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CIPFA exam tips

Exam tips for the December 2008 exams

You might not be feeling in a particularly festive mood, so we hope our red-hot tips will bring you some cheer. And getting a pass will certainly brighten up your new year. Ho! ho! ho!

Financial Accounting
* Limited company income statement and balance sheet and cash flow (topics that demand a comprehensive understanding of all the early topics of double entry and treatment of non-current assets).
* Depreciation and the disposal of non-current assets within an accounts preparation.
* Financial ratios.
* Accounting legislation.

Management Accounting
* Variance analysis including reconciliation.
* Absorption costing v activity based costing.
* Correlation and regression.
* Cash budgeting.
* Cost volume profit analysis.
* Use of scarce resources.

FMST
* Cash management – Miller Orr Model.
* Project management – Iron triangle.
* Project management – project planning/Gantt charts.
* System quality.
* Risk management process.
* Procurement strategy.

Financial Reporting
* Production of a limited company balance sheet.
* Cash flow.
* Group accounting.
* Finance leases.
* Interpretation and analysis of the limitations of financial statements.
* Financial ratios.

Financial and Performance Reporting
* Local government income and expenditure account and balance.
* Primary Care Trusts.
* Cash flow.
* Interpretation of accounts.
* Consolidated accounts is always popular in the FPR paper, as partnerships and different ways of working are continuing to be used in the public services.

Taxation
* Corporation tax
– adjustment of trading profits.
– chargeable gains calculations.
– capital allowance calculation.
– short and long periods of accounts and, in particular.
– relief for corporation losses.
* Income tax
– calculation of benefits in kind.
– personal tax calculation.
– National Insurance calculations.
* VAT
– partial exemption.
– registration.
– VAT accounting and accounting schemes.
* General
– role of taxes.
– avoidance and evasion.

Audit & Assurance
* Fraud (internal and external).
* Control objectives.
* Analytical procedures.
* Financial Statement assertions.
* Powers and authority of auditors.
* IT audit – security and fraud.

Accounting for Decision Making
* Discounted cash flow.
* Weighted average cost of capital.
* Weighted benefit criteria.
* Cost control and reduction techniques.
* Economists pricing model.
* Decision trees.

Public Finance
* Charging and price elasticity of demand.
* Fiscal rules.
* Good charging practice.
* Central government sources of finance.
* Charging in the NHS.
* National taxation.
* Charging in central and local government.
* Money markets.
* Public Private Partnerships including PFI.
* Capital markets.
* Trends and performance in public finance.
* Local taxation.

Governance & Public Policy
* Policy ideologies.
* Regulation and governance.
* Power of policy actors.
* British constitution and its three principal elements.
* Marketisation policies, as they have impacted on
the civil service, local authorities and other public bodies.
* UK relationships with the European Union and eurozone.

Leadership and Management
* Managing Change.
* Groups.
* Conflict management.
* Leadership styles.
* Delegation.
* Management theory – contingency theory.

Finance and Management Case Study
* Marginal costing and short-term decisions.
* Preparation of budgets and business plans.
* Dealing with inflation.
* Report writing.
* Longer-term decisions/investment appraisal.
* While statistics is not in every paper be prepared to calculate means, standard deviations and chi squared tabulations.
* Applied communication skills.
* Developing strategic and operational policies.

Strategic Business Management
* Application of strategic management process to public service organisations.
* Application of the position analysis models, including macro and micro tools.
* Means and methods.
* Communicating strategy.
* Driving strategic change.
* Generic strategies and directional options.

WARNING! Use these tips in conjunction with a comprehensive and well-planned programme of revision

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