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ICAN · Foundation

MA A3 Management Accounting

The management accountant's toolkit: management information, cost elements, costing methods, budgeting and budgetary control, standard costing and variances, and decision-making techniques.
MA
Format
Written examination
Duration
3h 15m
Pass mark
50%
Total marks
100
Sessions
May and November diets
Syllabus
2025 syllabus (updated)

Checked against ICAN's own pages on 22 October 2026. HPS re-checks before each session.

Exam structure

100 marks

  1. Section A20

    Twenty compulsory multiple-choice questions spanning the whole syllabus (20% of total marks).

  2. Section B80

    Six open-ended questions (essay, computational or scenario-based) worth 20 marks each; candidates answer any four.

Replaces Management Information. MI passes up to the May 2025 diet are credited as MA; anyone who had not passed MI must sit MA before Skills. ICAN's syllabus allows Foundation papers to be paper-based or computer-based.

VerifiedRecorded from the official pages on 22 October 2026Source 1 Source 2 Source 3
Syllabus navigator
Use the arrow keys or select an area. Areas and sub-areas follow the ICAN 2025 syllabus. Weightings appear only where the examining body publishes them.

Syllabus area A· about 15% of the exam

Management Information

5 sub-areas, as the syllabus lists them. HPS lessons and questions are tagged to these codes, so your Knowledge DNA and revision plan point at the exact sub-area you got wrong.

  • A1Nature and purposes of management accounting
  • A2Management information systems (MIS)
  • A3Spreadsheets
  • A4Big data and data analytics
  • A5Cost classifications, codification, segregation and estimation
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  • Free MA practice is being preparedHPS lecturers are writing exam-style questions for this paper. They appear here, free and without an account, once they are reviewed.

Next sessions

  • November 2026 diet10 Nov 2026 to 12 Nov 2026Verified
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