[sapphire16]

Hi Ali,

I’m based in London and will sit AFM in March 2022. Were you still after a study buddy for these revision stages?

[sapphire16]

Passed with 51%

Very happy to have passed as I didn’t finish all questions and was preparing for a retake!

The sustainability reporting and ethics questions I think got me alot of marks as I remember typing alot of detail there.

But I attempted every question and put something down in each section so it all helped!

Thanks so much to OT! I just used them and Kaplan’s kit.

[sapphire16]

@amstax

I had the exact same set of questions.

I overran on time for Section A too, and only had about 20 mins or so for the last question.

That last question felt like the hardest of the three, I couldn’t fully wrap my head around it with the limited time and the scenario felt the most complexed.

Did you manage to put any performance measures for the three stakeholders?

The 7S question I put various points about the staff disharmony, and how the two companies needed to align the differences in their goals (quality vs focus on VFM) but I may have repeated some points for each of the soft skills.

[sapphire16]

For 1st question, did anyone manage to calculate any thing for the additional proposed indicators? I think it was TSR, ROCE and inventory days?

I thought info was missing for these to fully calculate so I commented on what they can reflect but didn’t have any numbers. Did anyone calculate something?

[sapphire16]

I thought the questions were decent, but my time management was off so I pretty much scrambled to get figures on the page for the cost quality section, I just about put the figures in under the 4 headings and gave some other comments about JIT for the first bit.

For Eva, I had practice but was a little shaky with amendments so don’t think I got the calculation fully right.

For EVA difficulties I mentioned that the WACC can be hard to quantify exactly, that it is an absolute measure so can’t be compared to the EVA of their competitors/other companies if they are a different size.

In general what did people for setting targets/implementing measures under V? I waffled a bit about how their objectives would focus on externally staying ahead of the competition so mentioned models like the balanced scorecards with factors like innovation, etc. With examples of a measure. Not sure if that was right

[sapphire16]

Hi, I’m not sure if other exam centres will have different screens, maybe one of the ACCA admins could advise in a phone call/email if there are any centres with bigger screens.

I’ve done 3 CBE exams in different London centres (East London – Poplar, Hoxton) and Metropolitan University.

The Hoxton one is meant to be quite popular and their systems and procedures are good but I think the screen size was similar across the three centres.

I don’t know if you experienced this with Met. University, but they were by far the worst centre for organising the students in the right place, and there were several complaints when I sat my F8 paper in 2018, but maybe it’s better now.

[sapphire16]

I’ve also finished all my applied skills exams, and currently working on the Ethics and Professional Skills module online.

I heard that this module is useful to complete before starting the Professional papers, as there are concepts/topics in here which are useful to know in the exams.

I also read that leaving SBL until last (the 4 hour exam) is ideal because it draws on knowledge across the other papers.

Otherwise I think they can be done in any order. I will start with APM, SBR then AAA for my personal choice.

[sapphire16]

Did anyone also have a section B question about an insurance claim made by the audit client of $0.9m where they recognised the claim amount as a current asset receivable? The insurers couldn’t confirm if payment would be made and if it’s not resolved what would the audit report opinion be.

It seemed to be about how to treat a possible contingent asset, and my answer was along the lines ofthr claim receipt not confirmed as probable/almost certain, so the provision treatment was incorrect and a qualified opinion would apply

[sapphire16]

@ryuko18 said:
Did anyone get:

1. Minstix Co (Substantive procedures and report for 5 marks at the end) and;

2. Zulu Co (Internal Controls for deficiency, recommendation and test of control)

3. I forgot the company name for the Audit Risk, but it was the one with a bank loan with a covenant attached of minimum $1m pre tax annual profit.

Did anyone get these 3? (if you remember the company for the audit risk let me know hehe)

Yes I got these 3! I also think the 3rd one was called Labrador?

I had to totally rush that last question but managed to put in 3 ratios and a few audit risks but not all.

Which ratios did you use? Also do you remember any of the deficiencies/recommendations that you put for Zulu?

[sapphire16]

@monicastoimenova said:
I found the paper OK. Section A multiple choice was so-so. Section B had one scenario in relation to exchange rates (money market hedging, future forward rate and etc.), one in relation to the EOQ model, and one for a business valuation. The first section C question was to calculate the cost of equity using the CAPM method and a proxy company. It then asked us to explain three problems with a high gearing level and lastly, we had to discuss the risk-return relationship of debt and finance and comment on the financial aspect of the scenario. The second question was to compare lease and buy options, EAC or replacement period and to discuss four reasons as to why NPV is superior to IRR.

And that’s it from me…

We had almost the exact paper it seems.

There are a few questions which have been bothering me in terms of the answers I put.

There was a question about EOQ, in which a discount of 0.05% was offered if the company ordered 60,000 units minimum. They currently were ordering 20,000 each time.
I did the normal comparison of without discount (20,000 units) or with discount (60,000) and worked out the difference in cost, but could not get any of the answers provided, mine was different even though I did all the steps.

Did you manage to get an answer for this out of the options (did anyone else get this question either)? I was thinking of trying the EOQ formula and comparing that to the 60,000 option, but I thought it was to compare against their current order level of 20,000.

Also there was a money market hedging question about using the forward rate to hedge against the remaining risk. There were $ receipts and payments, also a pesos amount. I was hesitant about the figure I used – to either multiply the $ amount of the receipts (800,000 I think) with the forward rate, or to match it first with the payment of 50,000, therefore only leaving 30,000 to hedge. This was what I did (assume they matched the recieipts/payments first then forward rate the remainder). I only did this because the question said “remaining” risk. It made me hesitant seeing that but I’m concerned that it’s maybe not right.

[sapphire16]

Passed with 53! My hardest paper so far – very grateful I’ve passed.

[sapphire16]

@snell123 said:
Does anyone remember any of the mcq’s from the cbe?

I was hoping to be able to discuss alot of the multiple choice answers with others but alot the questions are randomly allocated aren’t they? But hopefully there will be some shared ones amongst us.

My mind has gone a bit blank but did anyone have some of these:

– Borrowing costs – was asked when should borrowing costs be capitalised – from when various costs to prepare the land/warehouse for building were incurred (9 months) or from when the warehouse was physically built (9 months)? Loan was in place before both events.

– True/false question about intangible assets being permitted for revaluation or being banned

– Physical capital maintenance question which provided selling price, opening cost and closing cost

– A section A question with 3 project scenarios for development costs asking for total expenses charge to SPL from all 3 projects. I calculated two of the projects fine but one of them I kept getting a strange number based on the time apportioning (5/12) for that project. Did anyone get the correct answer for this.

I had no questions at all in any section on EPS, financial instruments, cash flows, foreign currency – some of my strongest areas! :(. Its meant to be randomised but my MCQ experience was heavily focused on consolidation extracts (which I’m good with too) and alot of the smaller standards (which I’m okay with memory wise).

[sapphire16]

62% first attempt – very happy and relieved to have passed, as I didnt have the amount of revision time which I would have preferred, and it led to me losing marks on silly mistakes.

Grateful to OT as always!

[sapphire16]

Hi, I did the exact same thing when I sat F5 in March 2016. I attempted all questions but I forgot to tick the questions I attempted on the front sheet, and got worried. However, I did I did shade the bubble at the top of the page where a new question started.

I had no reason to worry, as they marked the paper fine and I passed.

Good luck with your results 🙂

[sapphire16]

@bgermaine1 said:
Hi,

Now after thinking about the exam I’m not sure if I answered a question 6 or not. I vaguely remember doing a loss question that involved adjusting depreciation and using some time proportioned WDA on capital allowances.

Although I’ve done so many practice questions and with getting caught up in the exam I really can’t remember.

Was the 6th question actually hard to miss? And would some one please be kind enough to provide abit more detail of how the question was presented.

Thank You

Hi, what you’ve remembered does relate to question 6. The question asked us to to make adjustments to the trading loss, where we start with the loss figure and add back any deduction which wasn’t allowable, or put a 0.

There was a capital allowance working required, and the wda would be time apportioned. There were a couple of main deductions in the question which were further broken down into seperate notes, like professional fees, entertainment expenses, etc. all were broken down further so we would decide whether it was all allowable or not.

The question was behind a page which didn’t have a question on it, but there was bit of text on the blank page to indicate that question 6 is there when you turn over.

[sapphire16]

@rustamrakhmatov27 said:
Saphire, hey. There was proceeds to charge against twdv and that was negative. about 3500 negative MP. and 2nd, comes 3 months of written down allowance of SP about 300. The answer should be 3330 charge.:)

Hi, thanks for your response. I remember that there was a motor car which had sale proceeds much higher than it’s purchase cost.

But the disposals would have to be restricted to the lower of the proceeds or the cost, wouldn’t it? So I put the costs figure for the disposals, and I didn’t get a negative pool balance when I deducted this from the TWDV + acquisition cost of the motor car. Similarly for the other pool, mine wasn’t negative. Do you remember the figures so I could see where I went wrong? I’m usually strong at capital allowances 🙁

[sapphire16]

@chantie123 said:
sonyam, the last bonus’ entitlement fell in the next tax year

I think the last bonus entitlement was dated 1 April, so it would fall in the relevant tax year.

[sapphire16]

I didn’t have negative capital allowance to add back, in the CT question 🙁

How come balancing charges were added? The main rate pool and special rate pool weren’t negative after the disposals, and I don’t remember the company being in their final year of trade?

[sapphire16]

@bose12 said:
I used the market value. The accommodation was given more than 6 years to the employee since it was purchased. The questions were too piled up. Keeping records for to couple with the child benefit charge: the wife is 2017 and husband 2021 because he’s into business

I got the same answer for the MCQ on the records retention. For the accomodation working in the IT question, there were 2 market values, did you use the first one? I incorrrectly used the second one

[sapphire16]

@sonyam11 said:
Aside from the fact I had a nightmare with this paper could someone please answer the question in the IHT question that asked why it’s more beneficial to leave your estate to grandchildren rather than children??

I am at a complete loss, wrote nothing! I know that was only 2 points so no big deal (least of my worries!) but it’s bugging me!

Did everyone else have lots of Cs in the MCQ?

For the IHT, I wrote that if grandchildren inherit the estate instead of the children, then it prevents further IHT tax arising say, when the children eventually die and pass the estate to the grandchildren that way. This is beneficial, provided that the children can financially cope without the inheritance going straight to them first.

For other questions:

– What VAT accounting scheme did people put as most beneficial the VAT return question?

– For the capital allowance working, did people multiply the WDA % by 3/12?

– The Income Tax question (trading profit working) – For the partnership question, I time-apportioned the profit before splitting it between the partner, as the profit arrangement was for January to June 2015 (I think). Based on that as this profit arrangement was for 6 months, I remember taking the profit for Lucille, and further time-apportioning it until the end of the tax year (January to April 2015) – profit x 3/6 months. I put this figure in the computation.

Did anyone do anything similar?

[sapphire16]

@ipavlena said:
Guys, in the Q5 regarding the taxable benefit – accommodation – as the property was purchased more than 6 years, which market value did you use – I chose the most recent one

I used the most recent market value too but I’m not sure if it was the right market value to use, because the Kaplan book says that we use the market value when the property was first provided.

I think the exam gave us two market values (which I wasn’t used to seeing), and so I picked the most recent one which I think was 5 April 2015 (or near the end of the tax year), and I used that instead of the other market value, which was probably from the year that the employee was given the house. (Hopefully we only lose half a mark for this, as the rest of the calculation working would be (MV-75,000) x 3.25%, which I did.

[sapphire16]

Thank you sir 🙂

[sapphire16]

Hi gothrogue,

The study text confirms that for relevant earnings, it will include taxable trading profits, employment income and furnished holiday lettings but not investment income. Things which aren’t included will be income like dividend income, or property income.

With property income, the only way it is included as relevant earnings, is if it meets the criteria for a commercially let Furnished Holiday Letting (FHA).

If it does qualify as an FHA, it remains assessable as property income, but the profits are treated as arising from a seperate trade, and is calculated seperately from other rental properties. Another advantage is that it will be treated as relevant earnings, unlike the income from other properties.

Chloe will only receive tax relief on contributions, which are the the lower of:

(1) Total gross pension contributions paid (for Chloe this is £8,200)
(2) Maximum annual amount*

*The maximum annual amount is the higher of:

– £3,600
– 100% of the individual’s ‘relevant earnings’, chargeable to income tax in the tax year.

I see from the question that Chloe doesn’t have any other income (therefore no income for relevant earnings) so 100% of her relevant earnings is 0. The figure of £3,600 is higher than this, so £3,600 is used.

Comparing (1) £8,200 to (2) £3,600, Chloe can only claim relief on the lower of this, so she can only claim for £3,600.

£3,600 is not what she paid net of tax. £3,600 is what she can claim tax relief for, after making a contribution of £8,200, and then assessing her maximum relied using the above rules.

The textbook mentions that basic rate tax relief is automatically given by deduction at source when contributions are paid, as an individual makes contributions net of the basic rate of income tax (20%)

HMRC pay the 20% tax relief to the personal pension scheme.

I hope this has helped you a bit 🙂

[sapphire16]

Class 1A is payable by the employer only, for assessable benefits which they provide.

So if there’s a question asking to calculate the employees Class 1 NIC, or for the national contributions payable by the employees, this would only be Class 1 primary as that is the NIC class which concerns employees.

[sapphire16]

@pslana2015 said:
Could you please give a link on them? Thanks in advance!

No problem, the technical articles for F5 are here: https://www.accaglobal.com/uk/en/student/exam-support-resources/fundamentals-exams-study-resources/f5/technical-articles.html

They were really useful, especially when revising, and there are also further videos at the bottom on certain topics too.

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