Course Updates | Equipment Finance & AI Prompting for Financial Analysis

Summary of Changes

Equipment Finance

Programs affected: CBCA (Elective)

Equipment Finance is being retired and replaced by Equipment Finance and Leasing. The new course has been updated to reflect today’s industry and gives you the practical skills you need to understand equipment finance transactions. The refreshed course incorporates current terminology, practices, and examples while providing a clearer view of how equipment financing works in real-world situations.

We're also making the learning experience more practical and easier to navigate. The updated course places greater emphasis on how transactions are evaluated, structured, and managed, including important considerations such as credit risk, collateral, transaction economics, and residual value. You'll benefit from improved explanations, more relevant examples, and a streamlined learning journey designed to help you apply what you learn on the job.

What this means for you

• If you've already completed the current version of Equipment Finance, your completion record and certificate remain valid. No action is needed.
• If you're in progress and have selected Equipment Finance as a CBCA elective, you'll need to complete the entire CBCA program, including the final exam, before the changes take effect. The deadline to complete is October 31, 2026. If CBCA isn't completed by this date, your remaining progress will move to the updated course, and any in-progress work on the current version will need to be redone under the new version.
• If you haven't started, you'll automatically see the updated version once it goes live. Your CBCA program requirements are unaffected. The updated course satisfies the same elective requirement as before.

Structured AI Prompts for Finance

Programs affected: FMVA (Case Study) · CMSA (Elective) · CBCA (Case Study) · FPAP (Case Study)

The AI Prompting for Financial Analysis practice lab is being replaced to give you a more practical, more broadly applicable way to work with AI as a financial analyst. The new lab, Structured Prompting for Finance, introduces the RCCFS framework (Role, Context, Constraints, Format, and Self-Check), which replaces the original CAP-AJ approach. Rather than focusing on a single accounting scenario, the refreshed lab shows you how to build a structured, analyst-grade prompt for any finance deliverable you produce, from merits sections to forecasts to client-ready summaries.

We're also making the lab more hands-on and easier to apply on the job. The updated lab places greater emphasis on supplying the context AI can't guess, setting clear constraints and formatting up front, and instructing AI to verify its own output before you ever see it. You'll benefit from a real-world worked example, a downloadable prompt you can adapt to your own deliverables, and a guided exercise where you build and refine a structured prompt yourself.

What this means for you

• If you've already completed the current version of the lab, your completion record and certificate remain valid. No action is needed.
• FMVA, CBCA, and FPAP learners: this lab is classified as a Case Study Challenge in these programs, which is an optional component and not required to complete certification. If you're partway through it, there's no completion deadline tied to program certification, though you're welcome to finish the current version before it's replaced if you'd like to complete what you started.
• CMSA learners: this lab is classified as an elective in CMSA. If you're in progress and have selected it as your elective, you'll need to complete the entire CMSA program, including the final exam, before the changes take effect. The deadline to complete is October 31, 2026 (60 days from this announcement). If CMSA isn't completed by this date, your remaining progress will move to the updated lab, and any in-progress work on the current version will need to be redone under the new version.
• If you haven't started, you'll automatically see the updated version once it goes live. Program requirements (FMVA, CMSA, CBCA, FPAP) are unaffected. The updated lab satisfies the same case study or elective requirement as before.