Written Report Formatting (other formatting information are in the document given + i’ve provided previous semester suggested solutions) APA 7 TH
Limits for each sections are described in the given document for the writing report
Refference the company report and the existing Australian laws such as AASB for accounting report
Your written answers should be in A4 page size, in Times New Roman font, Australian English, 11pt font size, at least single line-
spacing, margins at least 2cm on all sides.
Do not insert images of text into your written submission in an attempt to defeat Turnitin. Your document
should be machine-readable, i.e. it should be possible to copy-and-paste every sentence from your document
without running optical character recognition.
Briefly indicate the question you are answering by writing the question letter and number in bold, e.g. ‘B1.’.
There is no need to copy-and-paste the whole question into your answers. This wastes valuable space that you
could use for your answer.
Excel Formatting Requirements
Your Excel file must be easily auditable by a marker. This means that a marker can easily trace your
calculations in Excel from raw input numbers/assumptions through to your final calculations. It also means
that your Excel work must comply with certain standards around formatting and layout. My workings for IPH,
which are available on Learn.UQ, illustrate these formatting conventions. Following an Excel formatting
convention is also a standard requirement in the workplace, so it is worth getting used to doing it.
Excel modelling conventions:
• There should be clear distinction between cells that are inputs/assumptions, cells which reference
figures in other worksheets, and cells that are calculations.
• All calculation cells should consist entirely of cell references, not numbers. Do not ‘hardcode’
calculation cells. This makes it very difficult for a marker (or future employer) to understand your
calculations/workings
• Figures in the reformulation should, where relevant, link back to figures in the raw financial
statements so that they can be audited. In other words, do not ‘hardcode’ figures in the reformulation
that could be linked back to other inputs
• The reformulated financial statements should be prepared on a separate Excel worksheet from the raw
financial statements and named as specified in each question
• Cell text colour formats must be followed:
o Input/assumption cells: blue font
o Calculations involving figures within the same spreadsheet: black font
o References to cells on other spreadsheets: green font
o Warnings/comments: red font
• Cell number formats should be neat and consistent:
o Do not put dollar symbols in each cell in a column. Instead specify the units at the top of the
column of numbers. Be careful to check what units the company reports in, e.g. millions,
hundreds of thousands, thousands.
o Numbers over 1,000 should have commas to delineate each thousand, e.g. 12,345.6
o Negative figures should be in parentheses, e.g. (12,345.6)
o Up to two decimal places should be shown where they are meaningful, i.e. where they are not
simply zero.
o Cells that are percentages (e.g. RNOA) should be formatted as percentages. Negative
percentages should be in parentheses, e.g. (10.45%)
• Worksheets should be named correctly, i.e. as specified in the question, e.g. ‘BS_R’ for the
reformulated Balance Sheet.
• Your Excel file should not include cell references or links to any other Excel files, i.e. all numbers and
workings should be contained within one Excel file