The Basics of Data for Internal Audit Professionals: What is Data vs Analytics?

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, data plays a pivotal role in providing insight, identifying risks, and enhancing audit efficiency. This training segment aims to empower internal auditors with the foundational understanding necessary to harness the power of data in their audit engagements.

In this session, participants will:

• Discuss the importance of data in the internal audit process.
• Gain exposure to data concepts
• Explore differences between data and data analytics.
• Discuss real life examples of D&A uses.

Leveraging Data Analytics in Internal Auditing: Independence and Collaboration

This session provides guidance on maximizing the effectiveness of internal audit processes through strategic decision-making regarding analytics deployment. Auditors will gain understanding of when and how to utilize data analytics independently and when to engage with dedicated audit analytic functions, if available, within an organization. 

• Investigate scenarios where data analytics can add value to audit engagements.
• Discuss how to assess the audit objective and risk factors to determine the need for specialized analytics.
• Learn how auditors can handle simple data analysis that does not require specialized skills or toolsets.

Case Study – What Types of Questions Should Auditors Ask?

This case study is designed to equip auditors with the necessary skills to formulate insightful questions when considering analytics in their audit engagements. Through a hypothetical scenario, auditors will navigate a structured approach to identify data analysis potential, foster critical thinking, and enhance ability to leverage analytics effectively.

• Formulate relevant questions to determine analytic potential.

Understanding Auditor Priorities: Tailoring Your Approach

Integrating analytics within an audit department will always have competing priorities. This session will explore auditor priorities and needs and examine how audit analytics professionals can tailor their approach to working with auditors in a way that drives value to the audit and our business partners.

In this session, participants will:

• Explore auditor priorities and contrast to analytics priorities.
• Discuss strategies for aligning analytics work to auditor priorities.
• Learn ways to tailor the approach for successful integration.

Maximizing Impact: Designing Visualizations for Auditor Engagement

Data visualizations can be extremely useful for auditor engagement and providing valuable insights. However, all visualizations are not created equally. You often hear “let the data tell a story,” But what does that mean? This session focuses on designing dashboards that are easy to understand, provide valuable insight, and drive engagement. This session will include several use cases as you will learn about techniques and the core concepts on what makes a visualization impactful.

In this session, participants will:

• Explore auditor needs in a visualization.
• Principles of effective visuals
• Understand keys to success when using visualizations to explain your analysis to auditors.

Automated and ITGC Control Testing - Full Population Testing, Test of One, Sampling

Oftentimes, IT General Control (ITGCs) can be tested via the test of one approach. However, there are instances when a full population testing approach is a better fit. This session offers an examination of three approaches to automated control testing while integrating considerations for ITGCs. Participants will gain insights into the advantages, limitations, and considerations associated with each approach.

Continuous Analytic Solution – Case Study

In today’s data rich environment, auditors play a crucial role in harnessing data analytics to enhance audit quality, efficiency, and effectiveness. Continuous Analytics/Auditing offers auditors the opportunity to leverage data analytics for continuous assurance and risk management. As such, analytic functions should be skilled in identifying and creating continuous analytics. This session will provide an example of how continuous analytics can be leveraged in the Audit department and will also contain a case study where trainees will have the opportunity to build business requirements for a continuous analytic solution.

• Formulate relevant questions to determine continuous analytic potential.