IGCSE Accounting: Verification of Accounting Records — Practice Questions

Syllabus edition note. This resource follows the Cambridge IGCSE Accounting 0452 syllabus for exams in 2027, 2028 and 2029 (version 1), first examined in the March 2027 series in India and the June 2027 series elsewhere. If you sit 0452 in November 2026, you sit the 2026 syllabus (version 2), which differs: Paper 1 has 35 multiple-choice marks in 1 hour 15 minutes, not 40 marks in 1 hour 30 minutes; Topic 7 is “Accounting principles and policies”, without 7.2 Ethical considerations or 7.3 Technology and sustainability; 4.4 is “Irrecoverable debts and provision for doubtful debts”; income statements are named instead of statements of profit or loss; three-column running balance accounts are not required; Clubs and societies is 5.4 and Manufacturing accounts 5.5; and 6.3 is “Inter-firm comparison”. For this topic, the 2026 syllabus also lists dividends among the cash book updates, and it does not include the impact of digital transactions on bank reconciliation or on control accounts. If you sit in November 2026, work from the 2026 syllabus on the Cambridge International website.

These are original practice questions written in the style of Cambridge IGCSE Accounting (0452) assessment objectives. They are not taken from any past paper and are not endorsed by Cambridge International.

Use these questions alongside the Verification of Accounting Records study guide and revision notes. Accounting 0452 is not tiered, so every question below applies to all candidates.

Short-answer questions

Cambridge IGCSE Accounting 0452 question papers are not divided into lettered sections, so the questions below are grouped only by length.

1. State what a balancing trial balance proves, and what it does not prove. [2]

2. Name the six error types that do not disturb the trial balance’s totals. [3]

3. State when a suspense account is opened, and what happens to it once the cause of the imbalance is found. [2]

4. State two possible causes of a difference between a business’s cash book balance and its bank statement balance. [2]

5. Explain what a control account is built from, and what it checks. [2]

Longer questions

6. A business pays $320 for stationery but posts the full amount correctly to both the stationery (expense) account and the bank account, except that the amount is recorded as $230 in both accounts.

(a) Identify the type of error, giving a reason. [2] (b) State whether this error would cause the trial balance to be out of balance, and explain why. [2]

7. A business receives an insurance payment of $500 by cheque, but the bookkeeper debits the bank account and debits the insurance income account, rather than crediting the insurance income account.

(a) Explain why this is not an error of complete reversal. [1] (b) Explain why this error would cause the trial balance to be out of balance. [2] (c) State what the business should do in the meantime, before the error is found. [1]

8. A bank reconciliation statement shows an unpresented cheque of $180 and an outstanding lodgement of $260.

(a) Explain what each of these terms means. [2] (b) Explain why neither of these requires a correcting entry in the cash book. [2]

9. A business prepares a sales ledger control account.

(a) Name the book of prime entry that provides the total for: (i) credit sales; (ii) sales returns. [2] (b) Name the book of prime entry that provides the figure for irrecoverable debts written off. [1]

10. A student writes: “As long as my trial balance balances, I know my accounts are correct.” Explain, with reference to at least two named error types, why this statement is not always true. [4]

11. A business now receives most customer payments by bank transfer and records all its credit sales in accounting software.

(a) Explain one way this is likely to affect its bank reconciliation. [2] (b) State one advantage and one limitation of producing the sales ledger control account from digital records. [2]

---

Answers

1. A balancing trial balance proves that debits and credits are numerically equal overall, showing double entry has been applied consistently [1]. It does not prove the records are free of error, since several error types leave the totals balanced despite being factually wrong [1].

2. Omission, commission, principle, original entry, complete reversal, and compensating errors [3, allow 1 mark per 2 correctly named].

3. A suspense account is opened only when the trial balance actually fails to balance, to hold the difference between the two column totals temporarily [1]. Once the cause is found, a correcting journal entry clears the suspense account balance to zero [1].

4. Any two of: unpresented cheques (recorded in the cash book but not yet cleared by the bank); outstanding lodgements (deposits recorded in the cash book but not yet credited by the bank); bank charges or standing orders the business has not yet recorded [2].

5. A control account is built from totals in the books of prime entry (source-document totals), not by adding up individual personal-ledger balances [1]. It checks the accuracy of the more detailed sales or purchases ledger by providing an independent summary total to compare against it [1].

6. (a) Error of original entry [1] — the wrong amount ($230 instead of $320) was entered, but consistently on both sides of the double entry [1]. (b) No, this error would not cause the trial balance to be out of balance [1], because both the debit and credit entries were reduced by the same incorrect amount, so the two column totals remain equal to each other even though both are wrong [1].

7. (a) In a complete reversal the debit and credit entries are made on the wrong sides of the correct accounts, so there is still one debit and one credit and the trial balance still balances; here both entries are debits and no credit entry was made at all [1]. (b) The $500 was debited to both accounts and credited to neither [1], so the debit column total exceeds the credit column total by $1,000 ($500 extra on the debit side and $500 missing from the credit side) [1]. (c) The business should open a suspense account (here with a credit balance of $1,000) to hold the difference until the error is found and corrected [1].

8. (a) An unpresented cheque is a cheque the business has written and recorded in its cash book, but which has not yet been cleared (paid out) by the bank [1]. An outstanding lodgement is a deposit the business has recorded in its cash book, but which the bank has not yet credited to the account [1]. (b) Neither requires a correcting entry because they are timing differences, not errors — the cash book figure is correct and will match the bank statement once the bank has processed the transaction [1–2].

9. (a) (i) The sales journal [1]; (ii) the sales returns journal [1]. (b) The general journal [1].

10. This statement is not always true because several error types leave the trial balance balanced despite the records being wrong. For example, an error of principle — where a transaction is posted to the correct amount but the wrong type of account, such as an expense posted to a non-current asset account — does not disturb the trial balance totals, since both sides were still updated by the same correct amount [2]. Similarly, a compensating error — where two unrelated errors happen to cancel each other out — also leaves the trial balance balanced, even though two separate mistakes have been made [2].

11. (a) Any one explained, for example: bank transfers clear quickly, so there are fewer timing differences such as unpresented cheques [1], making the reconciliation shorter and differences easier to investigate [1]; or items such as bank charges and direct debits still reach the bank statement before the cash book [1], so the cash book must still be updated and reconciled [1]. (b) Advantage, any one: the control account totals are produced automatically and can be up to date at any time; fewer arithmetic errors in the totals [1]. Limitation, any one: an input error such as a wrong amount or wrong customer is not detected; the records depend on the system working and being backed up [1].

A note on exam technique for this topic

Before attempting the correcting journal entry for any described error, classify it into its correct category first: ask whether the trial balance would actually be affected, and if not, which of the six named error types matches the scenario. This two-step habit — classify, then correct — is more reliable than jumping straight to a journal entry, because the specific correcting entries genuinely differ by error type, and misclassifying an error (commission for principle, or vice versa) usually costs the identification mark even when the correcting entry itself is numerically right. For bank reconciliation and control account questions, keep asking “is this actually an error, or just a timing difference / a totals check,” since a large share of marks on this topic are for correctly explaining what a technique does and does not detect, not just performing a calculation.