CMA Part 1, Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics, is one of two examination parts for the Certified Management Accountant credential awarded by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) — a management-accounting credential, not a medical credential of any kind. Each part is a four-hour sitting: 100 multiple-choice questions in three hours, then a one-hour case-based section, scored on a 0-to-500 scale with 360 required to pass. Part 1 covers external financial reporting, planning and budgeting, performance management, cost management, internal controls, and technology and analytics.
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What this examination part certifies
First, a disambiguation this page owes every reader, because the initials collide: this CMA is the Certified Management Accountant, the management-accounting credential of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), awarded through its certification arm, ICMA. It has nothing to do with the Certified Medical Assistant credential in healthcare, which belongs to a different body, examines clinical and administrative medical assisting, and shares nothing with this program but three letters. A candidate who arrived here looking for medical assisting is in the wrong place; a candidate who arrived looking for the accounting credential that employers in industry, manufacturing, and corporate finance ask for by name is in the right one. Everything on this page concerns the IMA credential only.
Part 1, Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics, is the operational half of that credential. It examines the management accountant inside the business: reading and building external financial reports well enough to plan from them, constructing budgets and forecasts, measuring performance against them and explaining variances, managing costs through the costing systems that produce them, holding the internal control environment that keeps the numbers honest, and working the technology and analytics layer — information systems, data governance, and data analysis — that modern finance runs on. The Content Specification Outlines effective September 1, 2024 weight planning and performance management at 20% each, with the remaining four areas at 15% each, every area at Level C, ICMA’s deepest coverage level: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation are all in play. This is not a recall paper; it is a working paper.
The examination at a glance
| Item | Verified position |
|---|---|
| Examination | CMA Part 1: Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics — one of two parts of the IMA Certified Management Accountant (CMA) examination |
| Credential body | Institute of Management Accountants (IMA); the examination is governed by its certification arm, ICMA. This CMA is the management-accounting credential — it is not the Certified Medical Assistant credential, which is a different credential from a different body and is not this program |
| Format | Four hours: 100 multiple-choice questions in the first three hours (75% of the score), then a one-hour second section (25%). Candidates must achieve at least 50% of the multiple-choice section to advance to the second section |
| Second section — current form | Two case-based question (CBQ) sets for English-language examinations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Africa from the September/October 2026 window onward (see the transition note in this package); essays continue for examinations in China, Taiwan, and Japan |
| Content | Six areas under the Content Specification Outlines effective September 1, 2024: Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting 20%; Performance Management 20%; External Financial Reporting Decisions 15%; Cost Management 15%; Internal Controls 15%; Technology and Analytics 15% — all at coverage Level C |
| Scoring | Scaled score from 0 to 500; 360 is required to pass Part 1. The multiple-choice section carries 75% and the second section 25% |
| Windows | Three testing windows each year: January/February, May/June, and September/October. The two parts may be taken in either order |
| Certification requirements | Active IMA membership; a bachelor’s degree or an approved professional certification; two continuous years of professional experience in management accounting or financial management (may be completed within seven years of passing the examinations); both parts passed within three years of entering the CMA program |
| Administrator | IMA / ICMA. PassProfessor is independent and is not affiliated with IMA or ICMA |
What the examination covers
External Financial Reporting Decisions — 15%
Part 1 opens with the statements the rest of the part plans from: financial statements and their recognition, measurement, valuation, and disclosure rules, including the major differences between US GAAP and IFRS that the outline names. The management accountant’s stance here is dual — preparer-literate and user-critical. Items test whether the candidate can read a balance sheet, income statement, cash flow statement, and statement of changes in equity as management instruments: what was recognised and why, what a measurement choice did to the period’s story, and where the reporting decisions sit that planning must not take at face value.
Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting — 20%
Joint-heaviest area in Part 1: strategic planning, budgeting concepts and methodologies, forecasting techniques, budgetary control, and the annual profit plan and its supporting schedules. The examined skill is construction under assumptions — building a coherent operating and financial budget from a strategy, choosing forecasting methods that fit the data’s behaviour, and understanding where budgets motivate and where they distort. Items move between the arithmetic of a schedule and the judgement of a method: a candidate must be able to run a flexible budget and also say why a participative process or a particular forecast technique fits the situation described.
Performance Management — 20%
The other 20%: cost and variance measures, responsibility accounting and reporting segments, and performance measures including financial and nonfinancial measures and the balanced scorecard tradition. This is the control half of the planning cycle — the budget said what should happen; this area examines what the organisation does when it didn’t. Variance analysis is examined in depth and in layers: price and quantity, mix and yield, market and share, each with its investigation decision attached. Items characteristically hand the candidate a variance picture and ask what it means and what to do — analysis and evaluation, squarely at Level C.
Cost Management — 15%
Cost management examines the costing machinery itself: measurement concepts and cost accumulation systems, cost behaviour, overhead allocation in its traditional and activity-based forms, supply chain and business process improvement, and the management techniques — including just-in-time and related approaches — that reduce cost without removing value. The candidate must know what a costing system does to product cost and therefore to price, mix, and make-or-buy logic. Items are computational and conceptual in roughly equal measure, and the activity-based material is examined as a design choice: when do drivers repay their complexity?
Internal Controls — 15%
Governance, risk, and internal control; internal auditing; and systems controls and security measures. This area examines the environment that keeps the other five areas’ numbers trustworthy: control structures and their components, the internal audit function and its standards of work, and the systems layer — general and application controls, segregation, access, and the security of the information systems the finance function depends on. Items are scenario-heavy: a described control environment, a described failure, a described audit finding, and the candidate must locate the weakness and name the remedy the framework prescribes.
Technology and Analytics — 15%
Information systems, data governance, technology-enabled finance transformation, and data analytics. This area examines the finance function’s digital estate: how systems are structured and controlled, how data is governed as an asset, how automation and transformation change finance work, and how analytics — from descriptive reporting through data visualisation to the reasoning patterns of more advanced analysis — converts data into decisions. It is the area with no analogue in older versions of the credential, and its 15% weight, at Level C, makes it a full citizen of the part rather than an appendix. Items test both vocabulary-in-context and applied judgement about data and systems in described situations.
The route, in order
Step 1 — Enter the CMA program
Join IMA and enter the certification program through ICMA. Program entry starts the clock: both examination parts must be passed within three years of entering the program. Confirm that your education path — a bachelor’s degree or an approved professional certification — and your experience plan fit the certification requirements recorded in the fact table.
Step 2 — Register for a window and schedule
Register for Part 1 in one of the three annual testing windows — January/February, May/June, or September/October — and schedule the sitting at a Prometric testing center. The parts may be taken in either order, and both may be attempted within the same window; Part 1 first is the common sequence because Part 2 builds on its costing and performance base.
Step 3 — Sit Part 1
Four hours in two sections. The multiple-choice section — 100 questions in three hours — comes first and carries 75% of the score; you must achieve at least 50% of it to advance. The second section, one hour carrying 25%, is in case-based question form for most English-language candidates from the September/October 2026 window (see the transition note in this package); once you leave the multiple-choice section you do not return to it.
Step 4 — Complete the credential
A scaled score of 360 passes the part. Certification itself requires both parts passed, IMA membership maintained, the education requirement verified, and two continuous years of professional experience in management accounting or financial management — which may be completed within seven years of passing the examinations.
What makes this examination demanding
Part 1’s demand is integration under a gate. The sitting is engineered so that breadth alone cannot carry a candidate: the 50% multiple-choice threshold must be cleared before the case-based section opens, and that section then tests application on cases rather than recall. The outline’s six areas interlock — a weak costing base leaks into performance variances; weak reporting literacy leaks into planning — so the examination punishes siloed study. Level C coverage means the verbs are apply, analyse, and evaluate: most items present a situation and a number set, not a definition. Candidates from pure financial-accounting backgrounds consistently underestimate the controls and analytics areas, which together carry 30% of this part and have no mercy for being treated as reading material.
The credential at work
The CMA is the credential corporate finance uses to signal management-accounting competence: budgeting, costing, performance, and decision support inside operating businesses. Part 1 is the half employers describe when they ask whether a finance hire can run a budget cycle, explain a variance, or defend a cost number. Holders work as management and cost accountants, financial analysts, finance managers, controllers, and onward to finance leadership, in manufacturing, healthcare, technology, and services alike. Because the credential is IMA’s and the examination is the same worldwide, the signal travels across employers and borders in a way firm-specific experience cannot.
What the PassProfessor program will cover
Practice in the examination’s own shape. Part 1 is 100 multiple-choice questions against a three-hour clock followed by a one-hour case-based section, and the program in the works practises in that shape: timed multiple-choice sets at the real pace, then structured case work — exhibits, data, and tasks answered by calculation, selection, and arrangement — so the gated two-section rhythm is rehearsed, not discovered on the day.
Written from the primary sources. The program is written from IMA’s CMA Handbook and the Content Specification Outlines effective September 1, 2024, and from IMA’s published description of the case-based question format. Where the examination changed in 2026 — the second section’s form — the program teaches the current form and names the transition and its regional exceptions.
The whole candidate, not only the test-taker. Around the item practice, the program carries the certification route as IMA publishes it — program entry and its three-year clock, windows, the education and experience requirements and their seven-year completion allowance, and IMA’s Statement of Ethical Professional Practice — because the examination is one component of a credential, not the whole of it.
Preparation only. This is preparation for an examination administered for IMA/ICMA. PassProfessor is not affiliated with IMA or ICMA, no completion of this program is reported to IMA, and nothing in the program substitutes for IMA membership, program entry, or the certification requirements.
Tell me when enrollment opens. The CMA Part 1 — Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics (IMA) program is in the works and enrollment is not yet open. Leave an email address and PassProfessor will write to you when the program is ready — and only about this program. No date is promised, because the program will open when it meets the standard described above, not before.
Frequently asked questions
Is this CMA the medical assistant credential?
No. This is the Certified Management Accountant, IMA’s management-accounting credential. The Certified Medical Assistant is a healthcare credential from a different body, examining medical assisting. The shared initials are a coincidence of naming; the credentials, bodies, examinations, and careers are entirely distinct, and this program covers the accounting credential only.
What is Part 1 called, and what does it cover?
Financial Planning, Performance, and Analytics. Six areas: Planning, Budgeting, and Forecasting (20%), Performance Management (20%), External Financial Reporting Decisions (15%), Cost Management (15%), Internal Controls (15%), and Technology and Analytics (15%), per the Content Specification Outlines effective September 1, 2024.
How is a Part 1 sitting structured?
Four hours. First, 100 multiple-choice questions in three hours, carrying 75% of the score; you must achieve at least 50% of that section to advance. Then a one-hour second section carrying 25% — case-based questions for most English-language candidates from the September/October 2026 window onward.
What are case-based questions?
IMA’s replacement for the former essay section: a short business case of about 250 words, presented with exhibits, followed by tasks answered through structured formats — drag-and-drop, fill-in-the-blank, select-from-a-list, multi-select, and numerical entry. Two case sets form the second section. Content, length, and scoring did not change with the format.
Do essays still exist anywhere on the CMA examination?
Yes, regionally. IMA’s transition kept essays for examinations in China, Taiwan, and Japan, in English and local-language forms, while English-language examinations in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Africa moved to case-based questions only from September/October 2026. May/June 2026 offered candidates a choice; January/February 2026 was essays only.
What score passes Part 1?
A scaled score of 360 on the 0-to-500 scale. Each part is scored and passed separately; there is no combined total across parts.
Must I take Part 1 before Part 2?
No. IMA permits the parts in either order, and both may be attempted in the same window. Part 1 first is the more common path because Part 2’s decision analysis builds on Part 1’s costing and performance foundation.
What do I need besides passing both parts?
Active IMA membership; a bachelor’s degree or an approved professional certification; and two continuous years of professional experience in management accounting or financial management, which may be completed within seven years of passing the examinations. Both parts must be passed within three years of entering the program.
When can I sit Part 1?
In three annual windows — January/February, May/June, and September/October — at Prometric testing centers, after entering the CMA program and registering for the window.
Is PassProfessor affiliated with IMA?
No. PassProfessor is an independent preparation provider, not affiliated with IMA or ICMA. The program confers no credential and reports nothing to IMA.