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

Jessica1997w wrote: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?

We couldn’t state general facts about what APM was or what benefits could be obtained from it i.e. preventing risks etc or improved reputation I think (esp in SBR)

I had the exact same points as @catherinemulcair for the APM – I discussed that there was a serious issue with it being useful.

The issue was a disclosure uselessness problem with no benefits as to what the co’s underlying PBT was trying to do. Impairment and redundancy costs are operational and reflective of the co.s performance, users analyze an FS to assess the performance of a co. during a recession specifically to make decisions catered to a recession. Adding it back would only show a hypothetical picture of a company without a recession but is completely useless if you think about what that number even means from a decision making and forecasting point of view. The primary elements of usefulness (relevance and faithful rep) were clearly compromised.

I referred to enhancing characteristics – mainly a lack of understandability and verifiability due to it not being regulated under IFRS (essentially what an APM is) and a lack of comparability between other airlines amidst the recession due to subjective judgement entries.

Hope this helps!

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.

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

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 prgagapr@gmail.com.

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

Do you have somewhere I can get the question from?

Think I had this too