What You Will Learn

1. Business Case for Audit Analytics
 - industry benchmarks/guidance
 - challenges with traditional audit process
 - success stories and common benefits

2. Integrating Data Analytics Across the Audit Process
 - enterprise risk assessment
 - audit planning
 - fieldwork and testing
 - reporting
 - follow-up and monitors

3. Pros and Cons of Common Data Analysis Tools
 - generic: MS Excel, MS Access
 - business intelligence: SAP, SPSS
 - IT-centric: SQL, Business Objects, Cognos
 - audit-centric: ACL, IDEA

4. Analytic Development Cycle
 - program strategy and approach
 - analytic planning and design
 - data access and validation
 - coding/Development
 - testing/QA
 - implementation and optimization
 - process differences for ad-hoc vs. continuous testing

5. Planning for Data Access
 - understanding various data access techniques
 - effectively negotiation with IT
 - data verification procedures
 - data security and retention

6. Exploring Data Access Options and File Types
 - native database tools
 - ODBC
 - flat/delimited files
 - adobe PDF reports
 - unstructured data

7. Common analyses in major business processes
 - Record-to-Report (R2R)
 - Purchase-to-Pay (P2P)
 - Forecast-to-Stock (F2S)
 - Order-to-Cash (O2C)
 - Hire-to-Retire (H2R)
 - Process-to-Application (P2A)

8. Advanced Analytic Design Techniques
 - complex string comparisons
 - address comparisons
 - fuzzy matching techniques
 - trending
 - Benford’s analysis
 - smarter sampling techniques
 - statistical and regression analysis

9. Verifying Standard Data
 - employee SSNs
 - vendor EINs
 - vendor TINs
 - zip codes
 - area codes
 - address abbreviations
 - credit card numbers

10. Leveraging External Data Sources
 - OFAC list
 - US Postal Service address standards
 - SIC codes

11. Developing Appropriate Standards
 - code documentation
 - requirements definition
 - data verification
 - QA and testing
 - security and archiving

12. Making Analytics Repetitive
 - scripting and automation
 - design considerations
 - automating data access

13. Moving Toward Continuous Auditing
 - strategy considerations
 - effect on audit process
 - changes to data extraction and analytic logic

14. Common Implementation Hurdles
 - getting management buy-in
 - dealing with false positives
 - strategies for disparate systems
 - international issues
 - incongruent processes/policies
 - outsourced IT
 - external and cloud-based data

15. People and Process Issues
 - organizing the team
 - developing and maintaining skills
 - prioritizing analytics
 - measurement and KPIs

16. Reporting and Interpreting Results
 - presenting results in a meaningful way
 - overlapping results
 - analytic precision

17. Advanced Topics and the Evolution of Analytics
 - continuous monitoring
 - dashboard and visual analytics
 - score carding
 - predictive analytics
 - spatial relationships and mapping