How Do You Answer Substantive Procedures Questions in ACCA AA?

Substantive procedures questions are among the most answerable in ACCA AA — and among the most under-marked, because students write generic audit steps that could apply to anything. The examiner rewards procedures that are specific enough to actually perform on the account balance in the scenario. Get precise and this is bankable marks; stay vague and a full page can score almost nothing.

The formula for a scoring procedure

A procedure earns its mark when it states an action, a source, and what it verifies — in other words, what you do, to what evidence, and which assertion it tests:

• The action: recalculate, inspect, confirm, agree, review, enquire and corroborate.
• The source: a specific document or record — the ageing report, post-year-end bank statements, signed goods despatched notes, the non-current asset register.
• The assertion: what it proves — existence, valuation, completeness, cut-off, rights and obligations.

Rule 1: 'Check the figures' is worth nothing

Vague verbs sink these answers. 'Check the receivables', 'review the balance', 'investigate the variance' don't describe anything a marker can credit. Compare that with 'inspect post-year-end bank receipts and agree them to the receivables ledger to confirm the valuation and recoverability of year-end trade receivables' — same topic, but this one earns the mark because it's actually a procedure.

Rule 2: 'Discuss with management' is not evidence

Enquiry of management is weak audit evidence on its own because it comes from an interested party. It only scores when paired with corroboration — 'enquire of management about the slow-moving inventory and corroborate by inspecting post-year-end sales invoices for those lines'. Enquiry plus corroboration is a procedure; enquiry alone rarely is.

Rule 3: Tailor to the balance and the assertion at risk

A procedure for inventory valuation is not the same as one for receivables existence. Ask which assertion is most at risk for the specific balance and target it — directional testing matters, because testing for overstatement of assets differs from testing for completeness of liabilities. Generic procedures that ignore the assertion at risk miss the point of the question.

Rule 4: Give the number asked for

If the question wants five procedures, give five well-formed ones — a sixth earns nothing and steals time. Five precise procedures beat ten vague ones every time.

The takeaway

Substantive procedures reward precision: action, source and assertion in every point, corroboration behind any enquiry, and targeting the assertion genuinely at risk for that balance. It's one of the most reliable topics in AA once you stop writing generically.

The trap is that generic procedures feel perfectly adequate as you write them — you can't tell 'review the receivables' won't score until it doesn't. The 50% Club marks your practice AA answers against the official ACCA scheme, showing exactly which procedures were too vague to credit and which hit the action-source-assertion formula — so you practise writing procedures that actually earn marks.