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17. Does ACCA offer various entry points onto its qualification?
Yes. The new qualification will continue to provide opportunity to people of ability and application, irrespective of their educational background or learning environment. Therefore, the minimum entry requirements to the ACCA Qualification remain unchanged. Individuals must have obtained university matriculation (2 A Levels and 3 GCSEs in five separate subjects including English and Mathematics), or equivalent, before they can register as an ACCA student. Individuals normally over 21 years may register through the Mature Student Entry Route (MSER). This is designed for students who have the maturity and skills to cope with the ACCA Qualification instead of first attempting the open access Certified Accounting Technician (CAT) qualification. MSER students must pass Paper F2, Management Accounting and Paper F3, Financial Accounting within two years of registering.

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18. Is there a maximum time limit placed on completion of the new qualification?
On the new ACCA Qualification, students will be required to complete the exams within a ten-year period from initial registration. Existing students will have their current time limits renewed due to the change in qualification. Students registered before 31 December 2006 will be transferred over to the new syllabus in August 2007 and given a further ten years to complete the new syllabus ie they will have until June 2017 to complete the new syllabus exams.
After ten years students will be offered the opportunity of moving to linked status. Linked status will allow individuals access to student resources such as student accountant, but will remove them from the exam process.
Students will be encouraged to complete their three years' relevant practical experience alongside completing their ACCA exams and will need to complete an annual return each year indicating which performance objectives they have achieved and how long they have been working in a relevant accounting role. However, students will still be allowed the flexibility of gaining their relevant practical experience before, during or after passing their exams.

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19. How does the CAT qualification articulate with the ACCA Qualification?
Students who complete CAT will be given exemption from the Knowledge module (Paper F1, Accountant in Business, Paper F2, Management Accounting, and Paper F3, Financial Accounting). CAT passed finalists will be automatically transferred over to the ACCA syllabus if they opted for automatic transfer when they initially registered for the CAT qualification.

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20. What is linked status?
Students will have ten years from their initial registration date to complete the ACCA exams. Existing students will have their current time limits renewed due to the change in qualification and will be given a further ten years to complete the new exams.
After ten years students will be offered the opportunity of moving to linked status. Linked status will give students access to student resources such as student accountant, but will remove them from the exam process.

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22. How will ACCA support the development of learning resources for the new programme?
Teachers' conferences will run in the UK, South east Asia, Africa and the Caribbean in the run up to the introduction of the new qualification in 2007. Detailed syllabuses and pilot papers are available on the ACCA website. Approved publishers BPP Learning Media and Kaplan Publishing Foulks Lynch have study materials available and a series of technical articles on areas of the new syllabus were published in student accountant throughout 2006 and will continue to be published throughout 2007.

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21. When will the qualification change?
ACCA continually reviews its qualification to ensure it is relevant and meet the needs of employers. Students and tuition providers are kept informed of any small revisions made to the syllabus through the detailed syllabus and study guides and through the magazines student accountant and teach accounting. However, based on previous timescales, ACCA usually completes a major review of its qualification on a seven-year cycle. The exact timing will be driven by the rate of change in the accounting environment.

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23. How will ACCA support ALP in preparing to teach the new syllabus?
In 2007 ACCA will be running a series of teachers' conferences in the UK, South east Asia, Africa and the Caribbean to give guidance to UCRS tuition providers on teaching the new syllabus. All UCRS tuition providers have been sent detailed copies of the syllabus and pilot papers. In addition, tuition providers will be kept up to date with the latest developments via e-mail, teach accounting magazine and the tuition providers section on the ACCA website.

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24. Do joint examination schemes (JES) operate under the new qualification?
Yes. ACCA consulted with the national accountancy bodies in countries where it operates joint examination schemes as part of the ACCA2007 consultation process and these partnerships will continue under the new qualification.

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25. Why are there no exemptions available from any of the exams at the final level?
This preserves the integrity and rigor of the ACCA Qualification. Requiring all members to sit and pass the Professional level ensures that all ACCA members, wherever they qualify in the world, and whatever their prior educational backgrounds, share a common set of competences which have been specified and assessed by ACCA directly.

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26. Is there an increase in the use of computer-based exams (CBEs)? 
Knowledge papers - Paper F1, Accountant in Business, Paper F2, Management Accounting and Paper F3, Financial Accounting - will be available both as computer-based exams (CBEs) and as traditional paper-based exams. Under the current scheme only two papers - 1.1 and 1.2 - are available as CBEs.