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I’m still waiting for my certificate, even though the meeting, during which I’m told it was signed & sealed, was over 3 weeks ago. My qualification was several months ago.
On the ACCA website, there is P5 technical article called “Moving up from paper F5 to Paper P5.
If you Google it, it should answer all your questions.
A few points from it……..
Since Paper P5 builds on Paper F5, the examiner could assume you know all of the Paper F5 topics. In practice, the examiner is unlikely to examine Paper F5 topics in detail unless they are also specifically included within the syllabus for Paper P5 too. It is advisable however to have a good knowledge of certain areas of the Paper F5 syllabus before starting to study Paper P5. The areas of particular importance are as follows:
activity-based costing
budgeting
decision making
performance measurement.Activity-based costing, which is in Section A1 of the Paper F5 syllabus, feeds into activity-based management in the Paper P5 syllabus. Some activity?based management questions in Paper P5 exams have required candidates to perform calculations using activity?based costing principles, so it is important to have a good knowledge of this area.
The other specialist cost and management accounting techniques included in the Paper F5 syllabus which are also relevant to Paper P5 are target costing, lifecycle costing and environmental management accounting. However, as these are specifically included within the Paper P5 syllabus, candidates should be able to refresh and increase their knowledge of these from their Paper P5 materials.
Budgeting is another important area. In Paper P5, the focus is on whether budgets are a useful tool or not, and which types of budget are useful in what situations. It is useful, therefore, to be familiar with the following budgeting sections from Paper F5 syllabus:
C1 – Budgetary systems
C2 – Types of budget
C8 – Performance analysis and behavioural aspectsHi Kirstie27488,
I only have experience in doing Kaplan’s “Online Tuition Modules”, which are on their website for £45.
I am in the middle of doing the F6 course and I think it’s brilliant, because it very quickly covers the key areas likely to come up in the exam and gives you good exam technique.
However, I can’t speak for any of the other courses and of course everybody’s opinion is a personal one, as we all have different learning styles/preferences.
What exam are you doing? If any of them are the modules covered by John Moffat, the best choice you could ever make is to use the Open-Tuition lectures here!
Good luck.
Andrew
1) The unwinding of a discount (deferred consideration) is simply a charge to the Income Statement (I/S) for the post-acquisition period in the question.
For example, if you said you were going to pay $100 in 1 year and the discount rate is 10%, then you would do the following:
– Discount the $100 to present value: $100 ÷ 1.1¹ = 90.91 (PV of consideration)
– Then, we unwind the discount simply by multiplying by the discount factor… 90.91 x 10% = 9.1Therefore, DR Finance Charge (I/S) 9.1 and CR Deferred Consideration Liability (SFP) 9.1.
NOTE: If it is a mid-year acquisition, which almost always happens in the exam, then you have to time apportion the unwinding discount finance charge (i.e. x 6/12 if we purchased the subsidiary 6 months ago), because we haven’t incurred a full year’s worth of charge.
Actually that’s the best answer you could have given me, because it means I’m not completely missing the boat on something! 🙂
I’m not going to worry about one dodgy MCQ. I just wanted to know I had the principles in place.
Thanks for your help Mike.
Hi Mohammad,
I spoke to BPP about this already and they told me that there aren’t any changes to the syllabus.
There may be a few tiny things, which you can read on student accountant, but for sure you can continue using your “Up until June 2015” materials.
Good luck.
Andrew
Hi Mayanmar,
You can buy the F1 revision kit from either BPP or Kaplan’s website.
Just search on Google “ACCA F1 revision kit”.
Good luck!
Andrew
And watch John Moffat’s F5 lectures here on Open-Tuition. They are absolutely brilliant. I passed F5 first time because of him.
Hi Nelvin,
I would personally always go with BPP.
BPP is the official platinum tuition provider of the ACCA and the way they phrase questions and present questions in the exam kit is likely to be similar to the exam. So, if English is not your first language, getting familiar with the language used in questions is a good idea.
I also found the answers in BPP far more detailed and easier to understand than the Kaplan kits. However, that’s just my personal opinion.
Good luck with your studies.
Andrew
More than enough! Go through all the lectures, making notes on the lecture slides as you do, and then live and breathe the exam kit from BPP for 2 weeks or more.
I did this and passed well.
Good luck.
Hi Selimdu,
I am currently doing the BPP Online Classroom and I am not at all impressed with the quality of the teaching and written material.
I am left at the end of most lectures not really understanding anything and have just watched 5 Open-Tuition lectures and now understand things perfectly.
Just because something costs £400, doesn’t make it better.
My advice? Go through the Open-Tuition lectures, as this tutor is brilliant. Then, get yourself an exam kit from BPP or Kaplan and leave 3-4 weeks to live and breathe it.
And best of luck!
Andrew
For sure I’ll be re-sitting.
I thought it was a really hard and fairly unfair paper.
They made consolidation a 15 mark question and then put a TB for the 30 mark question.
Why? I mean, I understand they have to make the paper challenging, but that’s just screwing over people who studied hard and honestly.
The ratio question I had absolutely no clue what to do.
Best of luck to all of you all!
Hi Rustam,
When you dispose of a non-current asset, there are three steps.
Let’s say I have car I bought for $100 on 1st January 2015. It is now 31st December 2015 and somebody is offering to buy the car from me for $80. Depreciation has been charged straight line over 2 years (So, $50 has been charged this year).
1. Remove the non-current asset from the balance sheet at the original price I bought it for.
DR Disposal Account $100
CR Non-Current Asset $1002. Remove the accumulated depreciation balance from the balance sheet (as the asset is now gone!).
DR Accumulated Depreciation $50
CR Disposal Account $503. Record the actual sale of the non-current asset
DR Cash $80
CR Disposal Account $80You can now take the closing balance on the disposal account and if it is a CR balance then you have made a profit on disposal. A DR balance would indicate a loss on disposal.
In this case, the CR balance would be $30. A profit for me!
For current assets (inventory), you’re correct.
DR Cash
CR SalesAt the year end, you’ll then deal with inventory (see John’s lecture).
Hope that helps!
Andrew
Hi Danpsy,
As a VAT registered business, you essentially act as a tax collector for the state.
If you suffer tax on any purchases (input tax), the double-entry is:
DR Purchases (With the net cost)
DR VAT Account (With the amount of tax)
CR Cash/Payables (With the gross cost)The VAT you have to charge on any sales (if you’re VAT registered) is accounted for as so (output tax):
DR Cash (with the gross amount)
CR VAT Account (With the amount of tax)
CR Sales (Net Amount)So, at the end of the period (or maybe quarterly, when you calculate your VAT liability), you will balance off the VAT ledger account. If you are left with a Debit balance, then the tax authorities (HMRC in the UK) owe you money. If there is a Credit balance, you owe this amount to the tax authorities.
Hope that makes sense.
Best,
Andrew
Thanks John.
And congratulations on your Editor’s Special PQ Award 2015!
You’ve heard it 100 times before I’m sure, but my BPP & Kaplan courses had me so disillusioned and miserable with accountancy as a subject, but your teaching has made me truly love and understand it.
I can’t thank you enough.
Hope one day you’ll let me buy you a drink (or 10).
Cheers,
Andrew
Thanks for the quick reply. 🙂
I’m studying for F7 at the moment, but just flicked through my old notes to help refresh F3 and just wondered about this.
https://www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/qualifications/apply-now/exemptions.html
If that’s no help, then contact the ACCA directly using the contact details at the bottom of their homepage:
Hi A,
John’s lectures for F3 are so concise and clear, that I don’t think revision lectures are needed.
If you can do all the example questions from the course notes without needing help by looking at the answers, then you will fly through the exam.
Good luck!
And yes, all section A questions are just normal multiple choice.
And section B (6 longer questions) is also multiple choice, but with some drop-down parts and “tick the boxes” parts.
Have a look at that link and read the specimen paper so you know exactly what the format is.
Hi Daniel,
I passed F4 last week with 75% and I would say that the most important thing is just doing past exam questions, because these ensure you cover the “key” parts of the course.
After all, you can never know everything. I believe the key to exam success is knowing this and not getting too obsessed with the detail.
I would do the following:
1. Turn to the summary pages only of each chapter & learn the KEY points as best you can
2. Do as many past paper questions as possible! And then do some more! 🙂
So, good luck!
