ICSAN Management Accounting study plan

Classify a list of 25 cost items by behaviour (fixed, variable, semi-variable), traceability (direct, indirect) and function, and justify each classification in one sentence.

Reconcile profit under absorption and marginal costing from a given production and sales data set, showing the fixed overhead adjustment in a full schedule.

Prepare a job cost card and an overhead absorption schedule using a predetermined recovery rate, then compute and interpret the over/under-absorption balance.

Distinguish contract costing from process costing by writing out the treatment of work certified, retention, notional profit and abnormal loss in each.

Prepare process accounts with normal loss, abnormal loss and abnormal gain, including equivalent units under FIFO and weighted average.

Compute service costing rates for a transport or hospital-style unit cost and explain why service costing resists work-in-progress valuation.

Build a standard cost card for one product and calculate all direct material, direct labour and variable overhead variances, splitting each into price and usage elements.

Explain the causes and possible interrelationships of variances rather than only the arithmetic, linking material price to purchasing decisions and labour efficiency to supervision.

Compute fixed overhead variances under absorption costing, including expenditure, volume, capacity and efficiency, and explain why marginal costing avoids the volume variance.

Calculate break-even point, margin of safety, contribution-to-sales ratio and target profit in units and revenue for single and multi-product scenarios.

Draw and interpret a cost-volume-profit chart and a profit-volume chart, identifying the assumptions that break under stepped fixed costs.

Solve a limiting-factor problem ranking products by contribution per unit of scarce resource.

Prepare a functional budget set (sales, production, material purchases, labour, cash) from a single data set, keeping the interlocking logic consistent.

Reconcile budgeted to actual results using a flexible budget and identify which variances are planning versus operational.

Explain the behavioural and motivational limits of budgetary control, including participation, slack and beyond-budgetary-accounting critique.

Apply a simple forecasting technique (moving average, weighted average or linear trend) to a short time series and state its limitations.

Identify relevant and irrelevant costs in three decision scenarios (special order, make-or-buy, shutdown) and compute the correct financial impact of each.

Apply limiting-factor and opportunity-cost reasoning to a pricing decision, distinguishing cost-plus, marginal-cost and market-based approaches.

Compute return on investment, residual income and asset turnover for two divisions and explain the goal-congruence problem each measure creates.

Build a balanced scorecard with at least two measures per perspective for a specified business and justify each measure's link to strategy.

Calculate the cash operating cycle and each of its components, then quantify the effect of a change in credit policy on profit.

Apply the Economic Order Quantity model and explain its assumptions and the effect of quantity discounts and buffer stock.

Evaluate receivables management tools (credit scoring, factoring, early settlement discount) and compute the annualised cost of offering a discount.

Identify short-term finance sources and match them to working capital needs, comparing overdraft, trade credit and invoice discounting on cost and flexibility.

Compute net present value, internal rate of return, payback and discounted payback for a project with working capital recovery and taxation, and rank mutually exclusive projects.

Explain the strengths and traps of IRR, including multiple IRRs and the reinvestment assumption, and justify NPV as the primary criterion.

Describe how automation, cloud accounting, big data and predictive analytics change cost capture, variance timeliness and the management accountant's role.

Evaluate the risks of relying on digital data, covering data quality, cyber exposure and the need for professional judgement over algorithmic output.

Complete two full-length timed mock exams under exam conditions and mark them against the marking scheme.

Re-teach the five weakest topics identified from mock performance by rewriting the underlying rules from memory.

Drill speed on standard calculations (variances, CVP, NPV, cash cycle) to a target of under three minutes per computation.

Consolidate a one-page formula and definition sheet covering all ten domains for final revision.