The same few errors come up again and again in IGCSE Accounting practice answers. Most are habits, not gaps in understanding. Fix the habits and you stop losing marks.
What frustrates our teachers most is that these are marks the student has earned in their head. The method is right, the numbers are close, and then a careless slip on the last line throws away two or three marks. Here are the errors we flag most, why they happen under pressure, and the small routines that stop them.
Debits and credits on the wrong side
The most basic error is putting an entry on the wrong side. An increase in an asset or an expense is a debit. An increase in a liability, capital or income is a credit.
When you are unsure, name the two accounts and ask what each is doing. Regular drilling, for example with the double-entry trainer, helps make this automatic.
The slip usually appears with an account you rarely see. A business pays RM1,800 at the start of the year for a two-year insurance policy. The cash side is easy.
But only RM900 is this year’s expense. The other RM900 is a prepayment, which is an asset, so it is a debit balance and not a credit.
Under time pressure students sometimes credit it because “insurance is an expense”. They forget the unused part is something the business still owns.
A useful check is the accounting equation: after any entry, assets must still equal capital plus liabilities. If your entry breaks that balance, one side is wrong.
Forgetting the second half of an adjustment
Adjustments almost always affect two places. Depreciation reduces the asset’s carrying amount and appears as an expense. A closing accrual (an expense owed but not yet paid) increases an expense and creates a current liability.
Students often make one half and forget the other. Ask yourself, “where is the other side?”
Say rent is RM12,000 for the year and RM1,000 is still owing at year end. The income statement shows the full RM12,000 as the expense for the year. The statement of financial position shows a RM1,000 accrual as a current liability.
A student may raise the expense but leave out the liability. Or they may adjust the statement of financial position but leave the expense at RM11,000.
Either way they lose the paired mark. Circle each adjustment in the question and tick it off only once both halves are written.
Confusing drawings with expenses
Money the owner takes out is drawings, not a business expense. It reduces capital and does not appear in the income statement. Putting drawings among expenses is a common and costly slip.
Goods taken for own use are the sneakiest version. If an owner takes RM400 of inventory home, that is drawings valued at cost. It reduces purchases. It is never an expense and never valued at selling price.
Because the transaction involves stock and not cash, students instinctively file it under cost of sales. Whenever you see “own use” or “personal”, pause and send the figure to drawings.
Mixing up trade receivables and payables
Receivables are what customers owe you (an asset). Payables are what you owe suppliers (a liability).
Under time pressure these get swapped. Read the exact word in the requirement and pause before you place the figure.
A quick anchor: a receivable is money coming in, and a payable is money going out.
Errors in the bank reconciliation and control accounts
Bank reconciliation questions punish students who add when they should subtract. Unpresented cheques reduce the bank statement balance to reach the cash book figure.
Outstanding lodgements increase it. Mixing these up flips the whole answer.
In a sales ledger control account (a summary of what all customers owe), a contra entry and a bad debt both sit on the credit side. Students often place one on the wrong side because they have not asked what each does to the amount customers owe. Slow down and picture the direction of each item before you write it.
Untidy layout and missing headings
Correct figures in a jumbled statement, or a statement with no heading and date, lose marks you had already earned. Keep the standard order, rule off totals and always write a full heading.
A statement of financial position needs the business name, the title and “as at” the year-end date. An income statement covers a period, so it reads “for the year ended”. These marks are easy to lose when time runs out, which is a planning error and not a knowledge one.
Rushing the requirement
Answering a slightly different question, such as the wrong statement, the wrong date, or an “explain” answered in one word, loses marks. Spend the first thirty seconds reading and marking what is actually asked.
Underline the command word. “Calculate” wants a figure with workings.
“State” wants a short fact. “Explain” wants a reason, usually worth two marks that a one-word answer can never reach.
Turn errors into a log
The fastest way to stop repeating these is an error log: one line per mistake and the correct rule. Revising your own log targets the gaps costing you marks, which re-reading the syllabus does not. Over a few weeks a pattern may appear, perhaps adjustments or layout, and that tells you where to spend your next practice session.
Do the same errors keep coming back? One of our teachers can review your practice papers and pinpoint the habits leaking marks. We then drill the fixes with you.
Bring a marked script and we will start your personal error log together. Book a trial class.