Financial reporting and taxation.
| Author | Amos, Jo |
| Position | F1 |
CIMA's 2015 syllabus is fully operational. FI has become a very different exam in terms of both content and assessment method, so candidates need to familiarise themselves with the changes they will encounter
Last month the institute updated the syllabus for its professional qualification and introduced new assessment methods. Topics that have moved into the current FI Financial Reporting and Taxation exam (mostly from the old F2 Financial Management paper) are-.
* IAS 19, "Employee benefits".
* IAS 20, "Accounting for government grants and disclosure of government assistance" (a newly examinable topic). * IAS 21, "Foreign currency".
* IAS 26, "Accounting and reporting by retirement and benefit plans".
* IAS 34, "Interim financial reporting" (newly examinable).
* IAS 40, "Investment properties" (newly examinable).
* IAS 41, "Agriculture".
* IFRS 4, "Insurance contracts".
* IFRS 6, "Exploration for, and evaluation of, mineral resources".
* IFRS 13, "Fair-value measurement".
* IFRS for SMEs.
* Corporate governance (from various papers under the previous syllabus).
* Accounting for non-controlling interests for consolidated financial statements.
* Accounting for mid-year acquisitions for consolidated financial statements.
* The management of working capital, cash and sources of short-term finance (mainly from the old PI Performance Operations paper).
* Transfer pricing for taxation purposes (newly examinable).
The topics that have moved out of the old FI Financial Operations paper and into the current F2 Advanced Financial Reporting exam are:
* IAS 11, "Construction contracts".
* IAS 12, "Taxation" (the element on accounting for deferred tax).
* IAS 17, "Leases".
* IAS 18, "Revenue recognition".
* IAS 24, "Related-party transactions".
* IAS 32, "Financial instruments".
* IAS 37, "Provisions, contingent assets and contingent liabilities".
* Fair-value adjustments in respect of assets and liabilities at acquisition in a group scenario.
As with all exams under the current syllabus (apart from the Case Study Exams concluding the three levels of the professional qualification) FI Financial Reporting and Taxation takes the form of a computer-based objective test that can be taken "on demand"--ie, at any time. This offers far more flexibility than the 2010 syllabus, which restricted candidates to two sittings a year.
The test lasts 90 minutes, as opposed to the previous paper-based exam's three hours. It covers all learning outcomes on the syllabus and the pass mark is 70 per cent, so the days of question-spotting are over.
The questions are drawn from a secure bank that's updated regularly. A number of variants of the test will be available at any time, rendering pointless any attempt by candidates to share its contents after they have taken one. The...
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