Candidates were required to list four audit procedures that the auditor would perform prior to attending the inventory count at a client.
The marking scheme for this question was therefore 0.5 mark for each procedure. The key difference between this sub-question and part (a) being the lack of need to relate those procedures to the scenario and therefore the award of 1 mark per point.
Candidates tended to obtain either full marks or zero marks for this question, depending on whether or not they had read the question requirement correctly. The key word in the requirement was prior; a significant minority of candidates missed reading this word and listed procedures relevant to actually attending the inventory count; these procedures were unfortunately not relevant.
Other common errors and reasons why those errors did not obtain marks included:
| Error | Reason for lack of marks |
|---|---|
| Not stating the procedure in sufficient detail | It was unclear what the procedure aimed to do. For example, contact client was insufficient for a procedure whereas contact client to obtain inventory count instructions was sufficient. |
While not an error as such, many candidates wrote significant amounts of text in providing an answer to this section, in some cases easily exceeding one page of writing. Given that only four procedures had to be listed, this amount of writing was clearly inappropriate.
Candidates and tutors need to understand that the requirement verb list is simply that; no explanation of the individual procedures was required to obtain the 0.5 mark for each procedure.