How to Write ACCA AA Audit Procedures That Actually Score Marks (2026)

Your audit procedures are too generic. That's why you're losing marks.

The AA examiner has said it in every report for the last three years: candidates write textbook procedures instead of applying them to the scenario. With a 46% pass rate in December 2025, more than half of students sitting AA are getting this wrong. The fix isn't more study — it's changing how you write your answers.

What the examiner actually wants

The 2025 examiner reports are blunt. Candidates demonstrate decent ISA knowledge but fail to connect it to the specific facts in the question. When asked to design audit procedures for, say, a company with a new warehouse and significant year-end inventory, too many candidates write "inspect inventory" and move on. That's a description of an audit concept, not a procedure. It scores little or nothing.

A procedure must answer three things: what you will do, how you will do it, and why it addresses the specific risk in the scenario. The examiner calls this "scenario-specific application" — and it's where the marks sit.

Wrong answer vs. right answer

Imagine the question gives you a client, Hartley Co, that has just opened a second warehouse. Inventory is material at £4.2m and the year-end count is on 31 December. Here's how most candidates answer — and how you should.

Generic (low marks): "Attend the inventory count and perform test counts to confirm inventory exists."

Scenario-specific (full marks): "Attend the inventory count at both Hartley Co's warehouses on 31 December to confirm existence of the £4.2m inventory balance. Perform test counts at each location, selecting a sample of high-value items, and compare the count results to Hartley's inventory records. Investigate any discrepancies, particularly for items recently transferred between the original and new warehouse, as these are at higher risk of being double-counted or omitted."

See the difference? The second answer names the client, references the two warehouses from the scenario, identifies a specific risk (transfers between locations), and explains what the auditor will actually do. That's three or four marks instead of one.

The structure that works every time

Use this framework for every audit procedure you write in AA:

1. Name the procedure type. Inspection, observation, inquiry, confirmation, recalculation, reperformance, or analytical procedures — pick the right ISA 500 category.

2. Anchor it to the scenario. Use the client's name, reference specific figures, dates, or transactions from the question. If the question mentions a related party transaction of £800k, your procedure must mention that £800k transaction.

3. State what you expect to find. This is the part most candidates skip. "Agree the £800k payment to the signed contract and board minutes to confirm the transaction occurred on an arm's length basis." The expected outcome shows the examiner you understand why the procedure matters.

What to do before June 2026

Practise writing, not reading. Take any past AA Section B question and write out full procedures under timed conditions. Compare your answer to the marking scheme — count how many of your procedures are genuinely scenario-specific.

Learn the ISA 500 procedure types cold. You cannot write a proper procedure if you don't know the seven types of audit evidence. These are assumed knowledge in every AA question — the examiner won't remind you.

Use the client's name and numbers in every procedure. This is the simplest exam technique upgrade available. If you reference specific scenario details, the examiner knows you've applied your knowledge. Generic procedures that could apply to any company will always score lower.

The bottom line

AA's 46% pass rate isn't because the syllabus is impossibly hard. It's because most candidates write procedures that belong in a textbook, not an exam answer. Anchor every procedure to the scenario, state what you expect to find, and you'll be writing answers that the examiner actually wants to reward.