CBA Certified Accounting Manager

Close Cycle Management25%

• Construct a month-end close calendar with task dependencies, owners, deadlines and quality gates
• Distinguish between hard-close, soft-close and continuous-close approaches and select the appropriate model for a given organisation
• Evaluate accrual, prepayment, provision and cut-off procedures for completeness and consistency at period end
• Interpret reconciliation ageing and unresolved-item reports to prioritise close-cycle risk
• Select actions to recover a slipping close, including re-sequencing tasks, applying materiality thresholds and escalating blockers
• Calculate close-cycle performance measures such as days to close, late adjustment counts and post-close correction rates

Internal Controls and Risk20%

• Distinguish preventive, detective and corrective controls and match each to a given process risk
• Design segregation of duties for payments, payroll, journals and master-data changes, including compensating controls for small teams
• Evaluate the severity of a control failure and select an appropriate response, including remediation and disclosure to leadership
• Identify fraud indicators in accounts payable, payroll, expenses and revenue processes
• Interpret an exception report or audit finding and prioritise remediation actions
• Select appropriate approval thresholds, system access rights and documentation standards for a described process

Team and Workflow Management20%

• Allocate tasks across a team using skill, capacity and development criteria rather than habit
• Design a preparer-reviewer hierarchy with clear evidence standards for review
• Evaluate individual and team performance using workload, quality and timeliness indicators
• Select coaching, training or escalation responses to described performance problems
• Distinguish effective delegation from abdication and micromanagement in given scenarios
• Interpret capacity data to justify hiring, outsourcing or automation decisions

Leadership Reporting and Communication20%

• Construct a monthly management pack with an appropriate structure for a described audience
• Interpret variances between actual, budget and prior period and draft commentary that explains cause rather than restating numbers
• Select key indicators for cash, working capital and profitability suitable for a given business model
• Distinguish decision-useful commentary from noise, and materiality-driven detail from clutter
• Evaluate requests from leadership for new reports and negotiate scope, frequency and deadlines
• Calculate common working capital and liquidity measures from summarised financial data

Systems, Automation and Data15%

• Construct requirements and a weighted scoring model for selecting accounting software or add-on tools
• Evaluate a chart of accounts and dimension design for reporting and consolidation needs
• Distinguish tasks suited to automation or AI assistance from those requiring accountant judgement and review
• Select data-integrity practices for spreadsheets and system integrations, including reconciliation of interfaces
• Interpret a migration or implementation plan and identify cutover, parallel-run and data-quality risks
• Evaluate the controls needed around automated postings and AI-assisted outputs before reliance