Choosing the right objectives for you

Choosing and achieving performance objectives

As part of the Practical Experience Requirement (PER), you will achieve performance objectives which demonstrate that you can apply the knowledge, skills and behaviours developed through the exams syllabuses to real-life, work activities.

You are required to achieve nine performance objectives in total, including:

all five Essentials objectives, and

any four from 17 Technical objectives.

You will demonstrate your achievement of the performance objectives to your practical experience supervisor by performing activities in the workplace to achieve the elements and writing a statement to provide examples of experience gained and work activities undertaken.

These are essential, fundamental, business skills that all professional accountants need so you must achieve all five.

1 - Ethics and professionalism
2 - Stakeholder relationship management
3 - Strategy, innovation and sustainable value creation
4 - Governance, risk and control
5 - Leadership and management

There are 17 Technical performance objectives to choose from - and they fall into different technical areas.

Corporate and business reporting

6 - Record and process transactions and events
7 - Prepare external financial reports
8 - Analyse and interpret financial reports

Financial management

9 - Evaluate investment and financing decisions
10 - Manage and control working capital
11 - Identify and manage financial risk

Sustainable management accounting

12 - Evaluate management accounting systems
13 - Plan and control performance
14 - Monitor performance

Taxation

15 - Tax computations and assessments
16 - Tax compliance and verification
17 - Tax planning and advice

Audit and assurance

18 - Prepare for and plan the audit and assurance process
19 - Collect and evaluate evidence for an audit or assurance engagement
20 - Review and report on the findings of an audit or assurance engagement

Advisory and consultancy

21 - Business advisory

Data, digital and technology

22 - Data analysis and decision support

"I'd advise affiliates to select the PER performance objectives most relevant to their job so that their Supervisors are more willing to sign off those objectives."

Thea Lowe, ACCA, CA, BSc. (Hons) - Senior Associate, Assurance Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers SRL (Barbados)

Selecting and planning performance objectives

Work with your practical experience supervisor to select and plan your objectives so that they align with your current and on-going goals at work.

There are three parts to a performance objective:

the description - which is a summary of the objective
five elements - which outline the skills and behaviours you must demonstrate to achieve the objective
a 200-500 word statement - where you summarise and reflect on your work activity.

To complete a performance objective you need to achieve all five elements and write a statement. These are submitted to your practical experience supervisor for approval. You can work on more than one objective at a time and can complete your objectives in any order.

Your PER progress - the achievement of the performance objectives, and time completed in a relevant role, are all recorded in MyExperience which you can access via MyACCA.