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Welcome to what is probably the first part of your ACCA Accounting Technician course. This module is designed to prepare you for Paper A1: Transaction Accounting.

No previous study of the subject is required for this course although any experience of maintaining accounts or working in an accounts office would be helpful. Maths to GCSE level would also give you a head start but is not essential.

To become an ACCA Accounting Technician, you must pass the examinations and either achieve a Level 4 NVQ in Accounting (this is called ‘the NVQ route’) or meet ACCA’s practical experience requirements (‘Practical Experience route’). The exceptions are shown in diagrammatic form below:

1. Types of Business Transaction and Documentation
2. Banking Systems and Services
3. Cash
   Tutor-marked Assignment A
4. Double Entry Transactions
5. Ledger Accounts
6. Sales Tax (VAT)
   Tutor-marked Assignment B
7. Primary Records
8. Control Accounts
9. Accounts Analysis and Journal Transfers
10. Payroll Procedures
11. Capital and Revenue
    Tutor-marked Assignment C
    Tutor-marked Assignment D
    Suggested Answers to Self-Assessment Tests (Module One)

There are also sets of suggested answers for all the tutor-marked assignments. Students will normally receive these when their assignments are returned to them from their tutor.

Many students will also be working towards Paper A2 (Office Practice & Procedures) at the same time. OOL has published a companion pack for this module. Module A1 also leads naturally into study for Module B1: Maintaining Financial Records and Accounts. This and other modules are also available from OOL.

There is space here for your first attempt which will normally be after you finish work on the lesson for the first time, and also for a second attempt, which may well be when you are revising for an examination. A comparison between the two scores will help you to see where careful revision is required and which topics have been insufficiently grasped.

After every three lessons (approximately), you will find a TMA, again in multiple choice form. These are similar to the SATs except that you should answer them on your own paper and send the answers to your tutor for marking.

Your tutor will be able to help you best if you also include a brief account of why you have selected a particular answer. It could be that you have selected the right answer for the wrong reason but your tutor will not be able to help you if no explanation is given. However, a wrong explanation does not affect the mark you get!

When your script is returned, you should also receive a set of suggested answers. As well as the correct letter (A, B, C or D), these will include a brief explanation of why this was the best choice (and why some of the others were wrong).

 

ACCA’s aim has always been to provide qualifications which are closely linked to the needs of accountants and their staff in the modern business world and which prepare members for work in any sector of the economy - public practice, industry, commence or the public sector.

ACCA’s Accounting Technician qualification offers the opportunity for individuals to obtain recognition for their work as accounting technicians and support staff. In line with ACCA’s tradition of open entry anyone can enrol for the ACCA Accounting Technician qualification.

With this aim in mind, the structure of the ACCA Accounting Technician syllabus has been designed to:

• assist learning and understanding

• develop an appreciation of the development and interdependence of subjects.

To qualify, you will need to complete up to nine examinations designed to test the knowledge and understanding required for work as accounting technicians.

The nine examinations are broken down into three levels. Candidates may sit between 1 and 4 papers taken from two consecutive levels. Papers should be sat in sequence, except for the optional papers C3 - C6 which may be sat in any order: All passes will be retained and examinations can be attempted twice a year (in June and December).

Multiple-Choice Question (MCQ) tests. Two 2 hour examinations.

• Al Transaction Accounting

• A2 Office Practice and Procedure

Three 2 hour examinations.

• B1 Maintaining Financial Records and Accounts

• B2 Cost Accounting Systems

• B3 Information Technology Processes

(NVQ Level 2) 2 hour examination

1. Types of business transactions: sales, purchase, payments, receipts, cash and trade discounts, coding systems, bad debts, payroll.
2. Types of business documentation: invoice, statement credit note, remittance advice, receipt, internal payment and claim.
3. General principles of the operation of a sales tax.
4. Banking systems and services: cash, cheque, paying-in documents, inter bank transfers, payable orders, BACS, credit card procedures (exclude foreign currency transactions).
5. Posting operations in manual & computerised accounting systems.
6. Cash handling, petty cash operations, cash security.
7. Functions of and structure of a general ledger system.
8. Types of ledger accounts and the main cash book.
9. Nature and function of primary records.
10. Double entry transactions.
11. Journal transfer transactions.
12. Basic distinctions between capital and revenue transactions.
13. Principles of internal check and control accounts.
14. Bank reconciliation statements.
15. Accounts analysis: sales and purchase day books, payroll, function and form of age analysis reports.
16. Payroll procedures: authorisation calculation, internal check and control over gross earnings, deductions and net payments, employee records and returns, payments methods.

In order to prepare for the examinations, ACCA have indicated that you may study by day or evening classes at a college or university, or you may study privately using the various materials available, such as those supplied by Oxford Open Learning.

In studying, you are preparing for a profession where change is the only constant. During the course of your studies, you will see the introduction of new legislation, revisions to accounting and auditing standards, more sophisticated financial instruments, developments in technology, and economic and political change. In view of this, it is important that you keep up to date with accounting and the related subjects.

In order to help students do this, ACCA issues the monthly Technician Bulletin and Students’ Newsletter and you should read these as well as current periodicals and the financial press. If you are registered as a joint scheme student you may receive another newsletter/journal which will give details of variant papers, tax and law changes and other helpful information.

You will only succeed in the ACCA Accounting Technician examinations if you are well-prepared for them. You will need to work hard and to make the best possible use of the time you have for study and in the examination hall.

Accounting is a changing profession and it is important that you read regularly the professional journals, the financial pages of the newspapers and, of course, the ACCA Technician Bulletin and Students’ Newsletter. You should ensure that your study programme is based on up-to-date material current textbooks, copies of new legislation, accounting standards and auditing guidelines, where applicable.

Whatever your method of study - full-time, part-time or studying by yourself at home - it is important that you plan your private study in an organised way.

Once you have decided when you will be sitting the examination and how many papers you will attempt, you should draw up a plan of private study (a work plan). The first thing to do in designing this work plan is to decide how much time you can spend each week on private study. You will need to be honest with yourself: while you must be prepared to work hard for the examination, you must leave yourself enough time to do your job well and to have a reasonable social life. Do not attempt more subjects than you can realistically cover in the time available: two passes are better than one pass and three fails! You also need to decide your best time for study - early morning, during the day, or in the evening.

The total amount of time you spend each week on private study should be divided into several short sessions. It is generally not a good idea to concentrate all your study into one lengthy session at the weekend. If for example you decide to allocate six hours per week to private study, try to split this time over three or four evenings. You can then, if you wish, keep the weekends free. If your study is to be really effective, it is important that you allow yourself plenty of time for rest and relaxation as well as for study.

You should always check pilot papers for the subjects you intend to sit. They will give you a good indication of the usual format of questions and, if your first language is not English, an idea of the sort of English used by the Examiners. You may decide to purchase the ACCA Pilot Papers which will show you how you should approach your answers. These can be obtained by using the order form in the Technician Bulletin or downloading it from the Web site (http://www.acca.co uk/acctech).

Please note that a number of questions from the Pilot Papers have already been incorporated into this course, by kind permission of ACCA.

Most people find that when they have been working or studying for longer than about one hour they become gradually less able to absorb new material. It is best to tackle new and difficult topics when you are fresh. If your study sessions are longer than about an hour, it is also a good idea to divide them into several shorter periods. During the course of an evening’s study session of, say, two hours, you can then tackle two or three topics. This is preferable to going on and on at the same topic.

As well as varying the topics you are studying, you should vary your method of study. Normally it is possible to concentrate on reading for 45 minutes or so at a time. During your study sessions, you should try to attempt example questions, write up notes, practise answering essay-type questions or, if you are at college, prepare for your next class.

It is always a good idea to allow time in your schedules for going over topics you find more difficult than you had anticipated. Remember also that it is dangerous to be too confident about topics which you do not find difficult: you need to spend time on them to make sure that you really do understand them.

Once you have decided on a work plan, make sure you stick to it and try to work steadily through the whole period leading up to the examination.

Taking and keeping notes is the most common method by which students retain and accumulate information. Notes can be a vital part of your preparation for examination and it is important to make them as clear and accurate as possible.

Some students following this course will also have the opportunity to attend lectures and seminars.

If you are following a course at a college, you may be able to take notes at lectures and seminars. If you have no previous experience of this, it is worth remembering that you should not try to record every thing that is being said. If you try to do so, you will find that you are paying too much attention to detail and are missing the overall sense of the talk. When taking notes you should concentrate on understanding what is being said and then writing down the key points. You can enlarge on these later by further reading or study. You should also record the points you find difficult and then check these with your teacher.

A good way of making sure that you understand your notes is to write them in your own words. You should allocate time in your study periods to following up the lectures in this way as soon as possible after they have taken place.

You should aim to read through a section or lesson of this course then stop for a few minutes to consider exactly what the text was about. You can then make a short note about the passage concerned and add this to your other notes. It is a good idea to make notes in the wide left-hand margin and also to keep your own separate summary of the topics you have covered.

You will find that you learn best from active study of this sort, in which you ensure you have understood material by working on it in some way - writing notes summarising your understanding of it. Better still, test yourself on an examination question under examination conditions and see how your answer compares with the author’s.

You should make notes on every part of your course but try to avoid becoming immersed in too much detail. It is a good idea to set time aside for regular consolidation sessions in which you summarise your notes. The summaries - or notes of notes - should be lists of key points to remind yourself about the detailed material which you have been studying. During your revision, concentrate on the key points only.

It is important to store your study material so that it is easily accessible when you want to revise from it. It is a good idea to spend some time at the beginning of your course organising your storage or filing system: this will save you a lot of valuable time later.

Different storage methods will suit different people. One good method is to collect your material together in a series of loose-leaf folders, with a separate folder for each subject to be studied. Each subject can be divided into appropriate topics and dividing markers used to separate the topics.

Depending on whether you are following the NVQ route or the practical experience route, you will also need to devise an effective strategy for storing evidence of your ability to perform the various practical skills associated with this course and demonstrate the intellectual knowledge you have gained.

The examination papers for Level A are made up of multiple choice questions (MCQs). A special answer sheet is provided for answering the MCQs and instructions are provided on how to complete this. You must follow these instructions carefully and fill in the answer sheet in pencil.

You should expect to tackle 50 questions during each 2-hour examination. These will not be of equal difficulty and you will probably find that the longer, harder questions are located towards the end of the paper. So do not make the mistake of thinking that you can afford to spend two minutes each on all the earlier questions. If you have prepared well, there will be a number of questions which you can answer much quicker than that. If so, it will give you extra time to focus on the harder questions later on.

A number of questions will require fairly detailed working. There is no reason to think that you have to do all this in your head. It is much safer to write down your workings and then double-check that the arithmetic makes sense.

There will normally be four possible answers, A, B, C and D. Always select exactly one answer. You cannot get a mark if you choose two letters (or none). It is vital that you have a guess even if you have no idea what the correct answer is. If you guessed C, say, for every question, you might expect to score 25%. Very often you will be able to eliminate one or even two answers as being "obviously" wrong, so your chances of a correct guess rise to 33% or even 50%.

Do not underestimate the importance of common sense.

For the purposes of setting practical experience requirements for the ACCA Accounting Technician qualification, ACCA has listed 25 Units of competence including many based on NVQs in Accounting.

The Units cover personal development as well as technical, management and IT related functions. The Summary of Competences (form TTR2) in the pocket at the back of the TTR (Appendix B) provides an overview of these Units. Each Unit is comprised of Elements which define what you should be able to do in respect of a particular activity. The ones for Level A are listed in the following pages.

Eventually, to pass the full qualification, you must achieve competence in at least 15 Units including:

• 7 Mandatory Units and

• 8 other Units including a minimum of 4 Key Units

Key and Mandatory Units are marked in the following pages and on the TTR2 form by the symbols K and M respectively.

To achieve competence in any given Unit, you must either:

• obtain sufficient work experience in all, or the specified number of Elements listed;

or

• be assessed through the NVQ route.

Unless otherwise stated, all Elements are required for Unit competence. You will see that all the competences linked to Level A are ‘mandatory’ with the exception of Unit 3, Recording Payroll Transactions.

1.1 Record and bank monies received

1.2 Make and record payments

1.3 Maintain petty cash records

1.4 Account for cash and bank transactions

2.1 Process documents relating to goods and services supplied on credit

2.2 Process documents relating to goods and services received on credit

2.3 Account for goods and services supplied on credit

2.4 Account for goods and services received on credit

1. The student’s supervisor signs and dates the relevant section of TTR2 when the required number of Elements for each Unit have been covered.

or

2. The student records the NVQ level which covers the Unit together with the awarding body and date of achievement.

If (1), it would be a good idea to discuss with your supervisor what kinds of evidence you will need to gather and how your work should be organised.

If (2), it generally means NVQ Level 2 which is the equivalent of Accounting Technician Level A (Foundation). Many UK-based students will be attempting to achieve NVQ Level 2 at the same time as following this course and, in terms of theory, this course should form an excellent preparation for Accounting NVQ2 accreditation.

As part of its quality control procedures, ACCA reviews a significant number of Technician Training Records each year to ensure that the experience recorded is an accurate reflection of the work undertaken and competence demonstrated. You will be notified if your TTR is selected as part of this review. Failure to comply with this review process may lead to your work experience not being recognised for qualification purposes.

Students who follow the Practical Experience route must obtain at least one year’s supervised work experience and meet ACCA’s competence requirements.

First it should be emphasized that this course is designed to give you exactly the right amount of reading, taking each topic to the required depth. So if all sections of the text are fully understood, there should be no necessity for purchases of additional textbooks. But some students will find that certain topics are more difficult than others and that they need additional guidance or a fresh approach.

ACCA’s Technician Bulletin is the best source of information about supporting textbooks, including advertisements from some of the major publishers. BPP and AT Foulks Lynch are two publishers with strong reputations in this field and their texts can be recommended. A.H. Millichamp’s Foundation Accounting (Letts) includes material to help you tackle Paper A2.

Oxford Open Learning also publishes Accounting courses for GCSE and ‘A’ level which cover the A1 (Transaction Accounting) topics in much greater detail.

You are setting out on an exciting journey which should lead to one of the most prestigious and valuable of professional qualifications and a wealth of career opportunities. Good luck with your studies!

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