2011-02-01
“With ACL’s powerful, built-in data analysis functions, we can further enhance our auditing skills. It’s easy to extract data for analysis from a report format and share scripts and queries developed in ACL and Direct Link to streamline repetitive download tasks.”
Larry Young, Senior Auditor, CLP Holdings Ltd.
Based in Hong Kong, CLP Holdings Limited is the holding company of the CLP group of companies. CLP Holdings is one of the largest investor-owned power businesses in Asia, with over £3 billion in yearly revenues and 6,000 employees. The internal audit department requires fast and flexible access to large volumes of data for its audit preparation activities. The department implemented ACL and Direct Link software solutions to promote smooth data retrieval from its enterprise systems – including its SAP ERP – and to save queries for repeated download tasks. With ACL Audit Analytics, CLP Holdings automates routine data extractions, share scripts, and quickly obtains complex data sets for detailed analysis. Through the strategic application of ACL technology, CLP Holdings has increased audit productivity by approximately 60 percent and freed team members to focus on value-added audit activities.
CLP Holdings includes an electric utility business operated under CLP Power Hong Kong, which is regulated by the Scheme of Control (SoC) agreement with the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. CLP Power Hong Kong operates power stations and transmits electricity to 2.2 million customers. CLP Holdings also includes the group’s power-related investments and services in Hong Kong and additional locations.
The CLP Holdings audit team required a more flexible and less time-consuming way to prepare data for audits and to access information from the organisation’s SAP systems.
CLP Holdings auditors download large volumes of data and perform detailed analyses to pinpoint exceptions to business and operating rules. Beginning in 2000, CLP Holdings implemented financial, human resources, work management, and customer relationship management SAP modules. The auditors found that SAP downloads were time consuming, with complex table relationships.
For example, auditors could only download data from one table at a time and were unable to display the table relationships. Additionally, auditors couldn’t save data field selections in the SAP environment and needed to repeat even identical queries for each download exercise. These limitations added time to routine inquiries, especially when there were several hundred data fields in one table and the auditors needed to download data from multiple tables.
The CLP Holdings internal audit department implemented ACL and Direct Link to streamline data downloads and analyses. Auditors now can save data field selections and share scripts and queries for repetitive download tasks. The team can apply ACL’s analytics to find exceptions, anomalies and unusual patterns, and even extract the required data from a report format.
CLP Holdings audit team use DirectLink to extract data from SAP systems faster than the basic download function. With Direct Link, auditors can also join disparate tables and simultaneously download different data sets from various SAP modules – saving time and increasing audit efficiencies.
CLP Holdings relies on ACL Audit Analytics to:
3 Appleton Court, Calder Park
Wakefield, WF2 7AR
+44 (0) 1924 254 101
Subscribe to our newsletter.
Please fill out the details below and a member of our team will be in-touch shortly with next available date(s). Typically this workshop runs quarterly.
