If you are preparing to resit ACCA Financial Management, take some comfort from the numbers. The pass rates on ACCA’s Financial Management page ran at 48% for June 2025, 46% for September 2025, 48% for December 2025, 50% for March 2026 and 48% for June 2026. Roughly half of candidates pass each session, so a failed attempt says little about your ability.
ACCA describes Financial Management as building the knowledge and skills of a finance manager on investment, financing and dividend policy decisions. The facts below come from ACCA’s September/December 2025 FM examiner’s report and its FM pages. The advice on how to use them is my opinion.
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ACCA Financial Management: Find Out Where You Lost Marks
Before you open a textbook again, look at your last result. ACCA offers a My Exam Performance tool that lets you analyse earlier exam results to see strengths and weak spots. Write down which syllabus areas cost you the most, because the examiners’ report is clear that every area can be tested.
Candidates also don’t all receive the same questions in the computer-based exam, so a lucky draw won’t rescue a skipped chapter.
Rearranging formulas in the short questions
Several Section A questions in the report were solved by working backwards from the formula that contains what you need. In one, a company had a nominal share value of $0.50 and total nominal value of $30m, a dividend of $3.0m, a dividend yield of 4% and an earnings yield of 12%. The answer was an EPS of $0.15.
You get there by finding 60 million shares, then a dividend of $0.05 per share, then a $1.25 share price, then EPS. The most common wrong answer, $0.30, came from treating the nominal value as the number of shares.
A forward rate agreement question had a similar trap. The company would pay 0.1% on a nine-month loan of $10m, which is $7,500. Common mistakes were using the annual rate for the loan period and treating the payment as a receipt.
Pay attention to wording in valuation questions too. When a dividend is due in the near future, the current share price is cum-div, so you add that dividend. In ACCA’s example the answer was $7.40. If the dividend had just been paid, it would have been $6.80.
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Common Working Capital Mistakes in ACCA Financial Management
The Constant Co question compared an early settlement discount with a factor’s offer, and the report lists very specific slips. Candidates applied the discount to the receivables balance, not to the credit sales of the customers who take it up. They read “bad debts fall by $225,000” as a fall to $225,000. They calculated finance savings on credit sales, when it is receivables that need financing.
With the factor, the benefit from bad debts falling from 2% to 0.5% is 1.5% of credit sales, not 0.5%. The report also says to pick one approach and keep it. A cost-benefit approach is fine, and so is comparing the total cost of the old policy with the new one, but mixing the two confuses your answer.
In ACCA’s solution, the discount costs $63,750 more than it saves, and the factor’s offer gains $60,000, so the factor wins. Label what each spreadsheet cell holds and avoid packing too much into one cell. Method marks depend on workings being visible.
Discussion questions need development
Many candidates lost marks on short written requirements because their points were too thin. When a question asks you to discuss three benefits of centralised treasury management for six marks, that is two marks per benefit. “Greater efficiency” on its own scores little.
Add that specialist staff at the centre mean fewer treasury staff at each subsidiary. Likewise, centralised liquidity management should be explained: pooled cash means a subsidiary that would have borrowed can use another’s surplus, which lowers finance costs.
The cash management models show the same pattern. Repeating the formula for Baumol or Miller-Orr from the formula sheet doesn’t earn the marks. Explain how Baumol uses the EOQ idea to find the best amount to raise, and that it needs steady demand for cash.
For Miller-Orr, explain the upper limit, lower limit and return point, and why it copes better with unpredictable cash flows. The examiners suspect some answers were short because of time pressure at the end, so plan your time so the written parts get proper attention.
Cost of capital and capital structure
The Mean Co question tests the full WACC process. The report’s reminders are specific. Use the ex-dividend market price of the share, not the nominal value. Use D1, which is D0 grown by the growth rate. For redeemable loan notes, use an IRR approach on after-tax interest and the redemption value, not the coupon rate.
For a bank loan that isn’t traded, use the after-tax interest rate and book value. And reserves are left out of market-value WACC, because they sit inside the market value of the shares. ACCA’s answer works out to roughly 11.8%.
For the 10-mark discussion on capital structure, the examiners found many answers descriptive and unstructured. A good answer opens briefly, covers the Traditional view and Modigliani and Miller with and without tax, then criticises the theory using bankruptcy and distress costs.
It also doesn’t mistake pecking order theory for a theory of an optimal structure. Finish with a short conclusion that says debt lowers WACC only up to a point.
How to Prepare for Your ACCA Financial Management Resit
Diagnose first. Then rebuild your weakest syllabus areas using the ACCA Study Hub, which offers study chapters, flashcards and practice questions through myACCA. Do every calculation in the spreadsheet, with labelled workings. Write out discussion answers in full, using the mark allocation to decide how many points to make.
Finally, sit the published sample exam on ACCA’s Practice Platform and read the matching examiner’s report afterwards. Keep a list of repeated mistakes, and fix the ones caused by technique first, because they are the quickest to remove.
FAQs
ACCA’s FM page shows 48% for June 2025, 46% for September 2025, 48% for December 2025, 50% for March 2026 and 48% for June 2026.
Not necessarily. ACCA’s report notes that because of how the computer-based exam is delivered, candidates don’t all receive the same set of questions.
Yes. ACCA says workings let markers award method marks under the own figure rule, and it advises labelling each spreadsheet cell clearly.
No. The report says to use the ex-dividend market price and next year’s dividend, D1, not the nominal value or the dividend just paid.
Use the published sample exam on ACCA’s Practice Platform with the examiner’s report. The ACCA Study Hub also has chapters, flashcards and practice questions.
