AAT - Financial Performance

Introduction

Studying for the AAT Financial Performance exam

The content of this Knowledge Bank is not designed to be a substitute for a structured system of study towards the exams but rather should help complement your chosen study system.

In particular,

• we do not guarantee full syllabus coverage,
• the content here is not necessarily pitched at the right level of difficulty for your exam - in particular, in some areas, it may go beyond what you need,
• the knowledge bank focusses on knowledge, concepts and ideas but has very few worked examples or graded exercises for you to practice,
• there are no past exam questions here to attempt
• examiner's articles and other official guidance are not repeated here.

We highly recommend that you complete a structured course of study and obtain text books and exam kits to improve your chances of exam success.

Using the Kaplan Financial Knowledge Bank

The main benefits of the way the content is presented and accessed via the Knowledge Bank are as follows:

• a quick answer to a quick question - if you have a  query then you should be able to access a trusted answer quickly and efficiently using either the search function, the top navigation bars or /and the side navigation.
• integrated knowledge - examiners often criticise students for not appreciating how different topics fit together. By following the structured links and navigation bars in the content, you can explore related concepts to integrate your knowledge.
• assumed knowledge - you can revise assumed knowledge from lower papers by searching for the relevant topics and reading around the subjects.

The AAT Financial Performance syllabus

A good page to start on if you are unclear where to begin would be the overview Management Accounting page and, within this, the Performance Management page.

Other useful starting points for exploration are linked to syllabus areas below.

The syllabus for Financial Performance is split into 5 main learning outcomes (LOs):

LO1 Collate and analyse cost information from various sources

The best page to start with here is the one on Costing. Make sure you then also explore the related pages shown on the menus at the top and / or RHS of the page, in particular the ones relating to Materials costs, Labour costs and Overheads.

LO2 Be able to use standard costing to analyse performance

The best place to start is with the Standard Costing page, followed by the Variance Analysis page.

LO3 Be able to use appropriate techniques to measure performance and manage costs

The knowledgebank has a great deal of content on different costing techniques and different approahces to performance management, so provides an excellent resource for reading around the subject. The most useful pages for this Learning Outcome (LO) are the ones relating to Lifecycle Costing, Target Costing, Activity Based Costing (ABC) and the Balanced Scorecard.

LO4 Make suggestions for improving financial performance by monitoring and analysing information

Making suggestions in exam questions will involve responding to the particular circumstances of the specific question scenario. All of the pages mentioned above will help in this respect. 

LO5 Prepare performance reports for management

In the exam you will be expected to answer questions in a required format - in particular as a report. The content of such reports has already been covered by the pages highlighted above.

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Tags:	AAT;Financial performance;FNPF