All you need to know about the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants qualification (ACCA). Useful articles for potential and current candidates on how to pass the ACCA exams.
Studying for ACCA itself is hard enough without the time-consuming research of verifying course quality, comparing prep providers, study methods, and pricing that shifts by paper, format, and country. That’s what this guide is for: we reviewed 9 ACCA prep providers’ study materials, summarising the differences and normalised pricing so you’re comparing like-for-like courses to …
Before you commit to ACCA, it’s worth knowing exactly what you need to get started and what the full qualification actually requires from entry to membership. ACCA requirements: A quick summaryThe standard ACCA entry route needs two A-Levels and three GCSEs (or equivalent) across five subjects, including English and Maths. If you don’t meet this, …
If you already hold a relevant qualification, you may not need to sit all 13 ACCA exams. Exemptions let you skip papers ACCA recognises as already covered by your prior learning. ACCA exemptions: Quick summaryACCA awards a maximum of 9 exemptions, and only for Applied Knowledge and Applied Skills papers. Strategic Professional is never exempted, …
Often cited as one of the harder professional qualifications in finance, ACCA’s actual difficulty is more specific than a single reputation. Pass rates range from around 89% down to 38%, and the qualification’s hardest stage carries formal degree-equivalence recognition most students never hear about. Quick summary of ACCA pass rates:Over the last 12 months, ACCA …
Whether you’re counting down to results day or you’ve already got a result you want to query, this covers both. ACCA publishes exact results dates well in advance, so there’s no guesswork involved, and if you do need to challenge a result, there’s a specific process for that too. ACCA exam results day: A quick …
Every ACCA paper has a different format, and treating them all the same is one of the fastest ways to walk into an exam unprepared. Before the 15 tips below, it helps to know exactly what you’re facing on each paper, and where to find the paper-specific breakdown once you do. What’s the format of …
Exam day nerves are hard enough without wondering whether you’ve forgotten something you needed. Here’s exactly what ACCA requires, and what tends to trip candidates up. ACCA exam day checklist: A quick summaryFor a centre-based ACCA exam, bring valid original photo ID, your printed exam attendance docket, and an approved calculator, and arrive around 30 …
Performance Management (PM) is where ACCA shifts from testing whether you can calculate to testing whether you can advise. It’s the first paper in the qualification with written, constructed response questions. It’s also available quarterly rather than on-demand, so you’re working to a fixed exam date. We summarised ACCA’s PM examiner’s reports (Sep 2024-Jun 2026) …
Corporate and Business Law (LW) is the first Applied Skills paper, and it’s the odd one out: no calculations, no numbers to balance, just legal principles applied to scenarios. It’s the only fully non-numerical paper in the ACCA qualification, which makes it feel different to sit despite it being 100% Objective test (OT) questions. By …
Financial Accounting (FA) is the third and final Applied Knowledge paper, and it’s where ACCA introduces genuine double-entry bookkeeping, financial statement preparation and basic group accounting for the first time. It’s 100% objective test (OT), meaning every question has one demonstrably correct answer marked automatically by computer, using formats like multiple choice, multiple response and …