Chapter 1 – Internal Controls, Risk Management, and Business Processes
The BEC section of the CPA exam includes a variety of different topics including:
Internal controls, risk management, and business process (Chapter 1 of BOOST)
Financial management (Chapter 2 of BOOST)
Operations management (Chapters 3 and 4 of BOOST)
Economics (Chapter 5 of BOOST)
Information Technology (Chapter 6 of BOOST)
The BEC BOOST material is organized by chapter based on topics rather than an equal amount of material in each chapter. Thus, when assessing your progress, the following summary of the number of minutes of lecture for each chapter (from longest to shortest) may be helpful:
Chapter 2 (702 minutes)
Chapter 4 (299 minutes)
Chapter 3 (276 minutes)
Chapter 1 (266 minutes)
Chapter 6 (204 minutes)
Chapter 5 (171 minutes)
A few of the videos for the units in the BEC BOOST program are 75 to 90 minutes long. You should consider taking a short break in the middle of these longer videos to ensure you are fully comprehending the material. The quality of your studies is as important, if not more important, than how long you study.
The number of minutes for each BOOST chapter videos is not indicative of the importance of the material on the BEC section of the CPA exam. For example, Chapter 1 of BOOST is 20 to 30% of the BEC section while chapter 2 of BOOST is 10 to 20% of the BEC section. While chapter 1 of BOOST has very few calculations, chapter 2 has a significant number of calculations which requires longer videos to explain the calculations and review related problems.
Overall, please don't rush through this material and take your time to understand it. Remember, an additional week of studying (if needed) will be well worth it if the additional time is the difference between passing and failing the BEC section of the CPA exam!
As a reminder, these are the steps you should be following:
Listen to the BOOST videos below with the corresponding outlines in the BOOST CPA Review textbook (remember, you do not use the textbook or listen to the videos from your other review course). Listen to the BOOST videos to understand and be an active learner!
Consider reading/studying the BOOST outline again to ensure you are "fairly" comfortable with the material.
Using the BOOST Content Comparison of BOOST Material and related Becker document, determine which multiple choice, simulations, and written communication tasks to complete in Becker.
Complete the multiple choice, simulations, and written communication tasks in that section of Becker.
Move to the next BOOST video (FYI - you will be repeating these steps over and over again.)
The BOOST CPA Review textbook has a number of flowcharts and illustrations in the various appendices. Often students prefer to have these separate from the textbook so they can have the textbook and related appendix visible at the same time. Overall, we do not believe you will need to print out all of them, but wanted to make them available to you. The following pdf file includes all of the appendices in the BOOST CPA Review BEC textbook to print out separately. We hope this is helpful!
Chapter 1 of BOOST is a conceptual chapter with an emphasis on understanding the overall process (i.e., it is very similar to the AUD section of the CPA exam). Also, each topic in chapter 1 of BOOST relates to each other (i.e., they are intertwined). So, please focus on the key terms/buzz words that must be memorized and have a good understanding of the overall big picture concepts of internal controls, risk management, and business processes.
Good luck as you begin your study of Chapter 1! Some of the page numbers in the videos are not the same as the page numbers in the BOOST textbook. Please use the page numbers in the BOOST textbook.
Remember, please contact BOOST CPA Review by email if you have any questions as you work through Chapter 1.
AFTER WATCHING EACH VIDEO BELOW, please complete the appropriate multiple choice, simulations, and written communications tasks related to each of these videos. Please refer to the document with content comparisons of BOOST and Becker to determine which multiple choice, simulations, and written communication tasks to complete.
Should you create a subset of the BOOST outlines or flashcards? Given that you have worked through a number of BOOST videos and outlines, you now have a better idea of the BOOST material and are in a better position to assess this question. Please download the following file which provides guidance regarding this question: Should you create a subset of BOOST outlines?