SBR*** December 2022 ACCA SBR exam – Instant Poll and comments ***

So, this was a disaster...

All my questions were intangible assets ffs probably weren't even but that's what I picked up on lol

Wow the exam was very very refreshing as always :) First question unrealized tax losses ? The rest for consolidation quite straight forward The ethics was weird, can’t generate too much from different issues, the scenario was quite repetitive Government grand , I think I stepped on it quite long , I showed 40,000 tones as a deferred asset and calculated its FV based on price given on 1 Jan, not sure amount it at all but I sounded reasonably for me on that moment It was something about the option and less back just skipped it, not my cup of tea :) Revenue recognition quite straight forward Justify why the transaction is not a lease and not intangible asset, pretty good Question about APM what a mess! Very very general question and speaking about everything and nothing

how about the loan that was repayable only if certain conditions in development were met? what was that about??

So challenging! SO MUCH about intangibles, it didn't seem balanced at all. No group consolidation, NCI, cashflows - a lot of theory not many calculations at all just a goodwill working for 5 marks. The first question was to recognise if the following in the acquisition: customer relationships & contracts - I didn't include but now thinking it should have been as it stated it was measured reliably. For the manufacturing unit that was sold two months after, I put that it was a discontinued op - does that get included in the net assets on acq? Then a retail function that was not ready to sell for 11 months so didn't recognise as a disc. op. and included in net assets at FV. The question then went on to say what do you do in x6 and x7. I simply just didn't have a lot to say and then wasted so much time! Any thoughts on the share-based payment where the employee paid for them by a loan plus interest? UK FRS - were you supposed to impair the loan even though it was in the following year and only the interest? Completed ran out of time for the CGU question at the end. ARGHH not varied at all. The other version sounds a lot nicer

There was a question whether the government auction was an active market? I said yes but I wasn't sure. Also the question about sale agreement and warranty did not have a clue! I said a warranty should be accounted for as a provision but that's it. APM question mentioned that it's helpful for comparison but also didn't know much.

Does anyone remember the mark allocation for each question?

The good will calculation. The P's investment (80%) was $2.10 x 8m= $16.8 then the NCI was $2.10 x 2m= $4.2 (FV) then taking off the NA at $20 gave a goodwill of $1m...No? Did anyone get the question asking what the treatment was of the 2 year software Contract? The question said it wasn't a lease or Intangiable, so what was it?

I said to treat it as a prepayment over the 2 years as well! After the exam I was thinking I messed that question up! Considering how big the topics are at SBR and that tutors keep telling us to learn a bit of everything, not a lot actually came up for me apart from a tiny bit of consolidation (mainly NCI calcs), revenue, APM, ethics, intangibles. That's it I think... Goodluck to everyone! :-)

Not to worry about! You get more marks for the writing than the numbers on SBR anyway.

I thought the APM question was fine - they shouldn’t give APM more prominence than IFRS (which they did by putting it in bold), nor should they give an over optimistic view of company performance. And the question said specifically about usefulness and appropriateness to investors - that bizarre speculative statement on what profit could’ve been wasn’t appropriate and giving a misleading view of profits when really you are loss making is just trying to mislead investors

Also landed on software being a prepayment to expense over 2 years :)

dominiquehooper wrote:So challenging! SO MUCH about intangibles, it didn’t seem balanced at all.

Yes this is paper that I got too. I couldnt believe how much was on the paper about intangibles, goodwill and impairment kept popping up everywhere. I spent more than I really had to be strict with myself and force myself to move onto the next question just I made sure I answered everything. Have to say I was happy that cashflows didn't come up, wished that there was a little more variation on the paper since there's so much in the syllabus to cover. There was also a question about Gymadvisor - it was an ethics question to do with the customer data breach and how the finance director & company should have dealt with it. The time really flies and no matter how many ACCA exams you do, still cant find that balance of time!!!

Good luck with your exam!

Did the afternoon exam. Can someone explain the the goodwill bit. So it was customer contract at 0.5m and then they had fair value of expected customer contract renewal of 3.6m. Not sure if the 3.6 gets added to goodwill? Also didn’t understand for the facility it still had the 0.5m of contracts to complete before it could be sold?

I was focusing on the usefulness of investors so just benefits of APM rather than drawbacks. I said it's useful for comparison, decision making preventing risks. I also said apm is voluntary which improves the reputation of the company I think I tackled this question from the wrong perspective. Would you please let me know?

I think this question per total was quite hard..very confusing! Not felt like it was easy marks on the pick! Question one some deffered tax, then NCI calculation using FV and Proport, Goodwill calcu. Then an acquisition of a sub, + 10% more, so control to control transaction. Fair question Question two -Ethics but a was something on sale and repurchase -sthing with option, and then sale and warranty+ ethic issues and actions. Q3- Q4 cant remember very well but had cloud computing software if Lease or IA. And how to account for it. Then something on development of synthetic fuel , with borrowing costs and government grants. Plus APM’s and the usefulness of Profit before tax.

Hi, All, I am quite new - but were there different variants of SBR INT exam? I hardly recognize tasks you discuss here. In my SRB INT: 1) Task 1 a long question with how to recognize facilities, division of sales and IA on consolidation with a goodwill calc wich was rated only for 4 points 2) Ethical task with role of Finance Director in a data breach episode 3) Task with share options for employees and loans to employees with a loss allowance calcualtion 4) Sustainability report and DEvelopment costs on a film production + impairment of goodwill on a game I dont think tasks were too difficult but there is not enough time to answer all definetely. There were strange question on FV of contract assets with customers which were somehow calculated however those contracts need to be completed for further 11 month - how does this comprise in individual and consolidated FS? No clue.

Hey Alex, Yeah I think there's usually two diff. exams, I did the same as you. Can't remmeber too well now but wasn't it they wanted to discontinue a CGU but had another 11 months worth of contracts to complete before they could? So they can't hold assets for sale until the 11 months.

I sat this same exam, apart from q3 for me which was the UK variant. Sturggled with Q1, kind og hoping that my answers for q2 and q4 make up for my attempt at question 1

@ Alex I had this exact exam too. Q3 threw me a bit as I had not even read about sustainability reports in my notes and Q1/2 leant so heavily on intangible assets. I also struggled for time.

Arguably the toughest one I have attempted hitherto A heavy focus on goodwill IFRS 15&16, IAS 37&38 But surprisingly absolutely no question from IAS 19, IFRS 2, and IFRS 9 ( all of which were either absent in FR or discussed to a smaller extent ). Similarly, it was shocking to no see any of IFRS 13, IFRS 36, and IAS 16 since these have been a common occurrence in the last few sessions. Ideally, a paper is expected to be balanced and cover various standards from the syllabus such that it fairly represents the majority of the text, which clearly wasn't the case in the exam. The difficulty level in SBR had been on a rise since the last 3-4 sessions ( when juxtaposed with the ones from a few years back ), and in this paper, they took it to another level. Always they should consider extending the time if they want to keep that level of difficulty. A significant majority of questions were not understandable comfortably even post reading them twice or thrice. In other questions, too much was asked without giving many details. In the first Q, deferred tax for 8 mks where barely 4 points were possible ( incl. the definition ). Other questions were explanations and differences between both the methods of goodwill calculations, a fairly better question on acquisition followed by an increase in shareholding. In the 2nd Q, 10 + 2 for ethics on data breach wasn't too bad. 3 mks for revenue and 5 for something else were slightly better too. Overall, the best question of the whole paper. In the 3rd Q, many smaller parts include a focus on all the common standards like IAS 2, and IAS 37, i.a., however too less info and too much expectation. In the 4th Q, a tech company ( and manufacturing entities ) and investor perspective and flaws of FR appeared for the first time. 6 + 2 mks, wasn't too bad either although it consumed plenty of time. All the next sub-questions on lease and revenue were super tough. Overall, a very difficult paper with a lot of twists & turns in a significant majority of questions. Interested in discussing answers in detail? Email me at [email protected].

You guys are doing great remembering so much details about the questions. Helped me recall.

I was super confused with that. I just explained how it occurs. Inserted values in excel and left out NCI. Crazy NCI I haven't seen before. !!!

Do you have somewhere I can get the question from?

The paper with APM question about underlying profit was very similar to the one in specimen paper, its crazy how i read answers to those one day before the exam and could atleast write something because i knew the logic from specimen

Think I had this too