courses | National Inventory Certification Association

03 Oct 2018

Collections Inventory Course

Curriculum One of our most popular courses is Collections Inventory, The reason for its popularity is that it offers detailed information to help you prepare and perform an inventory of collectibles. Many choose this course as the elective to achieve the Appraisal Examiner Certification because often collectibles are items that people request to be appraised. The course summary follows:

Everybody collects something. Common collectible items are photographs, event ticket stubs, trip souvenirs, athletes’ trophies … the list goes on and on. The reasons people collect are plentiful as well – for personal enjoyment by seeing their items displayed, creating a history to pass down to their heirs, for investment, competition with other collectors, social interaction by attending swap meets and exchanging information, to name a few.

Keeping these collectibles properly documented is important. For the home inventory professional, knowing the process of documenting a group of items in a specific category of diverse types and values is a benefit to their current service offerings.

Collections are not limited to individuals but also held by businesses and specific market sectors. As such, the collection should be documented in a logically organized repository consisting of photographs, bills of sale, and reference materials that allows for updates of additional information at any time – providing peace of mind for the owner.

In addition to learning processes and procedures to thoroughly document these special items, this course also includes information regarding how insurance plays a role in collecting valuables, how to market a collectibles inventory service, creating additional business through “upselling” this service, and how to price your service properly.

The three modules of this course are:

Introduction to Collections Inventory Services
Process Strategies
Monitoring and Identifying Success

If you are still needing CEUs to retain your CIS certification, this would be a great course to add to your library.

03 Aug 2016

Curriculum Survey Results

The final survey is now closed, and we’re already making plans based on the results of the Curriculum Survey results. We believe that education is the most important area to place our focus, and is really the foundation of why NICA was developed.

Based on one of the surveys, you believe that continuing education is the most important function that we provide.

The Curriculum Survey will guide us as we plan for upcoming courses. As you know, Project Management was recently released. Due to your responses, the course that received the most votes has already been contracted to be released early-mid 4th quarter; that course is Collections Inventories. The full results are below:

Industry-related courses ranked by number of votes

Collections inventories was the only course that received a 100%. That means every person who responded to the survey chose this course.
Next in line is Insurance Basics for the Inventory Professional.
We had a tie for third place, shared by Basic Bookkeeping for a Home Inventory Business, Understanding the Difference between Public Adjusters and Insurance Adjusters
Loss Inventories was ranked next on the list.
Another tie for the final three courses are Commercial Inventories, How to Start a Home Inventory Business, and Quoting and Establishing Price Points.

Non-industry-related courses ranked by number of votes

This category did not receive near the number of votes as industry-related courses accumulated. To report the results, though, we list them below, in order of preference.

Sales Techniques
Establishing and Sticking to a Budget
Branding and Creating a Busiiness Image
Developing Marketing Campaigns

The results showed an overwhelming preference for industry-related curriculum, so this is where we will focus our continuing education courses for 2017.

Again, we thank you for your time and responses.

13 Jul 2016

Renewing Your Designation

We have just a little more than 5 months remaining in 2016. Therefore, we wanted to remind everyone who became certified prior to this year that it’s not too early to begin working on the 5 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) required annually to maintain your Certified Inventory Specialist (CIS) designation. Continued education is a key element of professionalism, and our recent surveys have shown that this is a highly valued component of being an inventory provider.

Course Choices

We have developed courses related to our industry, as well as general topics appropriate for any small business owner. Some of these are Customer Service, Time Management, Social Media, and of course, our newest, Project Management. For the full list of all available courses, and to get started on earning your CEUs, click here.

Members receive a 50% discount off all courses and the certification exam. If you don’t remember your code, please contact the NICA office and we’ll be happy to send it to you. We are including a chart that shows how you can achieve your 5 CEUs. It is also on the Professional Development page of the website.

Earning non-NICA Continuing Education Units

If you have participated in synergistic industry webinars, seminars, or courses (insurance, appraisals, adjusters, etc.), or general business education, these may qualify toward your CEU requirement. Send the information to nica@nationalinventorycertificationassociation.com. The committee will review the material and let you know if it can apply to your 5 CEU requirement.

If you have any questions about a specific course, feel free to contact the NICA office.