September 2027 CFE Day 1 Cases: Which to Write?

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CPA Canada has released the Day 1 case lineup for the September 2027 Common Final Examination (CFE), and there is good news for anyone who wrote in 2026. If you wrote the June or September 2026 CFE, you will be able to write a new Day 1 version of the same case you already know. That’s a really nice move by CPA Canada, and it gives every writer in the September 2027 sitting a fair shot.

Here’s what’s being offered, who can choose what, and how we recommend you decide.

Source: CPA Canada, CPA PEP Capstone modules.

September 2027 CFE Day 1 cases

For the September 2027 CFE, you can write one of the following Day 1 cases:

  • Puck Points Video Games Inc. (PPVG) v1: the new Capstone 1 case
  • Karnat Bread Company Ltd. (KBC) v2: first tested as v1 on the June 2026 CFE
  • Singular Textiles Corporation (STC) v2: first tested as v1 on the September 2026 CFE

And yes, we love that the new case comes with the sound of a hockey game in the background. We also got a sneak preview of the name for the September 2028 v1 case, Q&S Choco Inc., which also seems great.

As a reminder, the Day 1 case is the Capstone 1 case carried forward a few years. The users, background and much of the situational analysis stay the same, while the strategic and operational issues are new.

A quick note on dates: CPA Canada’s schedule labels the spring 2026 sitting as May 2026, but it was written June 2 to 4, so we refer to it as the June 2026 CFE. There is also no CFE in May 2027, which makes September 2027 the only sitting next year. For the full schedule of the remaining Day 1 cases, see our post What Day 1 Cases Will Be Tested in 2026, 2027 and 2028 CFEs?

Why this matters for 2026 writers

If you were unsuccessful on Day 1 in 2026, you won’t be forced to start from scratch on an unfamiliar case:

  • June 2026 writers wrote Karnat Bread v1 and can write Karnat Bread v2.
  • September 2026 writers wrote Singular Textiles v1 and can write Singular Textiles v2.

Both groups get the same advantage: a second attempt on a case they already know. That keeps things level for everyone writing in September 2027.

Who can choose which case?

  • First-time writers must write the case linked to the Capstone 1 module they completed, provided that case is available. For first-time writers in September 2027, that’s Puck Points Video Games v1.
  • Repeat writers (previously unsuccessful on the CFE) can choose any of the cases offered for the sitting.
  • Candidates challenging the CFE, such as internationally trained accountants, can also choose any of the cases offered.

Which case should you choose?

If you are eligible to choose your own Day 1 case, how do you decide which to choose? We get this question a lot. We talk more about it in this article and video. The punch line is that it doesn’t really matter. But you do still need to make a decision, so let’s talk about how to decide.

If you wrote in June or September 2026

Your preference would be to write the version 2 of the same case you wrote previously. You will already be familiar with the following:

  • The Capstone case facts and the company’s history
  • The industry and how the business makes money
  • The users and their competing preferences
  • The mission, vision, values, key success factors and board objectives
  • The quantitative constraints, such as covenants and financing

That familiarity saves you real time on exam day. You’ll read faster, you’ll spot what has changed, and you can spend your energy on the new issues rather than learning a new business. If you want a fresh attempt on your case, our CFE practice cases include GCPA original Day 1 mocks. The GCPA mock exams for KBC and STC are already available, and our mock exam for the PPVG case will be available closer to July 2027.

A few things to keep in mind before you commit:

  • A familiar Capstone case only helps so much. The case moves forward in time, and the issues will be new. Read it fresh and build your situational analysis from what’s in front of you.
  • Watch out for anchoring. Candidates sometimes force last exam’s issues onto the new case. Answer what is actually asked.
  • Expect ambiguity. Regardless of how you felt writing your previous attempt, expect this one to be quite different, especially as we’ve seen CPA write more ambiguous Day 1 cases.
  • This is the last sitting for both v2 cases. Based on the CPA Canada schedule, Karnat Bread and Singular Textiles are not offered after September 2027. If you need another attempt, you’d be switching cases. Puck Points, on the other hand, returns as v2 in September 2028.

If you’re challenging the CFE or don’t have a prior case

We usually recommend choosing v1, which in this case would be Puck Points Video Games. Historically there is a slightly higher pass rate for v1 writers. The difference is barely noticeable, but it’s there. V1 also gives you a safety net, since Puck Points v2 will be offered in September 2028 if you need another attempt.

The other take, which is the counter to our opinion above, is that if you choose a v2 exam, you’ll be able to make use of the Day 1 CFE v1 that has been publicly released, which gives you an extra exam to practice with. That is indeed a valid point.

This is what takes us to our overall opinion: it doesn’t really matter.

Our honest take

At the end of the day, it matters less which case you choose and more how well you prepare for Day 1.

The candidates who pass Day 1 are the ones who:

  • Move efficiently through the core of the exam
  • Protect time for the overall recommendation
  • Understand the case well enough to apply real judgement
  • Use a decision matrix to build a cohesive plan (taught in the GCPA program)
  • Practice mock Day 1 cases under exam conditions, then debrief

Pick the case you’re most comfortable with, then put your energy into your Day 1 strategy.

Day 1 strategy: further reading

Whichever case you write, these GCPA articles cover the Day 1 strategy that actually moves the needle:

Looking ahead to September 2028

For planning purposes, the September 2028 CFE is scheduled to offer Puck Points Video Games v2 and a new case, Q&S Choco Inc. v1.

Extra resources

We’re the Gevorg CPA Coaching Team. If you want help preparing for Day 1, including mock exam cases and Day 1 strategy coaching, check out our CFE Review Day 1 course for a comprehensive prep package, or browse our CFE practice cases and strong answers.

Frequently asked questions

What Day 1 cases are offered on the September 2027 CFE?

Three: Puck Points Video Games Inc. v1 (the new Capstone 1 case), Karnat Bread Company Ltd. v2, and Singular Textiles Corporation v2.

Can I choose which Day 1 case I write on the September 2027 CFE?

It depends on your situation. First-time writers must write the case linked to the Capstone 1 module they completed, which for September 2027 is Puck Points v1. Repeat writers and candidates challenging the CFE, such as internationally trained accountants, can choose any of the three.

I wrote the CFE in 2026. Can I write the same Day 1 case again?

Yes. June 2026 writers can write Karnat Bread v2, and September 2026 writers can write Singular Textiles v2. The users, background and much of the situational analysis carry over, but the strategic and operational issues are new.

Should I write the v1 or v2 Day 1 case?

Honestly, it matters less than how well you prepare. If you wrote in 2026, v2 of your case saves you time because you already know the business. If you’re challenging the CFE or don’t have a prior case, we usually recommend v1 (Puck Points). It has had a slightly higher pass rate, and v2 comes back in September 2028 if you need another attempt.

Is there a May 2027 CFE?

No. September 2027 is the only CFE sitting in 2027.

Will Karnat Bread or Singular Textiles be offered again after September 2027?

No. Based on CPA Canada’s schedule, September 2027 is the last sitting for both v2 cases. If you need another attempt after that, you’d be switching cases.

What Day 1 cases are planned for the September 2028 CFE?

Puck Points Video Games v2 and a new case, Q&S Choco Inc. v1.

Gevorg CPA

Lock in your CFE prep now

September 2027 is the only CFE sitting next year. That’s a long runway, and the candidates who use it well start early. Whether you’re writing Puck Points for the first time or going back to Karnat Bread or Singular Textiles, lock in your CFE prep now to make the most of the time you have before the 2027 CFE.

Questions about which program fits you? The Gevorg CPA team is happy to help.

CPA Foundational Development Exam Explained

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Current as of October 12, 2026. Dates are CPA’s and subject to change.

Foundational Development is the first exam most candidates will write in the new CPA Professional Program. It’s five hours, it’s entirely objective format, and two thirds of the marks sit in testlets, a test format that’s new to CPA Canada.

In this post we cover who writes it and when, how it’s structured and what content is tested. Then we walk through an example testlet, so you can see what one looks like, and finish with what we think will be trickiest. It’s the written version of our video, CPA Professional Program 2027: First Module FD Exam 1 Format, Testlets & Requirements. For all five exams at a high level, see Analyzing the New CPA Professional Program Exam Blueprints and its video.

At a glance

Item Detail
Module Module 1
Format 50 objective-format questions (33%) and 4 to 8 testlets (67%)
Time 5 hours
Reference materials available during the exam CPA Canada Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act
To pass Sufficiency on financial reporting and management decision-making combined, and overall
Disclosed? No
First sitting September 15, 2027

Source: Exam Guide; CPA Western School of Business schedules.

Who writes it, and when

Once you meet the admission requirements, either through the Knowledge Assessment or the existing admission requirements, you start in Foundational Development, Module 1 of the program.

Milestone Date
First module starts May 15, 2027
First exam sitting September 15, 2027
Then January 19, May 17 and September 13, 2028

Source: CPA Western School of Business schedules.

Because 2027 is the first year of the program, there are no January or May sittings in 2027, only September. From 2028, exams will run in January, May and September. Under the Education and Experience Policies, you must write the exam within one year of finishing the module, with up to three attempts.

Structure

The exam is five hours long, and is made up of entirely objective format type questions. That gives students an average of two minutes per mark. There are two parts to the exam, as explained below.

Part What it is Weight
Stand-alone questions 50 objective-format questions 33%
Testlets 4 to 8 testlets, each designed to take 20 to 60 minutes 67%

A testlet is a set of questions built on one shared scenario: every question in it uses the same underlying information. Question types include multiple choice, multiple select, fill in the blank and drop-down list, and CPA says that list isn’t exhaustive (Exam Guide).

Content

Every topic area shows up on this exam.

Topic Weight
Management decision-making 15 to 25%
Financial reporting 10 to 20%
Big data and data analytics 5 to 15%
Ethics and governance 5 to 15%
Finance 5 to 15%
Non-financial reporting 5 to 15%
Strategy, risk management and innovation 5 to 15%
Assurance and trust 5 to 10%
Tax 5 to 10%
Value creation May be integrated into the other topics

Source: Exam Guide.

Management decision-making covers areas like management accounting, costing, performance, and IT and AI solutions. Here it’s at the “analyze” level: budgets and forecasts against strategy, variances, choosing a costing method, relevant costing decisions (make-or-buy, product mix and capacity, keep-or-drop, sell-or-process-further), pricing, performance and incentives, and IT and AI solutions, including privacy legislation and AI regulation (Module Guide).

The module also introduces the foundational topics, like economics and law, and the sub-foundational ones, like emerging technologies.

The level. CPA describes this module as applying competencies “at low levels of proficiency” and “in a directed manner”. In practice, the learning outcomes are a mix: many of the Decision Competencies are at identify or apply, while technical areas like management decision-making are at analyze, which is Level 3 on CPA’s five-level scale (Module Guide).

This is also the first exam that assesses the 24 Decision Competencies. The Knowledge Assessment doesn’t, which makes sense as the KA is an entrance exam, not the CPA program itself. We’ll cover the Decision Competencies in a later post.

Passing and reference materials

To pass, you need to demonstrate sufficiency on financial reporting and management decision-making combined, and also demonstrate sufficiency on the overall exam.

It’s a non-disclosed exam. Our reading is that we won’t get these exams after each sitting, the way CFE exams are released. Instead it will work like Core and PEP today, where the exams aren’t publicly released. CPA doesn’t define the term in the Exam Guide.

From this exam on, you get reference materials: the CPA Canada Handbooks, the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act.

How a testlet works: an example

Testlets are two thirds of this exam, so here’s what one looks like. It’s our illustration, not a CPA sample.

The scenario. A manufacturer sells one product for $50 a unit. Variable costs are $30 a unit, and fixed costs are $120,000 a year. Next year it expects to sell 10,000 units. A new customer has offered to buy 2,000 extra units at $40 each. The company has spare capacity, so the order wouldn’t add any fixed costs.

Question 1 (fill in the blank). Enter the break-even point in units.

Question 2 (fill in the blank). Enter the increase in operating income if the company accepts the special order.

Question 3 (multiple choice). Select the factor the company should consider before accepting the order.

A. Whether the lower price could affect its regular customers and pricing
B. The share of fixed costs allocated to the order
C. The original cost of its existing equipment
D. Last year’s operating income

Question Working Answer
1. Break-even $120,000 ÷ ($50 − $30) 6,000 units
2. Special order 2,000 × ($40 − $30) $20,000
3. What to consider The real risk is pressure on the regular price A

For question 3, allocated fixed costs and the original equipment cost don’t change with the decision, and last year’s income isn’t relevant.

What this shows. All three questions come from one scenario, but none of them needs the answer to another. Each question uses different facts, and one fact isn’t needed at all.

Fact Used in
Price, $50 a unit Question 1
Variable cost, $30 a unit Questions 1 and 2
Fixed costs, $120,000 a year Question 1
Special order, 2,000 units at $40 Questions 2 and 3
Expected sales, 10,000 units Not needed

So with a testlet, start by reading the facts and the context carefully. Then work out which facts each question actually needs. CPA hasn’t published how testlets are marked, and in CPA’s sample questions, each question in the testlet draws on the scenario facts on its own.

What we think will be trickiest

Our read of the blueprint, not CPA’s. It’s here to give you a feel for the exam, not to tell you how to study.

The breadth. Every topic area is on this one exam, and none is worth more than 25%. There’s nothing you can afford to leave out. From our experience in coaching candidates, the volume of content required here is likely to cause some overwhelm even if the level of proficiency required remains on the lower side.

Answers you type in. Multiple choice is predictable: you can rule options out, and a guess still has a one-in-four chance on a four-option question. When you have to put your own number on the line, that safety net is gone. You know it or you don’t, and statistically you don’t benefit from the chance to guess.

Multiple select. These ask you to judge every option, not just spot the best one. That’s harder when you only half know a topic. In CPA’s sample, they’re also worth more: 4 and 5 marks each.

The good news. This is the most predictable exam in the program. CPA has published the topics and the level for each, and an objective-format exam rewards preparation you can plan. Of the four required exams, it’s the one we feel most confident about preparing for. And for the most part, candidates prefer the structure and familiarity of objective format over case writing. For anyone feeling overwhelmed by the technical breadth, one small saving grace is not having to apply the case-writing strategies the CFE is known for, yet.

The other piece of good news is that this exam does not yet introduce case writing. Now, at GCPA we’re big fans of case writing, but from the student perspective this gives students a chance to focus on the broad reach of the technical requirements, without also learning an entirely new style of reading and writing an exam.

The bottom line

Foundational Development is five hours, objective format, with two thirds of the marks in testlets.

Gevorg CPA

Planning for Foundational Development? Reach out to us

Whether you’re deciding when to start the new program or how to prepare for this exam, the Gevorg CPA team is here to help. Get in touch with your questions, and visit our CPA Professional Program page for more detail on the new program.

Want to know when our exam resources for the new program are available? Join our 2027 program mailing list and we’ll let you know.

Next in this series: CPA Core, where the cases start.

CPA resources

Links as at October 19, 2026.

CPA Knowledge Assessment Explained

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Current as of October 12, 2026. Dates are CPA’s and subject to change.

Foundational Development is the first exam most candidates will write in the new CPA Professional Program. It’s five hours, it’s entirely objective format, and two thirds of the marks sit in testlets, a test format that’s new to CPA Canada.

In this post we cover who writes it and when, how it’s structured and what content is tested. Then we walk through an example testlet, so you can see what one looks like, and finish with what we think will be trickiest. A video version is coming soon on our YouTube channel. For all five exams at a high level, see Analyzing the New CPA Professional Program Exam Blueprints and its video.

At a glance

Item Detail
Module Module 1
Format 50 objective-format questions (33%) and 4 to 8 testlets (67%)
Time 5 hours
Reference materials available during the exam CPA Canada Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act
To pass Sufficiency on financial reporting and management decision-making combined, and overall
Disclosed? No
First sitting September 15, 2027

Source: Exam Guide; CPA Western School of Business schedules.

Who writes it, and when

Once you meet the admission requirements, either through the Knowledge Assessment or the existing admission requirements, you start in Foundational Development, Module 1 of the program.

Milestone Date
First module starts May 15, 2027
First exam sitting September 15, 2027
Then January 19, May 17 and September 13, 2028

Source: CPA Western School of Business schedules.

Because 2027 is the first year of the program, there are no January or May sittings in 2027, only September. From 2028, exams will run in January, May and September. Under the Education and Experience Policies, you must write the exam within one year of finishing the module, with up to three attempts.

Structure

The exam is five hours long, and is made up of entirely objective format type questions. That gives students an average of two minutes per mark. There are two parts to the exam, as explained below.

Part What it is Weight
Stand-alone questions 50 objective-format questions 33%
Testlets 4 to 8 testlets, each designed to take 20 to 60 minutes 67%

A testlet is a set of questions built on one shared scenario: every question in it uses the same underlying information. Question types include multiple choice, multiple select, fill in the blank and drop-down list, and CPA says that list isn’t exhaustive (Exam Guide).

Content

Every topic area shows up on this exam.

Topic Weight
Management decision-making 15 to 25%
Financial reporting 10 to 20%
Big data and data analytics 5 to 15%
Ethics and governance 5 to 15%
Finance 5 to 15%
Non-financial reporting 5 to 15%
Strategy, risk management and innovation 5 to 15%
Assurance and trust 5 to 10%
Tax 5 to 10%
Value creation May be integrated into the other topics

Source: Exam Guide.

Management decision-making covers areas like management accounting, costing, performance, and IT and AI solutions. Here it’s at the “analyze” level: budgets and forecasts against strategy, variances, choosing a costing method, relevant costing decisions (make-or-buy, product mix and capacity, keep-or-drop, sell-or-process-further), pricing, performance and incentives, and IT and AI solutions, including privacy legislation and AI regulation (Module Guide).

The module also introduces the foundational topics, like economics and law, and the sub-foundational ones, like emerging technologies.

The level. CPA describes this module as applying competencies “at low levels of proficiency” and “in a directed manner”. In practice, the learning outcomes are a mix: many of the Decision Competencies are at identify or apply, while technical areas like management decision-making are at analyze, which is Level 3 on CPA’s five-level scale (Module Guide).

This is also the first exam that assesses the 24 Decision Competencies. The Knowledge Assessment doesn’t, which makes sense as the KA is an entrance exam, not the CPA program itself. We’ll cover the Decision Competencies in a later post.

Passing and reference materials

To pass, you need to demonstrate sufficiency on financial reporting and management decision-making combined, and also demonstrate sufficiency on the overall exam.

It’s a non-disclosed exam. Our reading is that we won’t get these exams after each sitting, the way CFE exams are released. Instead it will work like Core and PEP today, where the exams aren’t publicly released. CPA doesn’t define the term in the Exam Guide.

From this exam on, you get reference materials: the CPA Canada Handbooks, the Income Tax Act and the Excise Tax Act.

How a testlet works: an example

Testlets are two thirds of this exam, so here’s what one looks like. It’s our illustration, not a CPA sample.

The scenario. A manufacturer sells one product for $50 a unit. Variable costs are $30 a unit, and fixed costs are $120,000 a year. Next year it expects to sell 10,000 units. A new customer has offered to buy 2,000 extra units at $40 each. The company has spare capacity, so the order wouldn’t add any fixed costs.

Question 1 (fill in the blank). Enter the break-even point in units.

Question 2 (fill in the blank). Enter the increase in operating income if the company accepts the special order.

Question 3 (multiple choice). Select the factor the company should consider before accepting the order.

A. Whether the lower price could affect its regular customers and pricing
B. The share of fixed costs allocated to the order
C. The original cost of its existing equipment
D. Last year’s operating income

Question Working Answer
1. Break-even $120,000 ÷ ($50 − $30) 6,000 units
2. Special order 2,000 × ($40 − $30) $20,000
3. What to consider The real risk is pressure on the regular price A

For question 3, allocated fixed costs and the original equipment cost don’t change with the decision, and last year’s income isn’t relevant.

What this shows. All three questions come from one scenario, but none of them needs the answer to another. Each question uses different facts, and one fact isn’t needed at all.

Fact Used in
Price, $50 a unit Question 1
Variable cost, $30 a unit Questions 1 and 2
Fixed costs, $120,000 a year Question 1
Special order, 2,000 units at $40 Questions 2 and 3
Expected sales, 10,000 units Not needed

So with a testlet, start by reading the facts and the context carefully. Then work out which facts each question actually needs. CPA hasn’t published how testlets are marked, and in CPA’s sample questions, each question in the testlet draws on the scenario facts on its own.

What we think will be trickiest

Our read of the blueprint, not CPA’s. It’s here to give you a feel for the exam, not to tell you how to study.

The breadth. Every topic area is on this one exam, and none is worth more than 25%. There’s nothing you can afford to leave out. From our experience in coaching candidates, the volume of content required here is likely to cause some overwhelm even if the level of proficiency required remains on the lower side.

Answers you type in. Multiple choice is predictable: you can rule options out, and a guess still has a one-in-four chance on a four-option question. When you have to put your own number on the line, that safety net is gone. You know it or you don’t, and statistically you don’t benefit from the chance to guess.

Multiple select. These ask you to judge every option, not just spot the best one. That’s harder when you only half know a topic. In CPA’s sample, they’re also worth more: 4 and 5 marks each.

The good news. This is the most predictable exam in the program. CPA has published the topics and the level for each, and an objective-format exam rewards preparation you can plan. Of the four required exams, it’s the one we feel most confident about preparing for. And for the most part, candidates prefer the structure and familiarity of objective format over case writing. For anyone feeling overwhelmed by the technical breadth, one small saving grace is not having to apply the case-writing strategies the CFE is known for, yet.

The other piece of good news is that this exam does not yet introduce case writing. Now, at GCPA we’re big fans of case writing, but from the student perspective this gives students a chance to focus on the broad reach of the technical requirements, without also learning an entirely new style of reading and writing an exam.

The bottom line

Foundational Development is five hours, objective format, with two thirds of the marks in testlets.

Gevorg CPA

Planning for Foundational Development? Reach out to us

Whether you’re deciding when to start the new program or how to prepare for this exam, the Gevorg CPA team is here to help. Get in touch with your questions, and visit our CPA Professional Program page for more detail on the new program.

Want to know when our exam resources for the new program are available? Join our 2027 program mailing list and we’ll let you know.

Next in this series: CPA Core, where the cases start.

CPA resources

Links as at October 19, 2026.

Analyzing the New CPA Professional Program Exam Blueprints

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CPA has released the exam blueprints for the new CPA Professional Program, in its Exam Guide, issued August 27, 2026. For the first time, there’s enough detail to really think about these exams: what each one will be like, and how to prepare for it. If you’re planning to start the new program, here’s what you need to know.

This post goes through each exam at a high level. For each one we cover three things: the structure, the content, and the study focus, including which exams give you reference materials and which don’t. At the end are our key takeaways.

CPA calls Core, Leadership and Professional Readiness “Professional Final Exams” 1, 2 and 3. We use the exam names throughout. Here are the program and exam details:

At a glance

Exam Format Time Reference materials available during the exam
Knowledge Assessment (optional) 150 objective-format questions, two timed parts 5 hours None – closed book exam
Foundational Development 50 objective-format questions and 4 to 8 testlets 5 hours Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act
CPA Core, Common Two to three cases, each 60 to 120 minutes 3 hours Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act
CPA Core, Licensure Part A: the Common cases. Part B: one 2-hour case 5 hours Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act
CPA Leadership One comprehensive case 5 hours Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act
CPA Professional Readiness One 2-hour judgment case and one 1-hour ethics case 3 hours Handbooks, Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act

Source: Exam Guide.

The Knowledge Assessment

CPA calls the Knowledge Assessment an optional entrance exam. It’s for candidates who don’t have the required accounting and business courses to enter the program but do meet the eligibility requirements to write the Knowledge Assessment. CPA Western School of Business’s Knowledge Assessment page has more information, including the cost and planned offerings.

The covered content is as follows:

Part Topic Weight
A Assurance, data analytics, ethics and governance, finance, non-financial reporting, strategy, tax 10 to 15% each
A Foundational competencies, such as economics and law 10 to 15%
B Financial reporting 50%
B Management decision-making 50%

CPA’s full name for that last area is “Management Decision-Making and Information (Data) Systems/Technology”. It covers budgets and forecasts, variance analysis, costing methods, cost-volume-profit and break-even analysis, pricing, performance frameworks and scorecards, responsibility centres, incentives, continuous improvement, and IT and AI in decision-making.

This exam is pure technical knowledge, and it’s broad. There are no reference materials: no Handbook, no Income Tax Act, nothing. It’s the only exam in the program where you can’t look anything up. You also need a pass on financial reporting and on management decision-making separately, and a pass overall.

Foundational Development

This is the first exam most candidates will write.

The exam is five hours long and entirely objective format. There are 50 stand-alone questions, worth 33% of the exam. The other 67% is four to eight testlets. A testlet is a set of questions built on one shared scenario, and each one is designed to take 20 to 60 minutes. Question types include multiple choice, multiple select, fill in the blank and drop-down list.

The covered content is as follows:

Topic Weight
Management decision-making 15 to 25%
Financial reporting 10 to 20%
Data analytics, ethics and governance, finance, non-financial reporting, strategy 5 to 15% each
Assurance and tax 5 to 10% each

Source: Exam Guide.

Foundational Development is extremely technical. You need to know the rules and apply them accurately, across every topic area.

CPA Core: Common and Licensure

CPA Core is where the cases start, and it has two paths. On the Common path, you write the Common exam. On the Licensure path, for candidates considering a public accounting licence, you write the same Common cases as Part A, plus a Part B case, in the same sitting.

The Common exam is two to three cases in three hours, each case between 60 and 120 minutes. The exam doesn’t control your time between cases, so managing it is on you. Licensure adds Part B, one two-hour case. On the Licensure path the sitting is five hours: three for Part A and two for Part B, each timed separately.

The covered content is as follows:

Topic Common Part A Licensure Part B
Assurance 20 to 35% 30 to 50%
Financial reporting 20 to 35% 20 to 40%
Tax 10 to 25% 15 to 25%
Data analytics 5 to 15% Up to 10%
Non-financial reporting 5 to 15% Up to 10%

Source: Exam Guide.

Core is extremely technical and case focused. You need solid technical knowledge in assurance, financial reporting and tax, applied in a case. CPA describes these cases as non-complex, with clear requirements.

CPA Leadership

One comprehensive case, five hours long: the longest single case in the program. CPA describes it as moderately complex, with limited direction and less prescriptive requirements. You decide your own approach, which issues matter most, and how to structure your response. CPA also says it’s designed to be time pressured, the only case exam it describes that way.

The covered content is as follows:

Topic Weight
Strategy, risk management and innovation 20 to 35%
Ethics and governance 15 to 30%
Management decision-making 15 to 30%
Data analytics and finance 10 to 20% each
Assurance, financial reporting, non-financial reporting and tax Up to 10% each

Source: Exam Guide.

Leadership is less technical than Core, but it’s still a case. The focus moves to critical thinking and judgment. You’ll need to prioritize, connect your analyses to each other, and land on a recommendation that holds together.

CPA Professional Readiness

Two cases in three hours: a two-hour case focused on professional judgment, and a one-hour case focused on ethical decision-making. You manage the time between them. CPA says these cases are not meant to be time pressured, and you must pass each case to pass the exam.

The covered content is as follows:

Area What CPA says
Topic weights None published
Technical areas May provide context but are not the focus
Calculations No complex calculations; detailed analysis is provided where needed
Approach Complex and ambiguous, with multiple acceptable approaches
Ethics case No clear right answer

Source: Exam Guide.

This is the least technical exam and the most judgment focused. It’s still case writing, but the emphasis is on professional judgment, ethics and the public interest. Technical analysis supports the decision rather than driving it.

Key dates for the first year of exams

Exam Module starts First sitting
Knowledge Assessment Not a module March 23, 2027
Foundational Development May 15, 2027 September 15, 2027
CPA Core, Licensure May 29, 2027 September 16, 2027
CPA Leadership June 26, 2027 September 15, 2027
CPA Core, Common July 10, 2027 September 16, 2027
CPA Professional Readiness December 11, 2027 January 20, 2028

Going forward, exams will be offered in January, May and September.

Key takeaways

  1. Greater emphasis on professional judgment and critical thinking. The Knowledge Assessment and Foundational Development are objective format and highly technical. Core brings in cases, still very technical. By Leadership and Professional Readiness, the technical content steps back, and critical thinking and judgment take over.
  2. Only the Leadership exam will be publicly disclosed. Of all the exams, CPA lists only Leadership as a disclosed exam; every other exam is non-disclosed, just like the current CPA PEP exams (only the CFE cases are disclosed). That means candidates won’t have a bank of past exams to study from, look for patterns in, and use to predict what’s coming. Past exams have been a huge part of how candidates prepare. With fewer to lean on, critical thinking becomes even more important. You’ll need to really understand the technical content, read each case on its own terms, and work out what’s being asked and what matters.
  3. We don’t know yet how the exams will be marked. Will there still be NC, RC, C and CD? The Exam Guide doesn’t say. It says each exam has a passing standard set by the Board of Examiners, defines sufficiency as a mark that meets the minimum threshold, and says Professional Readiness cases are marked holistically. We don’t expect the four levels used on Days 2 and 3 of the CFE to carry over as they are. We expect a similar model, but we won’t know the details until CPA releases them.
  4. Trust the transition. The profession has done this before. Having so few past exams isn’t a disadvantage for the first group of candidates; it’s simply how the exams work going forward. Candidates who write the new program now will be in largely the same position as those who write it years from now.

We’ll keep this post updated as CPA releases more details. As you start your journey in the new CPA Professional Program, reach out to the Gevorg team for support.

CPA resources

Links as at October 5, 2026.

Passing the CFE on Your Third Attempt: What Rachael Learned After Two Close Calls

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If you’ve been unsuccessful on the CPA Common Final Examination (CFE), you’re in far more common company than most people realize. Having coached CPA candidates for years, we’ve seen just how many different paths lead to the Canadian CPA designation, and plenty of them include more than one CFE attempt.

That’s why we sat down again with GCPA alum Rachael, who passed the CFE on her third and final attempt. What makes her story valuable isn’t the unsuccessful results. It’s how she worked through them, adjusted her approach, and kept going.

Watch the full conversation on YouTube

Rachael’s CFE Timeline

  • Attempt 1 (May): Unsuccessful, Decile 1. She did not clear Level 3 (depth in her role, Assurance) and also fell short on Management Accounting at Level 2.
  • Attempt 2 (September, immediately after): Unsuccessful again, Decile 1, this time on Level 1. By her own estimate, she was one or two questions away.
  • Attempt 3: Registered for May, then chose to defer to September. She passed, and cleared every area.

Two Decile 1 results in a row. As Rachael put it, it felt like “a cruel, cruel lesson.” But it wasn’t the end of her story.

Coming Close Twice

Rachael received her first results while on a family vacation. She gave herself time to feel it, then decided to go straight into the September rewrite with a focused sprint: review what she knew, dig deeper into Assurance, and tighten up her time management.

The second result, arriving just before Christmas, hit differently. “It felt like pure exhaustion,” she shared. She had gone in with hope and a “what’s the worst that could happen?” mindset, and then it felt like the worst had happened.

Her takeaway, and the one she most wants other candidates to hear: there is no direct line and no perfect journey. You take each thing as it comes.

You Don’t Have to Relearn Everything

When Rachael restarted in February, she felt lost. Should she redo everything? Did she really know anything at all?

The answer was no, she didn’t need to redo everything. Looking at the stacks of cases, Integrations, and Practice Cases from her earlier attempts, she realized that what actually needed restudying was much smaller than it looked. “It’s more going to be the mind game and the time game,” she said. The real work was deciding what to review and how.

Knowing When to Wait

After studying through the spring for a May rewrite, Rachael made the difficult decision to defer. She had been doing all the right things, but she was mentally exhausted. Work was heavy following a major ERP implementation, and when she told her family she was stepping back, their response was simple: they had seen it too, and they supported her.

Today, the CFE is offered only in September, so candidates rewriting will have a longer runway by default. Rachael’s advice for using that time well:

  • Build up gradually. Push through spring and summer, then start easing off in August.
  • Protect the final 10 days. Before the exam, shift to light review only: notes, cue cards, good sleep, and whatever helps you decompress. Even if you’re working until the week of the exam, find a way to shift gears mentally.
  • Trust that you won’t forget. Many candidates worry that slowing down means losing ground. Rachael found the opposite. That breathing room is what let her walk in with the mental capacity to perform.

What Rachael Did Differently the Third Time

Better pacing. On her first attempt, she tried to do too much, including writing three Day 3 cases back to back to simulate exam day. By the third attempt, she recognized that she already knew she could sit for five hours and work through roughly 21 Assessment Opportunities across three cases. She didn’t need to prove that to herself again.

Trusting what she knew. A first-time writer often walks in wondering whether they know anything. A rewriter has results that show exactly what they do and don’t know. “The idea of going into Day 3 and knowing nothing is just not the truth,” Rachael said.

Working with a coach who fit her needs. Rachael worked with Mallory, a coach she found through Gevorg CPA, throughout her program. For Rachael, Mallory was an accountability partner and someone to share her thoughts, fears, and frustrations with. Other candidates may need a tougher, more directive style. Her advice is to find the right fit, much like choosing a therapist, and to remember that coaching doesn’t have to be a six-month commitment. A handful of sessions over the summer can help you refine your approach.

Taking accommodations seriously. Rachael shared that she could have applied for exam accommodations and chose not to, and looking back, she wishes she had. With only September sittings, a first-time rewrite no longer leaves you without time to apply. If you need an accommodation, plan ahead and apply. No one else needs to know, and you deserve every chance of success.

Don’t Just Repeat the Same Preparation

If you do the same thing again, how can you expect a different result? Before rewriting, be honest with yourself:

  • Did you follow your study schedule?
  • Did you have an accountability partner, study buddy, or study network?
  • Were your time management and case strategy working?

At the same time, avoid over-rotating. Failing in one area doesn’t mean you should study only that area. You still need coverage everywhere, with extra focus where your results point.

Read Your Results Carefully

Rachael’s first results surprised her. With a background in audit and risk, she expected Assurance to come easily. With years in finance, she assumed Management Accounting would make intuitive business sense. Instead, she did better in Financial Reporting than in either. Her lesson: set aside your assumptions about which areas are “easy” for you, and look at what the numbers actually say.

Equally important, the areas you passed were not luck. “Your passes were not luck. You did what you needed to do,” Rachael said.

The CFE passing profile is publicly available, but it isn’t simple. Unlike a university exam with a single percentage, the CFE is assessed across four levels, and candidates often misread them. For example:

  • Passing Level 4 (breadth) does not mean you passed Day 3.
  • Passing Level 3 (depth in your role) does not mean you passed Day 2.

Misinterpreting your results can send your preparation in the wrong direction. Take the time to understand them properly, whether with us, a mentor, or another trusted resource, before you build your rewrite plan.

And a word on online forums: be careful with Reddit threads. People aren’t necessarily lying, but they are sharing their own perception, often without the full picture. Candidates who later win awards for top scores regularly say they thought they had failed.

What Rachael Would Tell You Now

Is another attempt worth it? Rachael’s answer is unequivocal: “It’s always worth it.” Whether your path has been a two-year sprint or a five-to-six-year marathon while working and raising a family, you’ve made it this far.

On her third attempt, Rachael didn’t just scrape through. She passed on every level, including the areas that had held her back before. And the journey gave her something a first-time pass wouldn’t have: it put her imposter syndrome to rest. After a 20-year finance career and a return to accounting as a mature student, she knows she earned it. “It is mine now, and I conquered it. You can too.”

It’s hard to hear an unsuccessful result, and we’d never take that away from anyone. But the resilience and grit you build working through something difficult are qualities that stay with you long after the exam.

Preparing for Your Next CFE Attempt?

If you’re planning to rewrite, this conversation will help you think carefully about your results, your study approach, and what needs to change before your next attempt.

Watch the full video with Rachael and learn more about our CPA CFE preparation resources at gevorgcpa.com.

CPA CFE Exam Stress: Final-Month Guide | Gevorg CPA

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How to Tackle Unknown AOs on the CFE

Picture this: You are writing Day 2 or Day 3 of the CFE. You just systematically completed a standard inventory valuation, worked through a variance analysis, and you are managing your time perfectly. You flip to the next appendix, read the first paragraph, and realize you are being asked for the accounting treatment of a crypto-backed joint venture in deep-sea mining.

Welcome to the “Unknown AO.”

Every year, the Board of Examiners (BOE) includes Assessment Opportunities (AOs) on the CFE that are completely non-routine, obscure, or nowhere to be found in your standard study templates. As a CPA exam coach here at Gevorg CPA, I see our candidates struggle with these issues very often. In the recent release of the May 2025 report, BOE told candidates to prepare better in this area. As part of our review of this most recent BOE report, we are tackling this issue within this article. We will highlight some of the key tactics we teach to handle these unknown AOs.

The Perspective Shift

Why does the BOE do this?

The BOE explicitly includes these unusual AOs because they want to see if you, as a future Canadian CPA, can handle the unknown in a professional environment. The test isn’t just about your technical memory; it’s about applying the CPA Way (Assess → Analyze → Conclude → Communicate) to an accounting scenario you have never encountered before.

They are testing your ability to process the unknown quickly, provide a commercially reasonable response, and move on. Spending 40 minutes hunting through Knotia for the perfect technical answer to one unknown FR AO is like spending three hours perfectly formatting the fonts on a balance sheet while leaving the income statement completely blank. You have robbed precious time from the routine AOs that actually guarantee your pass.

Remember: If it’s weird to you, it’s weird to everyone. You are competing against the curve. The candidate sitting next to you is grappling with this exact same issue. Keep your composure and execute your strategy.

Have a Planned Response

When you encounter the unknown in Financial Reporting, where we see the majority if Unknown AOs, you need to stop and think about the issue first before jumping to find the applicable handbook section. First, consider how to bucket the topic, then guide yourself to apply a framework:

1. Labeling the Unknown: Identification IS Half the Battle

First things first: simply identifying and labeling an AO as “unknown” is half the battle.

The unknown AO trap on the CFE happens when you panic and try to treat a non-routine AO exactly like a routine one. Trying to forcefully fit an obscure, software licensing issue into a standard 5-step IFRS 15 Revenue Recognition template won’t work, and it will certainly burn valuable time that should be spent tackling the rest of the exam. 

True exam confidence doesn’t mean having a photographic memory of the CPA Canada Handbook. Confidence comes from knowing what is not routine. When you read a prompt and recognize that it is highly unusual, validate that professional judgment. Actively labeling it as an “Unknown AO” in your mind stops you from wasting time searching for a perfect template that does not exist.

2. Bucket the Issue

For technical FR AOs where you aren’t clear what it is, what the actual accounting issue is, and therefore what the actual GAAP standard to consider is, the trick is to first avoid panic. Stop and really think about: What IS the thing in question?

If you had to bucket it into a category, or describe it to someone, where does it fit?

  • Is it kind of like an asset? Is it a piece of equipment, is it cash, or an investment?
  • Is it kind of like a liability? Are you going to owe someone money?
  • Is it kind of like an expense? Has someone done work for you, or will you owe someone because of a service?
  • Is it kind of like equity? Have you issued shares, or granted an ownership stake?

For example: Imagine the case introduces a complex “government carbon emission credit.” Instead of freezing because you’ve never studied carbon credits, bucket it. The company purchased them, owns them, and will use them to avoid future fines. It holds future economic value, so it is kind of like an asset—specifically, an intangible one.

Thinking about the issue in this way is going to make your Knotia search significantly easier, and will help get you somewhere in terms of answering the “what is this?” question before you apply a formal framework.

3. Apply a Technical Framework

Once you have bucketed the issue, try searching Knotia. Search the specific trigger words right out of the case alongside your new bucket category. Grab the closest criteria you can find, framed with support from your bucketing activity above, and apply it. We say this often to our students, you need to practice desperate Knotia searches as part of your studying. You will quickly learn that searching in Knotia is not as slick as you would like it to be. The more specific and unique your search word is, the more useful the search result. Do not try this for the first time on exam date.

If your search comes up empty and you are completely lost in the Handbook, stop, and default to the three key components of any accounting standard:

  • Recognition: When does it go on the books?
  • Measurement: How much is it worth?
  • Disclosure: What do we tell the users of the financial statements?

4. Bare minimum: Case facts + so what + recommendation

When all else fails, write whatever reasonable accounting logic comes to mind, but you MUST apply case facts from the appendices, and you ALWAYS provide a recommendation.

You can draft the most logical analysis in the world, but if it doesn’t use the specific numbers, quotes, or situations provided in the case, you aren’t scoring points. You need to integrate the case facts (to Assess the situation), structure your logic using handbook criteria or the Big Three (to Analyze the issue), make a definitive journal entry or treatment recommendation (to Conclude), and ensure your advice is clear and actionable for the client (to Communicate). The BOE rewards candidates who make a decision over those who skip the issue. 

Get support at Gevorg CPA

You don’t have to face the CFE curveballs alone, register for a Gevorg CPA CFE Prep program today.

We will help you navigate this exact challenge and much more. From mastering “Unknown AOs” to perfecting your time management and building rock-solid technical frameworks, we provide the grounded, strategic coaching you need to conquer the CFE.

Don’t leave your exam success to chance. Join us today.

June 2026 CFE Debrief: Our Take on the Day 1, 2 & 3 Cases

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The June 2026 CFE cases have now been released. As in the past, CPA has released only the cases, and not the accompanying solutions. Based on the past schedule, we expect the formal solutions to be released later in the year, and after the September 2026 CFE is written.

As our writers came out of the exam rooms across the country, our discussion boards were flooded with their thoughts and emotions about the cases. After a few weeks of suspense we are finally able to open the cases and see for ourselves what our cohort went up against. We’re going to go day by day through the cases and give our thoughts on the exam itself, and also what we think it tells us for the September 2026 CFE.

For those interested, our team will be publishing GCPA Strong Answers for the June 2026 CFE cases — we’ll provide more information and links below.

Overall Impressions of the June 2026 CFE

Overall, what did we think of this exam? First of all, we were very impressed with the quality and complexity of the cases in this sitting. We thought the exams were more intricate than usual, which makes a case much more difficult to write and test, so we thought this was a very well-constructed exam.

Day 1 we thought was mostly fair, but somewhat more challenging than a typical sitting. Anticipating the conclusions of next year’s CPA Canada Board of Examiners’ Report, we suspect a number of candidates will have struggled with the heightened emphasis on big-picture judgment, particularly where the constraints and objectives were more complex, though still realistic. Day 2 was demanding — the AOs were quite complex and there weren’t any real quick wins. The case facts and data also felt messy, which understandably left many students feeling flustered. Day 3, by contrast, was fair — arguably slightly generous. As a reminder, just because an exam felt hard, or was challenging as presented, does not speak to how it will be marked or how many students will pass.

Day 1: The KBC and VTL cases

Day 1 is the strategic case linked to Capstone 1. The June sitting ran two versions: KBC (Karnat Bread Company) and VTL V2 (Viviana’s Trattoria).

We thought KBC was a moderately challenging case, comprising four strategic issues and what we read as two additional issues. The principal challenge was not the individual issues, but the effort demanded by the overall recommendation and the work required to establish a clear strategic direction. This is where we expect to see candidates struggle.

It is also where one of our pre-exam predictions proved accurate. Ahead of each CFE, we forecast the likely direction of the exam and prepare our students accordingly. For June, we predicted that CPA Canada would require candidates to form an overall recommendation in which the governing constraint or objective was not obvious or simple. For example, four strategic issues are presented, one is eliminated on weak quantitative support, three remain feasible, yet only two can be pursued under a genuine financial or capacity constraint. This form of testing has challenged candidates in the past, and our expectation was that CPA Canada would extend it rather than retreat from it. Our review of the case, together with feedback from our students, indicates that this is precisely what occurred.

We thought VTL shared this character. The notable feature here was that most of the available options appeared feasible, or at least not obvious to reject. In our experience, that’s usually much harder for candidates to navigate. In addition to forcing them to truly think, we expect many candidates doubted their analyses and likely panicked because of this. In both of these Day 1 cases, CPA required candidates to follow the CPA Way to reason carefully toward the most defensible strategic direction.

Key Takeaways for Day 1

Be prepared to demonstrate strategic decision-making. Through its Board Reports, CPA Canada has consistently indicated that it expects candidates to demonstrate genuine strategic decision-making. Success on Day 1 can no longer be secured through issue-by-issue technical work alone; a strong framework will not compensate for an overall conclusion that lacks substantive reasoning.

Use a decision matrix. Both cases presented a substantial number of competing objectives (the board’s priorities, the owner’s priorities, and so on), which you were required to track and tie back to your recommendation. We have always taught our students to use a decision matrix to organize their overall conclusion, but in these Day 1 exams it would have been even more critical given the volume of variables students had to keep track of.

Manage your time. Neglecting the overall conclusion is a well-established fatal flaw on a Day 1 case. Given the demands of the overall conclusions in these two cases, candidates should protect their time budget strictly. This means keeping the work required for the individual strategic issues as concise and efficient as possible.

If you need help mastering these strategies, review our guide on how to approach Day 1 here.

June 2026 CFE Day 2 (ETA Case) Analysis

Feedback from our students on the Day 2 case, ETA, was consistent and pointed: it was among the most demanding cases they had encountered. For the most part we would agree with them. It was still a fair exam, but the way the case was presented added some compounding challenges for candidates. It was a rigorous test of comprehension — not merely of technical knowledge, but of your ability to make sense of a complex, realistic case under time pressure.

Two features made ETA particularly demanding:

Dispersal of data. Whereas earlier Day 2 cases tended to consolidate the figures required for a given calculation within a single appendix, ETA distributed them throughout the case. Candidates had to locate and assemble information from multiple points simply to complete individual calculations, placing a significant load on reading comprehension and data organization.

Absence of accessible material. Cases will often provide one or two straightforward issues to build confidence. ETA instead presented three tough Financial Reporting (FR) issues — componentization, an Asset Retirement Obligation (ARO), and a principal-versus-agent revenue determination — each requiring multi-step analysis and detailed application of the Handbook.

As we said earlier, this doesn’t mean more people will fail. The biggest risk we see is the panic we expect it caused candidates. One or two easy AOs are confidence builders and can give candidates the mental strength to continue. Navigating confusing data and challenging topics is likely to cause downstream effects on the quality of case fact integration, conclusions, and more — ultimately putting candidates at risk of failure.

For September, the implication is clear: technical proficiency alone is insufficient without the ability to organize a complex case and manage the emotions of an unsettling one.

Day 3: A fair examination, and a lesson in composure

The June Day 3 cases were fair, with most students expressing some confidence in most of the AOs that were presented. We agreed with that assessment when we did our review.

Our biggest concern for our students after Day 2, and what we did our best to coach them through, was staying positive for Day 3. Our expectation, though we hope to be wrong, is that many candidates will have carried the Day 2 shadow of doubt and panic into Day 3, and performed worse than they typically would have on relatively achievable AOs and cases.

The sequence merits comment. A demanding Day 2 was followed by a fair, arguably generous, Day 3 — and this carries a genuine strategic lesson. A difficult day does not portend a difficult one to follow; frequently the reverse holds. The principal risk in June was not that Day 3 proved hard, but that a discouraging Day 2 might be carried into a Day 3 that was, in fact, highly manageable. You cannot allow a difficult day to compromise a favourable one. Deliberate composure between days is essential.

Implications for the September 2026 CFE

We have not seen the solutions and cannot know how CPA Canada will mark or scale this sitting. However, for candidates writing in September, here is what we think you should be thinking about, given what we can gauge from the June 2026 CFE cases:

Day 1: Treat the overall recommendation as central, allow sufficient time to develop it, and prepare to exercise judgment rather than mechanically process issues.

Day 2: Command the technical mechanics, but also develop the comprehension required to interpret a case efficiently when data is dispersed.

Day 3: Lean into the mental dimension of the exam. Whatever September presents, a deliberate strategy for resetting between days and approaching each with composure is essential.

Practising with the June 2026 cases

At GCPA, we prepare Strong Answers for several past CFE cases; they represent our attempt at writing the exam, as a student would, to prepare a realistic but high-quality response that reflects what a strong student could reasonably produce in the time available. Our students use them to debrief their own writing, as they demonstrate what a passing response genuinely looks like on the page — using the templates and formats we recommend — rather than an idealized answer that few could achieve under exam conditions.

Most students like to practise with the most recently offered exams. For the June 2026 CFE, specifically, we are preparing Day 2 and Day 3 Strong Answers for candidates to leverage in their studying for September 2026. These materials are currently being finalized. We will post the link here as soon as they become available; please check back shortly.

They will be available at the following link:  https://gevorgcpa.com/cfe-cases/

For Day 1 writers, we have the following practice resources specific to your Day 1 Capstone Case:

MEI V2 writers:

(note that formal CPA solutions are not yet available for the MEI V1 case)

(This is an additional practice case and solution for those writing MEI V2 in September to use for practice)

STC writers:

  • GCPA Sample Case for STC – available soon and will be posted here 

(This is an additional practice case and solution for those writing STC in September to use for practice)

Frequently Asked Questions About the June 2026 CFE

Was the June 2026 CFE difficult?

Based on our review and feedback from candidates, the June 2026 CFE was challenging, particularly on Day 2. The Day 1 cases required stronger strategic judgment than many previous sittings, while Day 2 demanded a high level of technical knowledge, reading comprehension, and organization. Day 3 was comparatively fair and gave many candidates an opportunity to recover from a difficult second day. We will have to wait until we receive the Board of Examiners Report to see how the exams were ultimately graded.

What were the June 2026 CFE cases?

The June 2026 CFE included two Day 1 cases, KBC (Karnat Bread Company) and VTL (Viviana’s Trattoria), along with Emerald Tours and Air Limited (or ETA), the Day 2 case and the Day 3 multi-case examination. Each case tested different competencies, including strategic analysis, financial reporting, assurance, management accounting, taxation, finance, and overall professional judgment.

Should September 2026 CFE writers practise the June 2026 CFE cases?

Yes. The June 2026 CFE provides valuable insight into the level of complexity and judgment expected by CPA Canada. Practising these cases helps candidates strengthen their technical knowledge, improve time management, and become more comfortable working through realistic case scenarios before writing the September 2026 CFE.

When will the June 2026 CFE solutions be released?

At the time of writing, CPA Canada has released the June 2026 CFE cases but has not yet published the official solutions. Based on previous examination cycles, the formal solutions are typically released by CPA Canada after the September 2026 CFE has been completed.

What can candidates learn from the June 2026 CFE?

One of the biggest lessons from the June 2026 CFE, our interpretation, is that success will require more than technical knowledge. Candidates needed to demonstrate sound professional judgment, manage complex case information efficiently, prioritize their time effectively, and remain composed throughout all three examination days. These skills should continue to be a major focus for anyone preparing for future CFE sittings.

Where can I find practice materials for the June 2026 CFE?

Candidates looking to practise with the June 2026 CFE can begin by reviewing the released CPA Canada cases and comparing their responses against high-quality sample solutions. GCPA is also preparing Strong Answers for the June 2026 CFE to help candidates understand what a well-structured passing response looks like under actual exam conditions. The link to the cases is here.

 

 

 

Need a Push to Get Back on Track with PERT? Consider This Your Push.

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Many of our June 2026 CFE writers have been messaging us about their PERT updates, and man, does that make us proud! If you’re sitting around patiently waiting for August 21st, why not do something constructive that will actually reduce your stress at the same time?

We understand the necessity of PERT, but in our experience, we have yet to meet a candidate who truly enjoys updating their Practical Experience Reporting Tool (PERT). If you’re reading this and you are a fan of it, be sure to reach out and tell us! Most CPA candidates find it to be tedious, the character limits are frustrating, and translating everyday work into CPA jargon can feel like pulling teeth.

Because of this, it is incredibly common for candidates to push it off. But if you know you are behind on your reports, or if you are dodging your mentor because you missed a meeting, listen up.

This is your sign from the universe to get this sorted NOW. Here is why avoiding PERT is a bad idea, why the clock is ticking faster than you think, and how you can catch up without completely overwhelming yourself before the fall.

Why You Can’t Keep Avoiding PERT

The biggest risk with PERT is the cumulative effect of neglect. Remembering what you did at work last month is relatively easy. Trying to remember specific, complex scenarios you navigated 14 months ago? Nearly impossible.

When you avoid PERT, you aren’t just delaying the pain; you are actively making the process harder for your future self. You risk forgetting the great examples that would have easily gotten you a Level 2 in a technical competency. Plus, even if you crush the CFE, you won’t get those three letters behind your name until your experience is approved. Don’t be the person who passes the exam but has to wait another year and a half to actually become a CPA because their PERT is a mess.

Give Yourself Time to Pivot if You Need To

Depending on your work experience and job details, you want to be absolutely sure that you are capturing sufficiently complex work experience examples within your planned competency areas. Unfortunately, one common problem we see is that candidates have an expected job plan, and then things change—a new role, a company switch, or perhaps a termination. This can throw a very significant wrench into someone’s PERT planning. It is critical that you keep a very close eye on your experience and how you plan to get your remaining levels.

This brings us to the importance of submitting PER on time. If you put your reporting off, you run the risk of getting unexpected feedback from the CPA reviewer, such as them disagreeing with the complexity of your examples or stating you lack the work evidence to support them. In some cases, candidates even need to request new work assignments from their employers to complete the necessary experience.

If you find yourself in a situation where you need to do this, and you don’t have enough time remaining in your PERT, you will have just created an incredibly stressful and challenging situation. We have seen this happen quite often. It’s not enjoyable for anyone, and it is entirely avoidable.

Avoid the PERT Extension Request

At the end of the day, waiting will not make PERT any easier. In fact, you run a serious risk of running into unexpected issues with your experience or scrambling to find required documentation from past employers.

We unfortunately see this happen quite often with students: they wait until the last minute, discover their experience isn’t hitting the right levels, and are suddenly put in a situation where they need to formally request an extension. Filing an extension request adds a massive amount of unnecessary time, paperwork, and stress to your plate. All of this can be avoided by staying on track, or catching up now, so you have a comfortable buffer of time to address any issues that come up.

While CPA Canada will often consider an extension request, the extra ‘life admin’ you are adding to your plate to do this is truly not enjoyable either.

Finish Within the Current Program

As all CPA candidates are aware, the new CPA Certification Program is being released in 2027, and this will include a brand-new PERT system. Candidates reporting under the current program will need to finish their reporting under the current rules, and then transition to the new program if necessary.

We are still waiting for specific details about the new program, but we don’t need the exact details to know that simply transitioning between a current program and a new program will cause some confusion—even for those who are fully caught up on PERT. Compounding this confusion with catch-up reporting or extension requests creates a very complicated problem for you to solve with the CPA reviewers.

You do not want to be caught in the messy middle. Transitioning half-finished, poorly documented experience into a brand-new system could mean unexpected delays or administrative headaches. Your goal should be to finish your experience requirements smoothly within the current program.

How to Start Now

If you are months (or years) behind, looking at the entire mountain of work will just cause you to procrastinate more. Instead, focus on building momentum so you have a lighter mental load going into the busy fall season.

Here is your step-by-step rescue plan:

  1. Lower the bar: Just do ONE fresh report. Do not sit down and try to write two years of experience in one weekend. Open the portal and commit to writing just one fresh, updated report for your most recent period. Getting a single report submitted breaks the seal of procrastination.
  2. Send the “awkward” email to your mentor. If you’ve ghosted your mentor, take a deep breath and send a brief, honest email. “Hi [Name], I know I’ve fallen behind on my reporting, but I am actively getting back on track. I am submitting a new report this week. Can we schedule a quick catch-up meeting for next week?” They have been through the CPA journey; they will understand. Just rip the band-aid off.
  3. Set a weekly 30-minute timer. Once that first report is in, block off just 30 minutes every Friday to brain-dump your work tasks into a Word document. Keep a running list of complex problems you solved, meetings you led, or analysis you performed. When your next report is due, the material will already be there.

Need help getting unstuck?

You don’t have to figure out the “PERT language” on your own. If you are staring at a blank screen, unsure of how to align your daily tasks with CPA competencies, or if your reports keep getting downgraded by reviewers, we have programs to help you. Take control of your PERT now. Get that one report in, schedule your mentor meeting, and step into the fall feeling lighter, prepared, and one step closer to your letters! Check out our PERT programs here.

As you’re getting started, check out our free resources in these articles:

Final CFE Exam Reminders from your GCPA Team

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Welcome to the final stretch! Test week is finally here. You’ve put in the countless hours of studying, writing practice cases, and debriefing. As you prepare to cross the finish line of the CFE, it’s crucial to approach the exam with the right mindset and strategy. Here is a summary of our top final tips to ensure you perform at your absolute best during the CFE. These are not new. These are your reminders to keep top of mind as you visualize your exam execution this week. 

1. Avoid Fatal Flaws for Day 1

Day 1 of the CFE assesses your enabling skills and strategic decision-making. Passing relies on avoiding major critical errors. Here are the “fatal flaws” you must avoid at all costs:

  • Missing the Big Picture: Failing to align your analysis and recommendations with the company’s overall mission, vision, and strategic goals established in Capstone 1 or newly presented in the case, and the likely new Board objectives or directly presented to you.
  • Ignoring Constraints: Overlooking critical constraints such as limited cash, restrictive debt covenants, timeline limits, or a founder’s specific personal preferences.
  • Lack of Integration: Treating the situational analysis as a standalone checklist rather than integrating the SWOT, KSFs, and quantitative factors directly into your analysis of the strategic options. Remember, the SAF itself is just a list, the integration happens within each individual SI throughout the Day 1 exam. 
  • Failing to Conclude: Ending your memo without a clear, holistic overall recommendation that synthesizes all the issues discussed and clearly guides the board. Do not spin your wheels and extra time in an individual Strategic Issue, at the cost of a missed overall conclusion at the end.

2. Don’t Get Stuck in Knotia

While the CPA Canada Handbook (Knotia) and the Income Tax Act are available to you in the exam software, they can quickly become your biggest enemies if you aren’t careful. Do not use Knotia as a primary learning tool during the exam. Only search Knotia if you know exactly what standard you are looking for (e.g., pulling the specific recognition criteria for capitalized development costs). Spending 15 minutes endlessly scrolling through standards to learn a topic from scratch will destroy your time budget. Rely on your memory, the triggers you’ve practiced, and your case-writing instincts as much as possible.

3. Stick to the Recommended Time for Each Individual Day 3 Case

Day 3 is a sprint. You will face 3 to 4 shorter cases (usually 3 cases ranging from 70 to 90 minutes each). The biggest trap candidates fall into is “borrowing” time from the second or third case to finish the first one. Do not do this. Each case has its own separate Assessment Opportunities (AOs). If you spend 100 minutes on an 80-minute case, you might turn a few “Reaching Competent” grades into “Competent”, but you will likely score “Not Addressed” on several AOs in the final case because you ran out of time. Once your time for a Day 3 case is up, wrap up your current sentence and forcefully move on to the next case.

A Final word from the GCPA Team

Trust the process. We believe in you. You have put in the hard work and built your technical knowledge and case writing abilities. Take a deep breath, manage your time ruthlessly, and go crush the CFE!

We’ll see you on the other side.

 

The September 2025 CFE BOE Report – what’s the ‘so what’

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Just weeks before the upcoming CFE, CPA Canada dropped the September 2025 Board of Examiners (BOE) report. We know that getting a massive PDF of examiner feedback right before you walk into the exam room can feel intense, but take a deep breath, and let’s walk through it together.

While this feedback is incredibly important, our review of the material is that the feedback is largely consistent with past feedback. Think of this report not as a list of new things to panic-learn, but rather as a set of timely, critical reminders for the core case-writing strategies you already know. We have pulled out the key points noted by the BOE, and added our interpretation of this feedback. If you are a June 2026 CFE writer, reference this as you remind yourself how you will be focusing your case strategy, but know these are all the exact skills you have been working on the last few months.

For September 2026 writers, you should review this in detail as an important component for preparing for your exam. These points will be pivotal in your preparation for the CFE.

What Didn’t Surprise Us: The Usual Suspects

Honestly, when reviewing this report, nothing truly surprised us. The traps candidates fell into in September 2025 are the exact same hurdles we have seen for years, and they remain the core focus of our GCPA programs.

1. The Case Fact Integration Trap

The BOE highlighted yet again that candidates are failing to properly integrate case facts into their analysis. We call this the “parallel lines” problem: a candidate states a technical accounting rule and drops a case fact right next to it, but fails to actually connect the two. They run parallel, never intersecting.

Stating a rule and dropping a number from the case does not earn you a Competent (C). You must explain the “So what?”

  • Weak: “Per IFRS 15, performance obligations must be distinct. The company sells software with a two-year maintenance agreement.”

  • Strong (Integrated): “Per IFRS 15, performance obligations must be distinct. Because the maintenance agreement provides a separate service over two years that the customer benefits from independently, it is a separate performance obligation. Therefore, revenue cannot be recognized all at once.”

We actually made a highly requested YouTube video breaking this exact issue down based on the May 2025 BOE report. It came up yet again in the September 2025 report as a primary reason candidates failed to reach C.

2. The Panic Over “Unknown AOs”

Another trend that didn’t surprise us is how candidates freeze when faced with non-routine Assessment Opportunities (AOs).

The BOE noted that when candidates encountered a technical Financial Reporting (FR) or Strategy & Governance issue that didn’t perfectly match a pre-memorized study template, many completely abandoned the “CPA Way.” Instead of stepping back and applying a basic framework, writers wasted valuable time doing frantic Knotia searches or writing disorganized brain dumps.

Identification is half the battle. If you struggle with this, revisit our article on How to Tackle Unknown AOs on the CFE, where we break down the exact step-by-step framework to secure partial marks without spiraling out of your time budget.

Why Candidates Failed: A Day-by-Day Breakdown & Action Items

To protect your pass, you need to understand exactly where the previous cohort tripped. Here are the direct quotes from the BOE, paired with our exact GCPA interpretations and immediate action items.

Day 1 Failures

BOE Quote: “Candidates who were not successful tended to treat the situational analysis as an independent exercise, failing to link the constraints and strategic goals to their evaluation of the strategic options.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: The point of listing the SAF at the start of your response, is for it to be the basis for you to integrate the key points within your response below. Just listing the situation analysis factors, and failing to integrate them, does not get you any marks.

BOE Quote: “Weak responses often restated case numbers without applying the specific adjustments requested by the board of directors, lacking the depth required for quantitative analysis.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: For Day 1, simply copying and pasting exhibit data into Excel gets you zero marks. You must execute the specific “what if” scenarios (e.g., a 10% drop in sales) explicitly requested by the board to show the true financial impact. Use the case facts you have been given, there is a reason for all of them and CPA Canada wants you to consider and comment on these.

BOE Quote: “Many candidates did not integrate the operational issues into the broader strategic direction of the company, resulting in siloed and fragmented recommendations.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Operational issues (like a broken IT system or staffing shortage) aren’t isolated problems—they actively prevent the company from achieving its main goals. Connect the operational fix back to the overarching strategy. In the GCPA CFE review program, we teach our students to use a Decision Matrix to ensure they capture all key components necessary to prepare a proper overall recommendation.

BOE Quote: “A common deficiency among unsuccessful candidates was the lack of a holistic conclusion that synthesized the overall mandate and provided a clear, supported final recommendation.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Choosing an option at the end is not enough. You must step back, answer the overarching question the CEO or Board hired you to solve on page one, and explain how all your recommendations work together as a cohesive plan. For GCPA students – this issue is also addressed by appropriately utilizing a decision matrix and our overall conclusion approach.

Day 2 Failures

BOE Quote: “Unsuccessful candidates in the depth roles often provided superficial, bulleted lists that did not adequately use the specific case facts to support their analysis.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Day 2 is about proving you are an expert in your chosen role. High-level, surface bullet points fail the depth test. You have to thoroughly exhaust the case facts and explain the detailed implications specific to your role.

BOE Quote: “Some candidates spent excessive time quoting accounting handbook criteria for complex financial reporting issues but failed to conclude on the final accounting treatment.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Copy-pasting massive blocks of text from Knotia gets you zero marks if you don’t actually tell the client what to do. If you write out the IFRS criteria but forget to state, “Therefore, capitalize the asset,” the marker cannot guess your intent.

BOE Quote: “We noted a recurring issue where candidates struggled with time management, leaving common core assessment opportunities unaddressed or severely underdeveloped.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: You cannot sacrifice the common core for your role. If you spend 3.5 hours hyper-focusing on your specific depth role and leave the mandatory Financial Reporting (FR) and Management Accounting (MA) AOs blank, you will automatically fail Level 2.
    • One area that can really hurt a candidate is going on a Knotia treasure hunt. Knotia is available to you, but it should be used with caution. If you do NOT know where you are going, you should give yourself a strict 3-minute limit with which to treasure hunt in Knotia. Losing time in Knotia has been a proven cause of failure due to missing other AOs because of running out of time.
    • At GCPA, we teach outlining and preparing a detailed time budget for Day 2. If you do not stick to your time budget, you will run out of time, and you will be at risk of failing due to this common issue.

BOE Quote: “Candidates failed to recognize the broader implications of management accounting issues, performing basic calculations but omitting the critical qualitative analysis.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Calculating a variance or a breakeven point is only half the job. The qualitative analysis—explaining why the variance happened and what management should do about it—is what actually secures the C grade. You must bring the numbers back to the case, and apply the numbers to your conclusion and recommendation. Numbers without analysis are just math, and the CFE is not a math exam.

Day 3 Failures

BOE Quote: “Time management remains a significant issue on Day 3, with candidates attempting to reach excessive depth on early assessment opportunities at the expense of later ones.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Day 3 is a breadth day. Trying to write a flawless, Day 2-level response on the very first AO will ruin your time budget. You need to aim for a solid “RC” (Reaching Competence) across the board and keep moving. We posted an article about this recently as well, check it out here.

BOE Quote: “Candidates often provided misdirected responses, answering what they thought was the issue rather than addressing the specific question asked by the user in the case.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: When rushing through an AO, candidates sometimes forget the exact issue and details requested, and either make assumptions or just assume they are being asked for items they might have seen in a past case. Read the specific user’s question carefully and address their actual concern, rather than regurgitating a memorized template that doesn’t fit the scenario.
    • At GCPA we advise students to write a fairly detailed Issue statement, even though issue statements themselves are not awarded marks, it helps to remind students of exactly what the AO is asking without having to revisit the case narrative. In the heat of an AO response, it is very easy to forget the specifics of an issue, and being able to glance up at your own response and see the exact details there, can save you.

BOE Quote: “There was a noticeable failure to identify hidden assessment opportunities, particularly in Strategy and Governance, where triggers were subtle.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Because candidates are rushing on Day 3, they skim right past subtle, one-sentence triggers for S&G or Assurance issues. Actively hunt for these embedded requests; they will not always have a neat heading. In our view, this is the ‘heart’ of the Day 3 exam – needing to go into enough depth to present a real analysis with case facts, but moving on quickly to tackle the rest of the exam, and therefore master breadth.

BOE Quote: “A large number of candidates failed to demonstrate breadth, missing the ‘Reaching Competence’ threshold on multiple AOs simply because they ran out of time to provide any response.”

    • GCPA Interpretation: Spending 25 minutes on a 9-minute AO guarantees you will leave the final three AOs completely blank. Dropping the pen when the time budget expires is a non-negotiable survival skill. This is the flip side of the issue discussed above where candidates skim over an AO too quickly.

We talk about this at GCPA often. The BOE has told us that the Day 3 exam tests candidates’ discipline to manage time, address an issue, and move on. They are not hiding this from us, so we want candidates to really understand this and incorporate it in their exam approach.

Final Thoughts and References

You can read the full September 2025 BOE report here.

Remember, the BOE is trying to give you the information you need to succeed and if you consider their feedback and do your best to focus your studies accordingly you can absolutely do this.

Looking for CFE support? Review the resources, templates, and CPA coaching programs available at www.gevorgcpa.com to help navigate your path to becoming a Canadian CPA.