Comprehensive Guide For ACCA Advanced Performance Management Exam

One of the option papers in the stratergic professional module is ACCA APM (Advanced Performance Management).frequently from 2k18 the exam structure has been changed but not the syllabus, it’s almost the same.

The syllabus states it aims to use relevant knowledge, skills and exercise professional judgment in selecting and applying strategic management accounting techniques in several business contexts to contribute to the design, control, and evaluation of the performance of a corporation and its strategic and operational development. ACCA APM pass rates lie between 31% and 33% in the past five optional strategic professional papers.

Exam Structure

The time limit for the ACCA APM paper is 3 hours and 15 minutes that will access your knowledge of the professional environment of yours. There are certain sections comprised in this paper, which are section A, section, B, section C, and section D. 

Section A will be containing 50 marks case study questions, and which will contain four marks in which you will have to create a business document similar to a report or a briefing paper to present to the board of directors.

Depending on the context of the range of issues from the syllabus the case study is created, and that particular case study will be a focus on a range of certain issues from the syllabus sections A, C, and D. this context study majorly depends upon business context.

Section B consist of 25 mark questions that are compulsory to attempt. Section B questions are all scenario-based questions including issues of influencing the performance of organizations in certain business situations. One of two questions will come mainly from the syllabus which is in section E. However, the opposite Section B question can come from the other syllabus section.  

Syllabus

The syllabus of ACCA APM then moves from performance management systems to the scope and application of high-level performance measurement techniques during a kind of context, including not-for-profit organizations and multi-national businesses. This syllabus consists of strategic roles of management providing a discipline for planning and controlling performance so that strategic objectives are often set, monitored, and controlled. 

It recognizes the impact of external factors of accounts on strategic management issues, like macro-economic, fiscal, market, and environmental impacts on performance and covers the risks these factors present and therefore the way they're going to be measured and managed. From appreciating the strategic context of performance management and thus the impact of wider factors, the syllabus examines the issues concerning performance management information systems and their design.

There are mainly five sections consisting of all the syllabus:-

1. Strategic planning and control

2. Impact of risking and uncertainty on organizational performances

3. Performance measurement information systems and development in technologies

4. Strategic performance measurement

5. Performance evaluation and corporate failure