Part (c) for 5 marks required substantive procedures the auditor should perform on year-end trade payables. This was answered satisfactorily for many candidates. The most common mistake made by some candidates was to confuse payables and purchases and hence provide substantive tests for purchases such as “agree purchase invoices to goods received notes”.

As there was no reference to year-end payables then this test would not have scored any marks. A minority provided tests of controls as well as substantive procedures and again these would not have scored any marks.

The requirement verb was to “describe” therefore sufficient detail was required to score the 1 mark available per test. Candidates are reminded that substantive procedures is a core topic area and they must be able to produce relevant detailed procedures.

Answers such as “discuss with management to confirm ownership of payables” is far too vague to gain credit as there is no explanation of what would be discussed and also how such a discussion could even confirm ownership.