Requirement (c) took a different slant on revenue, this time providing a brief scenario in which a fraud had been discovered whereby a sales representative had been submitting false claims for commission earned on sales generated. The requirement, which was for four marks, asked for procedures that should be used to determine the amount of the fraud.

Only a minority of candidates realised that procedures should focus on testing the validity of the sales that the sales representative had claimed to have generated – and these candidates then usually recommended some specific, valid procedures. Other answers were inadequate, and relied on evidence from “discussing with management” or “interviewing the suspect” – but without actually recommending the questions they would ask.

Some answers simply did not answer the question, and instead of providing procedures gave an explanation of the steps involved in a forensic investigation or focussed on how they would “catch” the culprit and punish them.