PACE Recertification Guide

Recertification proves to your supervisor, your colleagues, and most importantly to yourself, that you continually strive to stay informed of changes in your profession and to maintain your expertise.

Your recertification deadline date is the two-year anniversary of your PACE Certification or last recertification. You can see your current expiration date in the E-Learning Center under "My Certificates." All CEUs must be submitted by 11:59pm Eastern Time on the day your PACE Certification is set to expire. 

ASAP is a member of the national credentialing body, the Institute for Credentialing Excellence, and follows its standards to ensure a quality continuing education program.

General Rules

• CEUs must be a minimum of 60 continuous minutes. 
• CEUs are awarded primarily as 0.1 CEU per hour of continuing education earned within your current Certification compliance period.
• You cannot log CEUs from before you were certified or from outside of your current Certification compliance period.
• Please round to the nearest hour to calculate CEUs. For example, if you attended a training that was 2 hours and 30 minutes, you can round up to 3 hours (0.3 CEUs) when self-reporting, whereas if you attended a training that was 2 hours and 15 minutes, round down to 2 hours (0.2 CEUs). 
• "Extra" CEUs (anything logged after required 2.4 CEUs) do NOT rollover into the next compliance period. We encourage you to do more than the minimum requirement; however, every year when your Certification renews, your CEU total will reset to zero.

Qualifying Content

To qualify for CEUs, training topics must be directly relevant to skills and knowledge necessary for administrative professionals’ and executive assistants’ success, and must be at least 60 continuous minutes in length to qualify as 0.1 CEU. Content must be related to the four PACE proficiency modules that were tested on the PACE exam:

• Interpersonal Communication
• Task and Project Management
• Management Skills
• Computer and Internet Technology

ASAP offers many opportunities to earn CEUs through our training. Registration pages for each activity will also have CEUs available listed. 

• Administrative Professional Conference: 1.2 CEUs with Base Pass, 1.8 CEUs with Premium Pass, 2.2 CEUs for Nova Chief of Staff Certification (2024) 
• EA Ignite (Spring or Fall): 1.4 CEUs
• ASAP Webinars: 0.1 CEU for each webinar that provides one continuous hour of education
• ASAP Online Courses (4 webinar sessions): 0.4-0.5 CEUs
• ASAP Online Workshops (2 webinar sessions): 0.3 CEUs

Yes! Training that you took outside of ASAP counts for 0.1 CEU per hour as long as the activity lasted for at least 60 minutes and the topic is directly related to at least one of the four PACE proficiency modules (see Qualifying Content section under "What qualifies for CEUs?" above). 

 Training must relate to at least one of the following:

• Interpersonal Communication
• Task and Project Management
• Management Skills
• Computer and Internet Technology

Special Cases and Examples

We've collected this list to help you calculate the number of CEUs earned: 

• Relevant webinars: 0.1 CEU per hour
• Relevant conferences: 0.1 CEU per hour (educational sessions only - excluding meals, networking breaks/receptions, etc.)
• College or university courses: Completing college courses – directly related to your profession and to PACE competencies – will earn 1.0 CEUs per completed course awarded a C+ passing grade or higher.
• Training classes through your company: 0.1 CEU per hour. (Role-specific training that advances the admin’s expertise and relates to a PACE proficiency counts; organization-specific training, like company orientation or company policies and procedures, does NOT count)
• Local adult education classes: 0.1 CEU per hour (as long as they are directly relevant to your profession and to PACE competencies. Example topics include Excel, PowerPoint, Communication Skills, or Business Writing)
• Relevant Volunteer Activities: 0.1 CEU per hour, capped at 1.2 CEUs per compliance period. The volunteer activity must be relevant to one of the four proficiency modules - for example, voluntarily organizing DEI activities for your organization (Interpersonal Communication). 
• Earning another professional certification (after earning PACE):
  • MOS Master or Expert= 0.5 CEUs per certification
  • Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) = 1.6 CEUs 
  • Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) = 2.3 CEUs
  • Project Management Professional (PMP) = 3.5 CEUs
  • Nova Chief of Staff Certification = 2.2 CEUs

If you have questions about a specific activity, please contact us. 

After you complete a CEU opportunity, you must self-report it in order to receive your CEUs. Go to My Account > My E-Learning Center > My Certificates > Manage CEUs > Add CEU. We recommend adding activities as they are completed so you can continually track your progress.

If the activity was offered by ASAP, you may be able to add it directly from the dropdown. Please note that specific ASAP webinars, courses, and workshops are not added by their titles. For example, you can select "ASAP Webinar (0.1 CEUs)." In these cases, please add the title of the activity in the "Description" field. 

If you need to add a custom activity, a short form will pop-up for you to complete. Here's what we're looking for: 

Activity (Required)

The title of the training (Please use the official title of the training and not generic terms like "webinar")

Description (Optional)

What did you learn about? What is the summary of the content covered? While this is an optional section, it is recommended for self-reporting CEUs outside of ASAP in order to help staff determine relevancy or the amount of CEUs. If your account is under review and you do not fill out this section, ASAP staff may have to contact you for additional information or remove the CEUs if we do not have the information we need. 

Date Completed (Required)

Use the date picker to properly format the date, or you will not be able to save the CEU record.

Subject Area & Activity Type (Required)

Simply select the most appropriate option from dropdown!

Activity Provider

What organization held this activity? 

Hours (CEUs auto-calculate)

Enter in order as whole numbers. CEUs will auto-calculate. In general, 0.1 CEU per 1 hour of continuing education – CEUs under 0.1 should not be self-reported.

Verification

Verification can be any document that will prove that you completed the activity – certificates, receipts, registration confirmations, handouts and syllabi are all acceptable forms of verification. All verification files should be in PDF form. Please note verification is not required for ASAP activities but is required for external activities. FMI on verification files, read this article from our Help Center. 

• Earning your PACE Certification: The nature of continuing education is that you can only start earning it after you are certified – the act of getting certified does not count for credit
• Anything completed outside the two-year renewal period
• Anything earned above 2.4 CEUs
• Networking, receptions, lunch periods, or breaks
• Training or education duration less than one hour
• Partial hours (Please round to the nearest hour to calculate CEUs)
• Work assignments/projects
• Organization-specific training, like company orientation or company policies and procedures
• Classes, courses, sessions, or motivational speeches that lack educational content OR that are not relevant to the administrative profession or to PACE competencies

Certification holders pay a $75.00 fee for each two-year recertification cycle. Once you have logged 2.4 CEUs and are within 30 days of your PACE expiration date, a "Re-Certify" button will appear next to your certification in the E-Learning Center.

After you've completed your CEUs and the recertification fee, your PACE Certification will update at the end of the day on the day of expiration. Your Certification will not renew early.  

ASAP can audit your Certification at anytime. Annually, ASAP randomly audits 30% of CEU submissions. During the audit process, our team is looking for:

1. Did you complete the continuing education you reported? (Please ensure appropriate verification is uploaded with each CEU submission.)
2. Was the continuing education you completed relevant for your Certification? 

If there are issues with your CEUS, the ASAP team will contact you directly in writing for remediation, which may include submitted a written report or completing a quiz if requested. Failure to properly log CEUs and comply with the audit process may result in the loss of your Certification, at the sole discretion of ASAP.