ACCA Practical Experience Requirement (PER): A Guide for Indian Students
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Passing your ACCA exams is only part of the process. Then there is another requirement that runs alongside it—the Practical Experience Requirement, or PER. And if you’re an Indian student, there are a few specific things you need to know about how this process works for you.
Don't worry
We’ll cover what’s important, what isn’t, and the mistakes most students make so you can avoid them.
So what is the PER exactly?
It’s a mandatory part of becoming ACCA qualified, totally separate from your exams. You will need:
Minimum of 36 months of relevant supervised work experience.
9 performance objectives successfully demonstrated.
The whole point of PER is to ensure that you are not just exam-smart. ACCA wants to see that you can actually perform as a competent finance professional in the real world, with judgment, behavior, and practical skill, not just technical knowledge.
What is considered work in India?
This is where many Indian students get confused, so let’s keep it simple.
What matters:
Finance and accounting departments in tech companies, manufacturing, services, and really any industry.
Audit firms (including the Big 4)
Internal audit responsibilities
Tax & Compliance Work
Finance consulting positions
What is not counted:
Just administrative work
Clerical data entry (no financial judgement to be exercised)
Anything that is not real finance or accounting, even if it is with a financial company
The key test here is simple—are you actually making financial judgments and decisions in your role, or are you just processing data with no real analytical input? If it is the second, it probably will not count.
Unsure if your role qualifies? Please contact ACCA India directly and confirm before you start logging hours for it. Better to find out early than find out later that months of work don’t matter.
What are the nine performance objectives?
You must provide evidence of meeting a total of 9 objectives:
Five are compulsory—all ethics and professionalism.
Four, you select yourself from a technical list based on your actual role and experience.
Each objective must have real evidence—specific activities you did—and be verified by your supervisor. You should ensure the goal is clearly defined at the end. It should reflect work that you have actually done.
Who Can Be Your Supervisor?
Your supervisor must have a recognized professional accountancy qualification—ACCA, CA, CPA, or similar. And they need to actually supervise your work directly, not just sign off on paperwork without any real supervision.
If you’re struggling to find an ACCA-qualified supervisor, don’t panic. Contact ACCA India and see if your supervisor’s current qualification is acceptable.
There are many workplaces in India where CA-qualified seniors are present, and that is often okay. Just have it confirmed officially before starting to gather experience under them.
What errors do Indian students make in PER?
Certain patterns are repeated over and over:
It is too long to wait to get everything down.
Don’t wait until your exams are over to start writing things down. Record your experience and activities as you go while you are still studying. If you wait until the end, you will forget details, and reconstructing months or years of evidence becomes a nightmare.
Not recognizing the supervisor early on.
You must register your supervisor in the myExperience system before you start accumulating hours, not after. Skipping this step may result in incorrect time tracking for your previous work. First, complete this administrative step.
Assuming a role qualifies without verifying
Please always confirm with ACCA India before logging a certain role as relevant experience. Don’t trust — check. This one step saves a lot of frustration later when you are trying to finalize your PER and discover that a chunk of your experience doesn’t actually count.
How long does the PER really take?
The minimum is 36 months. But realistically most students take 3 to 5 years to complete it, as they are usually doing the PER along with their ACCA exams—not as a separate, isolated process.
Consider PER as a parallel process to your studies, rather than something you do after you complete exams.
Would it be possible to do the PER at a non-accounting firm?
Yeah, for sure. What counts is what you do, not what company you work for. If your job involves real finance or accounting functions, and you have a properly qualified supervisor overseeing your work, it counts—whether you’re at a tech company, a manufacturing firm, or wherever.
FAQs
Q1. How long does it take to complete the ACCA PER?
What is required is a minimum of thirty-six months of related work experience. However, most students do 3 to 5 years in practice, not as a separate process after they have qualified academically, because they are doing PER at the same time as their ACCA exams.
Q2. Can I do my PER in a non-accounting company in India?
Yes—if your particular role involves relevant finance or accounting functions and you have a recognized professional qualification as a supervisor of your work. It's not the kind of company you work for, but the kind of work you do.
Q3. What if I am unable to find an ACCA-qualified supervisor in India?
Your current supervisor might have a qualification like CA or CPA; contact ACCA India to find out if it is acceptable. Many Indian workplaces have CA-qualified seniors, and this is often perfectly acceptable for PER supervision purposes.
Q4. What is the most significant mistake Indian students make with PER?
The most significant mistake Indian students make with PER is waiting too long to document their experience and not registering their supervisor early in the myExperience system. Both delays can cause real problems—forgotten details for documentation and time that might not count properly if your supervisor wasn’t registered before you started accruing hours.
Q5. Does purely administrative work count toward ACCA PER?
No. PER does not include administrative work, clerical data entry without financial judgment, or positions outside of finance or accounting. Your position should involve real financial judgment and decision-making, not just crunching numbers.
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