DataConsulting August 2013 Newsletter
2013-08-01
Just like a race car, fast performance comes from having a well-tuned engine. The analytic engine that drives ACL is called “Ironhide” and it is an incredible piece of technology. This is what powers both ACL Analytics 10 and Analytics Exchange 4 and our engineers have been focused on improving its performance on an ongoing basis. As an example, we improved analytic speed in our recent ACL Analytics version 10 release by an average of 30%
Audit Team Maximizes Efficiency and Collaboration with Cloud-Based Solution
VANCOUVER, July 23, 2013 – ACL today announced that 99¢ Only Stores, a deep-discount retailer of brand-name merchandise, has selected ACL™ GRC as a solution to meet its risk management and audit needs. The company’s audit team chose ACL GRC in order to increase collaboration and apply best practices through an integrated system, replacing spreadsheets and shared drives.
ACL, the company that is transforming audit and risk, announced today that Greater Baltimore Medical Center has expanded its use of ACL technology by moving to ACL™ GRC. The cloud-based audit and compliance management capabilities of ACL GRC enable the organization’s internal audit and compliance teams to track the status and progression of audits and compliance reviews from virtually anywhere. These capabilities are increasingly valuable in light of industry-wide regulatory and compliance changes.
Risk: Phantom employees on the payroll may be used to channel funds to an unauthorized party, or as a vehicle for fraud.
This test identifies duplicate employee records where there is more than one employee associated with the same bank account or address.
Test 11 – Payroll Phantom Employees
66% Of Organisations Are Focused On Internally-Driven Risk Exposures
Despite increasing stakeholder and regulatory pressure to improve governance, risk management and compliance (GRC), organizations are significantly hindered from performing the task effectively. According to the first annual GRC Technology Pulse Survey of 2,200 audit, compliance and risk professionals conducted by ACL, this is due mostly to internal roadblocks. A lack of budget, lack of IT support, and lack of knowledge about new technologies are the top obstacles impeding all lines of corporate defense from preventing fraud, accounting errors, and operational waste.
There is nothing more deflating than to identify an audit finding and then to find it was simply a “data mistake”. False positives can stymie any auditors work and confidence in using data analytics. Like any cloud’s silver lining, the false positive provides a bread crumb in the trail towards improved process analytics.
Find out more and watch the video on how to remove false positives
By Jeremy Clopton, CFE, CPA, ACDA
As an investigator, much of the data I analyze on a day-to-day basis is standard financial data – accounts payable, payroll and general ledgers. For those of you using data analytics, you likely see these data sets as well. However, a recent presentation by a colleague of mine and an article on insurance fraud reminded me of the many other data sets that are useful in investigations.
ACL Crossword
This month we have a quick crossword in which all the answers are common ACL functions.
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