120 minute sessions, live or recorded).

Below are two other Course series once you are familiar with Accounting.

• Both Credit Colleges on Commercial Real Estate and Business Lending (90-120 minute sessions, live or recorded).
• The three sections (nine courses) in the Credit Curriculum (self-guided, self-paced):
• Fundamentals
• Cash Flow
• Credit Decision

Each session below represents a 90-120 minute case-based live webinar and includes background reading, a multi-step exercise, case materials for one or more credits, presentation slides and solutions to the exercise and poll questions. Each is also available via recording.

Cash Flow

• Advanced UCA Cash Flow: Part I of II
  
• Advanced UCA Cash Flow: Part II of II
• Global Cash Flow

Tax Returns

• Understanding Schedules K-1
• The Section 179 Deduction
• Schedule M-1 and the Accrual Income Statement
• Business Income Tax Returns and Ratio Analysis
• Business Income Tax Returns and Cash Flow Analysis

Note: It is helpful to take the Business Income Tax Returns and Ratio Analysis before Business Income Tax Returns and Cash Flow Analysis. We spend considerable time in the Business Income Tax Returns and Ratio Analysis course on constructing an accrual income statement from business income tax information, which we then use to construct and interpret ratios. In the Business Income Tax Returns and Cash Flow Analysis course, we review the accrual income statement construction process but do not go into as much detail. That accrual income statement construction process is really the key event in both courses and key to constructing meaningful ratios and to constructing the UCA cash flow statement.

Lending to Municipalities and Not For Profits

• Not For Profits
• Fund Accounting: Part I of II
• Fund Accounting: Part II of II

Healthcare Lending

• Forces Impacting Hospital Financial Performance
• Assessing Hospital Financial Performance
• Assessing Medical Practices
  

Contractor Lending

• Understanding and Analyzing Contractor Financial Statements: Part I
• Understanding and Analyzing Contractor Financial Statements: Part II

Projections

• Projections and Repayment Sources: Part I
• Projections and Repayment Sources: Part II

Yes, please click Learning Paths to view our suggestions. Please click a role in the left panel and from there you can step into each course, then click Show Details and you can view Target Audience, Prerequisites and Objectives.

We offer a Credit College along with a couple of Advanced webinars on Cash Flow outlined below. Once you've clicked into a course or series, each individual session description includes an overview and a "Show Details" button. Please click that button to view the Target Audience, Prerequisites and Objectives.

Credit College: Using Cash Flow Statements and Proxies for Risk Assessment

Advanced UCA Cash Flow: Part I of II

Advanced UCA Cash Flow: Part II of II

Below are two suggestions:

• Global Cash Flow (90–120-minute session, live or recorded)
• Credit Decision: Guarantor Support and Global Cash Flow (4-6 hours, self-guided, self-paced)

Below are a few suggestions:

• The Five Cs of Credit
• Tax Returns vs. Accrual Statements in Assessing Borrower Risk
• We'd also suggest board members attend the Analytical Focus in the Credit Write Up webcast. We cover all the key points of a write-up in the that session, e.g., Business Drivers, UCA Cash Flow, Cash Impact, guarantor support, etc. Click here for a course description.
• If that session sparks interest in any specific topics, then individual board members could pursue the topic on their own, i.e., sign up for a detailed webcast.
• As an option to the Credit Write-Up webcast, you might consider the first session in one or the other of our Credit College series, Commercial Business or Commercial Real Estate.

With a heavier emphasis on CRE, Session 1 in Commercial Real Estate may be more useful. Session 1 covers the four essential elements in the credit write-up without going into too much detail. The session also covers the regulators guidance, which all should know. The session also goes through all the red flags that pop up from a review of a CRE developer. Again, if any director were interested in a special topic, such as guarantor support, he or she could sign up for that session.

Note: Live or recorded, sessions include an optional quiz, which would help affirm completion.

Yes, we offer a two-part webinar on the topic:

Understanding and Analyzing Contractor Financial Statements: Part I of II

Understanding and Analyzing Contractor Financial Statements: Part II of II

Also, please an earlier newsletter article:

• Assessing Contractor Financial Performance

We offer a few courses relevant to consumer lenders:

• Credit Decision: Guarantor Support and Global Cash Flow (self-guided, self-paced)
• Personal Income Tax Returns and Cash Flow (90-120 minute session, live or recorded)
• Understanding Schedules K-1 (90-120 minute session, live or recorded)

We offer two courses that cover Commercial Real Estate appraisal review for purposes of a lending decision. Below are links to descriptions for both courses, one self-guided and the second live (or recorded).

• Income Producing Properties (self-guided, self-paced)
• Credit College sessions (90 minute sessions, live or recorded)
• session 4. The Appraisal Report and Approaches to Market Value
• session 5. The Income Capitalization Approach and the Cap Rate
• session 6. Underwriting Standards, Actual vs. Stabilized NOI, and Breakeven Analysis

Once you login, in the menu at the top, click Resources, then click Credit Refresher Library on the left.  On the next page you can browse the Credit Refresher topics or use the filter or use Ctrl-F (find) to locate the Credit Refresher.