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All about taking a CIMA course

How do I register for a CIMA course?
This is the really easy part.
If you already know exactly which CIMA course you want to study: You can go directly to this page: Click Here .
This is the page where you pick your course and give us your name. We will then call you to make sure that you register successfully.
Don’t worry – we won’t leave you alone to try and do this by yourself. We are with you every step of the way because your success is our first priority.

You can call us Toll Free on 0800 21 23 22.

Ask to speak to one of our CIMA experts (Willie, Christa, Leigh and Shawn).
When can I register for a course? Can I start a course mid-year?
You can register for a course at ANY point in the year.

Because the Certificate Level exams are computer-based, there is no specific time that you must write the exams. You just let us know when you are ready to write the exam and we will set everything up for you to write your exam online.
If you want to take a Professional Level course, however, you must make sure that you have either:

Completed and passed your Certificate Level course, OR
Have exemption from the Certificate Level course

You must do one of the above two options; before the end of August if you want to sit for the November exams. Just remember that we get really busy in July/August, so it can take up to 20 working days to process your exemptions .
So make sure you apply for your exemptions with enough time to spare!!
How do I benefit from having previous work experience or training?
Did you know that you can get exemption from some subjects in your course if you have previous work experience in accounting or maybe even some training? If you already have a qualification, there is a good chance that you can get some subjects off. But the trick is that you can only apply for exemption once you are a registered student with CIMA. And there is an exemption fee which you need to know about. But don’t worry – I’ll tell you everything you need to know.
How do I apply for exemption? There quite a few ways to get exemption. You can get exemption for many different relevant qualifications. Each of these must be looked at by CIMA and they will then decide what exemptions you qualify for.

The good news is that College SA can handle the entire process for you, from the day you want to register as a student for a CIMA course, when you want to apply for exemptions and when you want to become a CIMA student member.

Before you can apply for exemptions, you must first register as a student member of CIMA. Obviously College SA will do all of this for you, but we will need all your qualification papers. We will contact CIMA and ask them about your chances for exemptions. We will then let you know what your exemptions could be.

After CIMA confirms your exemptions, you must decide if you want them or not. There are some things to consider, but we will look at that a bit later in this letter.

So how easy is that? With any other college you would need to struggle through all the paperwork yourself. But College SA does all that for you! Just one more reason why we are the most awesome college out there! Just contact our College SA Exemptions Officer Allistaire on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . He will help you with the whole process.
What is your exemption policy?
CIMA has a few rules about giving exemptions. They need to have these rules because they have to make sure that only the people who deserve exemptions get them. These are the rules:

CIMA can only tell you if you have exemption once you are registered as a student.
The process of registering as a student works like this: When you want to register for a CIMA course, one of our Student Registrars who is an expert on CIMA will give you a call. He or she will then talk to you about your decision to study a CIMA course, just to make sure that you understand what the course is about and that it really is the best course for you. Then we will start the process of registering you as a student. It is mostly paperwork, so I won’t bore you with the details. As long as you get all the documents to us, we can register you as a student. Once you are registered, we will start the exemption process
You have to give us copies of your transcripts or marksheets for all the years you studied. You must also give us a graduation certificate or a recent letter that confirms that you completed your course successfully. If you do not give us copies of both these documents, your registration will take longer and it will take longer before we can tell you for which exemptions you qualify. It is a good idea to send copies of your qualifications right away – that way we can apply for you exemptions more quickly.
You documents must be in English. If the original documents aren’t in English, you must get a certified translator to translate them to English.
If you want, we can find a translator for you, but you will have to pay the translator’s fee.
CIMA can contact the college where you got your other qualifications to make sure that your qualifications are real.
You shouldn’t send in original documents, only certified copies. CIMA and College SA cannot be held responsible if your documents get lost.
Only CIMA can decide who gets exemptions.
You must have fully completed a course to be able to apply for exemption.
You must meet CIMA’s requirements before they will award the exemption. Also, you cannot give your exemptions to anyone else.
You must have at least 40% and passed each module that is listed to get exemption.
You must have finished your studies at one college to be able to get exemptions. That means that you cannot do half your course with one college and the other half at a different college.
You must have finished the last two years of your degree or the last two parts of your professional qualification if you want it to count towards your exemption.
You must have finished your qualifications within the last 10 years. But your CBA level exams can also be considered.
If your degree is not on our database but it is related to the CIMA syllabus, you cannot qualify for exemptions.
If you have a qualification with another professional body, you will not get exemption, unless that professional body is accredited with CIMA.
CIMA does not give exemption for work experience.
You can’t get exemptions based on subjects or courses that you got exempted from previously. You must have the qualification.
You will be charged a fee for every exemption that you except. The fee depends on the qualification and the exemption, so we will give you that information when we tell you about your exemptions.
If CIMA changes the exemption fee, you will pay the old fee if you have already accepted your exemptions before the fee change. If you only accept your exemptions after the fee change, you will pay the new fee.
If you sign up for a CIMA course before your exemptions are accepted, you will have to pay any extra fees.
If you do not accept the exemption and write the exam for a subject, and you fail that exam, you cannot claim the exemption. You will need to do the subject over again.
If you have failed an exam previously, CIMA will not give exemption for that subject. You may get exemption for that subject only if you did another qualification after you failed the subject.
If CIMA does not know about your qualification (for example if you are from another country than the UK), CIMA will ask the advice of UK NARIC.
If UK NARIC can’t give advice about the qualification, CIMA will decide if they will give the exemption for that qualification – it is entirely up to CIMA.
You qualification must be at least at the same standard as a diploma in the UK.
You cannot get exemption for high school qualifications.
If your qualification was not accepted for exemption under an earlier CIMA syllabus, it will not be excepted under a new syllabus.

Should I accept my exemptions?
Huh? What kind of a question is that? Isn’t it obvious that you should take all exemptions that you can get? No, it is not really that simple. There are quite a few reasons why you should think twice about taking the exemptions you can get.
Getting exemptions costs moneyYep. Even though you’re not going to do the module, you’re still going to pay a fee for getting exemption for that module. It’s kind of like an administration fee. The fees for each module are different, so you can get that information when you apply for the exemption. When Allistaire lets you know if you qualify for exemptions, he will also tell you what the fees are for the exemptions.
You may need to recap on the information in the study module that you get exemption for
It may have been a while since you studied, so maybe it is a good idea to do some of the modules again just to get back in the game. CIMA’s different modules build on one another, so you will really benefit from doing some of the modules again. That way you get a head start on the really difficult parts of the course.
All you need to know about the different CIMA levels
There are 5 different levels of CIMA courses that you can do. These are:

CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting
CIMA Professional Qualification: Operational Level
CIMA Professional Qualification: Managerial Level
CIMA Professional Qualification: Strategic Level
CIMA Professional Qualification: TOPCIMA

CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting
This is the basis of the CIMA qualifications. If you want to study any level of CIMA courses, you first need to finish this course. It offers an introduction into Management Accounting and there are no entry requirements. In this course you learn the basics of Management Accounting and you will be eased into the world of Management Accounting in a way that will make everything easy to understand.

Want to know more? Click here
CIMA Professional Qualification: Operational Level
This course builds on the Certificate in Business Accounting and it teaches you how business and financial decisions are made and how business performance is evaluated. This course is the first of three levels of exams. By the time you finish all three levels, you will be ready to take the exam to become a Chartered Management Accountant. Before you can try to write the TOPCIMA exam, you must finish all three levels of exams. Each level has 3 exams, so in the end you will need to write 9 exams before you can try for the TOPCIMA exam.

Want to know more? Click here
CIMA Professional Qualification: Managerial Level
After you get the Operation Level qualification, you can take on the Managerial Level qualification. In this course the focus is on analysis, so you will learn how to analyse financial information. You will learn how to analyse monthly forecasts and how to analyse tax. It will prepare you to become a financial manager.

Want to know more? Click here.

CIMA Professional Qualification: Strategic Level
This is the last level of the Professional Qualification. You must have completed all the other qualifications that was mentioned up to now to be able to enrol in this course. The Strategic Level course will teach you how to interpret your findings from your analysis. You will learn how to use the information that you got from your analysis and interpretation. You will learn about formulating business strategies, how to negotiate projects or loans, and how to improve business performance.

After you finish the Strategic Level course, you can go on to take the TOPCIMA exams.

Want to know more? Click here
CIMA Professional Qualification: TOPCIMA
This is the last and highest level of course that you can take. To be able to get to this level, you must first finish all the other levels. You must also get three years’ relevant work experience before you can take the TOPCIMA exam.

The TOPCIMA exam tests your professional competence as a Management Accountant. In this exam everything you learnt in the previous level will be tested to make sure that you can work effectively in a business environment. This exam is very extensive because you will have great responsibilities as a Chartered Management Accountant.

Want to know more? Click here
How we can help you choose the right CIMA course?
Since you have to start your CIMA career at the Certificate in Business Accounting, you will need to apply for exemption if you want to start at a different (higher) level.

If you are not sure that you want to study a CIMA course, you can always take our free Career Test. Click here.

Once you are absolutely sure that you want to study a CIMA course, you can just give us a call and we will walk you through the steps. And if you need to or want to apply for exemption, we can help you with that process as well.
Where to get practical experience
You must get at least three year’s practical experience. You must find a job in some area of finance and/or management where you can get your practical experience. Then you must work for at least three years, but you can work for longer if you want.
The different areas of practical work experience you can get
There are three kinds of practical work experience that you can get:

Basic experience

Preparing and maintaining accounting records
Statutory and regulatory reporting
IT desktop skills
Systems and procedure development

Core experience

Preparation of management accounts
Planning, budgeting and forecasting
Management reporting for decision making
Product and service costing
Information management
Project appraisal
Project management
Working capital content
Risk management and business assurance

Supplementary experience

Financial strategy
Corporate Finance
Treasury management
Taxation
Business evaluation and appraisal
Business strategy
External relationships

How to record your practical experience
You need to write a report about all your practical work experience. You must have the following:

An assessment of practical experience/membership application form,
An employment summary,
A detailed record of your experience and
A record of skills development.

When you are writing your report, you must keep the following in mind:

Who did you report to?
How did you do a specific task?
How often did you do this task?
Why did you need to do this task?
Who was your customer or client?
What computer software or IT did you use?
Were you part of a team? How many people helped you?
What was the end product of the task?

Asking your company to help fund your studies
Did you know that you don’t have to struggle to pay your studies yourself? If you are studying to improve yourself so that you can do a better job in your company, then maybe your company will consider helping you pay for your CIMA studies. Click here. This will give you all the information you need about asking your boss for help in paying for your studies.

Where can I make payments for my course?
You can make your payments directly to College SA. Here is some information about making payments to College SA:

You can do a monthly payment through EFT (electronic fund transfer) or directly through the bank.
You can pay the full course fee in advance. When you do this you are eligible for quite a big discount. Remember to ask your Registrar about this!
You can also sign a debit order form so that the money comes from your account automatically every month. That means no hassle for you!
Remember that you can change your payment method at any point – as long as the payments are made on time!
If you miss a payment it is not the end of the world, but your student account will accrue arrears (you will have to pay each month’s fee plus some interest).
You can also make use of the Take-a-Break option where you don’t study and don’t pay, but remember that we won’t service you during the Take-a-Break period.

What is the last day for payment?
The last day for EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer, or internet banking) is the 25th of each month. If you have a debit order, you don’t have to worry about the date when the money goes from your account, because we organise that.

If you pay cash, you usually pay everything when you enrol, or when you settle at the end of your studies. If you pay monthly, you get a settlement offer every month. We call you to organise something that works for both parties.
What are the course fees?
To register for a CIMA course you need to keep in mind the following costs:

CIMA Student (Registration) Membership fee
CIMA Yearly Membership fee
CIMA Exemption fees
CIMA Exam fees
College SA Course Fees

As you can see we shall have to make sure we understand exactly what you are going to study, and what options you chose, before we can determine the exact costs. So we will not give you fees in this mail.

To get an exact quote for the fees, taking into account all the options you chose, please chat to your CIMA Course Expert at College SA.

You can call us toll free on 0800 21 23 22.
Ask to speak to one of our CIMA experts, being Willie, Christa, Leigh and Shawn.

College SA is the ONLY College that will calculate a total fee for you, inclusive of ALL costs and then offer you a monthly payment plan so that you can afford your studies!
How do I become full CIMA member?
If you want to become a student member of CIMA, you must register separately for that membership. You do not automatically become a student member when you enrol for a CIMA course. College SA is more than happy to apply on your behalf – that way you save a lot of time and even frustration.

The first and most important thing that you need to do to become a full CIMA member is completing the Professional Qualification. That means that you have to complete the

Operational Level,
Managerial Level,
Strategic Level and
TOPCIMA.

You must also have your three years’ practical experience. All of this is needed before you can apply to become a CIMA member. Once you are a CIMA member, you can put the designation ACMA after your name in official documents.
Can I convert my membership from one professional institute to another?
CIMA created an accelerated route by which you can enter into the CIMA Professional Qualification if you already have membership or qualifications from other institutes. This means that you will only have to do the CIMA Gateway Assessment. Once you have passed that you will get the Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting. You will get exemptions from 11 CIMA exams. Which means that you can start your studies at the Strategic Level. So you don’t have to study right from the beginning.

To find out more about College SA as a College, click HERE for MORE INFORMATION