Another one down. As I mentioned in a previous post, I passed the SAP Certified Application Professional - Financial Accounting exam yesterday. Scored a 75% which means I got 60 out of 80 questions right. 

Here's the breakdown of exam questions by area and my score in each section.

Asset Accounting/Investment Management - 6 - 66%

Accounts Payable - 6 - 66%

Business Process/Integration - 6 - 83%

SAP Business Warehouse - 5 - 60%

Accounts Receivable - 6 - 66%

New GL - 7 - 85%

GL - 4 - 100%

Basics of ABAP/Forms - 5 - 80%

Data Model /Tables/Interfaces - 5 - 60%

Basics of Authorization and Audit Requirements - 5 - 100%

Cash Management - 5 - 80%

Fundamental Business Knowledge - 6 - 66%

SAP Financials Portfolio - 5 - 60%

Financial Closing - 5 - 100%

Here's a breakdown of the exam as I remember it and some tips. I can't give specific questions or answers obviously:

- Most should know this, but this only covers the FI portion of SAP FI/CO. The CO(Controlling) module is tested separately. I work mostly on the Financial Accounting/Treasury side so this is fine for me. Will go for CO certification next year.

- Wrote exam in a PearsonVUE center in North Miami. Had room to myself after 1st hour, guy next to me was taking another non-IT certification. Definitely not the most ideal environment, but quiet enough to focus. You get a computer to work on and an eraseable board with eraseable marker so you can take notes etc. This is how I was able to remember the exam question breakdown. 

- 32 of the 80 questions were multi-choice. For questions with 5 possible choices, you had to choose 3 right answers, for those with 4 possible choices you had to choose 2 right answers. This was higher than I expected and I bet most I got wrong were multi choice where I got one choice wrong which means the whole question was marked wrong.

- I finished in an hour after my first pass. Spent next 2 reviewing answers and trying to memorize questions in case i failed and needed to take again. 

- Overall level of difficulty I would say was medium. None of the questions were hard if you've worked with the product before. Most of the time I could easily eliminate obviously wrong answers and work with a smaller subset of answers. 

- Was a bit more detailed in areas than I expected however. Some of the questions required detailed application knowledge i.e how you would use this in a real life situation, what if you got this error, what does it mean, what would you recommend to your client in this case type of questions. This exam is really designed for consultants and not end users. This is not an exam you can just memorize information on and pass. That's the associate level exam which is designed for people right out of training with little application knowledge. Of course, you can't answer the application questions if you don't have the foundational knowledge. 

- Definitely focus on the syllabus I linked to before. Here you go

- If you have a technical background in SAP like I do, the sections on ABAP/Forms/Authorization model will be easy for you. They make up a quarter of the exam giving you some breathing room in other sections. 

- If you also have any SD or MM knowledge it will help you a lot on the integration questions. I have worked in both and understand the touchpoints. Pure FI/CO folks who work in a silo may have issues. 

- In terms of study material, use TFIN50 and TFIN52, or if you can find the material listed in the syllabus, use those. The TFIN courses summarize the information from the other more detailed courses. I used a combination of both. 

- Find mock exams online if you can. Be careful when quizzing using these as some of the questions are poorly worded and the answer keys can have mistakes. I will link to some resources I used at the end.

- As I did with my CFA studies, try to broaden your studies to beyond just what's in the book. Look up YouTube videos on areas you may not be familar with. Find SAP FI/CO books and read the sections where you didn't exactly understand the coursework. I highly recommend this approach. I had to read Asset Accounting a few times to really get it and then once I read another book on it, it just clicked.

- Use the Internet to your advantage. Google specific terms or concepts you don't understand. There is a lot of knowledge out there around SAP and you may find an explanation that makes more sense than what you read in the book.  

- Use OSS if you have access. If you don't know what this is, you probably are not ready to take this exam. There will be questions that refer to issues documented in OSS notes. 

Some resources I used:

- Online mock exams from Daypo.net. Go here and search for FICO

- Some sample questions here. Only issue is no answer key.

- My notes and some other files that may be useful are located here. Contact me if this link is not valid anymore. 

Please do not contact me for specific questions or answers, I cannot disclose those without exposing myself to potential trouble. 

I hope this information helps others. My plan for rest of year is to take summer off before ramping up for CTP examination in fall then one more time on the CFA roller coaster to wrap up Level 3 next year. By end of 2012 I want to have the following on my resume:

- CFA Charterholder

- Certified Treasury Professional

- SAP Certified Application Professional - Financial Accounting

- SAP Certified Application Professional - Management Accounting