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The checking half

PARS annual close

ACCME already has the checklist and the videos for the buttons. This page is the half that sits next to an export: what closed means, how a series that spans the year is entered, and what you never let a drafting tool fill.

Every accredited provider enters activity data in PARS (or JA-PARS if you are jointly accredited). ACCME aggregates that into the annual Data Report. Your close is a small piece of that public picture, and a large piece of your self-study.

The official steps, videos, Excel templates, and Annual Reporting in PARS checklist live on ACCME’s annual reporting page. Use those for the clicks. Use this page, and the checking recipe, for the work a model will try to do for you and must not.

Confirm this year’s date

The last published ACCME deadline, for calendar-year 2025 data, was Tuesday, 31 March 2026 at 11:59 pm Central Time. That cycle is closed. The next close will have its own date on the same annual reporting page. Open that page before you start. Do not trust a handbook, a last-year calendar invite, or a model that remembers March. ACCME's page may still show last cycle's date well into the year. Treat that as last year's close, not this year's.

Providers accredited by a state medical society may be required to finish earlier. ACCME says to check with the Recognized Accreditor. If you are state-accredited, that email is step zero.

The five steps, as jobs

These are ACCME’s five steps, written as Tuesday work. The official wording is on their page. Ours is the checking half.

Accept the annual agreement

In PARS, under Provider Agreement(s). Each year you accept terms about data submission and compliance. A model cannot accept this for you. If the button is still sitting there in March, that is the first finding, not a drafting problem.

Enter what started. Close what ended.

Enter every activity that started in the reporting year. Close every activity that also ended in that year. An academic-year RSS that started in July and ends next June is entered when it starts and closed in the year it ends, not forced onto a calendar year. See RSS and academic years.

Update enduring cumulative learners

If you offer enduring materials, update the cumulative learner count as of 31 December of the reporting year. Count everyone who participated from the activity’s start date (which may be before this year) through the end date or 31 December, whichever comes first. Leave the activity open until its end date. Enduring can stay open up to three years. Details under Enduring, left open.

Submit the Program Summary

On the PARS dashboard. This is program-level money, not activity-level commercial support. ACCME asks for advertising and exhibit income, registration fees, government grants, and private donations for the most recent 12-month period you have. Commercial support is reported on each activity. If you jointly provided, you still report the same financial data you would for a directly provided activity, even if the joint provider received the funds.

Update contacts

“Back to Accreditation Management” from the PARS dashboard. A close that still lists a director who left in April is how ACCME cannot reach you in May.

What closed means

PARS now has four statuses: draft, active, ready to close, and closed. Ready to close happens when the end date has passed and the required fields are in. Closed is a step you take. ACCME’s checklist says you actively change the status to closed once required fields and total learner counts are in for activities that ended in the reporting year.

To close, you typically need, among other fields:

  • Physician learner count and other learner count (zero is allowed if that is the truth).
  • At least one outcome measure.
  • Commercial support yes or no, and the source and amount if yes.
  • If jointly provided, at least one joint-provider name.
  • If registered for MOC/CC, the board fields and attestation. That is a different job from year-end close. See the credit-count process.

You cannot delete a closed activity, or one that already has individual learner completion data. Enter carefully. A model that “fixes” a count by guessing is a finding waiting for a surveyor.

RSS and academic years

A regularly scheduled series is one activity in PARS, for a maximum of twelve months. If the series continues longer than twelve months, it is a new PARS activity for the next period. Credits are for the whole series, not per session. Each physician or other learner is counted for every session they attend.

ACCME’s own example: Internal Medicine Grand Rounds, 1 July to 30 June, one hour a week, 52 credits. If 20 physicians came to each session, physician learners for that one activity are 1,040 (20 × 52). That arithmetic is why a model must not invent the attendance.

Academic year, from ACCME office-hours material: an RSS that runs 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 is entered when it starts in 2025 and closed when it ends in 2026 (and no later than that year’s annual-reporting deadline). Do not split it into two calendar years, and do not close it in March because the reporting year ended. Except for enduring materials, activities cannot span more than twelve months from start to end.

If you record the live series for the same audience who missed a session, it is still one RSS. If you offer that recording to a different, broader audience, ACCME wants two activities: the RSS, and an enduring material. The enduring-module recipe is that second file.

Enduring, left open

Enduring materials are reported once, with a start and end date up to three years apart. They stay open until the end date. Each annual close, you update the cumulative learner count through 31 December (or the end date, if sooner). Cumulative means from the original start, which may be last year, not “new learners this calendar year only.”

ACCME’s example shape: launched 1 July 2023, available through December 2024. One PARS record, start 07/01/2023, end 12/31/2024. Report learners through 12/31/2023 in the 2023 close. Update to the cumulative total through 12/31/2024 in the 2024 close. Monetary commercial support is reported in the year it was received.

If you review and renew the module, it is a new PARS activity, not an edit of the old one. Review at least every three years, sooner if the science moved. Original release, last review, and termination dates belong on the material. See Content Validity of Enduring Materials and the enduring material definition.

Learners are people who completed all or a portion of the activity and whose participation you can verify. A download or an access log without completion is not a learner. Credit is the time it takes one person to finish, not a guess that makes the flyer nicer.

What a model must never do

  • Invent a physician or other-learner count, a credit total, or an income figure.
  • Close an academic-year RSS in the wrong year, or split it into two calendar years.
  • Treat enduring cumulative counts as “this year’s new people only.”
  • Count downloads as learners, or invent a time-to-complete.
  • Write the Program Summary from a brochure instead of the four income lines ACCME asks for.
  • Quote a deadline, a criterion, or a credit statement from memory.

The PARS close recipe turns an export plus your notes into a checking list and Program Summary prose. The program-analysis recipe is the year or the accreditation term as a narrative. Same rule: no trend you did not measure.

Where the buttons live

If you want the three files for the close, start from the manager desk: this page, the number audit, and the program-analysis recipe. Confirm the date on accme.org first.

PARS annual close · bettermethod.ai/pars-close/ · Last reviewed August 2026
These tools change often. Check the review date before you rely on anything product-specific in here, and check the guidance against your own accreditor and organization policies.