hi I have just completed my MBA and want to know the difference between ACCA AND ICMA.

Please go through these sites and come back with more specific question.

www.accaglobal.com
www.icma.org

Dear Rluitel,

ACCA is Association of Chartered Certified Accountants(UK)
ICMA is Institute Of Cost And Management Accountants(Pakistan) similar to CIMA...

Dear Mughal

ACCA is basically an equivallent Chartered Accountancy Degree...
ACCA is well known accountancy body with appreciation in more than 160 countries.The course coverage of ACCA is much more balanced it has full focus on 6 key areas of accountancy

1)Financial And Corporate Reporting
2)Audit and Assurance
3)Taxation
4)Management And HR
5)Financial Management
6)Performance Management

ACCAs paper P4 Advanced Financial Management gives edge to it over other bodies because in ICMAP there is a subject in last stage named as "Strategic Financial Management".I can confirm ACCAs P4 is much more lucid than ICMAs SFM...

Now in Pakistani Context

ACCA allows its members a minimum of 3 years of Supervised work, however ICMA has only 1 year mandatory requirement of Practicle Experiance this excess practicle experiance requirement give ACCA an edge over ICMAP...

ACCA has not devoted much focus on any single area but it has more indepth course coverge in all 6 areas of accountancy, contrary ICMAP has devoted much focus on Performance Management and Financial Management and very less focus on Audit and Corporate Reporting...

ICMAPs are having very bright future in governmetal positions because of low salaries CAs and ACCAs often avoide going to government sector...

Conclusion is that ACCA has slight edge over ICMAP in Pakistan because of its devotion to all subject areas with 2 additional years of supervised work...

last but not the least the acceptibility of ACCA internationally and due to this acceptibility privilages enjoyed by ACCAs when it comes to exemptions makes it more favourable choice...
nonetheless ICMAP has its own prestige...

Regards,
Muhammad Amir

Amir thanks yar !!

You Are Most WelCome Rluitel...

Regards,
Muhammad Amir

1. ACCA tends focus more on the technical side of accounting practices and leads to jobs such as corporate accountant, auditor, tax accountant etc.
2. CIMA cover all the accounting practices but maybe not with the same intensity. It does however have much more of an emphisis on management reporting, corporate stratagy and organisations. CIMA jobs tend to fall more within the remit of forecasting, budget making, variance analysis and strategy.

To be honest both qualifications will help you career wise and there is a lot of cross-over between them. If you want to be an auditor you have to have an ACCA qualifation though

CIMA is more broad, more for financial management of funds and people, than ACCA, which is more auditing and pure accounting work, my friend in work is ACA, he said thats the best, and maybe he's right. CIMA adopted international accounting standards in 2005, and ACCA are just about to bring in the new standards later this year, even though it was law since 2005 for public companies to publish their accounts with IFS.

) ACCA has wider options in the market , cuz, it deals with fin. accounting
and makes u more equipped to grasp any any occupation that relate to hedge funds, equities, fixed incomes,
conventional banking EVEN starting ur own practice in da later years, as a private practitioner.

b) ACCA is not rigid as the ACA (of course this has nothing to do wid CIMA) that ropes u to a single training partner for 3 years , in ACCA u have the space to change jobs between and integrate all fragmented experiences , across diff. companies to a block of 3 years .. and claim ur membership. u can take this as a job , rather than a training contract , this is a grt advantage
which means .. u could earn any amount , while ure training not in some std. trainee rate.


c) ACCA has a global recognition in the house of accountants even in canada, australia and NZ. and is increasingly growing towards a global accounting body may b a bit more sqaure than CIMA as in all aspects .

d) if u are an ACCA , u get loads of exemptions in CIMA , the expereince in ACCA counts towards the 3 years for CIMA ,
dat means u just gotta clear a few papers of CIMA , in ur own time , and be a CIMA member as well.
u wont realli mind earning nuther qualification , with a bit of more paper chasing .... if u realli wana hang of the managerial
side of accounting ..

Personally I feel you need to take two things into account - firstly, what area of accounting or finance are you more interested in - financial or management? Financial accountants tend to work either in practice (so audit, advisory, tax, compliance, corporate finance) or industry on the reporting side (preparing financial info and reporting to CEO/board of directors etc)

Management accountants would work more with day-to-day management of finance and be involved in preparing budgets, fianancial planning etc. The reports they prepare would look at the company from the inside, ie it would not be about complying with regulations eg IFRS, SOX etc. The information would be used internally in the organisation for decision making purposes.

The second thing I think you should note is that many people have ACCA. Not as many have CIMA, and CIMA in highly in demand. If you are thinking about working in practice, I think you should consider ACA as it would be a more highly regarded qualification withing accounting practice. Otherwise, if you plan to work in industry, I would say go with CIMA. That's just my take on it all though.

All you need to keep in mind that for a good job it doesn't matter THAT much as to which Accounting body you'll be trying for membership in (i.e. ACCA or ICAP or CIMA for that matter). to What's MUCH more important is the firm in which you'll be receiving your training. Why?....Because employers prefer candidates and give jobs to those with GOOD experience rather than those with GOOD qualifications. Your goal should be set to receive your training ONLY from the top 4 -5 Accounting firms (KPMG, PWC, Fergusons etc.) Since you've not yet started on your career path, you're perfectly set. Your first step should be to get to know somebody on all the top firms in your city. Then ask them, what would it take to get a job as a trainee in their firm. Do they pefer trainees who've just finished school? prefer BBA's? trainees half way doing their ACCA? or their CA? Or the qualification doesn't matter that much but it's the "wastha" that counts? What is it? When you know what it takes to get a job at the Big Four, then that's the direction that you should follow when deciding whether to study your BBA or your ACCA/CA.

Once you do get into a good accounting firm (and Inshallah you will) the training you receive shall be many MANY times more valuable than the degree itself and it's that training that'll get you to places :oops: :D

dear brothers
that is the all stuff collected by me.however,i am thinking that medical is best for me.i can not tolerate cima or acca troubles more.