*** ACCA Paper SBR March 2020 Exam was.. Instant Poll and comments ***

Terrible paper.

What I can remember :

Q1

Functional currency – Grommits due to economic forces.

Goodwill – calculate in dinars then report at rate on date of acquisition. Bit of a twist here as they had some assets in Grommits and Dinars. I converted all to Grommits then to usd.

Impairment – why was there no average rate given? I took a punt and use 7.5 as the average between start and end.

Bonds
Amortisation calc fine with credit risk. Didn’t know how to treat the calc for the recognition of 12 months losses so took another punt on taking the expected value of losses to Pnl and offsetting asset in sofp.

Q2

Provision – no legal or constructive so no.
Event after reporting period – does it impact going concern? Will it impact at depot date?

Can’t remember the other accounting question

Confidentiality ethics with insider trading

Q3

Intangibles – tough one!

Seemed like the entity was using amortisation cost measurement with amortisation over useful life and business standard was fair value with annual review. Thought both were fine but didn’t agree with how the originally recognised the fair value of intangibles – seemed to only look at production costs?

Stadium

Sale and lease back.

Thought it represented a sale with a portion being retained. Calc was tricky because future dates and depn and not sure it was fully required but went for it anyway and explained IFRS 15 and control principles

Stadium barriers – far fetched but argued to capitalise as they would increase revenue through extra safety and increased attendance levels ?

Contact intangibles – amortise over contract and amend when life of intangible changes. Indicators of impairment include damage to players and roll up to larger cgu.

Q4

Waffle about sustainability and investors being conscientious and reputation damage if not. Threw in a bit about integrated reporting

Don’t aggregate provision with income for new building. And don’t recognise either of them.

Lease – tough, derecognised asset as control passed to new lease holder. Kept lease liability as not cancelled yet.

12 months lease so short term and accrue p&l?

Pension

Interest to p&l
Service (current and previous) to p&l
Remeasure to OCI

calc – take out provision for losses and take int and service to p&l

First attempt. Its not difficult per se. The issue is the timing. There is so much content to cover and write about that there is very very limited amount of time to think. The questions I know I answered wrong is clearly because I had to rush. First time in all ACCA papers I struggle with timing. Let’s see !

I agree it felt like there were more questions than specimen. I literally skipped 3 questions to make it and even then i didnt do 2 questions at q4. So 40 points blank. First try at sbr and i think im gonna have to repeat.

@mervewillard said:
What was the final sentence? I cant remember

If you did not sit for the INT paper kindly ignore my message. It was related to the fact that the company pays tax in Dinars.

This was my first paper based exam and I have to say, computer based is SO much easier in terms of you can structure your answer a lot better and delete/re write. In this paper one I wasn’t even given any draft paper to write notes so had to go straight into writing the answer, which made it look messy at times and not flow well.
In terms of the exam itself, this was my first time doing SBR, I thought the first half of the paper was a lot easier than the second half. Not sure if I answered correctly in terms of Dinars or Grommits but worked out goodwill and the impairment etc and translation reserve. The last question about pensions seemed very odd – I’ve learnt a lot about defined benefit scheme but I don’t feel like this question was worth a good 25 mark answer. The main issue was time keeping, mind went blank towards the end and felt very pressured to quickly write so much in the time given!

I put Grommits too as most of their sales was in Grommits. Translated all figures to Grommits to work out foreign goodwill then translated the whole goodwill figure to dollars. Fingers crossed.

I have the same thoughts as you but unfortunately couldn’t answer many questions due to lack of time and mental block. Some of my neighbours have already given up and were sleeping during the test.

@nieffee said:
Rossacca…. I agree with a lot of what you have written. I too also took the average for the impairment as a punt.

Always after the exam I realise simple things I feel I have missed because they seem so basic/automatic at the time. So I realised at no point have I defined an asset… I was just focussing on the standards around it all. Hope I haven’t thrown away too many marks like this.

I feel there were repeated sections in this exam such as provisions and held for sale. Which are areas I am happy with. So if what I done is right, really hoping I’ve done enough

Let myself down with some of the calculations. Bonds in Q1. Only answered half that questions. Sale and lease back. I couldn’t quite focus on the proportion I was after and mentioned nothing of control of the asset. And Q4! Wow. What a disaster. No idea how to calculate the pension ( weak area for me and praying it didn’t come up) and certainly didn’t write enough to justify the 9 marks (plus 2 for professional) for the impact on PBT

I do always find my concentration lapses towards the end, so Atleast I am relatively happy with the majority of Q1 and Q2

My last exam, really hoping I’ve done enough…. I managed to score 40 in December sitting and was really winging it due to a serous lack of knowledge of the standards, which this time I really feel I have a strong grasp of.

please be my last sitting!

I feel exactly the same about everything you said here. I felt like I was repeating answers about provisions and held for sale but maybe that was correct! I wish I’d have had a bit more time just to think about what I needed to write and structure it better, could have picked up easy marks by referencing the conceptual framework maybe.

yeah i thought their functional currency was grommits as all sales, purch and most of their finance was in grommits and also some wages too.

I didnt see the currency that they pax in as being of an influence in this q as it stated that they were legally required to pay tax in that currency so they had no choice in the matter – also argued that even if you did take into account the tax payment that their primary economic activity in the most seemed to be in grommits.

Does anyone remember any of the mark allocation …. trying to just go over how I did. I know I shouldn’t torture myself. I can’t change it now. But it does help me lol

Question 1
Functional currency (6)
Goodwill , impairment, exch loss etc (5?)
Accounting for Crotchets customer contracts (4?)
How to account for Quaver (4?)
Bonds! (11)

Total 30

Question 2
Provision for restructure (6)
Related party. Wife’s shares (3?)
Stewardship? (3?)
Ethics points (6?)
Professional marks (2)

Total 20

Question 3
Accounting for stadium barriers (?)
Sale and leaseback (?)
Intangible contracts, bonus, CGU (?)

Total 25

Question 4
Sustainability (8)
£16m (£2 mil saving, £10m loss in sales ) and accounting for old lease (6)
Pension calculation defined Benefit
And Effect of PBT of above 2 (9)
Professional (2)

Total 25

Also feel free to correct anything that’s wrong !

My exact experience! First time sitting, paper was not hard but ran out of time. hoping for the best