[colmjulian]

Overall, I found it quite frustrating.

Wow, Richard, i think we had a similar experience –

Q1 profit cost centre… i just waffled.. i checked the book there and there is not much in it
multilateral – not perfect but okay
hedging, im bad at anyway so more waffled
risk diversification thing has been asked loads of times, so i just put the old answer down about individual shareholders want risk diversification but institutional shareholders done

Q2 NPV bit i got 2 million,, but the risk thing i had no clue.. it was a very complex question with all the stuff about unit price, based on watts etc..
stuff about NPV being undervalued, i didnt really know, i just wrote something about improving reputation

Q3
strange marks set up
2 mark cash flow took a while to do
for new SOFP i was starting to feel time pressure , and i didn’t complete
last two parts were 15 marks. again it was just blah blah blah ´they are assuming they will get bank loan.. shareholders won’t be getting dividends..´

overall i think i did pretty bad and i don’t think i will pass

[colmjulian]

tough exam.. i probably failed

just one thing, if i have to repeat.. are collars still tested ? they havent come up, in years, i think

[colmjulian]

@jecksmelv said:
Q1 I found the 24 marks question really difficult for an audit risk question. The disclosure on the restructuring made it really hard. I eventually missed simple group audit risks like how complex the business was, the consolidation risks and the like. Restructuring had a lot of risks to identify.Joint ventures maybe for the new company, discontinued operations not properly presented, fair value risks etc. For new coffee shops Capitalization of intangibles and wrong amortization of 15k 3years intangibles for the new shops and probably contains expenses that should be expensed. Government grant there was bias to boost earning should be in OCI maybe. Materiality to P&L and SoFP. Question for additional doc requested easy 4 marks. Audit procedures easy 8 marks. Ethical issues were very evident in the scenario so quite good. Hope I get 70 percent of question one.
Q2. Very difficult.. Disaster. Evidence will probably help a bit. Sale and lease back I felt was correctly treated. Investment property not properly valued Ias 36 misapplied. Not material though to PandL. Shopping mall amortization reversal didn’t see what was wrong just saw a lot of back and forth with the estimates. Since it was material I wrote what I could. Evidence again to the rescue. 2B effect on audit report I did separately then combined. Since shopping mall was significant and pervasive on all FS I suggested adverse opinion and basis for adverse.

3. Forensic audit was the only nice question here but unfortunately time pressure had set in. First part just needed points about accepting the engagement. Competence, independence if audit client, if the report will be used for legal proceedings etc. Cool 8 marks. Procedures for quantifying inventory lost due to fraud… Ehhh kinda hard. Listed interviews, CAAT, recalculation and some control testing. 6 marks maybe I’ll get 4. Internal control deficiencies were very obvious so cool 6 marks. Last 5 marks was about mgt and the company’s auditors reaction to the discovered fraud. I blamed the mgt for weak controls but also blamed the auditors for not testing controls that resulted in mistatements in the FS. Explained how the ISAs required auditors to be sceptical and that it’s not their duty to prevent fraud but should have reported and discovered deficiencies also if they have caveat in their report it could help. Too much talk for a 5 mark question but time was almost up and I wanted to do the one I felt confident in while sulking on question 2.

again, i agree with a lot of your points

[colmjulian]

@pqukaccounts said:
From what I remember these were the questions and marks available:

Q1
Audit risks (24)
Additional information on disposal (4)
Procedures for a) joint venture classification, b) government grant (8)
Ethical and professional issues (10)
Professional marks (4)

Q2
Matters to consider
a) Sale and leaseback (8)
b) Investment property (6)
c) Impairment of mall (6)
Audit opinion (5)

Q3
Accepance of forensic audit (8)
What evidence needed to get value of fraud (6)
Criticism of controls and improvements to suggest (6)
Why auditors can’t always detect fraud (5)

All in all this paper was awful. No easy business risk marks, instead a nightmare scenario with a group with held for sale assets, joint ventures, planned future acquisitions, restructuring, and a requirement to talk about disclosures which I’ve never seen in any past questions…

Matters and evidence – the sale and leaseback was a mess, I have no idea what they did right or wrong. The others were okay, but the inclusion of a load of figures for the impairment was hard to deal with whilst sticking to the timeframe – I don’t see how anyone has the time to calculate part-year depreciation and/or impairment adjustments. Why not the usual short scenario with accounting explanations required, instead of tables of numbers to take into account in the few minutes you have to read it.

The final question being on forensic auditing also threw me. I couldn’t quite get my head around the mechanics behind the fraud, so couldn’t explain how to analyse it beyond generic “use CAATs to analyse transactions”, and controls criticism was also a bit weird.

All in all I never felt like I really knew what I was on about except for a couple of questions in Q2, but I did manage to write something for everything, so there’s an outside chance I pick up enough marks here and there to pass. If not, at least I know the resit can’t possibly be this hard.

i agree with so much of what you say

question two, it really was not clear, what was wrong, though part B kind of gave it away… speaking of part B, that bit seemed pretty clear – a modified opinion

question three, the fraud was extremely complicated… i found the question ´how would you assess the inventory quantity loss´very difficult…what did everyone else write for this ?

[colmjulian]

@jecksmelv said:
not just you I actually checked but couldn’t see the place where it stated that it’s a new client. I also missed some easy marks on complexity due to restructuring, consolidation risks and the other easy bits. The 24 marks was just too much to grab

okay, it wasn’t 100% clear that it was a new client, but that was the interpretation i took from it… and certainly a lot of the activities that Ryder Group were engaging in , were new and there was a risk they would inflate figures to impress investors etc

[colmjulian]

Q3 – quantifying inventory loss, i found very hard

Q2 – was tricky… i said sale and leaseback was accounted for correctly, investment property should have been carrying value.. i didn’t really know what was wrong with shopping mall

Q1 – i had difficulty finding a lot of audit risks… new client, loads of expanding so they might manipulate etc

[colmjulian]

@johnramos said:
What did you guys write about leases??

this was about the only thing i knew about
some leases are not on the balance sheet, if low value or 12 months long
therefore that can distort ratios, such as gearing and ROCE

[colmjulian]

ridiculous exam
i stopped after two hours and just sat there
i don’t think i will get more than 20%
i filled in almost nothing for Q1
based on the two past exam papers and two specimen papers online, there was nothing relevant

[colmjulian]

@jdeally said:
Lots of marks going for the strategical and ethical implications of closing stores in Noria, and moving out of Centrum altogether, but yet only had a couple of points to make. What approach did other people have on this?

i agree with you.. i found very little potential points to make
i just said the economy might recover so it was a bit hasty
and there was always the option to approve the e-commerce side of things and see if that helps
and i waffled some rubbish about it being ethically dubious to leave Centrum while they are having such problems

[colmjulian]

@colmjulian said:
damn i should have used 5 forces for question 2
porters diamond just didn’t work

@irishrazor said:
1. (a) bit of Pestel
(b) risks faced and mitigation steps

2. (a) country vs country…bit general
Info and
abit of porters diamond
(b) strategic and ethical implications of
closing stores

3. internal control weaknesess and recommendations

4. (a) new database…crm stuff?..some 6
I’s??
(b)NPV of database project…some
sensitivity analysis, scepticism of
figures.

5. integrated reporting….drew out a
slide..benefits to stakeholders..6
capitals etc

BEST OF LUCK TO EVERYONE!

2 B – again i struggled to think of reasons of implications of closing stores… i just put it might be a bit premature because economy might be improving…anyone else ?
4B – a lot of figures remaining static which is a bit too simplistic
5 – i didn’t really mention 6 capitals because it was more about the use of IR

[colmjulian]

@ajjajj said:
Why are you here?? to show off. your comment is completely irrelevant to the subject matter. I scored high marks in both P6 and P2 that it does not mean I should go there an undermine other people knowledge or stressing them out.

Ajjaj, you are being harsh
if he really got that score , then of course he should be able to help us
and delete your blank comment above

[colmjulian]

@rootss said:
I got really confused with question two about strategic position and why they were successful in the Southland country
Which exhibit was relevant..? Tried to use the three countries macro report but didn’t seem to give me what the question wanted. Can someone shed the light on what exactly this question required and where to go for answers.

exactly
other than the 3 country comparison , there was almost no information
and even in the 3 country comparison, there were only a couple of details i saw relevant
eg. young consumers, higher earnings etc

[colmjulian]

@dannydeji said:
So many questions but very little information. I managed to give everything a good shot and managed by time efficiently.
In general most of my answers were develop round framework and models that gave me ideas to develop my points. 1b was the one I found most difficult; didn’t use any model on this occasion just wrote something along why I think Smart wears might be strategically located in southland using the comparative data provided

yes i read the paper over and over and over and struggled to see many reasons why the market was good in Southland ,as opposed to Novia

[colmjulian]

@ellephoebe said:
Yes I think pestel or 5 forces would have been fine but you don’t have to do this explicitly

damn i should have used 5 forces for question 2
porters diamond just didn’t work

[colmjulian]

@johnramos said:
Was this paper similar to any of the specimens, or sep and dec ?

it asked about Integrated reporting which i also think was asked about in the last exam in December

[colmjulian]

@femila said:
Did anyone use a model for question 1a

yes, PESTEL, though i struggled to make comments for Environmental and legal

I also used Porter´s diamond for the Southland comparison, but I struggled to find much to say

[colmjulian]

Risk of material misstatements, everyone ?
i put , from memory :
business expanding so staff make expenses
development and reseach may not be accouned for correctly
loan should be split between NCL and CL

damage to factory – for me the VIU should have been in the SOFP instead of the carrying amount

[colmjulian]

i put qualified , ‘except for’
it would be strange to have an adverse opinion.. it would need to be something massive

[colmjulian]

i forgot to mention NOCLAR, regarding Len’s email
i basically replied, auditor should find the facts, be discreet, speak to management, see if they have anything else to say, qualified opinion if they dont sort the issue out and beyond that he needs to question his duty to society and whether this should be reports

anyone else have a different answer ?

[colmjulian]

maybe others had a different experience
but for me, i did not mention biological assets
for example the question about the auditors expert, i just put competency, objectivity etc, but found it difficult tying in the biological assets thing to my answer

[colmjulian]

I did Irish version, but for me it was about not disclosing possibilities of subsidary not being a going concern

[colmjulian]

3a was before the tender

3b was assuming you accept the tender

[colmjulian]

for question 3-b-i , i did not interpret the question in this way
apart from anything the question was ‘assuming you accept the tender’…so why would you then answer about risks of the DD
i talked about stuff like, checking background of firm and the foreign territory

question 1
regarding auditors expert, i saw no relevance of the biological asset guidance thing… i just spoke about stuff like objectivity, competence, relevance of conclusions etc

[colmjulian]

question 1, i used PESTEL for both.. i don’t know if that’s okay

2a press release, seemed okay… i didnt get too specific regarding problems in Veenia, as i thought it would not be appropriate for a press release.. i just stuck to the high qualities of hi-lite and how we would invest money and time to fix problems

2b – i went through the different capitals and how both existing and new hotels fared… but when i read the question again, i saw it was how IR could be used.. so i panicked and added an extra line to each capital, saying something like ‘so shareholders could see the human capital via IR’

question 3, was very rushed.. i did question 2 in an hour, but question 3 i struggled with the same timeframe
3a i used porters five forces and waffled, like i did for most of the exam
3b was a disaster.. i didnt study this part, so just made a few points about having passwords and maybe an internal audit and blah blah

overall, i reckon i probably failed

[colmjulian]

Okay, somebody please explain this to me

I passed F5-F9 in about 18 months.. no major problems… {i was exempt from the first four, due to a diploma i finished in 2016, passing 8 exams all at first attempts}

I went straight into the advanced exams…So first up was AAA in September.. I was very confident because I did AA in December and there was a lot of repetition

I thought the exam went well.. only concern I had was my poor handwriting because I was writing so quickly.. but I was expecting about 60%

I got the result this morning – 20%.. what a joke.. impossible.. i never got a result in my life less than 45%… i will try and complain but i know i am wasting my money

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