CPA BEC Exam-Information Technology Governance-General Controls in and IT System by Darius Clark

The CPA BEC Exam requires a CPA candidate to understand the roles and responsibilities of Information technology and general controls in an IT system. Multiple choice questions and Simulations will ask about IT governance and candidates will need to know applications development from system maintenance and computer operations. The CPA BEC exam also requires a candidate to classify IT controls as preventive vs detective vs corrective controls. A third category of controls, feedback vs feed-forward controls is also tested. Variance analysis with regard to standard costing for materials, labor and overhead. Cost and managerial accounting is big part of the BEC blueprint. Other cost and managerial accounting topics include quality management, performance measures both financial and non-financial, balanced scorecard, benchmarking, process and job order costing, activity based costing, cost behavior, fixed costs, variable costs, semi-variable costs, scrap, breakeven analysis, absorption and direct costing, joint costing, by product, joint costing, process management, budgeting, transfer pricing, internal and external benchmarks, sales budget, cash budget, forecasting, projecting, other BEC topics that are tested in multiple choice and simulation include the COSO Framework, Enterprise Risk Management, value chain, supply chain, economic order quantity, internal control, monitoring for change, Governance and Culture, Strategy and Objective setting, Review and Revision, Communication and reporting, Board of directors, Fraud risk, data analytics, visualization, dependent variable, independent variable, keep or drop a segment, sell or process further, make or buy, accept or reject a special order, opportunity costs, supply and demand, microeconomics, international economics, balance of trade, balance of payments, comparative advantage, competitive advantage, cross elasticity of demand and supply, equilibrium, floor and ceiling, price, quantity, substitutes and compliments, market structure, perfect competition, monopolistic competition, monopoly, oligopoly, fiscal and monetary policy, business cycles, price levels, inflation, deflation, exchange rates, hedging, globalization, capital budgeting, financing, working capital management, ratios, time value of money, interest rates, net present value, internal rate of return, payback period, operating leverage, financial leverage, liabilities, assets, inventory, accounts receivable, common stock, preferred stock, debt capital, equity capital, weighted average cost of capital, Enterprise wide and cloud based systems, data processing, general controls, application controls, input controls, output controls, processing controls, meta data, data integrity, data storage, bit, byte, relational database, data warehouse, data mining, extract, load, decision support system, transaction processing system, bitcoin, blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, E-Commerce, E-business, Cyber risk, centralized, de-centralized, distributed, short term financing, long term financing, liquidity measures, activity ratios, profitability, computer networks, data communication, systems analyst, computer programmer, librarian, system programmer, node, server, hub, fiber optic, SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, user auditor, service auditor, audit committee, service organization, passwords, logical and physical access controls, authentication, multi factor authentication, biometric, firewalls, matrix, packet, network, external labels, internal labels, encryption, VPN, value added network, virtual private network, certificate authority, digital certificate, digital signature, public key infrastructure, public key, private key, man in the middle, asymmetric, plaintext, cyphertext, decryption, cold site, warm site, mirrored site, hot site, batch processing, online real time processing, checkpoint and restart, rollback and recovery, backdoor, botnets, eavesdropping, phishing, phreaking, piggybacking, spoofing, spyware, denial of service attack, salami fraud, virus, worm, CAPM, price earnings multiple, discounted cash flow model, Sarbanes Oxley, efficiency and effectiveness, Dupont Model, Extended Dupont, Residual Income, Economic Value Added, Float, operating cycle, cash conversion cycle, profitability index, corporate directors, corporate officers, flexible budget, cost of goods manufactured, contribution margin, disaster recovery, system development life cycle, Enterprise resource planning, EDI, advanced payment systems, internet of things, Head mounted displays, big data, Box plots, COBIT, product cost, period cost, control charts, pareto diagram, equivalent units, FIFO, weighted average, sensitivity, scenario, regression analysis, learning curve, Hi Lo Method, money supply, normal and economic profit, market strategy, cost leader, differentiation, World bank, IMF, Exchange rate risk, call and put options, money market hedge, forwards and futures, written communication.