Financial and management reporting – business and operations intelligence
Analytics is an important part of the audit planning process. As an auditor
needs a documented understanding of the environment, the best way is
often utilizing the existing data and reporting. Most systems are designed to
provide a plethora of both financial and management results and trending
topics, such as business sales volumes, profitability, and expense analysis
with comparisons to highlight both performance and process transaction
anomalies. An auditor can also use this information to design useful trending
reports that will highlight significant changes. Not all changes will signal a
control issue but, at a minimum, will need to be understood and rationalized.