Applied Skills Papers — LW to FM
Applied Skills has 6 papers: Corporate and Business Law (LW/F4), Performance Management (PM/F5), Taxation (TX/F6), Financial Reporting (FR/F7), Audit and Assurance (AA/F8), and Financial Management (FM/F9).
ACCA Applied Skills level has 6 papers:
Paper LW/F4: Corporate and Business Law
Paper PM/F5: Performance Management
Paper TX/F6: Taxation (country-specific variants — India students take TX-IN)
Paper FR/F7: Financial Reporting
Paper AA/F8: Audit and Assurance
Paper FM/F9: Financial Management
All are session-based CBEs held 4 times per year: March, June, September, December.
Corporate and Business Law (LW): 2 hours. Performance Management (PM): 3 hours. Taxation (TX): 3 hours 15 minutes. Financial Reporting (FR): 3 hours. Audit and Assurance (AA): 3 hours 15 minutes. Financial Management (FM): 3 hours 15 minutes. All are CBEs with a mix of objective (OT) and constructed response (written) questions.
There is no rule preventing you from entering all 6 in one session, but ACCA recommends a maximum of 4 papers per session to ensure adequate preparation. Each paper has its own sitting within the 2-week exam window. Plan a realistic sitting schedule.
There is no mandatory order, but ACCA recommends: start with LW (no maths required), then FM and MA (build quantitative foundation), then AA, PM, TX in parallel. FR is best after FM. For Strategic Professional: SBL benefits from all Applied Skills completed. Most students complete Applied Skills over 1.5–3 years.
