Vacancy for Accountants.
Vacancy for Accountants.
Employer: APM Automotive Holdings Berhad
Vacancies: Port Klang, Bkt Beruntung, Tanjung Malim and Overseas.
Fresh graduates are encouraged to apply.
Computer literate with exposure to ERP systems.
Matured with good interpersonal skills.
Willing to travel and relocate to any subsidiaries within the group.
Good spoken and written English and Chinese.
Kindly submit application, with passport size photo, stating current and expected salary to:
GROUP HR DEPARTMENT
APM Automotive Holdings Berhad
Lot 1, Jalan 6/3,
Kawasan Perusahaan Seri Kembangan,
43300 Seri Kembangan,
Selangor Darul Ehsan.
email: gr-apmah@apm-automotive.com
Fax: 03-8946-3319
Looking for Finance Assistant
Looking for Finance Assistant
Requirements:
-STPM / LCCI or equivalent.
-Able to handle full set of accounts.
-Must be compute literate.
-Good communication skills, both in English and Mandarin.
-Able to work independently with minimum supervision.
-Working experience in similar capacity is an added advantage
-Knowledge in Ms Excel would be an added advantage
Personal Attributes
-Possess the following traits and competencies;
-Analytical
-Quality orientation
marcus evans - Kuala Lumpur Office
CP21, Suite 2101,
Central Plaza,
34 Jalan Sultan Ismail,
50250 Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Tel: 603 2723 6600
Fax: 603 2723 6700
Finance Manager:
Jerry Yeoh
jerryo@marcusevanskl.com
Ten steps to passing ACCA 3.6
BPP Liverpool tutor Paul Bennett maximises your chances of passing paper 3.6 by bringing you ten top tips to follow. With the June pass rate down six percent on the previous sitting, this is just the job 1 - Find a good tuition provider with up-to-date materials. This is particularly important for paper 3.6 as the syllabus is always changing and the examiner, Graham Holt, sets exams which test your knowledge of recent accounting standards and current developments.
Look for a tuition provider with ACCA Premier or (even better) Premier Plus status (you can view lists of these on ACCA’s website) and ask qualified friends and colleagues for their recommendations. Go to open days to check out tutors, study materials and premises. Look for an approachable tutor – you might not be the class Hermione Granger but you’ll probably have more questions to ask than you did for lower level papers.
Recommended tuition provider like FTMS (keith farmer) and SYSTEMATIC (Hanif) for IAS and MASb in Malaysia2 - Review the examinable legislation and documents for your sitting of the 3.6 exam which can be found in ACCA’s Student Accountant magazine in February and September each year (or on the ACCA website). Although a good, broad knowledge of the whole syllabus is required to pass the exam, make time to focus on the newest standards and exposure drafts. These are the ones most likely to be tested in detail in the exam.
3 - Whether you are attending a taught course or following a home study system, start studying seriously from day one. The syllabus is huge but reassuringly it builds on your paper 2.5 knowledge.
However, there is a lot to learn and re-learn so the sooner you start building up your knowledge the better.
For each accounting standard/exposure draft you study complete a small index card, with the name and number of the standard on one side and some key points on the other. Then carry these round with you and test yourself when you have a spare minute. Looking at the name/number side, can you remember the key points? Scanning the other side, can you recall the name and number correctly?
4 - Try to read round the subject, not focusing solely on your study materials. Articles in Student Accountant magazine marked as relevant to paper 3.6 (which can be downloaded from the ACCA website) are essential reading, especially any written by Graham Holt, as they are often tested in subsequent exams.
The accounting standards setters have websites giving details of projects they are working on and current developments (see for example www.iasb.org.uk or www.asb.org.uk). Newspaper articles in the business pages can give useful illustrations for an exam answer (e.g. explaining why a company’s results have changed as they switch from local GAAP to international standards).
5 - Group accounting techniques are a core area of the syllabus – you must practise consolidations. We know question one of the exam is always on group accounts, and the topic also often appears in one or more of the optional questions.
Make sure you have a good grasp of the basic techniques, as these can give you the easier marks in the exam. Review your paper 2.5 notes if necessary - assuming you did not burn them to celebrate passing that exam! Then build up knowledge of more advanced areas like consolidating foreign subsidiaries.
6 - Review some real sets of accounts to see how companies apply the standards you are studying in real life situations. Look at your own organisation’s accounts, maybe those of the shop where you buy clothes, the football club you support or the pub chain where you have a drink. For larger companies you’ll usually find the latest Annual Report on their website.
7 - Don’t get bogged down in the details of any one area you are studying. Accounting standards have lots of detailed rules, but concentrate on the main issues first - why a standard was released, the main objectives and how these are achieved. You will gradually build up more detailed knowledge by attempting questions and re-reading your notes.
Be patient too. Maybe at paper 2.5 everything made sense first time round. At Part 3, however, the topics and issues are harder so give them time to sink in. Knowledge you are gaining from other Part 3 core papers will sometimes shed light on a 3.6 topic. For example, hedge accounting will make more sense when you have studied hedging techniques in paper 3.7.
8 - The Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements (or for UK stream students the Statement of Principles) is particularly important at paper 3.6 as the conceptual framework on which standards are based. Spend some time becoming familiar with the key principles, then see how they are applied to each standard you study.
9 - Make good use of all the study resources at your disposal. If you have a friend studying paper 3.6 at the same time as you, meet up occasionally to discuss a selected topic. If not, ask a recently qualified work colleague if you can do this (maybe over a lunchtime sandwich). When you come across something you can’t understand, don’t spend long puzzling over it - ask your tutor.
In a rapidly changing subject such as paper 3.6, it could just be a misprint in your study material which a tutor would quickly spot.
10 - Accept that it’s a tough paper and studying for it will involve some hard work. BUT it’s not impossible. The examiner is known for setting tough papers but marking them leniently. Think of the qualified accountants you know. They’ll be good accountants, but not superhuman.
Reasonable (not perfect) knowledge coupled with question practice and good exam technique will get you through. Good luck with your studies, keep going - and roll on those study-free evenings and weekends when you’ve passed!
How to Pass Paper 3.7
LCA’s Steve Lumby helps you get through what is always the biggest hurdle to becoming ACCA qualifiedFirst the bad news. The pass rate on 3.7 has consistently been around 10% below the pass rate on the other two Final Level core papers. Furthermore, the pass rate for 3.7 never even achieves 50%. This means that the average candidate fails the paper.
Given this information, I cannot help but make the following observation. There is something wrong here.
Either the problem lies with the nature of the 3.7 syllabus and/or how it is being examined or the problem is with the ACCA exam structure which is allowing too many candidates to reach Level 3, who do not have the ability to pass Level 3. At the final stage of professional exams, the normal expectation would be that around two-thirds of candidates should pass. The fact that well under half pass 3.7 does not look good for the ACCA.
Despite the foregoing comments, the good news is that you do not have to know very much in order to pass 3.7… but you do have to know something!
There was a comment made to the Pass Talkback Line - published in the 08.2005 edition - that almost encapsulates the problem of lack of basic knowledge. The candidate complained that Question 1 in the 3.7 exam for June 2005 required an analysis of ‘Free Cash Flows’ and they didn’t know what was meant by that term.
This level of ignorance, (from what is presumably a serious final level candidate), beggars belief given that virtually every 3.7 exam over the last several sittings have contained questions involving free cash flow - including a question in June 2000 which simply said: ‘What is Free Cash Flow?’. (Given that this particular candidate then when on to say that ‘I have since found out that free cash flow is a new name for NPV…..’ this does not auger too well for their next re-sit attempt either!).
So, what do you need to do to pass Paper 3.7? Here are some tips:
o Look intelligently at past examination questions - not the answers - over, say, the last 5 or 6 sittings to see what areas of the syllabus the examiner appears interested in examining. This comment particularly applies to the Section A questions. Don’t let your tutor do this for you - do it yourself and really get to know the exam.
o Once you have identified the ‘core’ areas of the syllabus, start to get to know the basic bits of these areas. Let me give one example by way of illustration. Suppose that you identify that ‘project appraisal’ is frequently examined - either of a domestic project or an overseas project, and either using NPV or APV. Therefore set about knowing how to:
Sort out relevant from irrelevant project cash flows
Calculate after tax cash flows, including the question of how many capital allowances to calculate and whether or not a balancing charge or allowance should be included
How to handle inflation, including do I use a real cash flow and real discount rate approach or money cash flow and money discount rate approach, how to identify/calculate real and money cash flows and real and money discount rates.
How to handle working capital
How to forecast future exchange rates, (for and FDI), using PPPT
Know when you should use the WACC and when you should use a risk-adjusted WACC as the NPV discount rate
Know how to calculate a ‘base-case discount rate’ for an APV analysis.
Know how to calculate the PV of the 'standard' APV financing side-effects: finance issue costs, tax-relief on interest and the benefits of a cheap loan.
o Get to grips with the management of your time in the exam. The first thing here is to recognise the fundamental difference between Section A questions and Section B questions. With each Section B question that you answer, you have 25 minutes to say and do what you can and so answer the question.
However, with Section A questions your task is not to answer the 40 mark question in the 65 minutes available. Instead, your task is to do enough in 65 minutes to pick up 20+ marks, (a passing percentage). Similarly with the 30 mark question, you have 55 minutes to do enough to pick up 15+ marks. Candidates continually complain that the Section A questions cannot be completed in the time available. However this complaint misses the key point: the Section A questions are not designed to be completed in the time available - they are designed so that a reasonably able candidate can pick up a passing percentage of the marks in the time available.
• The other important point concerning time management is the management of your time within the 55 and 65 minute framework of the Section A questions. In this respect discursive questions should be allocated 1 minute for each mark they are assigned and the balance of the available time should then be devoted to getting as far as you can with the numerical parts of the question. If Question 1 from December 2004 is used to illustrate this point, (look it up for yourself), then of the 65 minutes available, eight minutes should have been allocated to answering part (a) – a discussion question - and nine minutes allocated to writing the ‘report’ in part (b) in which you are asked to discuss ‘other financial and non-financial factors, including real options’. That then leaves you [65 – 17 =] 48 minutes to get as far as you can with the APV analysis.
• Perhaps there is one final piece of advice worth giving. I believe that candidates spend far too much time looking at the answers to questions, and far too little time looking at the questions themselves. Thus they become expert in auditing answers - and so forget the fact that in the exam, you don’t get the answers to audit - you get the questions to answer. The message here is simple. When looking at the examiner’s answers, it is not important to understand every little bit of the answer, so don’t go through the answers word by word, line by line, as some students do - just make sure that you understand the 3 or 4 main points made in answer to a discursive question and you understand the general approach used to putting together the numerical analysis. Relax - remember you don’t have to get 100% of the marks to pass the paper!
Steve Lumby is a lecturer at London College of Accountancy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
inview that only about 40++% passed for this paper, my advice is that you do not need to be the person who scored the top result but what you need to do is to be among the 40++% who passed. With a lot of determination and consistency in revising all the question i think you could definately achieve your aim of passing acca within a short period of time.
More tips from passmagazine...
PAPER 3.6
Advanced Stage Corporate Reporting
LVMT
• Consolidated profit and loss account including adjustments for disposals and deemed disposals; also goodwill impairment calculation
• Foreign group implementing FRS 23/IAS 21
• Financial reporting in hyper-inflationary economy (FRS 24/IAS 29) and events after the balance sheet date (FRS 21/IAS10)
• Earnings per share (FRS 22)
• Joint ventures and associates (FRS 9/IAS28 & IAS31)
• A combination of different standards in one question possibly involving FRS 21 (IAS 10) OFR, corporate governance and environmental reporting
PAPER 2.5
Financial Reporting
LVMT
• Consolidated financial statements
• Preparing the consolidated profit and loss account/income statement and the consolidated balance sheet
• Published financial statements of a limited company - presentation in accordance with accounting standards and statutory formats with adjustments involving the application of various accounting / financial reporting standards
• Cash flow statement: Presentation in accordance with FRS 1/IAS7
• Interpretation of financial statements ratio analysis and assessing financial performance
• Tangible and intangible non-current assets, goodwill and impairment of assets provisions
• Revenue recognition; recognition of the substance of a transaction: application of the ASB’s Statement of Principles/IASB’s Framework and other relevant accounting standards and concepts.
PAPER 2.6
Audit and Internal Review
LVMT
• Corporate governance (provisions of the Combined Code and the rational for there being provisions of corporate governance)
• Audit committee (what functions an audit committee should have and what advantages a company would have as a result of the establishment of such a committee)
• Internal controls
• Internal audit
• Risk (identify the elements of risk present when an audit is taking place)
PAPER 2.1
Information Systems
LVMT
• Cases are meant to test the candidate's ability to handle more pragmatic issues applying his/her theoretical ideas acquired in the classroom
• Cases would always require the candidate to assume himself in the case to be able to answer the question as required by the examiner
• Most case questions have at least some amount of clues embedded in them and that calls for careful reading to know the mind of the examiner
• Each paragraph in most cases are very vital since they carry different set of information
• Some of the answers the examiner requires from the candidate would be such that he/she would have to think outside the case.
important accouncement for those who went to SHU
Dear all,
for those who went to SHU,
Mr David Kyle is meeting all this friday 11 November 4.30pm at room R001
message from Ms Geh
Course Coordinator of AFA
ACCA Exam Tips December 05 Part 2 from ftc
2.1
Managing Information Systems
Business strategy and IS/IT strategy
Trends in IT
Outsourcing
Recharging IS/IT costs
Legacy systems
Projects: quality plans; slippage
Designing Information Systems
Systems development methodologies (Student Accountant article August 2005)
Data flow diagram; business event model
External design: data input
Software: packages v bespoke
Prototyping, CASE and 4GL
Evaluating Information Systems
Security: physical security; passwords; validation; encryption
Quality management, quality assurance, quality control; V-model
Changeover methods
Metrics (Student Accountant article February 2005)
Maintenance
2.4
Budgeting (to include cash budgets, maybe forecasting)
Costing systems (Absorption, ABC, Marginal, throughput)
Working Capital Management (possibly Debtors and/or overtrading)
Investment Appraisal; NPV to include tax and inflation, other methods of appraisal and possibly capital rationing
Gearing, ratios (ROCE, ROE) and multiple objectives
2.5 INT
CBS and CIS
Published accounts,EPS ?(maybe normal IS and BS)
Interps (but don’t neglect cashflow)
IAS 12 (FRS 112)
IAS 17 (FRS 117)
IAS 36 (FRS 136)
IAS 18 (FRS 118)
2.6 INT
Ethics / New audit appointment
Internal Control Objectives / Procedures for a given company
Substantive Testing of Inventory (Stock) or Receivables (Debtors)
Internal Audit outsourcing
Audit Report scenarios
Practical Audit Planning
Computer Assisted Audit Techniques
ACCA Exam Tips December 05 Part 3 from FTC
3.1 INT
Q1. Case Study - Advanced Auditing - Risk Assessment and Audit Strategy.
Q2. Case Study - Assurance Services - Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting.
Q3. Scenario Question - Accounting Treatments and Audit Evidence - 3 scenarios.
Q4. Audit Reporting - Emphasis of Matters treatments.
Q5. Professional and Ethical matters.
Q6. Current Issues - Implications of IFRSs or Auditors' liability
3.3
Contribution based decision-making
Practical aspects of pricing policy
Performance evaluation – a question based around the examiner’s article dated 5 Sept 2005 – Pyramids and Pitfalls of Performance Measurement
The strategic framework
The learning effect (learning curve)
3.4
Soft systems methodologies – this topic has been examined on a number of occasions and the theory as well as the development of practical questions are required
MacFarlan’s Applications Portfolio – an important management model, an understanding of its application to scenario is a possibility for this sitting
Strategy –application of an IS/IT/IM strategy in the context of a scenario
Porters 3 generic strategies in relation to the development of e-commerce systems or the Internet
Knowledge management – problems of knowledge sharing and solutions within a business context – perhaps relating to knowledge and data workers
Lewins model and managing change – the application of the model and how problems can be reduced in relation to policies which address behaviour.
Reasons for the development of strategy and alignment issues – core topic area – yet to examine the reasons for the development of an IS strategy – alignment issues could be linked to one of the above models g value chain
Globalisation – issues in relation to the setting up of a global organisation with the application of e-commerce
3.5
Current position analysis
Ethics
Marketing
Strategic Options
Balanced Scorecard and multidimensional performance measures The role of the accountant in strategic decision making (see the examiner's article in the September addition of student accountant)
3.6 INT
Preparation of a group income statement with either disposal or foreign subsidiary or both! - (though it could be a balance sheet (again) or a cash flow
EPS
Financial instruments
International issues
Reporting of non financial performance e.g. Corporate Social Responsibility, sustainability reporting
3.7
Section A:
Risk management: Currency Risk / Interest rate risk
Overseas NPV: Ability to perform a basic overseas NPV/FCF calculation. Including one off cash flows, annuities and perpetuity calculations and the knowledge of the specific issues that relate to foreign direct investment.
Company Valuation: A possible question that requires a valuation under various methods like NAV, DVM, P/E Ratio and FCFs. (maybe within the context of Going Private.) Also review the share for share exchange style questions.
WACC or Risk adjusted WACC calculation within the context of a standard investment appraisal question. However risk adjusted WACC could also be examined within the context of traditional gearing.
Management Buy Outs: Including the review of an existing finance package. Together with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the package.
Section B:
Dividend Policy
Term Structure of Interest rate: possible linked to the calculation of the market value of debt.
International economics – I.M.F., Treasury Management. Balance of payments deficits.
Control of foreign subsidiaries,
Economic Value Added – EVA
new examiner article for paper 2.3 and 3.2 mys
the taxation of trusts and trust beneficiariesthere is a new examiner article from Mr Richard Thornton and it might be one of the topics which would appear in the up coming dec sitting examination for paper 3.2 mys.
so i suggest please familiarised yourself with this type of question and it might be your saviour question.
exam notes for Dec 2005 sitting
December 2005 exam notesplease take note of the Dec 2005 exam note which is published in the Oct edition of student accountant which you might have received by now.
there are some changes towards the accounting standards and please be aware that the MASB are no longer being named MASB 1,2,3 etc...they had been changed to FRS 1,2,3 etc...with effect from this sitting.
exam guidance for paper 3.2 MYS
Tax computation for individual § Resident status
§ 60 days test
§ employee benefit (share option)
§ joint assessment + income splitting between Husband and wife (relief and rebate)
§ settlement
– bankruptcy protection
- assests protection
§ Comparison of self assessment (individual Vs company)
P/s please pay attention to the examiner earlier article on resident status and individual computation. it's a must question for the exam.RPGT§ RPC
§ PARA 17 1a 1b 1c
§ Para 3(b)
§ Private residenct exemption
P/s this area has not had a question since the last 3 sittings, there might be one or two question in the area of RPGT or even none of the question like the previous sitting. Anyway, it's an area that you could not miss out for the coming tax exam.Investment incentives§ Electronic trading
§ Venture capital company
§ R&D
§ MSC company (pioneer vs non pionner status
§ approved food production
P/s tax incentive has always been the examiner's favourite area. Pay attention to those incentive that you should know by now and those which are newly gazeted.Tax planning for company§ S140 anti avoidance
§ Tax audit / investigation
§ Tax evasion Vs tax avoidance
§ Stamp duty
tax planning seems to be a topic which will always appear in the exam, however the marks allocated for those question are not very significant. It would help that you possess the basic tax planning knowledge to get a pass mark in the exam.Specialist Industry / organisation§ Property developer
§ Trade association
§ Co-operation
these area would be the area that you might wanna have a glance on it in order to score some points just in case that a question comes out on the topics stated above and you have no option than to choose it.Islamic finance§ BBA vs Ijara (HP vs leasing)
§ Treatment of zakat
§ Al – mud and Al wadiah
this is an area that you need to know for knowledge. there has been question on islamic finance and also the tax treatment for islamic finance in previous sitting however, it seems to be a rare question in the current exam. However it would also be a plus point to know some of the islamic financial instrument.
