CMA/CFM Review Part 3 [Paperback]

Irvin N. Gleim (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Gleim Pubns; 11 edition (May 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581942060
• ISBN-13: 978-1581942064
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,061,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Adequate but NOT Excellent, April 29, 2005

By 

Steve Fast (Hillsboro, KS, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: CMA/CFM Review Part 3 (Paperback)

I found the Gleim book and CD adequate but NOT excellent for the exam. If you just need to brush up or organize material that you sort of know already, Gleim is great. But if you are starting from scratch or have no work experience in this area, Gleim would be a total waste of time and money.

Areas Gleim covered well & are on exam

1. product costing (unit 2)--EUP, overhead allocation, service dept allocation, etc.

2. joint products/common costs--the study questions teach you this, although the outline has little to say about it

3. budgeting--calculating cash requirements for a specific time period, required purchases for inventory and production, calculate pro forma operating income given cash flow and vice versa, pro forma A/R, A/P, budgets & influencing management behavior

4. direct materials & labor variances--explained well, nice diagrams on p. 342-43

5. responsibility centers

6. performance evaluation--ROI, RI, EVA

7. goal congruence--this is an important topic on the exam

Weaknesses of Gleim

1. backflush costing (unit 2)--nothing useful in the book, use Horngren ch. 20

2. variable vs. absorption costing--Gleim covers the mechanics of this well, but it's hard to understand the theory from the book, and the theory is tested on the exam.

3. fixed and variable overhead variances, sales variance--I studied and studied these variances and never figured them out, Horngren is only marginally better than Gleim on this one

4. transfer pricing--use Horngren ch. 22 instead

5. balanced scorecard--use Horngren ch. 13 instead

6. behavioral issues--use Horngren ch. 21-23

Don't waste your time

1. Definitions (unit 1 in Gleim book)--Although the study questions for the unit are useful, the definitions material is a waste of time. Most of them aren't covered on the exam, and the ones that are on the exam can't be understood from Gleim's definitions. If you need to know it, it's covered in other Gleim units.

2. Management Accounting Standards (unit 4)--Most of this chapter is useless. Again, the study questions are good.

3. CVP analysis--I don't believe it's on the LOS for exam 3

4. PERT & Gantt charts--Gleim itself says that you don't need to know this material--why did they put it in? Pure sloppiness on Gleim's part.

There are fewer quantitative questions on this exam than on CFM-2, but there are 1-2 quantitative questions on every topic, so make sure you know them well. And know the theory behind budgeting, performance evaluation, variable vs. fixed costs, variable vs. absorption costing, and goal congruence because these are tested on the exam, yet Gleim does not cover the theory well.

In my view, Gleim materials are a quickie cut-and-paste job--which may be perfect for some people, but they are not for everyone.