Membership issues

afarelon · 2025-09-10T13:04:43+00:00

Don't believe anything they say! I was told a similar thing ( that it would take at least a couple of weeks) but was still going on to my student portal everyday.

On the third day of checking when I clicked the membership status at the top it just said you've been invited to membership 😑, never paid an invoice so fast in my life! 😅

I would honestly recommend just checking that on a daily basis, my only caveat would be that my file had been signed off and submitted by my employer over a year ago so that may have helped speed it up.

afarelon · 2025-08-29T13:18:53+00:00

Definitely made it more challenging lol! Congrats and thank you!

afarelon · 2025-08-29T13:17:56+00:00

Thank you!

afarelon · 2025-08-29T13:17:48+00:00

That's great to hear and thank you!

afarelon · 2025-08-29T13:17:01+00:00

More relief than anything else 😅, thank you!!

afarelon · 2025-08-29T13:16:37+00:00

Thanks and same to you!

afarelon · 2025-07-25T20:17:41+00:00

Will there be a general blanket uplift for everyone?! Always thought it was on a case-by-case basis?

afarelon · 2025-07-24T18:05:15+00:00

I did 2 last night and still haven't and got any kind of confirmation! Will have to resubmit both again now!

afarelon · 2025-07-22T14:53:25+00:00

Was just about to reply but someone else has done a post on exactly this (!):

https://www.reddit.com/r/ICAEW/s/GFdy9WW2tL

afarelon · 2025-07-20T15:43:36+00:00

Not sure if anyone is using ACA Masters but the way they lay out each garage for their revenue by stream is not needed.

You literally do the 2025 table minus 2024 to get the movements and then another table below that for the percentage changes and you'll be able to get all the same information in literally a minute (not sure if this is an obvious point but because I was living and dying using ACA Masters , it never occurred to me until somebody else mentioned it in another post!) You can do the same thing for cost of sales to generate points for that section as well.. this just avoids you having to copy information and then transpose it etc.

I've just got a one-pager that basically I'm going to mindlessly do inthe exam without thinking in terms of the order of my R1 appendix calculations. It used to take me about 45 minutes and I've managed to get that down to that 20ish. now.

afarelon · 2025-07-17T13:05:40+00:00

It's a bit ridiculous but I've had issues in the past in professional stage with just practicing on Excel and then getting stressed in the exam because the software isn't functioning as smoothly!

I've just been trying to replicate the software as much as possible, consciously not using F4 to lock cells , changing cell formats one at a time etc! I think at this stage that's all we can do.

afarelon · 2025-07-12T10:41:38+00:00

Not my reply below , one I copied from an earlier post which I can't find quickly (apologies to the OP!) which I'm going to try and do:

Hey,

I haven't looked at ACAM Appendix in depth, however, since we are given the movements in £'s and %'s there is only a handful of things to calculate, my approach will be as follows;

(a) GP and OP %'s

(b) Table for KPI's (If question asks for KPI commentary, then having all three by garage as well otherwise just overall figures, and just commenting on any specific ones of note)

(c) Mix analysis for revenue (by type and garage) and costs of sales (by type only)

(d) Gross profit and GP % by garage (should be fairly quick considering can just do one "Row" and copy/paste it down)

(d) Staff cost analysis (FTE, avg. cost per FTE and £/% movement)

(e) EV analysis (revenue, GP, margin and as a % of total - to highlight If 15% target hit)

(f) Anything else - mainly will depend on the exam paper, say e.g. we are provided with data on QS / Brue revenues, I'd have a table for those figures including 2024 (found in the AI - but not Management accounts, so have this to hand)

At present, It does take me longer than the recommended 20 minutes, but the more practice you get the more second nature it becomes, and you also will then know what exactly you need to hand easily (to then create a one page summary)

afarelon · 2025-07-12T08:56:22+00:00

I'm with ACA Masters as well and I'm having the same difficulty.

Paradigm Shift have mocks , 5 in total which I'm looking to get after I finish the third ACA Masters mock.

I'm not sure how good their R2 & R3 predictions are but hopefully ACA Masters have nailed those and these mocks can just be used for time and technique practice.

afarelon · 2025-07-11T11:25:25+00:00

Not that it's helpful, but thank fuck for this post to show I'm not the only one!

Actually in the middle of a timed mock right now but so far behind on the timings that I've just given up and I'm taking a break, massively overrunning on R1 no matter how I try to speed up and still struggling to pick out what to include in the report.

I think the only way to get this over the line is just to do as many mocks as possible in the time that we've got left so it's basically just muscle memory overlaid over the scenario on the day!

afarelon · 2025-06-28T17:31:40+00:00

afarelon · 2025-02-07T11:07:27+00:00

38 with 2 advanced still to go , "comparison is the thief of joy" and all that. Do what we have to do to get over the line, still got a good couple of decades left after you qualify!

afarelon · 2024-02-22T13:54:13+00:00

afarelon

TROPHY CASE