Calculation

Imagine this:

You carry out a 4 element calculation involving (say) a quarter of a year, but instead of dividing by 3 and multiplying by 12, you see that a ‘quarter’ involves a ‘4’ and you divide by 4 and multiply by 12

Your answer is clearly now incorrect but whereas the correct calculation would have resulted in an amount that was material in context, your mis-calculation results in an amount that is immaterial

So in answer to a question that asks for (for example) “What further procedures would you carry out …?” or “What evidence would you expect to find on your review of the audit file?” your response would be massively understated because the matter in (incorrectly) identified by you as immaterial

Or you have applied your figure to two or three ratio calculations and drawn incorrect conclusions because your calculated ratios are compared with last year’s equivalents and your answers are clearly wrong

But all you did was carelessly take a ‘quarter’ of a year as being 4 months

If you haven’t shown your workings you run the risk of losing all the marks that are based on that calculated figure

If you DO show your workings a marker should see that you’ve made just one careless error and you would lose just 1 mark for that error. But the remainder of your answer, so long as it’s relevant and sensible, should still have the opportunity of scoring

Another thing … if you’re having to do the calculation anyway, how much time are you saving by not writing down your workings?

It isn’t worth the risk!

Show your workings

OK?