CMA stands for Certified Management Accountant. In management accounting, it is considered the highest credential and is well-acclaimed worldwide. Over 170 countries recognise CMA, governed by the Institute for Management Accountants (IMA) USA.
It is a prestigious finance and accounting certification highly demanded by various business companies and recruiters all over the world. The CMA course covers various sectors, including accounting, finance, business, and analytics.
If you are an aspiring CMA preparing for the exam, this article will give you all the details and requirements associated with the exam.
CMA Course Details
The entire curriculum is divided into two parts: Unit 1 and Unit 2. Unit 1 consists of the following topics:
- Decisions on External Financial Reporting- This module imparts basic knowledge of accounting principles, financial summaries, tax principles, and other vital skills regarding reporting. It is used to extract insightful reports for various businesses.
- Financial planning, budgeting, and budget forecasting- A budget is integral to any business organisation. In this module, the learners are equipped with practical skills like strategic planning, and they get to learn about financial projections, budgeting concepts, methodologies, and so on.
- Performance Management- A business's performance and profitability are closely connected with its assets' functioning. The stakeholders exploit this performance management process to stay updated on current financial information. This module covers many important topics like variance and cost measures, analysis of profitability, and performance measures.
- Cost Management- In cost management module, applicants learn about estimating the costs of every record and controlling expense.
- Internal Controls- This module covers a wide area of business controls, such as cost control, financial control, and risk controls.
- Analytics and Technology- Here, the learner picks up how to practically implement analytics and exploit data analytics and technology to build robust systems for any business or industry.
Unit 2 consists of the following topics:
- Analysis of financial statement- This module teaches the fundamentals of financial statements, how to organise the same and its various types. It also teaches about the advanced topics of revenue analysis, analysis of income measurement and also about the analysis of variation.
- Corporate accounting and finance- This module teaches the learners about the reason behind financial reports. The learners learn how to raise capital, manage cash, deal with acquisitions and mergers and so on.
- Analysis of Decision- This module teaches about the analysis of profit-volume and cost, marginal analysis and opportunity costs. It also covers pricing science, methodologies of product pricing and life cycle product. Thus, this module essentially equips learners to make sound financial decisions.
- Management of risk- With this module, students learn about coordinating and managing various kinds of risks. This module covers everything from learning to identify the type of risk to resolving them.
- Decisions pertaining to Investments- This module teaches the necessary skills related to investment planning regarding enterprises. It includes topics like the mathematics of finance needed for building investment plans. In this module, the learner also gains expertise in undertaking return projections, analysing investment decisions etc.
- Ethical standards- Apart from the complete knowledge about management accounting, business and finance, this module focuses on professional ethics and scruples.
Eligibility for CMA
To be eligible for the CMA certification, one needs to satisfy the following criteria grouped under the following categories:
- Academic prerequisites for becoming a CMA: To become a CMA, an individual must have a relevant finance and accounting bachelor’s degree obtained from a university or a similarly deemed institute that is accredited.
- Professional credentials required for becoming a CMA: Candidates applying for CMA should possess at least two years of practical management or financial accounting experience. Ensuring the candidates can deal with real-world business financial management is required.
- Requirements of IMA to become a CMA: Candidates also need to be a member of IMA and be at par with the moral principles set by the institute.
CMA Exam Dates 2023
The CMA exam dates of 2023 have been rescheduled by the Institute of Cost Management Accountants of India (ICMAI). As per the rescheduled dates, the CMA Foundation exam, previously scheduled on June 2023, will be held on July 16 2023, via offline mode.
The CMA Inter, as well as Final 2023 exams, are going to be held from the 15th of July to the 22nd of July, 2023. Besides the exam dates, candidates may check other important information directly from the official website of ICMAI.
Conclusion
CMA certification benefits accounting professionals looking forward to honing their financial management skills and career growth. Although the certification is not essential for landing a job in accounting management, it significantly ups the candidates' employment prospects and gives them an edge over their competitors.
If this inspires you enough to become a CMA, check out the CMA Certified Management Accountant course introduced by Imarticus Learning.
