What is CMA?

Certified Management accountant certifications, offered by the Institute of Management Accountants (I.M.A), U.S., is a globally recognized certification which deals with decision analysis, budgeting, risk management, budgeting, planning, business reporting and many more. Rendering a strong scope of career development, CMA covers some of the most demanded financial and accounting skills around the world.

Eligibility criteria

In order to appear for the CMA test, a candidate requires fulfilling some obligatory Eligibility Criteria which are:

1. A bachelor’s degree from any educational institution of credit.
2. Professional experience of atleast two years in management accounting and financial management.
3. Formative knowledge of financial accounting, economics and statistics.

Career possibilities

A CMA certification comes with upward career growth for the professionals as is proved by a salary survey conducted by IMA in 2013 which concluded that Cma Certified professionals received a 36% higher salary than the non-certified accountants.
From taking part in active planning of strategies, preparing reports, evaluating performances and business processes, tracking transactions, hunting out accounting irregularities, cost and asset management and so on, the roles and responsibilities of a CMA certified accountant are many. Some of the active job opportunities that they enjoy are:

. Finance Manager
. Internal Auditor
. Finance Analyst
. Staff accountant
. Vice President of Finance
. Budget Analyst
. Chief Executive Officer
. Chief Financial Officer
. Officer

Tips for taking CMA

Here are some tips that CMA candidates could take into consideration:

• Planning out a schedule for preparation and getting study notes ready shall help in making efficient use of time and effort towards achieving the goal.
• Monitoring the schedule from time to time to ensure nothing is left out and clears away the backlogs.
• Revisions of the portions covered once or twice every week to grasp them better. It is easy to get confused among topics while writing an examination, which can be avoided with good revision.
• Checking out previous year question papers helps in figuring out the question patterns and what to expect. It is possible that some previously asked question gets repeated.
• Seeking help and guidance from institutes for instance, institutes for CMA Abu Dhabi. Besides providing coaching for CMA tests, institutes also provides tips and study materials for self-help.