How I passed Accounting with only 1-2 hours of revision a day!

I hated learning Accounting. I felt rushed into trying to understand concepts that I had never heard of before such as debits and credits, cost of sales and control accounts. I didn’t understand how to calculate profit/loss on disposals or why you would credit Accumulated Depreciation if it was ongoing from other financial periods. Unsurprisingly I failed ACA exam. But then I developed a different study strategy and I passed the exam. Below you’ll find my strategy and free resources to help you pass your accounting exams too.

Why you should use this time to revise your accounting exam:

• Accounting is the most complex out of the certificate level exams – it’s a skill, it takes time to learn and properly understand concepts and then to apply this knowledge in an exam setting. I would spend 2 months just going other the whole content from CH6 Control Account, Suspense, and Errors – CH14 Partnership Accounts.

• It will help you with your day job – No joke when I say that testing different account balances will become easier. An example – If I’m testing a client’s revenue balance I would be thinking about what they’ve recognised as revenue. IAS 18, for instance, defines revenue as coming from sales of goods, services or interest and dividends. When I’m receiving support from the client I would be expecting to receive a sales invoice, an invoice of a service, a purchase order, a contract between a customer and the company, etc.

• It will save you time when you are going back into the office and things begin to return to normal. Of course, no one can predict what will happen in the next couple of months – work from home may become the new open office space,  Zoom will be the only way of social contact, ICAEW may start rolling out remote exams to do online using webcams, etc.. If you put in the hard work now by studying the syllabus and content topic than this means you’ll only need to do exam question bank practice and mock papers a couple of weeks before the exam.

• It’s even easier and better to get help now than later! There are so many tutors out there who have availability and I have a lot of time on my hands to prepare specially tailored materials and resources to help you succeed in your studying! It’s the best time to get help on the topics you are feeling stuck on. Comment in the box below what you are struggling on and I’ll provide 1:1 help or write a blog post on it.

• Get ahead of the game. We’re living in a reality where commuting and wasting time travelling to the office is no longer an hour of your day gone. Instead, you could use that hour in the morning to do a chapter of the question bank or read the study manual and learn something new! Or you could even contact me in the morning with the questions you are struggling and I’ll get back to you by the end of the same day .

If you’re into trying a system or new revision plan to pass Accounting first-time or any ACA certificate level exam then this post will guarantee that you will achieve this. I hope you find it useful and comment below what your doing for your revision. You might also be interested in how I passed principles of tax in a month post here.

How to Pass the ACA Accounting Exam

1. Create an Excel Tracker sheet which logs the revision you are doing (or use my free resource)

This first step was a game-changer for me. I had been doing my revision completely wrong because I didn’t have a place where I was keeping track of the chapters and questions I was struggling with. Categorising my ‘weaknesses’ or knowledge gaps by chapter took that burden of knowing how to spend my time revising. This is the focus of the revision strategy.

My Excel tracker (which is included as one of my free resources I give as part of subscribing) is versatile, flexible and adaptable. It has the dates scheduled for when you should revise, the chapter names and potential topics to focus on in your revision and a colour code system so that you can turn those reds into greens. It doesn’t matter if you don’t revise every day, it doesn’t matter if you don’t spend all Saturday slaving away at the Question Bank or Study Manual because this Excel gives you the focus to just concentrate on one chapter or topic in a revision session.  Download it below the post!

2. Have a social life, exercise, don’t spend your life killing yourself with these exams.

Having a job that requires you to travel, look at figures 12 hours a day and sometimes work weekends, it can feel like you have no time for yourself when you start revising and working. Dedicate 1-2 hours a day on revision during the week– it’s enough. Schedule 2 days where you don’t revise. Spend a little longer on a weekend day ( say 4 hours maximum). This still gives you other time to block it out for relaxing, seeing your partner or going for dinner with friends. In the current climate, this gives you time to Netflix and chill or have a remote catch-up with a friend.

If you block out time for enjoying yourself, it won’t seem as awful having this extra commitment and will help you not to resent the exams or being a miserable person.

3. Prioritise Control Accounts and Suspense Accounts, PPE, Long Questions and Accruals/Prepayments.

Accounting has 15 chapters. It is one of the most time-constrained exams you’ll probably sit in your life because you are expected to do so much. Don’t waste your time on focusing on the chapters you understand – if you do it 7 times you will still remember it in 2 weeks.

When I was sitting my Accounting exams and retakes, the majority of the questions coming up were regarding how to fix the error and clear the suspense account, what is profit/loss on disposal, double entries which had errors, what is the double entry for a prepayment, etc.

40% of the exam is spent plugging in numbers for a Statement of Cash Flows or Statement of Profit/Loss. In my experience, the Cash Flow question in the exam was a lot easier in terms of the adjustments and was a lot simpler than what I was revising. The statement of Profit/loss was the complete opposite. I had over 10 adjustments – most of them worded badly and adjustments which I had not ever seen in my life.

4. Don’t rely on getting questions correct. Understand where you went wrong.

When you concentrate and focus on anything you are getting wrong, it may seem tedious, hard and a mind-fuck but this is what ensures you don’t make these mistakes again in your career and exams. Unlike Assurance and Business Tech Finance which relies on just consuming the information and absorbing it, Accounting tests on whether you understand how to fix an error of commission or how to get rid of a suspense account. It’s not enough just knowing that Q19) in Chapter 6 is B). Why is it B? Why did you pick D instead of B?

Always focus on where you went wrong so that you can show the exam software that you are right. My Excel Tracker helps identify your weaknesses and provides a document for what you need to work on.

Example: I didn’t know how to calculate net profit. I went back to my detailed notes and made a simplified page summary on what net profit was and how to calculate it. Finally, I attempted questions from the Question Bank and got these questions correct.

5. Have a solid knowledge of Debits and Credits. USE THESE PRINCIPLES. Accounting isn’t just about numbers it’s about the logic of DR and CR.

Debits and Credits are the main underlying principle of all Accounting. If you don’t have a solid knowledge of recording transactions using double-entry this will stop you from getting that pass mark.

I highly recommend using this and making a list of double-entry transactions by category – Double entries for recording different scenarios regarding Assets, Income, Equity, Liabilities, Dividends, etc

By doing this, you’ll have mastered the “Should” part when looking at any error and suspense account questions and this will make the adjustments part of the long question 10000% easier because you’ll know which side to add and deduct on the financial statement.

I hope these tips have been useful. It took me 3 times to get my head around Accounting and the third-time pass was all down to the above steps I took.

Free Resource to help you study & pass your accounting exams

Sign up to my mailing list below to download the free Excel Tracker and start making progress with your studies today:

Which topics are you struggling in Accounting? What resources do you need from me? I’d love to hear some of your thoughts in the comments box below!