Your Guide to CIMA Practical Experience Requirements

The Practical Experience Requirements or PERs are a core part of getting a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designation when you complete your CIMA exams. The aim of the PERs is to show your ability to apply your knowledge and skills in a professional setting. Most CIMA students study and work at the same time in order to complete the PERs in a similar timeframe, so once qualified they can begin working at a certain level straight away.

In this blog, we provide you with everything you need to know about the practical experience requirements for CIMA.

How do you get a CGMA designation?

To become a CGMA, you need at least 3 years’ relevant work-based verified practical experience. The practical experience requirements are an essential part of the CIMA qualification and membership process.

Your PER application will be assessed to determine whether you have enough experience to get Associate membership – giving you the associate chartered management accountant (ACMA) and Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) designations.

What are the Practical Experience Requirements for CIMA?

It’s about fulfilling the practical experience that’s required to be considered a competent chartered global management accountant. As a CIMA student and member, you need to have 3 years of relevant work experience and meet certain criteria that are measured by the CGMA Competency Framework.

There are 3 areas that you require experience in:

• Basic experience – This experience should be ‘hands-on’ and examples are preparing and maintaining accounting records, IT desktop skills and statutory and regulatory reporting.
• Core experience – In this area, you don’t have to have direct responsibility but have a contributing role. Examples include planning, budgeting and forecasting, product and service costing, information management, project appraisal and working capital control.
• Supplementary experience – This are refer to experience in research, analysis and evaluation of activities or assisting in these activities. Key examples are business strategy, taxation, external relationships, corporate finance and treasury management.

CGMA Competency Framework

The framework consists of four knowledge areas in Level 1 (Technical Skills, Business Skills, People Skills and Leadership Skills) and is underpinned by Ethics, Integrity and Professionalism. Each knowledge area contains a number of competency categories and individual competencies or skills.

Level 2 outlines the competence categories and outlines the proficiency level and competencies (this example is for financial accounting and reporting).

How to Record Practical Experience Requirements for CIMA

You should start recording from when you first register with CIMA and complete all the documentation to create a career profile:

• An assessment of practical experience/membership application form signed by a proposer and seconder
• An employment summary
• A detailed record of your experience
• A skills development record of skills

You will need to submit all relevant work experience using the MAT Membership Application Tool – here you will record your practical experience against the CGMA competency framework – it will need to be verified by your line manager to prove you have met the criteria. CIMA also recommends that you keep notes of your experience so when you need to write it up you have something to refer to.

Remember, to apply you must have completed your strategic level exams.