ACCA PER – Some Practical Questions Answered

   Our ACCA’s Practical Experience Requirement post was highly appreciated with lots writing to us with some of their unique problems. This article we are doing after receiving inputs from our regular contributor Zaheer Sayed, ACCA.

Q1: The place I am working at, doesn’t have a chartered accountant or a qualified accountant, how will I get my PER signed off?

Answer: You don’t always have to have a CA or an ACCA in your organisation to sign off the PER. The PER is split between 2 parts, the time spent at work (duration) and performance objectives. The duration needs to be signed off by your supervisor who can nominate on the system. The Performance Objectives on the other hand needs to be signed off by a qualified accountant (IFAC approved body) however doesn’t have to be in your organisation. ACCA is known for its flexibility, and understands not every organisation needs to have a CA/ACCA, therefore if your organisation employs services of a CA/ACCA for audits, taxation etc., and then you can always request them to sign off your objectives since they would anyways be aware of the work you do. This should come as a BIG relief, as majority of students have queries on this area.

 

Q2: I am not sure if the job that I am currently in meets the requirements of PER Performance Objectives.

Answer: Again the next most common question is I can’t link my job to the PER, and we understand this maybe sometimes difficult especially for young professionals. However we believe PER is more of an art than science. Therefore you don’t always have to stick to the verbatim job description of yours and marry it to the PER. See how your job is part of the bigger picture and then link it to the PER. Let’s say under technical objective there is corporate and business reporting, which requires Record and process transactions and events, Prepare external financial reports and Analyse and interpret financial reports. Now most of us when we work would be involved in some form or either recording transactions or reporting on transaction, even if you’re not doing debit and credit and you don’t actually prepare the final accounts, you still are meeting these objectives. Of cos you need to explain how you think you have done that, and that’s where it’s a bit of an art, however the point is you are already meeting the objective and you need be able to explain your work so that it can be seen how it leads to meeting the objectives. The same can be done in all the other categories be it Essential or Technical.

 

Q3. My PER related experience was a few years ago, can it still be used?

Answer: Yes absolutely, make sure you are able to get the sign off on both the duration and the performance objectives. You’ll need the CA/ACCA’s membership details, therefore catch hold of your ex-boss and get them to sign off. It’s all on the system, therefore there’s hardly any hassle for any of the parties.

 

Q4. My boss is not willing to sign off the PER, what do I do?

Answer: Another common question and we feel terrible that the students have to go through this. In cases like these, it’s best to check within the organisation if there are other seniors who you work with and if they can sign it off. Again, it can also be external auditors who can do that for you, remember it’s only the performance objectives that need a qualified accountant; your duration can be signed off even by the HR.

 

These were some of the common questions on PER we received and Zaheer Sayed was kind enough to help with the same. Please do write to us if you have any other queries, hope you found this helpful.