CDFM-A Module 4 study guide
CDFM-A Module 4 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
CDFM-A Module 4 is the acquisition-focused module of the Certified Defense Financial Manager - Acquisition track, a professional credential for people who manage, budget, account for, and audit defense acquisition money. Candidates typically work as budget analysts, financial managers, cost analysts, accountants, or contracting-support specialists in defense program offices, comptroller shops, or audit-ready organizations. The CDFM-A Module 4 study guide has 6 sections and about 2,626 words.
01Budget Process and Formulation
Domain 1 covers how a requirement becomes budget authority: the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) cycle, the documents exchanged at each step, the appropriation structure that determines what money can buy what, and the congressional calendar that turns the President's Budget into law. Planning sets strategy and fiscal limits through the Defense Planning Guidance.
411 words, about 2 min02Budget Execution and Funds Control
Domain 2 tests the controls that keep execution legal: apportionment and allotment, recording obligations when they are actually incurred, the bona fide need rule, and the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA) consequences when any of these fail. OMB apportions annually or quarterly on SF 132; the department allots to components; components suballot to installations and issue formal administrative reservations.
453 words, about 2 min03Accounting and Financial Reporting
Domain 3 tests whether you can follow a dollar through the books: budgetary and proprietary double entry, the financial statements and their notes, and the standards - FASAB's SFFAS and Treasury's USSGL - that govern them. Budgetary accounts track authority and its status (obligations, expenditures, available balances) and feed the Statement of Budgetary Resources (SBR).
421 words, about 2 min04Acquisition and Contract Financing
Domain 4 tests the financing rules between award and payment: how much can be obligated up front, how contractors are paid for work in progress, and what happens when funds run short on a cost-reimbursement contract. The bona fide need rule generally requires full funding of a nonseverable requirement at award.
474 words, about 2 min05Audit Readiness and Internal Controls
Domain 5 tests whether you can defend a financial statement line to an auditor: the control framework, the evidence chain behind each balance, and the sampling logic used in DoD audit readiness work. The CFO Act of 1990 requires audited financial statements; FMFIA (31 U.S.C.
429 words, about 2 min06Decision Support and Cost Analysis
Domain 6 tests the analytic tools used to price requirements, compare alternatives, and track performance: cost estimating, economic analysis, life-cycle cost, and earned value management (EVM). Parametric: a cost-estimating relationship built from historical data, such as cost per pound; fast, but valid only inside the database's range.
438 words, about 2 min