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Hi guys,
I’m stuck with deciding between P4 and P5 for my final option paper.
Which is the most useful, post-qualification, and most passable?
If anyone with any first hand experience of either of these papers has any advise please let me know.
Thanks
I have the same question as well.
My guess is AFM (P4) is more useful in practice as APM is more for production industries and is quite specialised, whereas AFM can, in theory, be used for almost any industry and, I believe, is especially useful in banking.
However, judging by the equivalent Foundation units, I performed MUCH better in F5 than in F9.
So its a case of doing the “easier” but perhaps less useful P5 or the more difficult but more useful P4.
What was your other option? I’m guessing you did P6.
My other option is P7 based on my perceived difficulty of the paper (sitting it in Dec) – I work as a management accountant and have absolutely no experience working in audit and wouldn’t consider it either.
Just going by my research, it seems P5 probably has more relevance to a wider range of companies/industries. P4 seems to be more specialised as not all companies have a need for a treasurer/treasury dept.
My problem is I scored high marks in F9 and would probably enjoy studying P4 moreso than P5.
Perception is reality!
P3 is strongly related to P5 too so that should come into consideration. I hated P3 so that drove my decision not to do P5.
I would personally go with what you enjoy as that will be easier to pass. Has anyone ever been asked in an interview what modules they studied?
P4 isn’t just treasury but profitability. Whether or not you have a treasury dept a company is going to need to analyse whether investing in something is worthwhile (unless they don’t want to grow). It also concerns how to fund growth and mitigate risk – again very few companies are going to be able to fund growth through retained earnings and cash.
A tutor once said that P5 was the module that has stuff that didn’t fit in any of the other P papers and that’s why it’s a mish mash.
I’d also take note of the pass rates of P5 compared to the other papers.
Obviously take P5 if you like the syllabus content, but I think a lot of people fall into the trap of thinking they’re a management accountant (or rather not an auditor and not a treasurer) and take P5 because of this but don’t actually get on with the content. I think this gets mentioned in PQ quite a lot.
I haven’t looked at the P5 syllabus in full so the above could be complete bull 🙂
Interesting perspective @groovykikko – thanks!
I know employers are unlikely to ask you what options papers you did in an interview, chances are, if they qualified with another body they won’t even know ACCA has options papers.
My thinking was just on the papers usefulness in the day-to-day operation of a finance department.
Maybe it’s me, but management accounting seems to be a constant, whereas large investments and funding anything, other than graduated growth, is less so.
I tend to agree that enjoyment probably should be the deciding factor though!
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