2010-09-01
CAATs form the basis for Continuous Auditing (CA) or Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM).
CA is a suite of CAATs that is run on an ongoing, business-as-usual basis to monitor the design and performance of controls.
The output of CA is typically a set of reports for management to review, providing them with comfort that their controls – and therefore processes – are working as required.
The controls selected, the CAATs and the frequency of the monitoring can all be tailored to the needs of the business.
The regular results from CAATs can then be fed into a dashboard measuring current performance against historical trends and management targets.
For example, the business might have a target for average debtor days across all customers of 35 days. The debtor days calculation could be run on a weekly or monthly basis, and the results compared to the target to identify areas for improvement.
DataConsulting are experienced in building CA/CCM frameworks for clients, by identifying the appropriate CAATs, implementing the tests and building reporting suites and dashboards for the results.
