AEPA Business Education study plan

Sequence and explain the steps of the accounting cycle, from source documents through the post-closing trial balance, in your own words without notes.

Prepare journal entries, adjusting entries, and closing entries for accruals, deferrals, and depreciation with at least 85% accuracy.

Classify accounts and construct a multi-step income statement, statement of owner's equity, and classified balance sheet from a given trial balance.

Compute and interpret liquidity and profitability ratios, including current, quick, gross margin, net margin, and inventory turnover, and state what each reveals about a firm.

Calculate present value, future value, simple and compound interest, and a loan amortization schedule using spreadsheet formulas.

Solve break-even, markup and markdown, trade and cash discount, payroll, and sales-tax problems while showing every step of the work.

Compare debt and equity financing and explain cost of capital, risk-return tradeoff, and time value of money in plain business language.

Build a spreadsheet model that produces a projected income statement, a cash-flow summary, and a three-year budget from stated assumptions.

Apply the four management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling to a described small-business scenario.

Differentiate sole proprietorship, general and limited partnership, LLC, S corporation, and C corporation on liability, taxation, formation, and continuity.

Apply motivation and leadership frameworks, including Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor, and situational leadership, to resolve two workplace case vignettes.

Outline the standard sections of a business plan and draft a lean canvas for an original venture idea.

Compare functional, divisional, and matrix organizational structures and recommend one for a firm described in a case prompt, defending the choice.

Evaluate the human-resource cycle of job analysis, recruitment, selection, training, appraisal, and compensation against legal and motivational criteria.

Apply operations and quality concepts, including supply-chain management, inventory control, lean thinking, and total quality management, to a production scenario.

Re-drill the lowest-scoring objectives from Domains 1 and 2 until each reaches 80% mastery.

Distinguish the marketing mix elements and contrast the marketing concept with the selling concept using real product examples.

Segment a market on at least three bases, select a target segment, and write a defensible positioning statement.

Compute markup, markdown, discount pricing, and promotional return on investment, and place a product correctly on its life cycle curve.

List the steps of the selling process and the components of the communication model, then rewrite one message for a different audience and channel.

Manipulate a sample sales dataset using lookup, logical, and conditional-summary spreadsheet functions plus a pivot table and chart.

Explain relational database concepts such as table, record, field, primary key, foreign key, and query, and describe how each supports business reporting.

Differentiate transaction processing, management information, decision support, enterprise resource planning, and customer relationship management systems and match each to a use case.

Apply information-security and technology-ethics principles covering confidentiality, phishing, backup, acceptable use, and data privacy to workplace scenarios.

Explain scarcity, opportunity cost, supply and demand shifts, elasticity, and the four market structures with a business example for each.

Distinguish gross domestic product, inflation, and unemployment measures and contrast fiscal with monetary policy effects on business decisions.

Identify the elements of contract formation, breach and remedies, torts, agency, employment regulation, and consumer protection in short scenarios.

Compare legal compliance, business ethics, and social responsibility in a case where the three diverge.

Assemble a career-readiness package mapping resume, interview, teamwork, and workplace professionalism skills to employer expectations.

Synthesize cross-domain scenarios in which a single decision must satisfy cost, marketing, economic, legal, and technology constraints simultaneously.

Complete two full-length timed practice exams under test-day conditions and review every incorrect and guessed item.

Condense the accumulated error log into a one-page summary of the 20 highest-risk facts and formulas, and recite them from memory.

Confirm exam logistics, including registration, identification, calculator or scratch-paper rules, and a written pacing plan for each domain.