Course Description
In today’s business environment, internal audit departments are expected to help an organization improve business processes, ensure regulatory compliance, fight fraud, and get to the root cause of organizational issues. A formal data analytics program can help an audit function meet those expectations while becoming more efficient and easily scalable and significantly reducing auditing errors, all while providing greater audit and risk coverage. Data analytics programs can provide long-term continuous auditing and monitoring around legal and compliance issues as well as the ability to perform ad hoc audit testing, operational analysis, and fraud investigations. A data analytics program is the cornerstone of fraud detection in many organizations, providing audit and fraud teams with the ability to identify fraud red flags in real time. Data analytics programs will increase the opportunities for an audit team to add real value to their organization by increasing assurance and reducing effort through redundant testing processes such as Sarbanes-Oxley testing.
In this course attendees will learn how to effectively use data analytics software to develop data analytics scripts to support an audit. The course is interactive and participants will learn through a combination of lecture, live demonstrations, and hands-on exercises. We recommend that attendees should bring laptops (with the ability to install software, or the software already installed) to class to participate in the hands-on exercises.
BONUS: ALL REGISTERED ATTENDEES WILL RECEIVE A TRIAL VERSION OF THE SOFTWARE AND BEST PRACTICE TEMPLATES.
Learning Objectives
- Importance of planning objectives
- How to process data from any source
- Identifying outliers or issues
- Analyzing data from various sources
- Applying basic fraud techniques
- Setup-based repetitive procedures to support continuous auditing/monitoring
Course Outline
Overview of Data
- Data concepts
- Data analytics program
- Data management best practices
- Project organization best practices<
Importing Data
- Locating data
- Data formats
- Identifying data integrity issues
Sorting Data
- Arranging data
- Determining appropriate fields to sort by
Expressions
- Returning results based on date, character, and numeric data
- Creating simple and complex expressions
Functions
- Learning sophisticated analytical routines that allow you to manipulate data
- Leveraging to create computed fields or filters
- Normalizing data in key fields
Filtering
- Comparing the values in a field with a constant or with values in another field
- Find needles in a haystack
Computed Fields
- Virtual fields that use data derived from a calculation
- Performing calculations based on information in a data file without altering the original data
Profiling Data
- Understanding the data
- Gaining insights into the business
Grouping Data
- Organizing data based on type, numeric, character, and date
Comparing Data
- Stacking data from multiple sources
- Side-by-side data from various sources
Fraud Techniques
- Duplicates
- Fuzzy logic
- Benford’s law
- Compliance testing and verification
- Red flag attributes
Repetitive Analytics
- How to automate processes
- Developing interactive procedures
Additional Information
Who Should Attend
- Internal audit staff and management
- Internal control professionals
Learning Level
Intermediate
Delivery
Group-Live
Field
Auditing
Advanced Preparation
None
Recommended Prerequisites
None
Session Duration
On Site: 2 days
CPE Credits: 16