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ACCA Applied Knowledge · Management Accounting · Sources of data

A cost accountant at Marlow Ltd sends a questionnaire directly to 200 customers to find out how satisfied they are with delivery times. Which description best fits the data collected?

The questionnaire results are primary data because Marlow Ltd collected them first-hand from customers for its own specific purpose. Secondary data would have been gathered by another party for a different reason, and primary data is not always quantitative.

  1. APrimary data, because it is collected first-hand for a specific purposeCorrect
  2. BSecondary data, because it comes from outside the organisation
  3. CSecondary data, because it is stored in a database after collection
  4. DPrimary data, because it is always quantitative

Explanation

Data gathered directly by the organisation for its own specific purpose is primary data. Source location (external) does not make it secondary; secondary data is data originally collected by someone else for another purpose. Primary data can be qualitative or quantitative, so the last option's reason is wrong.

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