I recently passed my Level II manual exam but was very disappointed that I only got 83%. Having looked at the report showing where I went wrong I have lost 16 marks due to 1 thing!!!
The paper said that there was a bad debt which was to be written off, of say £500.
In the answer I wrote off the debt the balance sheet, and debited the P&L with say £417 and debited the VAT control account with say £83 (I can't remember the exact figures). Is this not correct?
Because of this I have lost marks because: - the bad debt w/off charge to the P&L was wrong - the total of the expenses in the P&L was wrong - the profit was wrong - the VAT liability was wrong - the total of the creditors was wrong - net assets on the balance sheet was wrong - the figures on the VAT return were wrong - etc, etc, etc.
Do you not take into account VAT on bad debts, and if not, why?
It seems totally mad that I lost so many marks because of 1 thing!!!
It really depends on the exact details of the question.
Is the £500 including or excluding of VAT, at 17.5% or 20%? Has more than 6 months (and less than 54 months) passed since the debt was due? If there were a sales ledger control account, did you write off the total amount including VAT there as well as in the individual customer account? For the VAT return, did you increase the Box 4 (inputs) amount with the bad debt VAT as should be the case, or did you decrease the Box 1 (outputs) amount?
If you truely only made one mistake regarding the VAT amount which are then carried forward in other calculations, then it's a bad system of marking to loss all the subsequent marks as one should only be penalised once for one mistake.
Such is the problem with computerised examining, a computer is not able to adapt and adjust for previous errors. It just comapares your answer with what it is told.
Unfortunatly more and more examing bodies are going down this route, some with success, some without. It works well where the questions are just stand alone questions. Trying to get a computer to mark a whole case study is more difficult.
__________________
Nick
Nick Craggs FMAAT ACA AAT Distance Learning Manager
I don't remember the exact details of the question, but it said something like there was a bad debt to be written off for £500, and it definatley said that it was more than 6 months old.
There were no individual sales ledger accounts, so I simply went debit P&L with the net amount, debit VAT control with the VAT, credit debtors. I also included the VAT in box 4, and definatley not box 1.
I totally understand that a computer can only mark an answer right or wrong. I still struggle to understand why it's called a "manual" paper though.
