If you have read my difficulty ranking of all 15 ACA exams with statistics, you will be aware that I found ACA Corporate Reporting (CR) to be the hardest ACA exam. I will talk you through exactly how much time I spent revising for this exam in this article. Spoiler alert, it was quite a lot. At the time of studying for this exam I did not think it would be that difficult. However, despite all this revision the August 2020 (delayed COVID-19) Corporate Reporting exam gave me the biggest shock of them all. I will shortly be sharing with you why I thought I failed this exam. With a pass mark of 50 and a score of 53, I was close!

Click here to find out how to almost fail CR.

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What is Corporate Reporting (CR)?

Let’s recap from my Advanced Level breakdown but add some more detail. The CR open book exam is 3.5 hours in duration and 2.1 minutes per mark. Corporate Reporting is a combination of the Financial Accounting and Reporting (FAR) and Audit and Assurance (AA) Professional Level exams with some new accounting standards too. The ACA Corporate Reporting exam syllabus is as follows:

AreaWeighting
Corporate Reporting – Compliance and Financial Statement Analysis55-65%
Audit and Assurance30-40%
Ethics5-10%

As I work in Audit, the 30-40% AA aspect of the exam was usually quite nice. However, as mentioned in ‘What is the ACA? …’ the ACA cover a range of roles so others may struggle. That being said, you can prepare for it in the same way as AA.

ACA Corporate Reporting Exam Outline

The exam typically consists of three written questions where the marks are usually split 40, 30 and 30. If we look at the questions in turn:

corporate reporting exam

Questions 1 and 3 – these are integrated questions that test a variety of financial reporting (including group consolidation) and assurance topics. The majority of the financial accounting and reporting content would already have been taught during FAR. I would strongly recommend recapping and brushing up on this for Corporate Reporting. There are more standards taught to you too such as IFRS 9 Financial Instruments and IAS 19 Employee Benefits to name a few.

Regarding the CR and AA split in one question, the questions vary paper to paper. You could have a question almost solely testing AA. Alternatively you could have a question more mixed between Corporate Reporting and AA.

The main difference between question 1 and question 3 is that question 1 now involves the use of Advanced Information (AI). This has been newly introduced since I sat my exam in August 2020 and so I will not be able to comment on this aspect of the exam. I do know it involves the use of new data analytics software. These ICAEW resources should help with this and my ACA calendar will help you to keep track of when the AI is released for your sitting. Remember even though this area is new, stick to your timings!

By this stage you should be aware that there will be an ethics element. Again, as in BPT, these should be the easy marks so make sure to get these!

BPT easy marks ethics

Question 2 – this will assess purely financial reporting. Depending on the standards tested, question 2 can be good to secure marks as with practice it should be straightforward. Your open book if prepared well can help you with this. I will touch on this below.

Examples of financial reporting and financial statement analysis that could come up in this exam are:

  • Reviewing the accounting treatment in question which is usually put together by a junior. Then correct these where necessary through adjustments to the extracts provided. This reminds me of Certificate Level Accounting (correct treatment? What was done? How to adjust?) but of course much more difficult.
  • Review financial statements for the choice of accounting policies.
  • Use accounting ratios such to summarise or compare financial information.
  • Perform analytical procedures to identify audit risks which is slightly more difficult than AA.

How to Prepare for Corporate Reporting

Before I share details of how to prepare for Corporate Reporting, I think it is important to understand how the exam is structured. I know I outlined this above but what I mean here is that you reaallly need to know how it pulls together. I thought I knew this from sitting a progress test and mock but it was only when I sat the real exam I had a wake up call.

This exam is one that I found can massively vary paper to paper and it does come down to luck of the exam. In my progress test/mock months before any revision or even completing learning all the content for CR I was able to achieve 65. This definitely gave me false confidence. If I share my experience with you with the real exam I am hoping it will give you a head start so nothing will shock you as much as mine did me.

August 2020 Exam

Why did I find this exam to be so awful?

  1. IFRS 9 is a very tricky standard. I would even go as far as saying it is the hardest standard to get your head around. The whole of question 1, the 40 marker, was on this.
  2. There were no questions on group consolidation that I thought always tends to come up in CR. This was frustrating as I was well prepared for this.
  3. The purely financial reporting question 2 in theory should have been good to help pick up marks. It was on leases and deferred tax both by this point I wanted to come up. However, the IFRS 16 question I found was worded weirdly. I thought I had a good understanding of leases until the cracks appeared when I was wasting a lot of time figuring out which lease accounting rules to apply based on the wording.
  4. The final 30 mark question was on IFRS 8 Segmental Reporting but as this standard is not tested frequently, it was really not obvious at all. In fact, there were barely any ICAEW Question Bank questions on this.

I am going to be shortly releasing the blog post I wrote straight after the Corporate Reporting exam. Join the journey so you don’t miss this.

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Key Takeaways to Prepare for CR

If we now turn the above downfalls into lessons in no particular order:

ICAEW case study tips
  • Although it did not come up in my exam, still get comfortable with group consolidation. Wider advice would be to really recap FAR beforehand and the AA aspects. With your notes as a comfort blanket you should be at the exam ready stage where you could do really well on these areas.
  • There are some standards such as IFRS 9 that do really require time to understand. Solely relying on learning this well from ICAEW Question Bank questions alone will be tough. I would suggest spending at least a day really trying to master this. Build your open book file on this one too.
  • Tab up your notes and recap all areas beforehand. This even includes the IFRS standards open books you can take in. If I had not got this to hand I really do not think I would have identified IFRS 8 Segmental Reporting and probably would have failed.

Corporate Reporting Open Book

I have essentially touched on this above where you should aim to make the most of your open book file for this exam. As there is SO much content, having a well organised file with a good level of detail and example solutions is ideal.

BPT open book preparation

If you need help with how to prepare an open book file, I would suggest applying the same technique as BPT. Good summary notes annotated and references to model answers should do the trick. However, that being said I do think using the ICAEW Question Bank under the time pressure is less helpful for CR than BPT. There are some questions such as sale and leaseback and DB pensions where model answers are useful for their good layout. For CR I would recommend brushing up on your notes alone.

Standards I would say from memory that ICAEW were hot on is IFRS 9, IFRS 15, IFRS 16 and IAS 12 so try to have a better understanding of these. Use the IFRS standard books too to tie in for those niche areas as that helped me in the exam too.

Note: although the ICAEW digital bookshelf has been newly introduced, for Corporate Reporting you can still take in any materials. It might be worth printing out a few useful model answers if you would prefer this to using the online ICAEW Question Bank.

Audit Requirement

For the audit requirement, I do not remember there being much new content from AA. That being said, some of the questions did seem to be more skills based. By this I mean you need to apply this to the question to interpret the audit issue by say performing analytical procedures. You should practice questions to get better at this.

This section within How To Pass ACA AA can help here.

aca exams practice
Practice is key!

I essentially had an open book file on audit alone. I planned it out with the different risks associated with each account balance and relevant procedures to address the risk. I would keep adding to it as I went through the Question Bank to make the notes as helpful as possible. For example, the risk for revenue is usually overstatement so I would then list audit procedures to address this risk. You do need to really explain why and apply to the scenario to gain a full mark.

Working in audit did help but I definitely had some good notes to hand. I would recommend having this as a comfort blanket.

Time Management

As I will be sharing in my next CR blog, I really did make THE fatal error of messing up my timing. This is something I was usually very good at and had done well in all exams prior to this. I really did not think this would happen to me at the Advanced stage. Join my journey to find out in due course how I did this.

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What I should have done is the same approach as my revision technique and as outlined in this BPT blog. The question will be split into smaller examinable areas but you will not be told how many marks these are worth individually. With practice you should get more accurate at approximating the marks. As there are 2.1 minutes per mark, allocate this time and make sure to move on once the time is up. You do not want to run out of time and miss the easier marks at the start of the question!

Corporate Reporting (CR) timing
Here is a quick, rough guide using x2 minutes per mark

Further Revision Advice for Corporate Reporting

I started revising quite early especially because of the COVID-19 month delay to my exam date. Due to this extra time, I aimed to space out my revision and did one Question Bank question a day. I wanted to really take my time with CR and not get too overwhelmed. However, these questions are very LONG especially when it comes to debriefing them. In all honestly, in the end Corporate Reporting went so badly it felt like all the revision I did barely made a difference.

Where my revision strategy went wrong on this exam was by not taking the time to really learn the content. I would recommend focusing on learning and thoroughly understanding the new, complex standards mentioned already. I may have jumped into the Question Bank too early and I should have practiced several questions from the same examinable area to do this effectively. What the real exam highlighted to me was that I had not understood the standards as well as I had thought such as IFRS 16.

Note: for Corporate Reporting the ICAEW Question Bank does not provide a contents page for each topic and relevant questions. Although slightly time consuming, you could produce this yourself by flicking through the mark scheme and pulling this together. Alternatively, ask your tutor if you have one. The ACA Group have been asking about this and some have purchased this from ACA Masters or Paradigm Shift. Another approach is to simply search for the words from the standard you are looking for. As the materials are digital now, this is much easier to do.

You should start preparing your open book file as soon as possible. You can start this as early as you would like with content from FAR and AA. I do think with Corporate Reporting it could be easy to burn out especially given how long the questions are. You could try doing a question a day or every other day once familiar with the content.

Are the Recent ICAEW Question Bank Questions most Relevant?

A question I am frequently asked that may help you is “if you are short of time should you focus on the more recent ICAEW Question Bank questions rather than the older questions?”.

corporate reporting old qus vs new

I do think if it’s recently come up it might not come up so quickly again such as IFRS 8 in 2020. That being said, topics like IFRS 9 and other newly taught/modified standards such as IFRS 16 still might. This exam is really unpredictable so having the approach that it came up recently so will not again probably isn’t the best.

If the questions are in the ICAEW Question Bank then they will be relevant regardless of whether they are newer or older. That being said, the newer questions are said to be more representative of the exam so perhaps aim to get through these. If you do not have enough time to get through them all properly it may be worth planning and skimming through answers.

Corporate Reporting Wrap Up

To summarise, ACA Corporate Reporting is honestly the hardest ACA exam because of the unpredictability. BPT is also unpredictable but I personally found the new content in Corporate Reporting harder to understand. Perhaps this was because I did not put in enough time to learn this and jumped to question practice too early. However, even with all my mistakes including poor time management, not completing all the exam questions and having an awful exam I still passed. If I can do it then you definitely can.

I would also like to take this moment to congratulate you on getting this far. Corporate Reporting has unlimited attempts given it is an Advanced Level exam but you will not need this I am sure. This is not the time to slow down but instead keep pushing because you are almost there!

If you found this blog helpful, feel free to buy me a coffee or join my journey for more!

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89 comments

  1. May I ask if you could share your notes for audit part with me please? I’m having my exam next week and just come cross your article and find very useful. Thanks in advance

      1. Hi Jag – this is super helpful. Thank you so much and many congrats on your qualification. I was wondering if you’d be happy sharing your audit notes with me as well?

        I also find Hedge Accounting seriously hard to master, with there being little overlap on each question. I don’t suppose you have any good notes on this that you’d be happy to share?

        I have the exam on Monday!

      2. Hi Jag, I’m a huge fan your blog. I have CR on Monday. I was wondering whether you’d be happy sharing your Audit notes with me as well? Thank you so much.

        1. Hi Rory,

          Thank you so much for your kind words! I have just emailed you so hopefully they are with you shortly.

          To your previous comment regarding hedge accounting, as per my email I do not have anything on this, sorry and all the best for Monday!

          Kind regards,
          Jag

  2. Hi Jag,

    Thanks a lot for your blog, I found it very informative and it was straight to the point.

    I have my CR exam coming up and was wondering if you could email me any notes that you have. I would really appreciate it as I struggled massively with FAR and failed it twice.

    Many thanks.

    1. Hi Hassan,
      Firstly apologies for the delay in responding and sorry to hear about your struggles with FAR – I am glad to hear you are to sit CR though so assume all went ok in the end!
      I have just emailed you and good luck with CR 🙂
      Kind regards,
      Jag

  3. Hello Jag
    I need some information regarding Corporate Reporting and Strategic Business Management. Is 3 months are more than enough to prepare for these two papers and what is your strategy regarding these two papers as I am preparing for these two papers. I have a grip on standards but the way it solves in the question bank was quite wired and its really impossible to answer which is mention in the question bank and sometimes marks are not given which is also difficult to judge how much write on that particular question.

    1. Hi,
      I would definitely say three months is enough to prepare for these two papers.
      Firstly, in terms of the points you have raised about the question bank solutions, it does come with practice. SBM is similar to BST where you will get marks for sensible points so do not worry too much about that. I assume as you are referencing standards you mean the actual financial reporting parts of CR and SBM? In which case it may just mean you do need more question practice to ensure you are applying the standards correctly to the scenario.
      Revision strategy is always question bank practice and ensure you can get through the majority if not all within the three months. The questions are very long in these exams so perhaps really going through one an evening and debriefing could be a good approach. The good thing is that CR and SBM do overlap in some content. Build your open books as you go along. Although the content did overlap I did have two separate open book files so I could clearly differentiate between the two but it is up to you how you do it.
      CR I do feel requires very good content knowledge so as you go through questions do make sure you actually understand the standards. There is a lot of application in these exams and some standards can be tested quite heavily and detailed so having the good foundation of understanding will help.
      Ensure you have a good grasp of the audit aspects too and the FM content that can come up in SBM. Getting to grips with IFRS 9 and hedging should be beneficial too.
      It is a lot of question practice and concentration but three months should do the trick – good luck!

  4. Dear Jag,

    I really love you content for it being closely relatable.

    Would you be able if you could kindly share your audit notes to me while i prepare for July 2022 CR exam? I am dishearted for failing CR twice previously but felt that i could benefit from your blog and wise words.

    Thank you in advance

    1. Hi I am sorry to hear the difficulties you are having with CR – no doubt next time will be the lucky one for you (third time luckily hopefully)!
      I have just emailed you and good luck!

  5. Hi Jag,
    Are two months sufficient time to revise for Corporate Reporting? I have not yet started my revision and am really feeling the pressure. Any advise?
    Can you also please email me your notes 🙂
    Thanks,
    Misbah

    1. Just emailed you – and definitely is enough time. Just ensure you understand the content, have had sufficient practice and manage your timing. Good luck!

  6. Hi Jag,

    This is such a brilliant article with lots of valuable tips as always, thank you for this.

    I’ve started studying CR but I’m a bit lost with everything and struggling to set up an organised open book file, do you have any CR notes please?

  7. Hi Jag

    Love the post and advice. Really struggling with the audit section of the paper. Would it be possible to share your notes with me please?

  8. Hi Jag,

    Are you still ok to share your audit notes for CR exam?
    My exam is in July 2022 and it would be much appreciated!

    Kind regards

  9. Some great advice, sitting CR resit in July 22, having failed by 1 mark. I would be grateful if you would be kind enough to email me audit notes also, ( I don’t work in Audit, so would help greatly) thanks.

  10. Hi jag

    Hope you’re well.

    Thank you for sharing your experiences and your insights are so helpful. I was hoping if you could share your notes on CR especially the Audit side and SBM as it hasn’t come to me as naturally as I’d have hoped. Really love your content keep going please!

  11. Hi Jag

    Found this really useful! I am sitting CR in July 2022, please can you share your notes with me?

    Thanks so much!

  12. Hi Jag,

    Please could I have your audit notes for guidance?
    I’m struggling with my question practice.

    Thank you in advance 🙂

  13. Hi Jag,

    Thanks for the tips – I found these really useful.

    Please would you email me with audit notes if you’re still open to sharing these?

    Thank you!

  14. Hi Jag,

    Just came across your blog after searching for tips on the CR exam. I am sitting all three advanced exams in July and feeling quite overwhelmed.

    Do you mind sharing your notes?

    Thanks,
    Ash

  15. Hi Jag,

    Hope you’re doing well. I got my CR exam in July, would it be possible for you to send me your audit notes, please.

    Thank you so much.

  16. Hi Jags, would you please be able to share your notes for CR and SBM with me too if you can – that would be great!!

  17. Hi Jag

    Great blog, really useful info!

    I’ve got CR in a few weeks – if it’s at all possible would you mind sharing your audit notes please?

    Thanks

  18. Hi Jag your blog has been very beneficial and breaks down things very nicely.
    Could I also get a copy of your CR notes?

    Thanks alot

  19. Hi,

    Thanks very much for the blog post!

    I have both my CR & SBM exams next week and am struggling with the amount of content! Please could you email me any notes that you have that may help.

    Thanks very much
    Gemma

  20. Hi Jag – love your blog.

    Would you mind sharing you CR notes with me so i can add anything i may have missed to my own?

    Thanks so much in advance 🙂

  21. Hi Jags, great post there’s lots of tips in here that I think are going to help me! I’m sitting SMB and CR together this November and was wondering whether you would be able to share your notes for CR and SBM with me please – if you can!

    Thanks,
    Chloe

  22. Hi Jag,

    Thanks for sharing your experience with the CR exam! Highly appreciated!

    Would you please share your CR notes with me too?

    Thank you!
    Azad

  23. Hi Jag
    Have just discovered you through youtube – I’m about to sit SBM and CR in November – think I might have got to this point a lot quicker if I’d found your blog sooner! Would whether you mind sharing any notes you may have for CR and SBM? It would be great to have at least a starting point for putting together my open books
    Thank you so much!
    Charlie

    1. Hi Charlie,

      Thank you for your kind words and apologies for such a delay in my response – I have just emailed you.

      Hopefully it is not too late to help and good luck!

      Kind regards,
      Jag

  24. Hey Jag,

    I love your blog posts and they’re always my go-to when sitting my ACA exams.

    I am sitting the three finals in November and am already worrying I am behind ahhh.

    I would appreciate it soooo much if you could share your CR and SBM notes with me please.

    Thanks,
    Soph

    1. Hi Soph,

      Such a lovely comment, thank you so much!

      Apologies for the delay but I have just sent across the audit notes that I share – I hope it helps and good luck!!

      Kind regards,
      Jag

  25. Hello Jag!

    Thank you for all your effort you put to write these articles and share your experience. I came across your materials for the first time after I failed my BPT paper in Dec-21 and I must admit that your content helped me a lot to secure my BPT pass during my Jun-22 resit!

    I’m sitting SMB and CR together this November 2022 and was wondering whether you would be able to share your notes for CR and SBM with me please – if you can! I would really appreciate it.

    1. Hi Jakub,

      No worries at all – so glad to hear it helped and that you passed!!

      I have just emailed you across the audit notes, hopefully it is not too late and I hope they help.

      Good luck!

      Kind regards,
      Jag

  26. Hi Jag! I hope you are well. Thanks for your tips, they really helped to pass my BPT exam last December! Could I also be cheeky and as for your audit notes please?

  27. Hi Jag,

    Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. Your tips helped me a lot on my journey so far and i got extremely lucky i saw your blog before my BPT exam!
    May i please also ask for your CR notes?

    Thank you so much and best wishes!

    1. Hi Natalia,

      No worries at all and glad to hear BPT went well!

      Unfortunately I do not have any CR notes I can share but all the best.

      Kind regards,
      Jag

  28. Hi Jag,

    I am happy that I found your blogs this early, these are super helpful. I am planning to sit for CR and SBM this July, do you think 3 months would be enough time to prepare for the two exams (including learning the content, as I had prior learning credits for all professional level exams)? Would it be okay for you to please share your notes for CR and SBM.

    Thanks
    Imran

  29. Hi Jag,

    Thank you for providing an overview in your blog post. I am also taking the advanced level this year, please could I ask for your audit notes and any others you deem relevant?

    Many thanks in advance!

  30. Hi Jag,

    Really appreciate your blogs.
    I’m planning on sitting CR in July.
    Are you still fine with sharing your CR notes?
    Thanks in advance 🙂

  31. Hi Jag,

    Hope you are well.

    Would you say 2.5-3 months is enough to prepare for CR, if I wanted to sit it in July this year, starting in the next few days.

    Passed FAR but quite some time back now though (in yrs)…

    1. Hi Kelvin,

      Apologies for such a delay in responding – wedding planning on top of life has been hectic to say the least!

      Definitely enough months to prep and I have just emailed you some notes that may help.

      Good luck for next week!

      Kind regards,
      Jag

  32. Hi Jag,

    I have been following you for a while now and it has been great to learn about all of your experiences and useful tips/tricks! With all of the ups and downs of the ACA it is easy to quickly get disheartened, so your content has reassured me that I am not alone in feeling like this.

    I was wondering whether you would be kind enough to share your CR Audit Notes (and any other materials for CR/SBM that you are willing to share)?

    Thank you so much!

    Jennifer

  33. Hi Jag,

    Thank you for the insightful post, I have just come from your video on youtube.

    If you still have your Audit notes from the CR exams is there any chance I could get hold of them?

    Thank you 🙂

  34. Hi Jag, thank you for the post! May I also get a copy of the audit notes shared out please, thank you so much!

  35. Hi Jag

    Thanks for all your tips, really useful!

    Would I be able to see your audit notes please? I have my CR and SBM exams next week.

    Thanks
    Alex

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