Certified Bookkeeper Exam 2026: 2 of 4 Parts Are Open Book

Two of the four parts of the Certified Bookkeeper exam are open book. And you can pass the whole exam before you have any bookkeeping experience, because the experience requirement can be met afterward. Both facts change how you should plan.

The Certified Bookkeeper designation is awarded by the American Institute of Professional Bookkeepers. It certifies that you can carry out all bookkeeping functions through the adjusted trial balance, including basic payroll, for a firm of up to one hundred employees. It is voluntary: employers decide for themselves whether to ask for it.

The national exam has four parts. Parts one and two are multiple choice, taken on a computer at a Prometric test center, in either order. Parts three and four are open book tests that come with your study workbooks, with no time limit and no fee. Non-programmable calculators are allowed at Prometric.

Passing marks differ by part. Each test at Prometric needs seventy-five percent, and your score prints the moment you finish. The two open book parts need seventy percent. The institute's handbook gives no question counts, so treat any prep site that quotes one as a guess.

Here is what each part covers. Part one is adjustments and error correction: accruals, deferrals and the adjusted trial balance, then correcting errors and the bank reconciliation. Part two is payroll and depreciation. Part three is inventory. Part four is internal controls and fraud prevention. No percentage weights are published, so do not go hunting for a breakdown. Treat all four parts as fair game.

Certification has three requirements: pass the exam, sign the code of ethics, and show two years of full-time bookkeeping experience, or three thousand hours part-time or freelance. The experience can come before or after the exam, and you have three years from the date you pass to finish it. Once your application is processed, you have one year to complete any one part, and three years to pass all of them, or you register again and retake everything.

If you fail, you retake only the part you failed, after a thirty day wait. Pass payroll but fail depreciation, and you can retake just depreciation. Retaking an open book part costs nothing. Once certified, you keep the designation by earning sixty continuing education credits every three years.

The key insight is that open book does not mean automatic. Seventy percent still has to be earned, and the institute says the national exam questions are similar to, but never duplicates of, the workbook quizzes. So redo those quizzes until you know why each answer is right.

Let us try two real questions from the Quibank bank. Question one. On November first, a firm paid nine thousand dollars for six months of rent beginning that day, and debited the entire amount to Rent Expense. What is the December thirty-first adjusting entry? A, debit Rent Expense three thousand, credit Prepaid Rent three thousand. B, debit Prepaid Rent six thousand, credit Rent Expense six thousand. C, debit Prepaid Rent three thousand, credit Rent Expense three thousand. D, debit Rent Expense six thousand, credit Prepaid Rent six thousand.

The answer is B. The payment was debited to an expense, so the adjustment moves out the part not yet used. Rent is fifteen hundred a month. November and December are used up, which leaves four months, or six thousand dollars, to move into Prepaid Rent.

Question two. A bookkeeper wrote a check for seven hundred forty dollars but recorded it as four hundred seventy. What type of error is this? A, an omission. B, a slide. C, a classification error. D, a transposition.

The answer is D, a transposition: the digits were reversed. The out of balance difference is two hundred seventy dollars, which divides evenly by nine. That is the tell for a transposition or a slide. A slide is different: it moves the decimal point, like seven hundred forty recorded as seventy-four.

How should you prepare? One, work the workbook quizzes until the reasoning is automatic, starting with adjusting entries, where the whole question is whether the payment hit an asset or an expense. Two, learn the deciding vocabulary: cash versus accrual, expired versus unexpired, transposition versus slide, custody versus record keeping. Three, log your misses by part, and because you can retake one part after thirty days, clear the parts one at a time. Four, on every entry question, read what was already debited before you pick an answer.

To recap. Four parts: two multiple choice at Prometric needing seventy-five percent, and two open book needing seventy. Fail a part and you retake only that part. The experience requirement can be met after you pass. And sixty credits every three years keeps the designation.

Free Certified Bookkeeper practice, in English, Chinese and Spanish, is at quibank dot com. The link is in the description.