EXTERNAL FINANCIAL REPORTING DECISIONS
- Objectives of financial reporting frameworks.
- Importance of accrual accounting and revenue recognition.
- Key elements of financial statements and disclosures.
- Differences between IFRS and US GAAP.
PLANNING, BUDGETING, AND FORECASTING
- Characteristics of strategic and operational plans.
- Tools for budgeting and resource allocation.
- Linkages between forecasting models and planning cycles.
- Features of effective planning frameworks.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
- Components of balanced scorecards and KPI frameworks.
- Techniques for variance analysis and interpretation.
- Use of benchmarking and comparative analysis.
- Relationships between operational goals and profitability.
COST MANAGEMENT
- Definitions and types of cost behaviors.
- Characteristics of cost allocation systems.
- Influences of overhead management techniques.
- Comparisons of traditional and modern costing methods.
INTERNAL CONTROLS
- Elements of internal control systems and processes.
- Types of risks and their organizational impacts.
- Roles of segregation of duties in preventing fraud.
- Importance of risk assessment in internal controls.
TECHNOLOGY AND ANALYTICS
- Objectives of data governance and security measures.
- Features of predictive analytics and big data tools.
- Applications of visualization software in decision-making.
- Key components of business intelligence systems.
FINANCIAL STATEMENT ANALYSIS
- Applications of ratio analysis for decision-making.
- Techniques for horizontal and vertical financial reviews.
- Characteristics of trend analysis in performance evaluation.
- Impacts of financial indicators on strategy formulation.
CORPORATE FINANCE
- Components of optimal capital structure frameworks.
- Factors influencing mergers and acquisitions decisions.
- Cost of capital considerations in financial strategies.
- Objectives of dividend and shareholder value policies.
DECISION ANALYSIS
- Roles of cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis in decision-making.
- Applications of marginal and sensitivity analysis.
- Definitions and applications of linear programming models.
- Characteristics of scenario analysis in uncertainty management.
RISK MANAGEMENT
- Types of risks in corporate and financial environments.
- Strategies for hedging against market and operational risks.
- Role of diversification in risk mitigation.
- Definitions of risk-return tradeoffs in financial strategies.
INVESTMENT DECISIONS
- Objectives of capital budgeting and investment appraisals.
- Differences between NPV and IRR methods.
- Importance of cost of capital in project evaluation.
- Factors influencing long-term and short-term investments.
PROFESSIONAL ETHICS
- Elements of the IMA’s Statement of Ethical Professional Practice.
- Relevance of confidentiality in financial decision-making.
- Risks associated with unethical financial reporting.
- Definitions of integrity and its organizational impact.
