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ACCA Applied Knowledge · Management Accounting · Sources of data

A company population has 2,000 invoices in sequence number order. An auditor wants a systematic sample of 50 invoices, using a random start of the 7th invoice. Which invoice numbers (positions) will be the first three selected?

The first three selected are the 7th, 47th and 87th invoices. The sampling interval equals population divided by sample size, 2,000 divided by 50, which is 40, so each selection is 40 positions after the previous one from the random start.

  1. A7th, 47th, 87thCorrect
  2. B7th, 57th, 107th
  3. C7th, 27th, 47th
  4. D7th, 8th, 9th

Explanation

The sampling interval is 2,000 / 50 = 40. Starting at the 7th, the next are 7+40 = 47th and 47+40 = 87th. An interval of 50 would wrongly use the sample size as the interval, and 20 would be an arithmetic slip.

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