The SAICA APC

Writing the Assessment of Professional Competence (APC) is one of the most challenging experiences on the journey to becoming a chartered accountant.

It is the ribbon that ties together at least 3,600 core working hours, 89 competencies, Nandos dinners and tight deadlines.

The next APC assessment is just a few months away and this post is for everyone that is writing soon.

Not different to preparing for the APC, writing this post was a team effort. I asked some of my friends at work for the tips that they wish they knew before writing the assessment. Thank you so much to everyone who shared their wisdom!

Pre-season

- Be informed

It is important to stay up to date with current affairs, especially in the financial and business world. Chances are that the final case study will be about something that recently happened in the South African market.

- Your people

Surround yourself with positive people. People that encourage you and remind you of how far you've come.

It is preferable to have an APC team with diverse voices and skill sets.

Collaborating with other teams that work in different sectors can give you a new perspective. Sharing is caring.

- Never become complacent

The assignments as part of the board course are there to prepare you for the final assessment. One good result from the assignments does not mean that you can relax. It is not over until the last eight hour assessment is completed.

Match week

- Technical triggers

Ensure that you fully grasp what is triggered and have a good understanding of how it works.

You do not need to study the whole IFRS standard when a specific technical section is triggered. If the section relating to expected credit losses is triggered, you do not have to study the whole IFRS 9. Work smarter, not harder.

Do not get overly fixated on the daunting, more complex triggers.

Yes, there will be tricky parts, but rather take a step back, remember the other triggers that you can easily tackle, and once you feel more comfortable and confident, try the complex one again.

- General research

Read the integrated reports of competitors and look for information on the industry to incorporate in your research.

- Your team

You are doing research in a team - do not be afraid to voice your opinion and give constructive feedback, but also be confident to ask questions about sections that you are uncertain about. (Like the complex one you wanted to skip above.)

You will be the only one answering all the questions on the day of the assessment- so you need to fully comprehend and understand each section.

- Your file

Remember that you are taking the research in your file in to the assessment and you want to be comfortable with what is in the file.

Less is more- if you did not read, study and understand the research in your file, rather leave it out.

Do not rely on so many team's information that you end up not really studying and grasping the research itself. In order to ensure that you can easily navigate your file, use index pages per trigger to know exactly which information on different topics you have.

Finally, make sure to work hard from the release day, so that you can incorporate some time to rest, relax and give your mind time to process everything during the five day period.

Match day

- Food as fuel

Eight hours is a long time to sit still and focus.

Eat something healthy for breakfast, and also pack healthy snacks to nibble on while you write- and remember to drink lots of water!

- Professional Communication

The tone and professional communication for the different tasks in the assessment are very important. The way you address the CFO and audit committee will vary vastly from the feedback given to a trainee on a section of audit work performed.

Know your audience, and answer the question as concise and clearly as possible.

- The questions

Answer every question. Failure to answer a question can result in immediate failure of the APC.

When answering the different questions, take a few minutes to plan your answer.

When a question asks "Please explain the variances and make recommendations, in addition to the first question let me know if there are any other considerations we need to take into account."

In this question, there are actually three parts to the answer.

If you plan your response properly and have headings, sub headings or a table (where applicable) it is much easier for the assessor to grade your task.

Value is rewarded in the APC as opposed to volume.

We are so used to rather giving more information, because we think that somewhere in between the theory dump and writing everything that we think we know that might be slightly, remotely, applicable will be correct, while this is not the case at all.

Make the assessors’ lives easier and never miss an opportunity to present your answer in a table.

Finally, at the end of each task, remember to conclude on what you discussed.

Sometimes our minds have already moved on to the next assignment, that we forget to finish off the task at hand.

The reward

One of my high school teachers always used to say “jy word onthou vir hoe jy klaarmaak”.

This is the last assessment. The final. Be sure to make it count.

You did not come this far to only come this far.

Thank you to my friends that were willing to share their experience and wisdom that can be passed on to others.