How to pass ICAN Public Sector Accounting and Finance

Start here, in this order

1. 1

   Report and Audit 20% of the paper

   Public sector accounting processes (treasury cash book and transcripts, cash management and borrowing guidelines, vouchers, bank reconciliation, deposits/advances/imprest, loss of public funds, vote book and expenditure and revenue control) · Roles of FAAC, JAAC, Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria, RMAFC and MOFI · Federation Account, special funds account, federal public sector independent revenue and charges to the Consolidated Revenue Fund · Roles of revenue collection agencies (NRS, SIRS, Local Government Revenue Authorities, NUPRC, NMDPRA, NCS, NNPCL) · Revenue collection and monitoring procedures · Cash basis IPSAS: structure, objectives, responsibility, characteristics and components · Statutory financial statements for federal, state and local government treasury under cash basis IPSAS · IPSAS 33 – First-time Adoption of Accrual Basis IPSAS · IPSAS 34 – Separate Financial Statements · Applicable accrual basis IPSAS: definitions, application, recognition, measurement and disclosures · Statutory financial statements for federal, state and local government treasury under accrual basis IPSAS · Accounting for public sector organisations and government business entities, including enabling laws and financial statements of utilities, parastatals, agencies and tertiary institutions · Public sector audit: legal requirements, audit process, public accountability, financial controls and control institutions, ISSAI and ISA, performance/value-for-money, risk based and environmental audit

2. 2

   Planning and Budgeting 20% of the paper

   Importance of planning and budgeting in the public sector and the objectives and use of the annual budget · Types of budgets: line-item, traditional/incremental, PPBS (planning programming), programme performance budgeting and zero-base budgeting · Rolling, development and perspective plans · Steps in the budgeting process and budgetary control · IPSAS 24 – Presentation of Budget Information in Financial Statements

3. 3

   Regulatory and Conceptual Frameworks of Public Sector Accounting 20% of the paper

   Constitutional, legislative and regulatory contexts of public sector accounting (constitutional provisions on revenue, revenue allocation and public expenditure; Finance (Control and Management) Act 1958; financial regulations and financial memoranda) · Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2010 · Public Procurement Act, 2007 (as amended) · IPSAS 11 – Construction Contracts · IPSAS 12 – Inventories · Ethical issues in public sector accounting: functions and powers of EFCC, ICPC, CCB, CCT, Public Accounts Committee and the Courts · Public sector accounting concepts, fund concept and professional pronouncements (UN, IFAC/IPSASB, PAFA API, standardisation of reporting formats in Nigeria) · Pension Reform Act, 2014 (as amended) · IPSAS 39 – Employee Benefits · Emerging issues in the Nigerian public sector (GIFMIS, IPPIS, TSA, ATRRS, Open Treasury Portal, FTeR and NRS e-Invoicing)

The remaining 3 areas share 40% between them. Worth knowing. Not worth the weeks that the three above deserve. Full weightings for this paper.

Then write, by hand, against the clock

Public Sector Accounting and Finance is written by hand. Marks are earned by the reasoning — stating the principle, applying it to the scenario, concluding — so an answer that jumps to the figure loses most of them even when the figure is right. Practise full answers on paper, timed at roughly 1.8 minutes per mark.

The part nobody does

Almost every candidate writes practice answers. Almost none of them ever find out whether those answers would have scored. You write, you feel it went reasonably, you move on — and the first real feedback you receive is the result, months later, when the diet is gone.

That gap is the whole reason preparation fails for people who worked hard. Not knowledge. Feedback.