Het CIA examen bestaat uit de vier “Parts” die verder als volgt kunnen worden onderverdeeld. Ieder deel omvat 125 multiple-choice vragen. De toegestane tijd per deel is 3½ uur. Het examen wordt in de Engelse taal afgenomen.

1. Quality management (e.g., TQM)
2. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) framework 
3. Forecasting
4. Project management techniques
5. Business process analysis (e.g., workflow analysis and bottleneck management, theory of constraints)
6. Inventory management techniques and concepts
7. Marketing- pricing objectives and policies
8. Marketing- supply chain management
9. Human Resources (Individual performance management and measurement; supervision; environmental factors that affect performance; facilitation techniques; personnel sourcing/staffing; training and development; and safety)
10. Balanced Scorecard

B.  Financial Accounting and Finance (15-25%)

1. Basic concepts and underlying principles of financial accounting (statements, terminology, relationships)
2. Intermediate concepts of financial accounting (e.g., bonds, leases, pensions, intangible assets, R&D)
3. Advanced concepts of financial accounting (e.g., consolidation, partnerships, foreign currency transactions)
4. Financial statement analysis 
5. Cost of capital evaluation
6. Types of debt and equity
7. Financial instruments (e.g., derivatives)
8. Cash management (treasury functions)
9. Valuation models
   a.  Inventory valuation
   b. Business valuation 
10. Business development life cycles

C. Managerial Accounting (10-20%)

1. Cost concepts (e.g., absorption, variable, fixed)
2. Capital budgeting
3. Operating budget
4. Transfer pricing
5. Cost-volume-profit analysis
6. Relevant cost
7. Costing systems (e.g., activity-based, standard)
8. Responsibility accounting

D. Regulatory, Legal and Economics (5-15%)

1. Impact of government legislation and regulation on business
2. Trade legislation and regulations
3. Taxation schemes
4. Contracts
5. Nature and rules of legal evidence
6. Key economic indicators

E. Information Technology (IT) (30-40%)

1. Control frameworks (e.g., SAC, COBIT)
2. Data and network communications/connections (e.g., LAN, VAN, and WAN)
3. Electronic funds transfer (EFT)
4. e-Commerce
5. Electronic data interchange (EDI)
6. Functional areas of IT operations (e.g., data center operations)
7. Encryption
8. Viruses
9. Information protection
10. Evaluate investment in IT (cost of ownership)
11. Enterprise-wide resource planning (ERP) software (e.g., SAP R/3, Peoplesoft)
12. Operating systems
13. Application development
14. Voice communications
15. Contigency planning
16. Systems security (e.g. firewalls, access control)
17. Databases
18. Software licensing
19. Web infrastructure