GCE A/L Accounting study plan
GCE A/L Accounting · Give each week a clear focus.
8 weeks · About 6 hours per week
Preparation of financial statements for sole traders, partnerships and limited companies & Financial Accounting: conceptual framework, regulatory framework and accounting standards
Draft a full set of sole trader financial statements (income statement, statement of financial position) from a trial balance under timed conditions, applying accruals, prepayments, depreciation and closing inventory adjustments
Explain how each element of the IASB Conceptual Framework (asset, liability, equity, income, expense, recognition criteria, measurement bases) determines whether an item appears in those statements
Reconcile the qualitative characteristics and the objective of general purpose financial statements to three practical reporting choices, stating which characteristic is traded off
Summarise the role of the regulatory framework (companies legislation, accounting standards, stock exchange rules) in shaping published accounts, distinguishing prescription from professional judgement
Your checkpoint
A marked, self-assessed set of sole trader financial statements plus a one-page concept-to-practice table linking five Conceptual Framework definitions to specific lines in those statements, scoring at least 80% against the model answer
Preparation of financial statements for sole traders, partnerships and limited companies & Company accounts: share issues, debentures, reserves and financial statement presentation
Prepare income statement, statement of changes in equity and statement of financial position for a limited company from an extended trial balance, correctly classifying share capital, retained earnings and revaluation reserve
Journalise and post an issue of ordinary shares at par and at a premium, including application, allotment and calls, and record the resulting share premium
Distinguish debentures from shares and compute finance cost and redemption entries for a debenture issued at a discount
Present reserves correctly, separating capital reserves from revenue reserves and explaining why each is distributable or not
Your checkpoint
A complete company financial statement pack (income statement, statement of changes in equity, statement of financial position) for a scenario with one share issue at a premium and one debenture, with all workings shown and no balancing difference
Accounting for non-current assets, depreciation, revaluation and disposal & Partnership accounts: admission, retirement, dissolution and goodwill
Compute depreciation under straight-line and reducing-balance methods and reconcile the two over a five-year asset life
Record an asset revaluation, including the surplus to revaluation reserve, the depreciation adjustment on the revalued amount and the treatment of a subsequent revaluation deficit
Prepare the disposal account for an asset sold mid-year, calculating profit or loss on disposal after part-year depreciation
Journalise the admission of a new partner: goodwill raised and written off, revaluation gains and losses, and the resulting capital account balances
Record a partner's retirement and compute the final settlement due, including goodwill share and revaluation adjustments
Your checkpoint
A non-current asset register extract plus a two-partnership worked file (one admission, one retirement) with every journal and the final capital accounts balancing to the statement of financial position
Control accounts, bank reconciliation, suspense accounts and correction of errors & Incomplete records, single entry and statement of affairs
Prepare a sales ledger control account and a purchases ledger control account and reconcile their balances to the list of ledger balances
Complete a bank reconciliation starting from the cash book, correcting unrecorded items and adjusting for unpresented cheques and uncredited deposits
Open and clear a suspense account, then correct errors through journal entries, distinguishing errors that affect the trial balance from those that do not
Reconstruct missing figures using a statement of affairs and mark-up or margin, deriving sales, purchases and opening capital from incomplete records
Your checkpoint
A single error-correction and reconciliation workbook containing a control account reconciliation, a bank reconciliation, a suspense account cleared to nil and one incomplete-records statement of affairs, all cross-checked
Partnership accounts: admission, retirement, dissolution and goodwill & Incomplete records, single entry and statement of affairs
Prepare a dissolution realisation account, capital accounts and bank account, distributing the final cash including a partner's loan and any deficiency borne by solvent partners
Apply the Garner v Murray rule to an insolvent partner's deficiency and show each partner's share of the loss
Convert a single-entry set of records into double entry by reconstructing the cash book and deriving total sales and purchases
Compute profit from incomplete records using both mark-up on cost and margin on sales, and explain why the two give different gross profit
Your checkpoint
A partnership dissolution pack ending in a nil realisation account and fully settled bank balance, plus one incomplete-records profit computation verified by two independent methods
Cost and management accounting: cost classification, material, labour and overhead costing & Budgeting, standard costing, variances and decision making
Classify costs into direct, indirect, fixed, variable and semi-variable, and separate a semi-variable cost using the high-low method
Prepare material cost calculations including economic order quantity, reorder level, and stock valuation under FIFO and weighted average
Compute labour cost including overtime premium, idle time and labour turnover, and allocate overheads using a suitable absorption base
Prepare a cash budget and a flexible budget, and calculate material and labour variances (price, usage, rate, efficiency) from standard cost data
Evaluate a make-or-buy or accept-or-reject decision using relevant costing, identifying sunk and committed costs to exclude
Your checkpoint
A cost and budgeting portfolio: one product cost card with overhead absorption, one cash budget, one variance schedule with a short written interpretation of each variance's likely cause, and one relevant-costing decision recommendation
Analysis and interpretation of financial statements, ratio analysis and cash flow statements & Company accounts: share issues, debentures, reserves and financial statement presentation
Compute profitability, liquidity, efficiency and gearing ratios from a set of published-style financial statements
Interpret the ratios against a prior year and a competitor, and write conclusions a lender would act on
Prepare a statement of cash flows under the indirect method, classifying operating, investing and financing activities and reconciling profit to operating cash flow
Explain how a share issue, debenture redemption and dividend payment each appear in the cash flow statement and in the statement of changes in equity
Your checkpoint
A ratio analysis report of about 600 words with a full ratio appendix and a complete statement of cash flows that reconciles opening and closing cash
Financial Accounting: conceptual framework, regulatory framework and accounting standards & Preparation of financial statements for sole traders, partnerships and limited companies & Accounting for non-current assets, depreciation, revaluation and disposal & Control accounts, bank reconciliation, suspense accounts and correction of errors & Incomplete records, single entry and statement of affairs & Partnership accounts: admission, retirement, dissolution and goodwill & Company accounts: share issues, debentures, reserves and financial statement presentation & Cost and management accounting: cost classification, material, labour and overhead costing & Budgeting, standard costing, variances and decision making & Analysis and interpretation of financial statements, ratio analysis and cash flow statements
Complete three full past-paper-style mock exams under strict time conditions, marking each against the mark scheme
Re-teach every topic that scored below 60% in the mocks by rewriting the relevant workings from memory
Build a one-page formula and standard sheet covering depreciation, goodwill, variances, ratios and cash flow adjustments, and test recall of it
Practise exam technique: allocate time per mark, show workings for method marks and answer the requirement actually asked
Your checkpoint
Three marked mock papers with a score log showing improvement across them, plus a completed error log listing each recurring mistake and the correction applied
Milestones
Week 2: Can prepare a complete limited company income statement, statement of changes in equity and statement of financial position from a trial balance with a share issue at a premium, with no unresolved difference
Week 4: Can clear a suspense account to nil and reconcile both a control account and a bank account, scoring at least 75% on a timed mixed exercise covering domains 4 and 5
Week 6: Can produce a product cost card, a cash budget and a full variance schedule within 45 minutes, and correctly exclude sunk costs from a decision
Week 8: Mock exam scores average at least 65% with no single domain below 50%, and every logged error has a written correction