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- August 11, 2021 at 6:02 am #631112
dear tutor,
every Substantive procedure that we write, does it always have to end with an assertion that it is testing, in order for the marker to award us with 1mark per procedure?
For some SPs, am 100% sure of the assertion it’s testing while for the rest (am still confident about by SP but) am not sure of the assertion its testing, hence my concern…
can you shed some light on this grey area?
August 11, 2021 at 8:50 am #631158Short answer – NO
See the latest examiner’s report https://www.accaglobal.com/ie/en/student/exam-support-resources/fundamentals-exams-study-resources/f8/examiners-reports1.html
“When describing substantive procedures one of the key things to consider is the level of detail provided. Many candidates fail to score well in this type of requirement because their procedures are vague or too brief. Tests must be sufficiently detailed noting clearly which source document should be used. For example, in this session many candidates included, ‘agree to cash book and bank statements’ without specifying that this was being done to agree the net pay or statutory deductions. Also ‘recalculate gross to net pay for a sample of employees’ would only gain ½ mark as it needs to be agreed back to the underlying payroll records to ensure payroll is accurate.”
So there must be some “value added” to the mere statement of the procedure – the second one is closest to stating an assertion (accuracy) in the mention of accurate – but this is not a requirement to earn 1 mark.
When the assertion is GIVEN, it clearly will not “add value” to be referencing it in answer points – e.g. in the same examiner’s report:
“One of the key words in requirement (a) is ‘valuation’ and combined with the scenario it is clear that the substantive procedures must focus on whether the inventory of this specific product line is overvalued at the year end.” - AuthorPosts
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