by Mary Kelly
The 2026 Leaving Certificate Accounting Higher Level paper examined a wide range of topics from across the syllabus and gave students plenty of opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge and accounting skills. The questions reflected areas that have featured regularly in recent examinations and offered a good balance between financial accounting and management accounting topics.
Section 1:
Section 1 provided students with a choice between Company Final Accounts and Company Final Accounts including a Manufacturing Account. Both options followed familiar formats and contained a variety of adjustments, including revaluations, depreciation, suspense items and sale or return transactions. While some adjustments required careful interpretation, students who had practised past examination questions should have been familiar with many of the concepts examined.
The remaining questions covered Cash Flow Statements, Club Accounts and Creditors Control Accounts. Question 2 required students to prepare a Cash Flow Statement and answer theory questions relating to profit, cash flow and solvency. Question 3 examined Club Accounts and included life memberships, levies and depreciation. Question 4 focused on Creditors Control Accounts and required students to process a number of adjustments and reconciliations.
Section 2:
Students were required to answer two of the following three questions: Interpretation of Accounts, Published Accounts and Correction of Errors with Suspense Account.
Question 5, as guaranteed, was Interpretation of Accounts. Students were required to calculate and interpret a range of accounting ratios for a pharmaceutical company and consider the position of the business from the perspective of debenture holders.
Question 6 was Published Accounts. Students were required to prepare published financial statements together with supporting notes to the accounts. The question included topics such as the revaluation of fixed assets and contingent liabilities.
Question 7 was the Correction of Errors and Suspense Account. Students were required to prepare journal entries, a suspense account, a corrected net profit statement and a corrected balance sheet. The question contained a number of adjustments similar to those encountered in previous examination papers.
Section 3:
In this section, students had to answer either Question 8 or Question 9. Question 8 was Job Costing and Under and Over Absorption. Students were required to apportion overheads, calculate absorption rates and determine the selling price of a completed job. Question 9 was Budgeting and included a range of budgets, together with a cash budget.
Overall, the paper provided a broad spread of topics and allowed students to demonstrate their understanding of both financial and management accounting. Students who had prepared a range of topics from across the syllabus should have found suitable options throughout the examination.
