*** March 2025 ACCA AAA exam – Instant Poll and comments ***

2nd attempt, bit disappointed that no sustainability reporting came but I believe I made a better attempt this time.

I got business risks, romms, big data and ethics for Q1.

@katiewebb – ouch, think that variant might have been the tougher one out of the two so far 🙁

I also got the same as the user above me, it was a case study on a fast fashion retailer that was purchasing a brand for the first time in the furniture industry… I attempted Q1 last therefore I remember the most detail.

Q1 – (a) business risks (10 marks)
Quite a lot going on here. Exploitation of labour, environmental considerations, complex distribution channels, buying into the furniture industry through a brand that suffered from declining sales and no online order facilities.
There was also a highly niche, specific scenario of their shipment cargo being stuck in a (suez) canal (found it rather funny how the examiner incorporates real life into the questions) and missing the window on the summer fashion cycle, meaning that there was significant doubt over that material inventory stuck on the cargo ship.

Q 1 – (b) ROMMs (16 marks)
Risks of material misstatement on the brand recognition, lack of amortisation, (can others confirm that they did NOT read that the useful life was indefinite?), inventory stuck on cargo, inventory potentially obsolete in the warehouse, decreasing their customer returns by 10% etc.

Q 1 – (c) Data analytics procedures on inventory (6 marks)
Had to leave this one and move on, no time to spare, it was quite time pressured in that there was a lot to tackle in the others

Q 2 – (d) usual ethical threats stuff… (8 marks)
They wanted one of our audit partners become their NED for 6 months, 50% discount on their brand as a thank you, they wanted us to review their interim financial statements in addition to their statutory audit, and one more detail I can’t remember.

The question on completion, I attempted second.
Q 2 – (a) Wow my mind is blank, can anyone confirm what this was? I spent around 45 minutes for these 12 marks and cannot remember for the life of me!

Q 2 – (b) Critically appraise the auditors report (8 marks)
Had to leave this one and move to Q1 as I was running on 1.5 hrs left and needed to cut my losses

The third question I attempted first, therefore remember the least :O
Q 3 – (a) Matters to consider with regards to the ethical and professional matters to consider in determining whether to continue being their auditor (10 marks)
The FD had joined the board of this company, after failing a financial services venture in the past and STILL being investigated by the regulatory body about regulation breaches. I thought this was a rather common sense type of question.

Q 3 – (b) Matters to consider with regards to what should the AUDIT COMMITTEE have considered, that impacted AUDIT QUALITY (10 marks)
Here the audit committee had been practically useless. They failed to flag how hard it is to measure cryptocurrency, and other things you could also tackle through a common sense approach.

Impressions? Fair set of questions!! This was my first attempt and I expected there to be a few more marks awarded to just straight up knowledge but there wasn’t any. Fingers crossed to us all!

I had the same exact questions attempted question 2 first. The 12 mark question was comment on the audit evidence obtained on the integrated report. One of the biggest give aways was that they stated they made a 20% increase in revenue when they actually made a decrease in revenue. Then we had to suggest further audit procedures to be done.

@katiewebb It’s a bit blurred now but definitely the intercompany transactions, I did two risks on that, risk of elimiating them in the group statements and stuff about contingent inventory but that one was too weak. Then there must have been a risk in the acquisition of the new sub, then I put perishable inventory but that one was weak as well since we couldn’t state how material it was! Then the possible provision for the legal claim and the the othet thing the FD didn’t want to disclose. It was too hard since they didn’t provide enough figures to determine materiality…