Todays MAC exam

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billyboy
billyboy Registered Posts: 5 New contributor 🐸
in AAT Level 4 (Level 8 in Scotland)
How did everyone get on? Think I messed up the standard costing question.

Please feel free to pm me if you want to discuss it.

Thanks.

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  • sebastianforbes
    sebastianforbes Registered Posts: 172 Dedicated contributor 🦉
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    i only finished with 5 minutes to spare !!!

    overshot by 15 minutes on the first half...

    glad to have some time to recover before tomorrow morning !
  • gregs
    gregs Registered Posts: 3 New contributor 🐸
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    Mac

    Another who finished with just the reading time to spare! Over ran Section 1 by 20 mins.

    Seemed to be all more or less as expected - but never sure whether my answers were right.

    Messed up at least one of the variances as had forget the Labour Efficiency Variance calc - ended up using a balancing figure from reconciliation in hope that it was right.
  • artepka
    artepka Registered Posts: 3 New contributor 🐸
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    Hi

    It took me also longer then expected....almost 3 hours...and I am usually done in one hour and half.
  • lgarside
    lgarside Registered Posts: 122 Dedicated contributor 🦉
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    Did you find section 1 really strange?!?!? Not sure I've got any of that right!!!
  • aatfree
    aatfree Registered Posts: 86 Regular contributor ⭐
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    Section 1 wasn't what I had been expecting and it took longer than 75 minutes. That was a really long exam. If it hadn't been for the reading time I wouldn't have finished.:ohmy: As it was I only had about five minutes to spare. There was a girl who didn't finish because she had taken so long on section 1.
  • rickyb
    rickyb Registered Posts: 1 New contributor 🐸
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    Section one realy tough, me and my fellow classmates were all stump by it.
    i think i have totally messed up, i found section 2 alot easier!:crying:
  • Barbara Knight
    Barbara Knight Registered Posts: 20 New contributor 🐸
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    Hi
    I needed all of the time too! scarey!! and there were poeple who ran out of time.


    The AAT bumph did say that they would go for a service sector scenario in the future - did not expect it today though!

    There seemed to be a lot of superfluous info in the text such as claims must be processed within 3 working days. Usually they want you to use every bit of info they put in the question so this was a little different from usual.

    Also, in section 1.2 when they said that the month 2 and 3 claims would be 240,000 and 123,000 they did not say if this was after the brought forward and carried forward claims were taken into account or it these were to be added. I did it both ways and stated that I was doing this as the question was not clear which they wanted, after people in the exam had donw it a mixture of ways as no-one was quite sure.

    I though the second section was soooooooooo much easier than the first, variance reconcilliation balanced first time and the vol variance was just based on units made so no mucking around with hours worked etc. All ratios were pretty clear and only having to give one reason was nice and simple.

    Thought the claim size info was a bit oddly written, as they just wanted you to say that the breakdown used in the budget was different to the actual breakdown which meant you couldn't really analyse the reason for the adverse variances in any detail......although I may be totally wrong!!!

    Barbara :thumbup1:
  • artepka
    artepka Registered Posts: 3 New contributor 🐸
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    Hi ...I agree with you...I was also confused by that 3 working days...was not sure what to use from the first task (section 1.2)...very similar problems....
  • speegs
    speegs Registered Posts: 854 Epic contributor 🐘
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    Do not panic.

    Dear All

    Please try not to panic over your exam today.

    I sat MAC in December 2007 and was 100% sure I had failed and really screwed up. However, when I spoke to a tutor about it, they said that as long as your principles were correct, ie you treated the number correctly, even if the number was originally wrong, you could still pass.

    Also, if everyone things they screwed up, this is really good because it should bring the pass mark down and help you to pass.

    Well good luck to you all.

    Please wish me luck for my final exam on Friday "Personal Tax".

    Oh and by the way. If you want to take a really easy option, choose personal tax and auditing. They are great fun, especially Tax.

    Bye for now.

    Speegs:thumbup1:
  • Roakey88
    Roakey88 Registered Posts: 1 New contributor 🐸
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    There was a question on discounted cashflows. Does anyone actually know what they are because i've come home from the exam and can't find them anyware in my bpp material?!
  • athertonia
    athertonia Registered Posts: 3 New contributor 🐸
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    Fixed Overhead Efficiency Variance

    I too had to use a reconciling figure to suss out an answer to this variance. Unfortunately, with five minutes left I realised I had used the total cost instead of overheads!! What a chump!?

    After this I amended my reconciling statement and hopefully came up with the correct answer...

    WHAT WAS THE FIXED OVERHEAD EFFICIENCY VARIANCE?:crying:
  • *Sarah*
    *Sarah* Registered Posts: 172 Dedicated contributor 🦉
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    The fact that section 1 was a service scenario totally threw me. I felt really confident on the budgeting side of things before I went in so wasn't expected to be confused by that part. My reconcilliaton statement in the second section was out by 10,000 but couldn't work out where I had gone wrong?? What figures did you get if you can remember? Think mine were, 10,000 (a), 9,000(a), 26,000(a), 10,000(a) and 40,000(a), total of 95,000 adverse. Think I did the volume variance wrong?
  • athertonia
    athertonia Registered Posts: 3 New contributor 🐸
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    I think I got 10,000 (a), 9,000 (a), 26,000 (a) and 10,000 (a). This left me with a deficit of 30,000 (a) to reconcile standard cost of actual production with actual cost of actual production.

    I think my volume variance could be right seeing as you got 40,000 (a) and were 10,000 out?
  • Barbara Knight
    Barbara Knight Registered Posts: 20 New contributor 🐸
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    Hi all,
    Because the basis of overhead apportionment was the actual units produced and not the labours hours as it usually is the oh vol variance was
    OAR X (standard actual CLAIMS - budgeted CLAIMS)
    OAR (2500 - 2000)
    I can't remember what I got for the OAR but it was the budgetted fixed OH divided by the 2500 cliams that were budgeted to be processed. I can't remember my answer but I know that the standard cost of actual production, add all the variances (mine were ALL adverse) reconciled to the actual cost of production.

    Discounted cash flows weren't really mentioned in our osborne books course material, but we did it in costing in intermediate and it is a appraisal method which recognises that money has a time value, so that money values in 5 years time will need to be adjusted (discounted) back to today's value. This is done by using a series of factors to bring the value back down to todays value. there was something to do with net present value and IRR but I can't remember that bit! It will be worth so few points that its not really worth worrying over if you didn't complete that bit

    Barbara :thumbup1:
  • *Sarah*
    *Sarah* Registered Posts: 172 Dedicated contributor 🦉
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    athertonia wrote: »
    I think I got 10,000 (a), 9,000 (a), 26,000 (a) and 10,000 (a). This left me with a deficit of 30,000 (a) to reconcile standard cost of actual production with actual cost of actual production.

    I think my volume variance could be right seeing as you got 40,000 (a) and were 10,000 out?

    I worked out that the variances should add up to 85,000 but mine totalled95,000. I may have got my standard cost for actual production wrong though? Is reassurring to see you got the same figures tho!
  • sharon
    sharon Registered Posts: 161 Dedicated contributor 🦉
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    i got £85,000 adverse in total, did anyone else get that???
  • *Sarah*
    *Sarah* Registered Posts: 172 Dedicated contributor 🦉
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    sharon wrote: »
    i got £85,000 adverse in total, did anyone else get that???

    yeah i got that too
  • aatfree
    aatfree Registered Posts: 86 Regular contributor ⭐
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    I didn't get that but then I know that I messed up my workings. Hopefully the resit will be easier.
  • parlabane
    parlabane Registered Posts: 7 New contributor 🐸
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    Hello all

    I found MAC really tough yesterday, too - especially section 1. I overshot by about 20 minutes (like a lot of people, by the sounds of it!)

    I think the 3 working days thing was just to show that all claims carried forward would be dealt with within the next month (and not carried forward again), but I might be wrong.

    I was panicking a bit by the end of section 2, and so couldn't think stright about my variances. I'm sure I got my total standard cost wrong. And I definitely got both my fixed o/h variances wrong - got all confused between which was which. Think I used the total cost variance instead of the expenditure variance, and god-knows-what instead of the volume variance. My statement balanced, though (thanks to all the errors cancelling out, I guess).

    So - not confident at all. Fingers crossed though... there's nothing to do about it now. Roll on Friday when PTC will be over too!

    Shaun
  • gregs
    gregs Registered Posts: 3 New contributor 🐸
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    3 Working Days Bit!

    Jusk back from exam 2 of 3 this week (just done BTC) - pheww - easier than yesterday's MAC by far (finished with over an hour to spare and I was one of the last to go)!

    Back to MAC though...after discussing this morning with others who took it yesterday, I noticed the 3 working days bit and so divided the enquiries in month 1 for example by the number of days (21 etc) to give daily - then x by three to give the number processed in 3 days - then divided this by the number of non-overtime hours available (140 from memory) and in both Jun and Jul this was over the normal hours avail by between 3 and 5 hrs each (Aug OK). So had to bump up the overtime in both Jun and Jul (I thought by this number) to ensure the three day target was met. My worry is that not one other student that I spoke to this morning that took MAC did this (so I'm probably wrong). This was a bit like the time when you have 'wastage or spoilt stock'. Still - can only be a few marks if I'm wrong - hopefully got enough otherwise to get through....fingers/toes and every other thing crossed...

    Next PTC on Friday -- ho hum!!
  • Barbara Knight
    Barbara Knight Registered Posts: 20 New contributor 🐸
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    I think you may be right - It seemed so odd that they would put in a quality standard type thing and then you did not need to use it... what you did sounds very sensible, but again its not anything we came accross in our studies so it didn't occur to me to do anything so sensible with it!!!
    I am worried now as there wer a few other bits of info I ignored too!!! Never mind its all too late now - I will worry on 19th August if I have failed


    Barbara
    :thumbup1:

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