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did anyone think that in relation to the allegations re conduct and ethic a lot was based on hearsay and gossip – the guy seemed to hear a lot from 3rd parties
@Tishta – I had the same questions. Wrote pretty much the same as you did. Must say it was pretty generic, I didn’t reference too much theory in my answers but tried to be as specific as they asked in requirement.
Yes @antowhelan I wrote some parts of it could be rumour – source of information need to be identified. Interview Tim So. More clarification about the relatinship with Duncan I believe – leads to familiarity and self interest threats if deemed to be the case that he has investment in property develpment. Remove him from future involvment with that particular client. In the future, written declerations by employees that they do not have any business or close family relationships prior to audits.
Lack of documenting audits – business issues – lack of professional competence – auditors need to be able to back up their conclusions with evidence and documenting this leaves an audit trail that others can follow. Offer training and talk to anybody in Tim’s team to ensure they understand best practices and havent been negatibely influenced by him. Train them on why internal controls are important and why they must be followed. Speak with manager that made these accusations to the other manager, verify whether this is true.
Overriding management controls – taking resources from other departments. Means delays in other clients work – sets a bad tone and control environment. Implement a process whereby another layer of management has to authorise taking staff for audit engagements – segregatrion of duties ensures independence and adds another layer of control
In terms of qs 5 – also risk based. Risks facing the company, implications of competitor actions and suggestions how to counteract these threats.
Made two points about increasing competition and loss of key staff. Tacit knolwedge is lost especially when key staff leave – skills and experience lost too – may reduce quality of audit. In terms of competition, less bargaining power with their clients, cant set prices, reduces profit margins. Already admin and infrastructure costs are depressing margins. This will do this further
Competitor action is the big four moving to non audit work – think i worked out that non audit work accounts for 65% of their revenue or potentially more. Signficant implications – they may have mre bargaining power. Even if they dont, they will offer high level competition
Technological developments – could offer differentiation for competitors – clients are asking for identity on the part of auditors – this could be a way for clients to distinguish theirselves, differentiate and create a competitive advantage. Furthermore, could mean higher initial costs but lower cost base in the future as they exploit technology to reduce costs. Didnt offer how this could be
Lastly, the last slide I said invest in technology and realing theirselves strategically potentially. Ran out of time here so that is as far as i got
There were prof marks for sceptisism relating to fired manager mail. So i was structuring my answer accordingly. Like:
Manager stated that partner is the only one who makes promotions/redundancy decisions and only staff from previous partner’s company were promoted and only staff from second company were made redundant. There is a risk of… blablabla. However, it should be kept in mind that manager may not be aware of all promotion/redundancy procedures. Also manager did not state a reason for his redundancy. It is also prossible that people were promoted and made redundant based on their performance, not perious place of work.Suggestions: to ensure hr policy is clear enough to all employess, embrace feedback practice so that staff knew why they’re promoted/fired. For decision it’s best practice it hold a round tables where all partners and senior managers could discuss each staff performance and discuss promotion.
I think this exam was disaster. I didn’t use any models because I had no idea how to apply them in my answers. Questions were not clear to me, especially question 5 with slides. I spend so much time on learning all models and how structure your answer, and they decided to surprise us with audit company.
I am pretty sure that I will not pass this exam. Someone asked before- I had the same issue- system freezing 15 minutes before exam ended. Invigilator advised that he/she is not able to help me if exam will not reload. It didn’t and my only option was to submitt complaint to ACCA. Not sure if I will pass even if they will take into consideration these 15 minutes lost.
But I am sure that I will not attempt more remote exam sessions. It is not worth it to have so much stress about technical issues.For the slides the mentioned 1)quality control review- The quality control review would be important that would allow the firm to review the work of other firm. Furthermore a quality control partner needs to be employed to ensure that work has being carried out independently and effectively 2) hr polices- as there has being lack of communication between the junior and senior staff. He policies needs to be implemented to ensure there would be supervision between these staff to ensure there is proactive communication. Are my points correct for the slide?
For the ethics and investigation I wrote 1)Hr issues- there has being communication problem between the senior and junior staff and work has not being assigned properly leading to work not being done effectively. This threat would be investigated by implementing adequate timetable in the planning process to ensure that the employees record the time in which the work has being completed and to ensure the supervision is in place so that there is proactive communication within the firm 2)familiarity threat: as Toby and tim use hang a lot golfing and going on vacation this has lead to Familarity threat. This threat would be investigated by having quality control procedures and voluntary disclosures to ensure the threat doesn’t occur in the engagement of the team.
3)Business threat: there was a mutual business threat between Tim and Toby regarding the property which has led to the opinion being judgemented. This has led to self interested threat. There has being allegations of the properties which are listed on Tim and his families name. If this is similarly natured then allegations of ethical principle has not being justified. 4)Lost documentation: there has being three large payments of which the documents has not being noted or verified. To investigates the risk it need to be ensured that an authorized person has being staffed to ensure he keeps proper record and accurate bookkeeping. -5)Self review threat: duby co managed Tim so audit client as these two are different firms this could lead to self review threat as it threaten the independence. I’m order to investigate this risk personal control needs to be in place to ensure that staff are supervised fully and there independence are not threatened Are these points correct as well please do reply and out of 20 marks how much would I get for these points ?For the first question the benefits and drawbacks of corporate structures, the benefits that I wrote for 1)supervisory board was that I was able to take long term decisions and due to neds working in the board it would ensure that the independence won’t be threatened 2) it is used to ensure that fair remuneration is given to the staff 3) the members who hasn’t worked for this board gets staffed this would be beneficial as oversees knowledge would come within the firm leading to more ideas and skills etc. for executive board the benefits are that 1) it is used to ensure that internal controls and working effectively and ensure that quality control procedures are in place with voluntary disclosures to ensure everything is running smoothly2) it is used to implement risk management policies and identify risk and to mitigate it 3) the member of the board is elected due to voting this would be beneficial as fair and independent member would be elected with the Satisfaction of other board members etc. the drawbacks which I mentioned was that these two boards are working separately so there is no unity of one leader but rather separation of two leaders and if both combines them there would be more ideas and knowledge which isn’t happened. Hope this is correct as well ?
Such a relief to know you wrote somewhat similar. Of course, it was very generic (no use of models as such). More could be written if more time was given. I have mentioned many good points but my concern are with the headings. Under exams conditions, at times the right heading is not in my mind..so i write a heading then i speak about a different relevant factor.
Let’s hope we get through this paper..
If it necessary to right the answers under heading or can we right as paragraph as well cause most of my answers I wrote as paragraphs ?
ikenna24 wrote:Where did you apply SFA?
I mentioned SAF in response to the question about the proposed small office sale and whether it made sense. I can’t remember the exact question but there was enough information to discuss the suitability of it, acceptability (including financial analysis) and feasibility. I remember mentioning the staff maybe not wanting to relocate to larger office based in busy cities too.
It was a gift for me since I’m from Big4 🙂
But it feels like some questions were different. Is it possible???
I might have missed some points since I didn’t have enough time time for Task 5. As far as I remember 1 exhibit was just a general informationFirst question was about listing advantages and disadvantages of proposed governance structure. I used Général info exhibit and structure offer exhibit.
Second one was to advice to managing director on whether an offer to sell consulting subsidiary should be accepted. I used the sale offer details with services provided by subsidiary and forecasted profits for next 4 years + I used the newspaper exhibit about rising popularity of digital services and increasing competition.
Third one was about ethics issue in one of offices based on fired manager letter to partner. Should have been a confidential email. Exhibit used was a email from fired manager.
Forth (a) was to list pluses and problems which will arise from automation in audit. Exhibit with newspaper+exhibit with twitter-like posts (there were likes and comments)
Forth (b) was to list pluses and problems which will arise from introducing internal audit instead of quality reviews. There was an exhibit (#8 I guess) where managing director was offering to set up an internal audit department consisting of people from several departments which would also assess efficiency of auditI didn’t have enough time for 5 task (slides) but I I think newspaper and Online post with comments should have been used.
Maybe I misread something but I didn’t see anything that would allow to calculate something like revenue per partner. Or where centralization and closure of departments should have been discussed. Which question is that?
muzammilgoundi wrote:Was it a revenue, opex, margin per quarter, by branch, by partner or year? I think it was by year as it also included revenue forecast from new contracts.
I only remember seeing it by year, there was nothing by partner or by branch….
nefelikol wrote:what did everyone write about the sale of the subsidiary?
SAF for decision making
Task 1 was to prepare a part of report to managing partner on plusus and disadvanates of proposed governance change. I use Exhibit 1 (general information) and the one with the supervisory and executive boards plan. Since it was directed to managing partner I didnt write anything like “you have too much power”, I used phrases like “best practices suggest to segregate duties”.
Task 2 was to prepare a part of report to managing director about potential sale of consulting subsidiary. I used Exhibit with sale detail (it also had list of subsidiary services provided and forecasted revenue, costs and profits for the next 4 years). I also used newspaper exhibit (it was named something like “middle-sized entities report”) to get info that audit is low-profit now, comptetition is high, and clients are interested in new automation services.
Task 3 was to write a confidential email to operating partner about ethics issue in office in some city. Exhibit used was a mail from fired manager. Naming ethics and business consequences was required, as well as proposing actions to adress them to verify fired manager’s accusations and actions to avoid listed issued in the future.
Task 4 (a) was to list pluses and problems of using automation in audit. I used newspaper + there was an exhibit like a online post with comments.
Task 4(b) was to list pluses and problems of introducing internal audit department instead of current quality review. Exhibit was the last one, where managing director writes to someone about forming this internal audit department, comprising of people from several departments and assessing not just audit quality but audit efficiency.
Task 5 but to prepare a slides and comments on culture changes, but i didnt have enough time to even start this one.
Honestly, i dont remember any task asking about closing smaller offices, centralization or something. I also don’t remember any task where revenue per partner would be needed, no any information to calculate those. For which tasks you guys used it and in which exhibit we got information from?
nefelikol wrote:what did everyone write about the sale of the subsidiary?
I wrote something about competitive advantage loss, as services offered were on trend and all in these context. Also advised to keep subsidiary again based on high competition within audit area and low margins
rishavagrawal wrote:In question 4 B. But i missed it too. Very annoying Paper.
Omg I feel the same. I used Bolagun kaleidoscop. But feel it is totally wrong and I feel I blowed it.
ikenna24 wrote:I stated in my response that the branches with less than 5 partners were small, those with 5 – 20 were medium while those with above 20 were big… Like a judgement call.
Omg I did answered exactly the same. Looked at revenue per partner. Usage of small offices to close them and transfer to support charge centre to do kyc and cto
For the risks faced by the company
no common approach was bring used
Approach was made without consultations
No internal quality control review since mergerImplications for Competition
They had resources and infrastructure
Big data
Non audit servicesSet a culture & tone ensure specific audit approach being used,
Development of strong contextual relationship with clients to ensure they don’t move to competitors if their work is delayed
Invest in big data analytics
And perform regular internal reviews to ensure effectiveness and efficiency
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