Growing business knowledge brochure

Working together to

ACHIEVE

CONNECT

CIMA, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, is acknowledged by employers as the global quality standard in management accounting with 183,000 members and students operating at the heart of business in 168 countries.

GROWTH

You can be great at doing the numbers and financial accounts but if you can’t link them to the rest of the business then it’s not going to be of any use.

Choosing CIMA was a fairly easy decision, considering the types of roles I was interested in CIMA’s business relevance was a great match...it offered a broader spread of business knowledge than other accounting qualifications and enables you to make a valuable contribution.

Finance manager Martin Stockley 30 employees

CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting The CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting is the entry route into CIMA and is a qualification in its own right, allowing students to acquire a broad range of knowledge across financial and management accounting. This stand alone qualification will enhance the knowledge and skills of existing and new employees, providing the foundations for developing commercially astute individuals that understand and contribute to future business success.

The CIMA Professional Qualification The CIMA Professional Qualification is updated regularly to reflect the fast changing pace of growing businesses. We consult with frontline managers and directors of growing businesses on the skills they need, in order to ensure that what your staff learn is relevant to increasing organisational and individual performance. The key features include:

• The CIMA qualification framework is

FORECASTING

progressive, enabling your staff to obtain formal recognition after successful completion at each level.

• The CIMA Diploma in Management Accounting

requires students to demonstrate comprehension and application, leading to an assessment of analysis required by the CIMA Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting.

• As you progress through the qualification, the

focus shifts from knowledge based learning, to application and analysis which equips staff with consultative business skills.

• A combination of three years’ practical

experience, successful completion of the exams and a business case study will ensure your staff have the skills needed to achieve the goal of growing your business profitably.

‘The qualification is great for entrepreneurs because you study so many different aspects of business life and it gives you the tools to run a business effectively....CIMA people look forwards rather than backwards, so you can become more of a business advisor than someone who just does the selfassessment and accounts. You have the skills to add value.

Founder Affordable Accounts 10 employees

Chartered Management Accountants have broad ranging business and management skills to complement their financial training. They are able to offer you strategic and practical advice; make and support key decisions; and manage risk. That’s why many of the world’s largest employers believe CIMA members are best qualified to drive business performance, not just measure it.

How is CIMA relevant to growing business?

Chartered Management Accountants increase profitability In the demanding world of small and medium-sized businesses, profitable business growth is essential but difficult. Chartered Management Accountants are experts in helping businesses increase profitability, reduce costs, increase sales and improve cash flow.

Applying leading edge accounting techniques including ratio and margin analysis across product or service lines, business units and customers, Chartered Management Accountants inform and make decisions for short, medium and long-term profitability.

CIMA members can help to: Reduce costs With their broad business knowledge, CIMA members are experts in managing costs across a range of areas including labour, materials, suppliers, operations, marketing, IT, utilities etc.

Improve cash flow They are experts in credit control systems and managing cash flow. Using their future focus and forecasting skills and techniques they are best equipped to manage cash flow and take corrective action to ensure long-term sustainable business growth.

Increase sales They can use their understanding of markets, commercial awareness and analytical skills to determine a range of issues including analysis of cross-selling, design of reward systems for salespeople, contribution analysis, contract/bid pricing and negotiation, applying leading edge sales forecasting techniques and analysis etc.

DEVELOPMENT

SUPP

SUCCESS

With CIMA, I was able to go into a business, fully understand it and get the most out of it.

Commercial accountant Innocent Soft Drinks 200 employees

CIMA Professional Qualification pillars Next step?

All three pillars of the CIMA Professional Qualification contain content relevant to developing management accountancy capability within growing businesses: Enterprise pillar The CIMA qualification has more focus on management and strategy than any other accountancy qualification: • Marketing and assessing competitors • Project management • Operations management • Managing people and teams • I.T. systems • Change management • Assessing and implementing strategic options Performance pillar The CIMA qualification has a greater emphasis on risk management than any other accountancy qualification: • Managing cash flow • Credit control • Budgeting techniques • Forecasting techniques • Pricing decisions • Cost management and control • Project appraisal • Risk management Financial pillar One third of our syllabus is dedicated to financial accounting and reporting: • Financial records • Ratio analysis • Financial reporting • Investment decisions • Accessing finance • Tax principles • Compliance and regulation

For more information about CIMA visit the following links or call us.

Case studies www.cimaandme.com Growing Business Knowledge Hub www.cimaglobal.com/growingbusiness Online learning www.cimastudy.com Register as a CIMA student www.cimaglobal.com/registration Registration and exam fees www.cimaglobal.com/fees AAT fast-track www.cimaglobal.com/aat Chartered Institute of Management Accountants 26 Chapter Street London SW1P 4NP T. +44 (0)20 8849 2251 E. cima.contact@cimaglobal.com

www.cimaglobal.com/growingbusiness

It gives you much more commercial awareness and there’s much more opportunity to move into commercial roles or operational management roles because if you have a financial understanding of how a business runs and operates in order to be profitable, that’s the name of the game in making businesses successful.

Management accountant Symmetry Medical 350 employees

Plan for the future They work within businesses and enable business growth through their knowledge and use of appropriate tools, techniques and skills. External practice accountants fulfill an essential role of creating reports on historic business performance within set reporting standards while a Chartered Management Accountant will focus on where your business is heading in the future.

Improve relationships with banks Chartered Management Accountants are experts in communicating complex financial issues. Their thorough understanding of business performance measures and ratios means they are best positioned to provide the increasingly detailed information banks are seeking before releasing credit. A combination of this and understanding where the business is heading in the future will result in a bank valuing your custom even more.

Reduce the burden of red-tape (regulation) They adhere to a rigorous framework of professional standards which ensures the highest ethical standards.

They comply with regulations but their commercial mindset helps them to minimise the costs of compliance and could even turn a regulatory threat or barrier into a profitable opportunity.

PORT

PROFIT

MANAGEMENT

The importance of small businesses Growing small and medium sized businesses are crucial to successful economies. The very largest of organisations succeed or fail based on the quality of the decisions they make. Growing businesses are no different but have to make these crucial decisions with no margin for error due to more limited resources. Growing businesses can benefit from investing in developing the business skills of new and existing staff to increase their commercial awareness and decision making capability in order to drive profitability and business growth – all skills developed by the various CIMA awards.

CIMA has consulted with thousands of small and medium-sized businesses to develop the most relevant qualification for growing businesses. The qualification balances a broad spread of business and finance skills with a focus on future business performance and rigorous professional integrity.

CIMA is the only professional body that delivers an employer driven qualification for management accountants working in business. We consult regularly with employers to meet the changing demands of business.

Growing businesses have always taken competitive advantage from being able to make very quick decisions and react to market changes and customer demand. While speed is important, the quality of those decisions is very often the difference between success and failure. CIMA members are experts in applying the most relevant and appropriate business tools, ratios and techniques to aid decision making.

They can make these decisions quickly but also base them upon robust analysis and understanding of broad ranging business issues, not just financial issues. It follows therefore that the people making these decisions not only need to be technically and ethically compliant but also focus on issues that enable growth and profit maximisation. These are issues beyond traditional accountancy and require the skills to provide meaningful analysis, decision support and risk management.

‘The CIMA syllabus provides a

The CIMA syllabus structure

training that enables students to work across a wide variety of

Award - Member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

departments and gives them the

T4

with non-financial managers,” ...“In

Test of Professional Competence in Management Accounting

organisation.’

Financial controller Global Travel Group 280 employees

Strategic level

with the different departments in the

Part A

Part B

Initial Professional Development – Work Based Practical Experience.

Case Study Examination based on pre-seen and unseen material.

Paper E3

Paper P3

Paper F3

Enterprise Strategy

Performance Strategy

Financial Strategy

Award - CIMA Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting Management level

are essential as we work very closely

Operational level

a medium-sized business, these skills

Professional competence level

knowledge to discuss financial issues

Paper E2

Paper P2

Paper F2

Enterprise Management

Performance Management

Financial Management

Award - CIMA Diploma in Management Accounting

Paper E1

Paper P1

Paper F1

Enterprise Operations

Performance Operations

Financial Operations

Enterprise pillar

Performance pillar

Financial pillar

Pre-requisite entry requirements (e.g. CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting, degrees in business or accounting or AAT Technician/Diploma level).

Award - CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting

Paper C01

Paper C02

Paper C03

Paper C04

Paper C05

Fundamentals of Management Accounting

Fundamentals of Financial Accounting

Fundamentals of Business Mathematics

Fundamentals of Business Economics

Fundamentals of Ethics, Corporate Governance and Business Law

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants 26 Chapter Street London SW1P 4NP

PROFITABILITY

T. +44 (0)20 7663 5441 F. +44 (0)20 7663 5442 E. cima.contact@cimaglobal.com www.cimaglobal.com UKEM001V0311