[isookvi]

I can strictly speak from my experience. In my case, I got the acceptance to membership email (which basically means application is reviewed and ready to be accepted to membership) within 3 days and my status on myacca was changed to Graduate pending member. However, one becomes a full member and allowed to use the letters only after ACCA committee seals the certificate and membership dues are paid, which could take around 6 weeks or so.

Hope this helps.

[isookvi]

@captmario – I believe that the way you have approached this by calculating ratios for 4 years but discussing variations for three years is absolutely correct. In fact, that is exactly how I did it in my RAP. I prefer this way as for the “first” year in your analysis, you need a “base” year to compare it with. A stand alone ratio for the first year is useless if its not compared to previous year because as you have already indicated; thats how you can identify a trend.

Good luck!

[isookvi]

@awais21 – No worries. My knowledge is pretty limited to topic 8 based on my own research and I always hope that @trephena would correct me if I am off somewhere.

@trephena – No need to thank me as I try to jump in every now and then to see if any questions were left unanswered (though I rarely find any lol). OT is lucky to have you as their moderator as you put a lot of effort in these forums. OT helped me a lot when I was studying ACCA and working on my project. I recently got my full membership of ACCA and feel the need to jump on here, whenever I can, to see if I can be of some assistance.

[isookvi]

@awais21 – If you are already comparing your main company with its competitor then I do not think you would “need” industry average. Basically, the whole purpose of this comparison is to determine the ‘strategic position’ of your main company. And to give meaning to your analysis. For example; if a company has 55% GP margin, you cant tell if its good or bad until you compare it with a similar company. In my opinion, your analysis will be much better if the competitor are similar in terms of market, operations, products etc. For instance, Apple and Microsoft are generally seen as competitors but if you were to do your analysis on these two companies, you will notice that the differences in their products make them very different. Microsoft has a big portion of revenue coming in from their licensing fees and thats how they generate “recurring” revenue. Its more focused on software compared to Apple, which believes in integrating both. This is just to give you an example that if you ever doubt your analysis, just step back and look at the bigger picture and “why” are you doing something.

I also want to add that if you are using the above mentioned format in your RAP analysis then in my opinion, you are wasting valuable words. For example, you can combine step 1, 2 and 5 in one single graph. In excel you need to choose the format of the graph that shows your figures at the bottom and prepare the graph for both the main company and the competitor.

[isookvi]

@trephena Thanks! I really want to raise awareness of this issue among other students. ACO investigation is a very stressful period and even if they allow you to re-submit, you might still be paranoid of it being deferred again. Its not only stressful but humiliating as well.

Everyone should realize that if you are expelled from ACCA due to cheating, it can have dire consequences on your future.

Just one example is if you ever apply to another professional organization (for example ,CPA), they will most certainly ask you “if you have ever been sanctioned by another professional body” or something of sorts. Same goes for the universities.

So please do not ask for samples. Instead ask for advice.

[isookvi]

@avian No worries!

[isookvi]

@trephena

Thanks and I will try my best to stay active. I benefited a lot from these forums and want to give some back.

[isookvi]

In my opinion, you need to look at the last three years as a whole and not look at them separately. This will provide you for a better current “strategic position” of the company.
For example, for SWOT analysis, lets say that your company is looking for export in 2011 and is very well suited for it. So, you can include this as a strength. But then when doing PEST analysis, you find out that in 2013 the govt. changed its export policy which somehow puts your company in a bad position. Then you cant include that as a strength. So, you need to look all three years as a “whole” and include only points that still hold true for the company. Also, from my above example, another point to note is to LINK your PEST with SWOT and then these two with your Financial analysis.

In addition, you should also provide a little bit of future trend when doing business analysis of macro environment.

[isookvi]

@avian will

My first submission was referred to ACO because it was not properly referenced and the ACO suspected a case of collusion.I was allowed to make another submission, however, was told that my RAP would be scrutinized closely. So, I know very well about this fear having gone through it myself.
In my second submission, I chose a company which is extremely popular among students to prepare a RAP on and I am sure that in my submission period, many other students would have chosen the same company. But I was hell bent on using that because of my interest and the amount of information that was easily accessible. I made sure that I referenced everything properly, kept all of my notes and drafts, saved all of my emails to and from my mentor and saved anything (images, articles etc.) that might have helped me in preparing my RAP. This should be a common practice while preparing your RAP. This would serve as a back up if you find yourself in the unfortunate situation of having your result deferred. I learned this the hard way. So, my advice to you would be to do the same. If you prepare your RAP yourself and reference everything properly then you do not have to worry about anything such as using a popular company.
Just to give you an example; in the evaluation and analysis section, I referenced each graph to my appendices which consisted of the data for that graph. And in my appendices I referenced the data from financial statements back to the financial statements of the company. I made sure that I “over reference” instead of “under reference”. As a result, my list of references consisted of 90 references.

My last advice would be to not look at any samples even for guiding purposes. If you have any questions or you get stuck somewhere, just post on this forum and you will get a lot of replies. Also, read a lot around these forums. There are a lot of hidden gems in these threads.

Hope this helps.

[isookvi]

Hi Avian,

1) Assuming you are opting for topic 8, you have to use the last three years’ audited financial statements of the company. You are not supposed to follow calendar year (Jan to Dec) rather fiscal year of the company you are researching on. So if your company’s fiscal year ends on Feb 2014, it means that their fiscal year is from March 2013 to Feb 2014. You do not need to calculate 52 weeks, just use their published audited statements for last three years.

2)This depends on the ratios you want to calculate and whether or not you want to include cash flow analysis as part of your evaluation. For example if you want to calculate Dividend cover then you would need SOCIE as it lists the dividend paid for that particular year. But I assume that a well balanced evaluation should have cash flow analysis; either integrated with other ratios or as a separate analysis (but still linked to the rest of the analysis, of-course)

I would advise you to read these forums thoroughly especially the “Top Tips” thread. There are a lot of gems hidden in these OBU threads.

I hope this helps and best of luck.

[isookvi]

I do hve the original file but its incomplete. Nothing I can do about this now. I hope marker understands my referemcing. Here is me hoping against hope for the next 4 months 🙁

[isookvi]

OMG – I know you are right. I should have listened to you but Bsc. info pack threw me off. I cant believe I have done this. And no I counted, I have done it 11 times in financial analysis out of 80 plus references in my entire report. Where I could I did avoid it but in a lot of paragraphs because I was summarizing, I didn’t.

I feel extremely regretful now. This attempt was very important for me. These are going to be the longest 4 months of my life 🙁

[isookvi]

Wow…. that is a great response. And you are right, I am quite relieved lol. I just prefer the numbering system because I can state it with each fact and figure and is a lot less confusing (for the reader) if i have used multiple sources within one paragraph.

Cheers and thanks again.

[isookvi]

I have a question regarding harvard referencing. If the in text citation is numeric (instead of alphabetic=author name, date) and the list of references is arranged numerically but the format of references is as per the Harvard referencing as indicated in OBU pack, would that be correct? The reason I ask is the numeric style makes it easier for me to make sure that I did not miss anything while referencing. Please see example below and let me know if this is ok?

In text citation:
There were a lot of interesting topics to choose from the Oxford Brookes University’s list of suggested topics[1].

List of references
1. ACCA (2014) Oxford Brookes BSc Degree resources, 26 March, [Online], Available: https://www.accaglobal.com/gb/en/student/acca-qual-student-journey/bsc-degree.html [Accessed 01 April 2014].

[isookvi]

I have an issue with the word count being too low. I was going for the quality of the report rather than quantity and ended up with only 5500 words. is this too low to achieve a pass?

I have not included the graphs in my report rather I have included in the power point slides and excel tables.

Please advise.

Thanks

[isookvi]

Thank God, I passed this paper in first attempt….passed at exactly 50

[isookvi]

Thanx werty, Its absolutely clear to me now. English not being a first language to me gets in my way of understanding some obvious things.

[isookvi]

Hello,
Could you please add me as well to your mailing list. My email id is isookvi@gmail.com

Thankyou.

[isookvi]

I’m in

[isookvi]

Passed with 62%. Thanks Allah.

[Author]

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