From qualifying criteria to the application procedure, we give you a thorough overview of the CIMA Practical Experience Guide
CIMA Practical Experience: What Is It?
The highly sought-after professional designations of Associate Chartered Management Accountant (ACMA) and Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) require applicants to have confirmed relevant work experience.
The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) oversees the implementation of the Practical Experience Requirements (PER).
An applicant’s professional competence, credibility, and practical management accounting skills are evaluated by the PER. In order to acquire the CGMA designation, individuals need to provide their experience documentation and successfully complete an assessment overseen by an approved supervisor.
Achieving the CGMA qualification requires completing the CIMA Practical Experience program, which is a crucial step that leads to numerous employment options.
CIMA PER Application Requirements
At any stage of the CIMA qualifying process, you can start building your practical experience, abilities, and accomplishments.
Candidates may submit their membership application once they have passed the Management Case Study exam, or if they have been exempted from it. After completing all strategic-level competencies, FLP students can also submit their applications.
The prerequisites for CIMA Practical Experience
The job experience should illustrate the application of knowledge and abilities in areas like management accounting or a similar sector.
Management Accounting
Finance Business Partnering
Financial Accounting
Professional Services and Consulting
Financial and Management Reporting
Banking
Treasury
Financial Management
Financial Planning and Analysis
Performance Management
Business Intelligence and Data Analysis
Audit and Assurance
Risk Management
Taxation
As CIMA acknowledges that its members and students hold a variety of work titles, it does not have a list of approved job titles. But CIMA places a strong emphasis on a person’s day-to-day professional activities and makes sure they meet the standards needed to become a certified management accountant.
Furthermore, in order to be a member of CIMA, an individual must possess the appropriate professional skills and conduct. Your financial role should allow you to regularly demonstrate most, if not all, of the following characteristics in-order to be considered for CIMA membership.
Six knowledge areas make up the PER framework, and they are as follows:
Technical Abilities: Develop financial and non-financial information for decision-making, manage performance and implement strategies, and offer reliable counsel to colleagues both inside and outside the finance function by demonstrating strong technical accounting skills.
Business Skills: Demonstrate an understanding of the business world and provide suggestions and insights that benefit the company.
People: Build and maintain relationships inside and outside the company, collaborate to achieve goals, and communicate complex technical knowledge effectively to both accounting and non-accounting stakeholders.
Leadership Qualities: Take responsibility for assigned tasks and workload, manage your time efficiently, mentor colleagues in finance and business associates, and set an example for others.
Digital Skills: Manage performance and decision-making by analyzing financial and non-financial data using digital technologies and adapting to digital work environments.
Professionalism, Ethics, and Integrity: Uphold the highest standards of professional conduct and competence. Integrate professionalism, ethics, and integrity into all aspects of your work.
Selecting Your Supervisor for CIMA PER
For most CIMA students or members, the role of a CIMA PER supervisor is to provide guidance, support, and evaluation while they complete their required amount of practical experience.
It is the supervisor’s responsibility to ensure that the individual gains the knowledge and skills necessary to become a certified professional management accountant.
The following criteria need to be considered in order to choose the ideal CIMA PER supervisor:
Experience: Seek a supervisor who has overseen CIMA PER applicants in the past and has a substantial background in the finance sector. They ought to be well-versed in the current standards and requirements of the CIMA program.
Availability: Select a supervisor who will be present throughout the PER process and is committed to providing regular feedback and support. They should be available for meetings and discussions as needed
Compatibility: It’s critical to select a supervisor with whom you get along well and can successfully communicate. They should understand your preferred method of learning and be able to provide you with advice that suits your requirements.
Relevance to Industry and Position: Choose a supervisor with relevant experience in an area related to your desired career path or position. They need to be able to provide valuable advice and direction suited to your specific situation.
Time Frame for the CIMA PER
• The activities or competency areas that make up the PER must be documented for a minimum of 36 months. Your knowledge, aptitude, and skills in areas including financial management, strategy, operations, risk management, stakeholder interactions, and decision-making should be evident in these tasks.
• Furthermore, according to CIMA, it is imperative that people assess how often—roughly every six to twelve months—their present practical experience satisfies the necessary requirements. During their development talks with their supervisor, they can use the self-reflection questions and examples offered by CIMA to pinpoint any areas where their experience and skill set may be deficient.
Keeping CIMA Practical Experience Records
Applicants can go beyond simply recording or describing their experiences and activities by utilizing the STAR format offered by CIMA. This framework allows them to demonstrate how their job adds value to their organization and the impact of their actions.
- Scenario: Provide a brief overview of a notable and challenging situation you have managed. This context helps in selecting an appropriate example that highlights your achievements.
- Task: Outline your specific roles and responsibilities within the scenario. It’s important to showcase how you demonstrated key activities, skills, or behaviors, as CIMA will be assessing your performance based on these aspects.
- Action: Describe the actions you took to meet your obligations and how these actions exemplify the behavior or skill that CIMA evaluates.
- Result: Explain how you applied your knowledge to guide and influence the outcome, emphasizing the impact on your organization. It is recommended to keep each STAR template between 500 and 750 words and to carefully follow the prompt questions to ensure all essential details are included
Record of Employment History
This segment of the form is split into two parts.
Candidates will find it easier to comprehend and complete the form if these components are separated, as it enables a more organized and structured approach to the task at hand.
Verified experience
This section of the assessment form requires you to provide a brief description of each role you have held and the associated duties. You should also include a summary of the organization(s) you have worked for, detailing its goals, the products and/or services it provides, the industry, its size, organizational structure, and the sector. In addition, a link to the organization’s website should be included. This will provide background information and context for the “Scenario, Task, Action, and Result (STAR)” templates that you will complete later in the assessment
Additional employment history
Candidates can choose to fill out a table that summarizes their work history outside of the jobs used to verify their relevant experience, or they can submit a link to their LinkedIn page. It is important to note that candidates are not required to provide the same level of information for these supplementary tasks as they would for roles requiring verified experience, nor are they required to name a PER supervisor for these roles.
Assessors can use this information to gain a broader understanding of the candidate’s work history and to put their verified experience in context. By supplying this data, candidates may also highlight additional pertinent experiences that they might not have included in their verified experience.
By the time your PER period ends, usually three years into your finance career, the work tasks you should be regularly completing in a relevant role are known as the core activities for experience evaluation. There is an obvious link between your studies, evaluations, and real-world application of these core activities in the form of a direct correlation between them and the core activities reviewed in the Management Case Study exam.
You must demonstrate that you have completed three of the five necessary tasks in order to meet the core requirements. It is advisable to choose the three that most closely align with your prior experience, enabling you to bolster your selection with compelling instances from the most recent period.
- I have the ability to evaluate opportunities to increase value.
- I am skilled at carrying out strategic decisions.
- I have the ability to manage expenses and output in order to facilitate value creation.
- I have the ability to assess performance.
- I am capable of handling stakeholders from both inside and outside the company.
Record of Professional Achievement: Skills and Behaviors
• Finance professionals need management accountants to flourish at all career phases since they have developed work-related skills and attitudes. Throughout their professional development, these abilities and dispositions will be put to use and improved. There are five essential behaviors or talents that need to be developed in order for an individual to succeed in their company. For each, a series of reflection questions has been included.
• Morality and veracity
• Capabilities of Leadership
• Developmental perspective
• Professional doubt
•Exchange of Information
In addition to the core activity and skill/behavior descriptors, assessors will use criteria to evaluate the required professional accomplishments. PER supervisors and CIMA assessors will conduct this evaluation; candidates should be aware of these standards as they respond to the assessment questions (STAR template). The criteria should serve as a reference guide to ensure applicants include relevant and comprehensive material in their applications. By doing this, candidates can ensure that they provide sufficient details to meet the requirements for each professional accomplishment, according to the assessors’ expectations. It’s crucial to remember that assessors are looking for evidence of a thorough understanding of the core tasks and necessary skills, so applicants should focus on supplying pertinent and precise information to highlight their capabilities
Not Achieved
- The chosen work is inappropriate because it is either too little or too big to demonstrate professional accomplishment.
- The designated core activity, skill, or conduct is not reflected in the task.
- Either the task description is not provided, or it is too short.
- The task’s individual roles and duties are not made explicit.
- The task’s actions are not well described, and they might be described as team actions rather than individual ones.
- The candidate’s actions are discussed insufficiently, and it is unclear how they will affect business outcomes or provide value to the firm.
Achieved
- The assignment is significant and challenging enough to demonstrate professional achievement.
- The task effectively demonstrates the allocated fundamental activity, skill, or habit. The task description is precise.
- The individual’s function and responsibilities within the task are clearly defined.
- The specific steps taken to finish the work are explained clearly.
- A detailed explanation of how one’s actions affect company outcomes and add to organizational value shows that one has a solid comprehension of this relationship.
CIMA Practical Experience Submission Process
- It will take about eight weeks after you submit your application to find out if you are CIMA-certified.
- Remember that the £180 associate membership application fee needs to be paid in advance. There are two ways you can do this:
- Make a debit or credit card payment by calling the CIMA global 24/7 payment hotline.
- 0208 602 0861 if based in the UK, or 0844 292 0240 if it’s outside of the country.
OR
- Forward a pound bank draft, money order, UK postal order, or cheque. Enclose your contact information on the reverse side of a check payable to CIMA and mail it to CIMA, The Helicon, One South Place, London, EC2M 2RB, United Kingdom.
Takeaway
- Achieving the CGMA designation requires completing the CIMA Practical Experience, which provides numerous management accounting employment opportunities. One of the program’s eligibility requirements is relevant work experience demonstrating technical, business, people, leadership, digital, and ethical skills. Candidates are required to undergo an assessment administered by a supervisor who is approved, and they need to record their experience in order to meet these criteria. This documentation should include activities or specific competencies that demonstrate the candidates’ knowledge, skills, and abilities.
- Please get in touch with Accountants for Tomorrow via our email, info@accountantsfortomorrow.co.za, if you have any more questions about PER and the CIMA qualification in general. We are dedicated to offering you the support and resources you need to succeed as a CIMA student or member.
- Visit the links below for further information:
   1  https://www.cimaglobal.com/Qualifications/Professional-Qualification/Strategic-level/
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   2 -https://www.cgma.org/
