Dear All
The following is my recommendation considering the time-frame and the added responsibilities. First and foremost never lose hope, there are many CAs who have cleared their exams after joining industry / regular employment. This is a course with all permutations and combinations with every possibilities provided the twin requirements of positive attitude and efforts are developed.
1) Financial Reporting:
I would prefer you take up topics like Valuation, Developments in Financial Reporting (Value Added, EVA and Humar Resource Reporting), Financial Reporting for Financial Institutins, Share Based Payments and Other Guidance Notes. These are manageable topics on which there will be hardly any twists and turns, with examination questions will be mostly based on previous exam / RTP questions.
Then take up Accounting Standards and Amalgamation simultaneously. Ensure that you read one standard a day and revise it the other day with complete understanding with atleast one or two problems in Amalgamation per day. While doing Accounting Standard ensure that you understand the differences between corresponding IND AS (Would recommend to take up book authored by Mr D S Rawat for AS and IND AS).
Atlast take up Consolidation, though the chapter is rich in concepts it carries only 16 Marks in exams and the coverage is little extra compared to other topics.
Ensure that you track a seperate list for library of important adjustments for revision in day before exams along with flow-charts for theory/steps and AS. The recommended book other than AS is by the author
2) Strategic Financial Management:
I would recommend the book of Mr V Pattabhiram for this subject as you will feel the heart is light when reading it from this book as it covers all the concepts with easy to understand examples along with past examination and RTP Questions. The order of preparation can be as indexed in that book. However I would recommend to take Derivatives seperately as the coverage from examination might range between 10 to 20 Marks but the topic is rich in issues.
3) Advanced Auditing and Law:
The best recommended books are the ones authored by Mrs. Surbhi Bansal / Mr. Vinod Kumar Agarwal (For Audit) and Mr. Munish Bhandari (Undoubtedly) for Law. Ensure that you remember the key points by way of charts / mnemonics. Ensure that you write it down after preparation of every topic and revise it multiple times. A month before examination, kindly go through the practice manual of ICAI to know how the suggested answers are drafted especially for practical questions to have a feel of the examiner's expectations. Please do not give more importance to remembering section numbers as the provisions are more important in the answer sheet.
General Advise:
a) Pick one book for every subject (Apart from FR for which a seperate study on AS & Ind AS is required) as per your choice or the recommendations above and believe that the coverage will be good enough to secure good marks in exams.
b) Rather than going through multiple RTPs restrict yourself to the latest one that is published a month before exams and ensure that you actually revise from them by trying the answers on your own rather than auditing the solutions.
c) During the preparation stage of practical papers wherever you have committed a mistake highlight the same in a seperate ink in your notebook so that while revising you will ensure that same mistake is not committed in exams.
e) 100% coverage is impossible and there is always an element of surpise in exams. If there are certain topics (Say financial instruments in case of FR) which even after multiple preparations is very difficult for you to pick up do not fight with those topics rather respect that topic and leave it out of your preparation to progress further. Remember you should be strong enough on the other topics (Especially those in which the questions are directly from past examination problems).
f) Take up model exams before main exams as a good performance there will boost your confidence and an otherwise performance will induce you to put in more effors.
Wish you all the very best for your preparation and the success.
Thanks and Regards
K Sathish