ANNUAL UPDATES  
FREQUENTLY ASKED  
QUESTIONS  
GOVERNANCE / IT  
1. How many firms can one Auditor work with at a time?  
There is no limit to how many Member Firms a Member Auditor can be associated with at a time.  
2. In the future, can a Member Firm see if you are associated with other Member Firm’s?  
No, that information remains confidential for the Auditor.  
3. What will the Auditor Membership fees be for ꢀ0ꢀꢁ?  
The Auditor Membership Fees for 2023 remain the same at USD100 per calendar year.  
4. What is the process to get the required ꢀ0 Audit days approved prior to sitting an exam?  
Do they need to be approved by APSCA before?  
An audit log (signed by both Auditor and Member Firm) must be submitted to APSCA for review and  
approval before an auditor can commence the examination process. The 20 audit days must be  
social compliance audits.  
5. How long do logs take to review and why do we have to submit them?  
APSCA requires that an Audit Log be submitted to validate Auditor’s eligibility to start the  
examination process. The minimum requirements are set out in the APSCA Competency  
Framework. APSCA may take up to 30 days to review audit logs and update the data system from  
the date of submission.  
6. APSCA certifies auditors in ꢂꢃ months or so. How do you verify that Auditors’ experience  
is sufficient?  
An Auditor becomes an APSCA CSCA when they pass all 3 parts of the exam. The time taken to  
complete all 3 exams depends on the Auditor.  
7. How does APSCA protect the data from cyber-attacks, ensuring there is no breach of privacy  
laws and personal information is protected?  
The APSCA Data Privacy Officer ensures that APSCA follows GDPR and that our data systems have  
the appropriate level of security to protect our Members’ personal information.  
8. How do I associate with another Member Firm?  
Working with the new Member Firm, send your request to dataadministrator@theapsca.org with the  
new Member firm on copy. Upon both parties agreeing to the association, the Data Administrator  
will action the request for you.  
9. I got married and need to change my name within the APSCA system. Who do I contact?  
If you require any changes to the information in your APSCA online account, please email  
dataadministrator@theapsca.org.  
APSCA Annual Updates - Governance/IT/Exams: Frequently Asked Questions - Feb 2023  
Annual Updates - Frequently Asked Questions  
EXAM QUESTIONS  
1ꢄ. Can we book exams now for the end of May?  
Yes, and we urge you to book as early as possible, particularly for Part III exams as we have limited  
Interviewers.  
11. Is it possible to reduce the cost of the Part ꢁ exam?  
APSCA budgets all the exams at cost, in fact as we mentioned at the Annual Meeting in December  
2022, some of the exams are budgeted at a slight loss. There are multiple people involved in the  
Part III Exam starting with APSCA’s administrative staff, we have the Interviewer, and, in the case of  
the Alternate Language Exam, there is also a translator in addition to ProctorU.  
12. What are 4 tips for the Part III Exam, that Auditors sometimes forget?  
• Listen very carefully to the responses being given within the scenario by the Interviewer  
they will give hints to potential issues, for you to further investigate.  
• Use your investigation skills to fully understand what is going on in the scenario, and ask  
follow-up questions like who, what, where, when and how.  
• Keep asking questions, as long as you are asking the right questions you will receive  
the information you need. There are no misguided answers provided by the interviewer. If  
you hear the answer “I am not sure” or “I don’t know” this could be two things - you need to  
try and rephrase your question and ask this in a different way, or, if you hear I am not sure  
or I don’t know more than one time, it is a prompt to change direction in your follow up  
questions.  
• Note-taking will reinforce what is in the scenario and what you should investigate – notes  
are not scored but they assist in answering the final question within the scenario and keep  
you focussed. You may take notes in your preferred language.  
13. The Proctor regards the call of Prayer being too noisy, and one time closed the Exam.  
Is this something you can assist with?  
We encourage you to pre-warn the Proctor that this may happen during your exam. You can also  
email the Exam Team if your exam is scheduled during this time and they can place an  
accommodation on your ProctorU profile to alert the Proctor.  
14. Is there any demo for the Part III Exam to be available soon?  
• By the end of January, a video of what to expect when sitting the Part III Exam, what the  
screen setup is like, etc. will be made available.  
• This will be a 2-Part document, Part A – instructions, scenarios, topics, laws etc. and Part B.  
– a study guide on how to use the content for practice interviews.  
• The Part III Exam Guide to Success has now been updated, and within it, you can find a  
practice scenario, new support material on what to expect in the exam, how the scoring  
works, and what the Interviewers are looking for during the scenarios as part of their  
scoring. It will also include tips from the Interviewers about taking notes, listening carefully  
for hints within the scenarios, a reminder to not make assumptions, asking follow-up  
questions, and finding 1 key issue is sometimes not enough.  
APSCA Annual Updates - Governance/IT/Exams: Frequently Asked Questions - Feb 2023  
Annual Updates - Frequently Asked Questions  
EXAM QUESTIONS  
15. When there is an appeal against the failure in Part-III exam, how is the independent review  
done? How can it be ensured that the reviewer is independent?  
If you fail your Part III Exam, you can email the Exam Team for any extra feedback that might have  
been left on your exam by the Interviewer. If you are still not happy and feel your exam should have  
a 2nd review, you can request the Exam Team to provide a second review. Accounts will issue an  
invoice for $250 to pay for the independent reviewer’s time which involves, watching the recording  
of your exam, scoring, and developing feedback for the Test Taker. The Scoresheet is returned to  
the Exam Team who reviews the score compared with the original exam with the results emailed  
to the Test taker. All of our interviewers work from a scoresheet and there is guidance which clearly  
identifies the score to be given in the case of partial responses being identified.  
16. I used a Translator for the Part III Exam. They do not have experience in the audit industry,  
do you have a plan to improve this?  
• For the Alternate Language Part III exam, we use two different professional translation  
companies. In addition, APSCA has also engaged several contracted translators that are  
familiar with the social compliance audit profession.  
• The Exam Team continue to focus on identifying more translators to support the Part III  
exam. It is worth noting, that our Auditor Membership base has auditors in 110 countries  
who speak over 90 different languages.  
• We understand that you may use translators when auditing in your day-to-day life. We  
encourage you to ask the translator to repeat anything you do not understand and  
recommend you speak in short sentences.  
• The Part III Exam has 3 scenarios’. When sat in English you are given 30 minutes per  
scenario. If the exam appointment is an Alternate Language exam you are given 50  
minutes per scenario to compensate for the time taken translating.  
17. It is interesting to see that the top 1ꢄ languages for Parts I/II are no longer on List B  
anymore, these are now in List C which is more expensive.  
• The price list A, B and C are related to the list / cost that the translation company provides  
and are not related to APSCA’s Part I and II languages.  
• APSCA does not drive the price of translation or the number of translators in different  
languages.  
• List B is an on- demand translation where the interviewer can call up as soon as they are  
ready to start the exam and List C is a pre-booked service.  
• The translation companies do from time to time change their offering of languages which  
requires the movement from List B and C.  
18. Can I change my exam to a translation type that is already arranged? How?  
• You should email the Exam Team as soon as possible.  
• It will depend on the change to the translation type as to what next steps are required.  
• A good practice is, if there are any problems or issues with your exam, email the Exam  
Team to confirm or check rather than have a problem on the Exam Day.  
APSCA Annual Updates - Governance/IT/Exams: Frequently Asked Questions - Feb 2023  
Annual Updates - Frequently Asked Questions  
EXAM QUESTIONS  
19. Does APSCA have any plan to arrange this kind of Q&A session again in the near future?  
• We have had such great feedback with the Presentation and Q&A sessions we plan to do  
more during the year.  
• However, in the meantime if you have any questions please email the exam team on  
exam@theapsca.org with your questions.  
2ꢄ. Is there any plan in future to take the exams physically/classroom exam?  
• In 2023 we have 1500 in-house testing centers in 115 countries. To start, these testing  
centers will be able to accommodate all Part I and Part II exams.  
• We are in discussion with ProctorU regarding cost and will inform Members as soon as we  
have more information.  
• We are unsure if the in-house testing centres will be able to accommodate Part III exams  
at this stage, however, the conversation is ongoing.  
ETHICS  
21. Is there going to be an Ethics Training course made by APSCA?  
APSCA is in the process of working with a third party to create an Ethics Training course, that will be  
utilized for both CPD purposes and sanctions.  
22. How do I submit an anonymous allegation?  
APSCA does not yet have an anonymous portal to submit anonymous allegations. You can email  
ethics@theapsca.org. Many people that wish to remain anonymous create a second email address,  
for example - anon267@gmail.com  
23. Is the disciplinary process translated so auditors understand as they are going through?  
Yes. Anytime APSCA’s Ethics Team communicates verbally with an Auditor, you are given the  
choice to have a translator present, free of cost, to ensure there are no misunderstandings.  
24. Is there any chance for a revoked Auditor to move back to active status?  
No. At this time there is no reapplication process for an Auditor whose Membership had  
been revoked.  
25. How long is the suspension period? Is there any opportunity for the auditor to restore  
their status?  
Suspension of the Member Auditor’s APSCA membership is for a period of up to and including two  
years. A Member Auditor who has been suspended may apply for reinstatement of Membership at  
the end of the suspension period. The Member Auditor will be required to re-sign and upload the  
Code and may be assigned additional requirements for reinstatement of Membership, as specified  
by APSCA. The DBMA reserves the right to require the suspended Member Auditor to re-sit  
specified APSCA Exams.  
APSCA Annual Updates - Governance/IT/Exams: Frequently Asked Questions - Feb 2023