International Organisation for

Professional Qualifications

GCMA
Global Certified
Management Accountant

Syllabus

A global pathway for

Summary: This award allows candidates to develop advanced level knowledge and understanding of management accounting. The syllabus cover details
practices & concepts required for the preparation of financial statements, general issues of performance management, costing systems, budgets, CVP
analysis, decision making techniques, pricing decisions, transfer pricing, performance measurement, standard costing, performance in operations &
production management and tools improving performance.

Summary of learning outcomes Summary of the content for each learning outcome Assessment criteria for each learning
outcome

1 Understand financial Objectives of financial statements, concepts of assets, liabilities & the  Utilise relevant concepts
information for financial accounting equation, qualities of financial information / measurement and important for the preparation of
statements foundations for preparing financial statements. financial statements

2 Prepare Financial Preparation of statement of comprehensive income, preparation of the  Solve relevant problems to
Statements statement of financial position, reporting financial performance, demonstrate the command over
treatment of non-current assets in statements, treatment of share capital financial statement items &
& reserves in statements, preparation of group accounts, preparation of treatments
statement of cash flows and other elements of corporate annual reports.

3 Explore general issues for Mission, objectives, targets & strategy, concepts of performance  Identify key issues relevant to
performance management measurement & performance management, responsibility centre & performance management
process-based organisations, information for control: IT systems, costing
systems & management accounting, organisational structures,
departmentation, decentralisation, divisionalisation, the decision-making
process and reporting formats.
4 Explore costing systems for Costing, measuring cost, direct costs and indirect costs (overheads), fixed  Solve relevant problems in costing
performance management costs & variable costs, absorption costing, over- and under-absorption, systems
activity-based costing, marginal cost & marginal costing and costing
methods.

5 Understand budget & The functions of a budget, the budget preparation timetable, preparing  Identify relevant concepts/ tools
budgeting functional budgets, budgets for service organisations, cash budgets, fixed in budget preparation & budgeting
& flexible budgets, computers & budgeting, strategic planning, operational
planning & budgeting, zero-based budgeting (including advantages and
limitations), activity-based budgeting (ABB), rolling budgets, the
behavioural implications of budgeting, using budgets as targets, beyond
budgeting, budgetary control, variances, flexible budgets & budgetary
control and cash flow variances.

6 Explore cost-volume-profit Marginal costs, contribution & profit, the breakeven point, the margin of  Solve relevant problems in CVP
(CVP) analysis safety, CVP & decision making, breakeven charts, multi product CVP analysis
analysis and the advantages & limitations of CVP analysis.

7 Explore decision making Decision making & relevant costs, cost behaviour & decision making,  Identify relevant tools/ concepts
techniques in managerial relevant costs & non-relevant costs, rules for identifying relevant costs, in decision making
accounting the relevant cost of scarce resources: limiting factors, make or buy
decisions, activity-based costing (ABC) & decision making, uncertainty in
decision making, probabilities and expected values.

8 Explore pricing and pricing Pricing policy, setting prices, economic factors influencing the price of a  Identify relevant tools/ concepts
decisions product, demand-based approach to pricing, full cost plus pricing, variable in pricing
 cost plus pricing, opportunity cost approach to pricing (marginal pricing),
fixed price tenders and target cost pricing.

9 Understand transfer pricing Basic principles, profit centres & transfer pricing, problems with transfer  Solve relevant problems in
pricing, transfers at market price, cost-based approaches to transfer transfer pricing decision
pricing, opportunity cost & transfer pricing, the 'general rule' and
negotiated transfer prices.

10 Explore tools for Performance measurement & the planning/control system, disadvantages  Identify key concepts in
performance measurement of financial performance indicators, growing emphasis on NFPIs, the value performance measurement
of NFPIs, NFPIs in relation to employees, NFPIs in relation to
product/service quality, qualitative issues, measuring profitability,
responsibility accounting, measures of shareholder value, critical success
factors, key performance indicators, balanced scorecard, benchmarking,
divisional organisation & responsibility accounting, return on investment
(ROI), residual income, economic value added (EVA), accounting profit &
controllable profit, measuring divisional performance by cash flows, using
performance measures to manage performance, divisional performance &
transfer pricing, behavioural consequences of performance measures,
incentive schemes, external influences on performance and cultural
factors.

11 Explore tools for standard Standard costs & standard costing, budgets & standard costs compared,  Calculate relevant variances
costing Ideal, attainable & current standards, standard cost variances, direct
 Identify key concepts in standard
materials variances, direct labour variances, variable production overhead
costing
variances, fixed production overhead variances, sales price & sales volume
 variances, the reasons for variances, investigating variances, operating
statements and variances in a standard marginal costing system.

12 Evaluate performance in Key elements of operations management, operational structures & process-  Identify key concepts in operation
operations / production based structures, world-class manufacturing & re-design of operations, & production performance analysis
materials requirements planning (MRP I), manufacturing resource planning
(MRP II), optimised production technology (OPT) and enterprise resource
planning (ERP) systems.

13 Explore ways to improve Supply chain management, e-procurement, just-in-time production &  Identify ways or tools to improve
performance purchasing, target costing & kaizen costing, outsourcing, joint ventures & performance
partnerships, activity-based management & business process re-
engineering, further aspects of ABM & BPR, total quality management
(TQM) and value for money (VFM).