#1 CIMA

Assalamualaikum wbt,

A hospital needs doctors, a factory needs engineer but both need accountants.

These past few days I've been doing some reading on the different professional accounting bodies. 

CIMA, ACCA, ICAEW, CPA, MICPA, AICPA, ICAA

The decision of choosing which one to pursue is a challenge by itself. 

Stop aiming for ACCA just because it's the most well-known and heavily promoted in tertiary learning institution. 

Instead, do your research to know your interest, your future planning, the costs etc. And these qualifications are not restricted to Accounting graduates, you can have whatever degree backgrounds; law, engineering, computer science, physics. It does not matter.

Interesting facts :

• Rafizi Ramli, Degree in Electric and Electronics Engineering, member of ICAEW.
• Tan Sri Dato' Azman Hashim is a full CPA member; BEFORE he turned 21 year-old. *Envy!*
• Tan Sri Tony Fernandez holds the membership of both ACCA and ICAEW
• Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones studied Accounting at LSE (woahh!!)
• Nazril Idrus is a ICAA member.

With that being said, I'm gonna share what I learn about the various accounting bodies. 

It's for my own reference, initially.

But why not share it, eh?

Hope someone somewhere will benefit from this.

CIMA - Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

Basically CIMA = Accounting Degree + MBA

1. Why CIMA?

• Globally recognized with the title of Chartered Global Management Accountant.
• More than just pure accounting. CIMA helps develop skills for strategic advice, managing risk and making key decisions. 
• Boost earnings. (kachinggg!!) Qualified members in KL earn 7% higher salary than national average with RM17,000 monthly. (average) [Sumber]
• Gives more career options since it focuses on the practical side of management and accounting including applied management accounting techniques, marketing activities and resource management.

2. Where can I study for CIMA?

Well, you can either 'self-study' with the help of online resources or you can attend classes. There are not many institutions offering CIMA as compared to ACCA but among the notable institutions are

• UiTM Shah Alam
• TAR College
• Open University Malaysia
• Sunway-TES
• UCSI (hai, Dya!!)

3. What is the syllabus structure?

It is a bit complicated.

There are two levels; Certificate and Professional. 

For a Degree holder (business/accounting) , we'll start with the Professional Papers.

(For other qualifications, they'll need to take CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting beforehand.)

Without any exemptions, the total papers to be taken is ten (10).

As you can see, there are three pillars with three different levels. 

Operational and Management exams can be taken in any order. 

Strategic level exams can only be taken after you have passed all the papers in the two previous levels.

Contohnya untuk Financial Pillar.

You can sit for either Financial Management (F2) or Financial Operations (F1) first (or both at the same time).

Wanna seat for F3 -Financial Strategy? Passed all the 6 papers in Operational and Management level first. 

Dan juga, for Strategic level exam, (E3,P3, F3) MUST be taken concurrently at the first seating.

Wajib!

At any subsequent examination attempts, these papers may be taken in any order or combination.

It is also advisable to sit for 3 papers per sitting.

Markah lulus ialah 50%.

** Passing rate for November 2012 exam (globally). 

Out of the 10 papers, the highest passing rate is for F1- Financial Operations with 59%. 

And the lowest is 44% P2 - Performance Management. 

In average, the passing rate for CIMA exam is 51%.

100 orang amek exam, 49 orang gagal. 

Begitulah secara puratanya. 

Selepas itu, masuklah bahagian terakhir yakni T4 - Test of Professional Competence.

It consists of 2 parts.

Part A - Work Based Practical Experience

Part B - Case Study Exam

I've flipped through the syllabus and among the topics are

• Consolidated Financial Statements (cukup kuat kah untuk menghadapi lagi sekali?)
• Implementation of Strategic Plans
• Formulation of Financial Strategy
• Risk and Internal Control

Dan most of the exam is a 3 hours ordeal with a 20-minute reading time. 

It makes one wonder. 

Is the exam very difficult that you allocate 20 minutes for the students to study the question beforehand?

Looking at the passing rate, yes it is!

4. Can I get some exemptions?

Mungkin antara sebab mengapa ACCA is so famous is that it offered exemptions up to 9 papers for UNITEN and UiTM students. (Bercakap berdasarkan pengalaman since I'm quite familiar with these two uni).

You can check at CIMA database here.

Bear in mind that different uni offers different exemption and even from the same uni; contohnya UiTM. Those yang graduate tahun 2010, yang diserap from diploma, those yang graduate after 2010 semuanya berbeza.

But for my friends yang sama-sama dari diploma UiTM and sambung Bachelor in Accountancy (Hons) di UiTM yang bakal graduate minggu nie, anda punye exemptions adalah seperti berikut.

• All Certificate level paper
• All Operational level papers - E1, P1, F1
• Management level - F2 

Makanya tinggal lagi 6 paper.

Untuk Uniten, since we are using the new syllabus (batch 2010) we have to individually apply the exemption from CIMA. 

Exemption fee sama je dengan exam fee. Meaning even if we got exempted from the papers, we still need to pay GBP48 (Certificate level),  GBP81 (Operation and Management level) and GBP87 (Strategic level) for each papers ye.

Maka rakan-rakan UiTM, exemption fees anda ialah GBP564. 

5. Where do I start?

Go to CIMAGlobal, register as student. The registration fees is GBP72.

For the new students, annual subscription fee is waived for the first year. 

The next year however, sila mula membayar annual fees of GBP100. 

For May exam, the dateline is 31st January. 

For November exam, the dateline is 31st August.

Exemption process may take up to 20 working days. Makanya, plan well. 

On average, students complete the ten professional qualification exams in four years. Most students attempt two or three exams at each sitting but they can be completed in three sittings.

Ingat ye, 3 years experience before becoming a full fledged CIMA member, with the title of Chartered Global Management Accountant. 

Sungguh komprehensif post ini.

:D

The fox knows many litte things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing - Archilochus

Tweet