I wrote APC four times.

Four. Times.

By the fourth attempt, I had become very familiar with the words “SAICA Regrets”. The frustrating part was that I knew what I was doing wrong. Or, at least, I thought I did. The problem was that knowing what was wrong and knowing how to fix it were two very different things.

Looking back, there were a few things I consistently got wrong;

1. I wasn’t reading critically.

I was reading the case study, but I wasn’t always interrogating it. I was taking in information without constantly asking myself: What does this tell me about the organisation? Why might this matter later?

2. I wasn’t identifying the problem in the context of the case study.

I could identify an issue. But I was often identifying it in isolation. I would see the technical issue, know the relevant standard and explain the accounting treatment but I wasn’t always connecting that issue to what was actually happening in the organisation. And that distinction matters.

3. I was aiming for the high-hanging fruit.

I was looking for the complicated, impressive issues. The technical issues that would allow me to demonstrate everything I knew. Meanwhile, the case was often asking me to solve a much more immediate and practical problem. I was trying to show how much I knew instead of showing that I understood what needed to be done.

4. I was trying to impress the email sender.

If an email came in with five pieces of information, I felt compelled to respond to all five even when only one was actually relevant to my required. I was answering things that hadn’t been asked of me because I thought it demonstrated that I was paying attention. In reality, I was wasting valuable time away from the actual expectation.

5. I wasn’t immersing myself in the case study.

I saw myself as an external party looking into the organisation. I wasn’t thinking like someone who actually worked there.

And that’s one thing that changed everything.

If you’ve written an APC practice assessment, or even the actual exam, and completed your self-reflection, you may recognise yourself in one or two of these. And if you haven’t written yet and you’re preparing for APC, you’re in the right place. Because for years, I knew what was wrong; not enough depth, not enough application, not solving the problem.

But I couldn’t translate those comments into practical changes I could make when I sat down to write.

Eventually, I got my script reviewed by someone who could look at my work objectively and tell me, very specifically, what I was doing wrong and, more importantly, how to fix it.

I stayed in the arena long enough to figure it out. (Read the man in the arena by Theodore Roosevelt)

And this is what changed:

1. I identified the golden thread.

This was probably the biggest shift in my thinking. I stopped seeing every issue in the case study as a separate event. Instead, I started looking for the golden thread running through the organisation. For example, I realised that knowing the composition of the board, understanding their backgrounds and ‘personalities’, and understanding the organisation’s broader circumstances wasn’t just background information. That context mattered when I later received an email from one of them. Similarly, analysing the organisation’s financial statements wasn’t an exercise that existed on its own. That understanding became useful when a technical trigger came up. And suddenly, the pieces started connecting. That’s what I mean by the golden thread. An issue doesn’t necessarily create an entirely new thread. Often, it branches from something you’ve already learned about the organisation. APC rewards your ability to connect the dots. So don’t read the case study as a collection of unrelated documents. Read it as one story.

2. I identified the problem in context.

This was another major shift. In my previous attempts, I could identify the technical problem, but I wasn’t necessarily identifying the business problem behind the technical issue. For example, I might have noted: The Company may not be able to apply IFRS correctly. Although that might be technically true, it isn’t enough. Instead, I needed to understand why the problem existed in the context of the case. For example; The Company is implementing a new system. The change could affect how assets are recorded and accounted for. This creates a risk that certain assets may not be appropriately recognised, measured or classified, which could ultimately affect the financial statements and the decisions made by management. Now I’m not simply saying, “Here’s an IFRS issue.” I’m saying: Here’s what is happening. Here’s why it matters to this organisation. Here’s the risk. And here’s what needs to be done about it. That is a completely different way of thinking.

3. I broke down the triggers.

Once I started looking at the triggers properly, I could break them down into the underlying issues. And once I understood the issues, I could identify who actually needed to hear what. This helped me address the right audience appropriately. It also helped me stop chasing the high-hanging fruit. I started looking for the low-hanging fruit. What is the obvious issue? What does this person actually need from me? What decision needs to be made? What risk needs to be addressed? What would be useful to this particular audience? The goal wasn’t to demonstrate everything I knew. The goal was to solve the problem.

4. I stuck to the script.

This sounds simple. It wasn’t. But I made a conscious effort to learn to answer what was actually asked of me. If the requirement asked me to address an expectation, I addressed that expectation. I didn’t spend time answering questions that hadn’t been asked. I didn’t try to demonstrate knowledge for the sake of demonstrating knowledge. I became much more deliberate about the information I included. APC is not a competition to see who can type the most. It is about demonstrating professional competence. And sometimes competence looks like knowing what not to say.

5. I immersed myself in the case study.

During the pre-release period, I read the case study every day. Not because I wanted to memorise it. But because I wanted to live in it. I wanted the organisation, its people, its financial position, its challenges and its circumstances to become familiar enough that when a trigger appeared, I could immediately place it within the broader story. I wanted to know the organisation so well that I wasn’t asking: “What does this technical issue mean?” I was asking: “What does this mean for THE organisation?” That distinction changed my responses.

And then I changed my environment.

This part probably sounds completely unrelated to APC. It wasn’t. I came from an audit environment, and I realised that I needed to broaden my perspective. So during my preparation, I started deliberately putting myself in different environments. I listened to the radio. I followed the news. And if I wasn’t listening to the news, I was reading them. If I wasn’t reading it, I was talking about it. I became that adult. The one who actually knew what was happening in the world.

I started thinking beyond the financial statements. If I was sitting in a café, I’d find myself looking around. How many waiters are working? How are orders being taken? Where could the process break down? What risks might exist? What happens if the price of a key input increases? What happens if load shedding affects operations? What happens if consumer behaviour changes? What could I see from the perspective of the owner? I started looking at ordinary businesses through a business lens.

I also made an effort to spend time with a director and listen to how they thought about things. I wanted to understand the questions they asked. What did they care about? What information did they need? How did they think about risk? How did they make decisions?

At the time, some of these things felt insignificant. They weren’t. Changing my environment changed the way I approached the APC case study. And, unexpectedly, it changed how I approached my career too. I stopped seeing myself purely as the person who needed to get the accounting right. I started thinking about why the accounting mattered.

I started thinking about the organisation behind the numbers. The people making decisions. The risks they were managing. The information they needed. The consequences of getting something wrong.

And I think that is one of the biggest lessons APC taught me: Professional competence isn’t just about knowing the standard. It’s about understanding the situation well enough to know which problem matters, why it matters, who needs to know, and what they should do about it.

It took me four attempts to really understand that.

Hopefully, it doesn’t take you four.

Ntshembho Bvuma CA(SA)