A technique called audit data analytics (ADAs) can help CPAs leverage current technologies and move toward a more data-driven approach to planning or performing an audit.
ADAs help their users discover and analyze patterns, identify anomalies and extract other useful information from audit data through analysis, modeling and visualization. They can be used to perform a variety of procedures to gather audit evidence.
This means auditors can focus more of their time and energy on analyzing data, develop a greater understanding of what’s happening at their clients’ organizations and often analyze an entire population of data instead of just a sample.
Five steps can help you get started utilizing audit data analytics in your practice.