DFS exam

Shell B
Shell B Registered Posts: 95 Regular contributor ⭐
in AAT Level 4 (Level 8 in Scotland)
Hello

I know a few people did the exam today, how did you get on???

Shell B

Comments

  • Becky V
    Becky V Registered Posts: 374 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Shell B wrote: »
    Hello

    I know a few people did the exam today, how did you get on???

    Shell B

    Hi i did mine last week it wasnt too bad a few questions through me a bit though! How was yours?
  • Shell B
    Shell B Registered Posts: 95 Regular contributor ⭐
    Hello

    Not had mine yet its next week just worried it was going to be like personal tax thats all. am dreading my results on that.

    Shell B
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    I have just done the DFS CBA and I think it went quite well. It is exactly like the practice exam and there are no horrible questions like personal tax.

    I really struggled to get my statement of finanacial position to balance so I left it to the end, went back to it, wrote the whole question out and then answered it, same with consolidation too. It's much easier when you have it on paper because there is so much scrolling up and down it is easy to miss something. I finished the exam in an hour and a half but I was sat there for the rest of the time just looking at my answers to try and see if I had missed anything.

    Good luck with your exam next week.
  • Shell B
    Shell B Registered Posts: 95 Regular contributor ⭐
    Hello

    Am please it all went well for you i was abit worried about not having enough time to be honest just because in the personal tax you really had to read the question and go over and over it in your head.
    I am never quite sure how much your aloud to say about the exams and what is in it.

    Did you type loads for the ratio question?
    Oh i hope mine goes ok

    Shell B
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Hi,

    Thanks, everyone ends up with different exam questions anyway so I don't really think it matters about saying anything about the content- I think it's just the paper based exams where people in different time zones will be taking the same exam paper at different times.

    The ratio question was very similar to the practice exam, I wrote a few paragraphs, it was an email and it was OK. If you do some of the past exam paper questions on ratios you will be able to answer then quite easily - they are pretty much the same. Also there were the multiple choice questions for ratios too. I had nice IAS questions too!

    You will be fine. :)
  • Shell B
    Shell B Registered Posts: 95 Regular contributor ⭐
    What IAS did you get?

    Well am sure you will have passed you sound like it went as good as it come have so am please for you, it will be one less this to worry about.

    Do you go to college at night???

    Shell B
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Shell B wrote: »
    What IAS did you get?

    Well am sure you will have passed you sound like it went as good as it come have so am please for you, it will be one less this to worry about.

    Do you go to college at night???

    Shell B

    I got the main ISA question on impairment then there were the usual multiple choice ones on inventories, leases, shares, can't remember the other ones. I go to college for two evenings a week and we had been learning this unit for one evening a week since September, I have been revising so much for this exam though...hopefully it has gone well, there seems to be so many exams this year - will be starting the financial performance stuff on Monday! Do you go to college?
  • Shell B
    Shell B Registered Posts: 95 Regular contributor ⭐
    Yes am like you go to college two nights a week and full time work in the day, do you work as well.
    God i am finding this yr really difficult though i mean i knew it was not going to be easy dont get me wrong but i am constantly doing college work, either revising doing that bloomin project or reading its just none stop.
    I really dont know where the time is going either, i thought last yr was rather a slow moving yr for college work but this yr it is really just one thing after another.
    i have got to the point where i just want it over, really would like a bit of a life rather than being a book worm.
    Are you the same or is it just me????

    Shell B
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Yes, I feel exactly the same. I work full time too and on college days I have to go into work at 8:30 so I can leave at 5pm then it's straight to college for 5:30 and there until 8:30pm...then I study through my lunch break everyday so it just seens like constant work. On non college nights there is all of the revision and the project to do...I had got fed up of looking at the DFS textbook. I do moan a lot about it aswell!

    I will hopefully be able to get my full project draft completed this weekend then I might be able to have a weekend off next weekend - hopefully. I just keep thinking it's hard work, but it'll all be over in another 6 months or so, I do enjoy studying though, but it is just very stressful around exam times!!

    Which exams have you got left to do? Have you finished your project yet?
  • Shell B
    Shell B Registered Posts: 95 Regular contributor ⭐
    It sounds like we are in the same boat.
    God i moan about it as well and get myself sooo stressed with it all, then i think i cant do but i know i can.
    We have only done personal tax and financial statements so still along way to go and loads more to learn. As for the project am halfway there got to do my recommendations and the cost anlysis thing but am not worry about that at the min just concetraing on revising for this exam.
    I have decided for the next unit that we do am going to revise as we go along because leaving it till the end i have found it really hard especially when you have a bad memory like me.
    How many units ahve you got left????
    Dont think i have ever wanted to pass something sooo much and i dont think i have ever had to work this hard for something either, but as i keep telling myself the stress and the tears at times will be worth it.

    Shell B
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    I've done the financial statements and personal tax. I need to get my project finished for Wednesday, but I haven't really concentrated on it that much because of revising for todays exam.

    I will be starting work for financial performance on Monday- I think we'll be doing the exam in March, and then when the project and interviews are out of the way we will be starting business tax, ready for the exam in June.

    We are also doing budgeting at some point for a June exam too. Looking at the textbooks they seem to be a bit thinner than the financial statements and I think there is a bit of crossover with the ratios stuff between DFS and financial performance - variances are supposed to be really hard though(whatever they are!! lol).

    Just think though, we could be AAT qualified in seven or eight months time(depending on how long the results take) and we'll be so glad of all the hard work that has gone into getting there!! :)

    I really need an accounts job though, there seem to non around where they don't ask for experience, either that or I'll write to companies asking for work experience, I am a bit stuck because I don't have the years experience needed to become a full member and I want to go on to do CIMA but I won't do that until I have managed to get an accounts job.
  • Shell B
    Shell B Registered Posts: 95 Regular contributor ⭐
    Are you not doing the credit control unit???
    i decided to do that instead of business tax, i dont want to see a tax book again if i can manage it (fingers crossed).
    Am very lucky because i work in accounts already and have done for a few yrs, i just wanted to learn why i was doing things so i decided to do AAT and i must say it has helped no end, i think i have noticed that more recently.
    Something will come along am sure for you, it may not be exciting at first could just be filing invoices away but at least you will be in that enviroment and once you have the foot in the door it will be easier to progress where you want to get to. I keep telling my boss if you ever need someone in accounts dont necessarily go to an agency straight away ask the college because there are no end of talented potential accountants out there, that am sure of.

    What do you do at work???? if you dont mind me asking?

    Shell B
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    No, the college chose our units so we just ended up with both taxes. I liked the accounts side of businesses studies and when looking for jobs after leaving school/sixth form there were quite a few trainee jobs out there, I think I was just lacking in some sort of experience at that point. I would be happy doing any sort of accounts job, I know it'd mean a paycut and it would probably be just filing and stuff, but any sort of accounts experience would be useful.

    A lot of jobs do seem to be advertised through agencies, which is a bit offputting - only because it would be impossible to get any time off for interviews at the agency then the company at short notice. I am an administrator and deal with general administration and a lot of the court claims that are issued in the company,
  • Becky V
    Becky V Registered Posts: 374 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    keane155 wrote: »
    Hi,

    Thanks, everyone ends up with different exam questions anyway so I don't really think it matters about saying anything about the content- I think it's just the paper based exams where people in different time zones will be taking the same exam paper at different times.

    The ratio question was very similar to the practice exam, I wrote a few paragraphs, it was an email and it was OK. If you do some of the past exam paper questions on ratios you will be able to answer then quite easily - they are pretty much the same. Also there were the multiple choice questions for ratios too. I had nice IAS questions too!

    You will be fine. :)

    Hi your exam sounds the same as the one i did. How do you think you done? I couldnt get my first balance sheet to balance!!
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Becky V wrote: »
    Hi your exam sounds the same as the one i did. How do you think you done? I couldnt get my first balance sheet to balance!!

    Hi, I think it well quite well - it helped that it was exactly the same format as the practice exam. I couldn't get the balance sheet to balance at first, but went back to it in the end and wrote the questions out and worked it all out on paper. I then realised where it had gone wrong and got it to balance. I think I may have got one of the alterations wrong on the consolidated financial statment - I completely missed it off, but by the time I realised I would have had to alter all of my goodwill and stuff so I left it in the hope that they just take into consideration workings and stuff like they normally would (it balanced without the bit in that I missed off). How did you find the exam?
  • Becky V
    Becky V Registered Posts: 374 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Ithink i went wrong by putting the accrual in rather than prepayment. The doubtful debtors confused me a bit getting was mixed up into which figure to put in the right place! After going over and over it i left it but hope i got enough to pass! my consolidated balanced so was happy with that and think i got the ratios correct but dont know if i wrote enough in the email! not very good at writing emails. will find out soon though!
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Becky V wrote: »
    Ithink i went wrong by putting the accrual in rather than prepayment. The doubtful debtors confused me a bit getting was mixed up into which figure to put in the right place! After going over and over it i left it but hope i got enough to pass! my consolidated balanced so was happy with that and think i got the ratios correct but dont know if i wrote enough in the email! not very good at writing emails. will find out soon though!

    I think we probably got slightly different questions I had an accrual on mine. I had a provision for doubtful debt adjustment which I wanted to put under trade receivables but stuck it down in the liablility section in the end - kind of threw me a bit because we hadn't really come across some of the adjustments since last year! I ended up being about £13000 out on the balance sheet-I managed to issue the share capital and premium again, took me ages to work that out though - I did wonder how I could get it so wrong - but it is hard having loads of things on screen, having to scroll up and down - very easy to miss stuff I think - it would be better if you could mark stuff off as you use it.
  • Becky V
    Becky V Registered Posts: 374 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    i had the provision for doubtful debts and then to write off bad debt. Perhaps i got the accrual right then it said costs that incurred? also there was the statement of equity?
    I ound it harder on the computer to scroll up and down. i almost missed a question where i didnt scroll down enough! The only bonus was i could delete my answers if i wasnt happy with them rather than cross them out and the paper and answers look a mess! lol
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Becky V wrote: »
    i had the provision for doubtful debts and then to write off bad debt. Perhaps i got the accrual right then it said costs that incurred? also there was the statement of equity?
    I ound it harder on the computer to scroll up and down. i almost missed a question where i didnt scroll down enough! The only bonus was i could delete my answers if i wasnt happy with them rather than cross them out and the paper and answers look a mess! lol

    I had a statement of changes in equity...I am sure that mine was an accrual for costs incurred but not yet invoiced...I am going to try not to think about it now though, I don't think anyone would get exactly the same paper, because everyone gets different numbers and stuff, I think someone out of our group had a statement of cash flow on theirs! I suppose one bonus is that we only need to wait 6 weeks for the results, we only need to get 70% correct anyway. :)
  • Becky V
    Becky V Registered Posts: 374 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    keane155 wrote: »
    I had a statement of changes in equity...I am sure that mine was an accrual for costs incurred but not yet invoiced...I am going to try not to think about it now though, I don't think anyone would get exactly the same paper, because everyone gets different numbers and stuff, I think someone out of our group had a statement of cash flow on theirs! I suppose one bonus is that we only need to wait 6 weeks for the results, we only need to get 70% correct anyway. :)

    Is that 70% overall or 70% in both sections? I practised so hard on cash flows and was disappointed i didnt get that question! Cant wait to find out the result, now to decide the next unit!
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Becky V wrote: »
    Is that 70% overall or 70% in both sections? I practised so hard on cash flows and was disappointed i didnt get that question! Cant wait to find out the result, now to decide the next unit!

    70% overall I think, you have to pass both sections, but I think section 2 is only about 30% of the questions. We are doing financial performance next - more ratios!!! :) Are you at college or are you using one of the training companies like Kaplan?
  • Becky V
    Becky V Registered Posts: 374 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    keane155 wrote: »
    70% overall I think, you have to pass both sections, but I think section 2 is only about 30% of the questions. We are doing financial performance next - more ratios!!! :) Are you at college or are you using one of the training companies like Kaplan?

    I am studying at home with Kaplan. Did the level 3 at college but i have 2 young kids so found it tough so started level 4 at home. Not to bad so far but have only done the one unit and now starting the project. Want to get started on next unit and try and get as much done this year as i can!!
  • keane155
    keane155 Registered Posts: 404 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Becky V wrote: »
    I am studying at home with Kaplan. Did the level 3 at college but i have 2 young kids so found it tough so started level 4 at home. Not to bad so far but have only done the one unit and now starting the project. Want to get started on next unit and try and get as much done this year as i can!!


    That's quite good. I don't think I would be able to motivate myself to study myself at home on my own, I think I'd need the deadlines to work to at college and stuff. Which unit are you planning on doing next?
  • Becky V
    Becky V Registered Posts: 374 Dedicated contributor 🦉
    Kaplan who im with do give slight deadlines for progress tests to be in which helps. I have got it in my head that i just want it finished! Now its quieter at work with tax returns done and can get on with it! Im looking to start personal tax but i hear the exam was a bit hard!

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