Top 8 Reasons to Choose IDEA

Auditors have been asked to do more with less and to add value to the audit with high-impact assessments of emerging risks. To succeed, auditors and other financial professionals need next-generation tools.

When analyzing audit data, spreadsheets take multiple, time-consuming manipulations to do what can be accomplished in a tenth of the time with data analytics software. They also can’t access all data types, protect data integrity, maintain audit trails or perform audit tasks that improve productivity, reliability and risk management. To access these types of tasks and boost productivity, auditors and financial professionals need an advanced tool—like CaseWare IDEA Data Analysis software.

Introduction

80outofthe

TOP 100accountingfirms in the U.S.

use IDEA 160,000users in over 90 countries

companies, governments & small businesses use IDEA500

FORTUNE

Easy to Learn, Easy to Use

Increase Audit Scope with Data from Multiple Systems

Forget Sampling — Analyze 100% of Your Data

Increase Efficiency with Audit-Specific Functions

Protect the Integrity of Your Data

Create an Auditable Trail

Allow for Repeatable Tests

Use a Trusted Solution

8 Reasons to Choose IDEA for Data Analysis

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ProblemHaving a data analytics solution is great, but not if you need to be a computer programmer with scripting knowledge to use it.

Solution with IDEAIDEA requires no programming skills to use. Features like Discover and Visualize help you quickly identify anomalies in your data with just the click of a button. IDEA also offers the ability to easily:

• Compare, join, append and visually connect databases from different sources

• Extract from databases, and detect gaps and duplicates

• Summarize, stratify and age data

• Automatically generate file statistics

• Use the automatically recorded audit trail to create macros

• Drag-and-drop import capabilities

• Review, chart, report and action results

PayoffWith IDEA, you can broaden your audit scope and add more value to audits without adding staff or reducing your auditing budget.

Easy to Learn, Easy to Use

“An important factor to our success was the speed at which our team was able to learn IDEA.”

Jerry A. Hedrick, Jr., CPA, Director Corporate Audit, Vectren Corporation

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ProblemData from any organization comes in many forms, including system-generated PDFs and text files. Spreadsheets can’t import all data types reliably so that a thorough analysis can be performed.

Solution with IDEAIDEA allows users to import all their records, including spreadsheets and exported data from databases, accounting programs, ERP systems and travel and entertainment applications in formats such as PDFs, plain text (.txt), print-report (.prn), ODBC and SAP.

PayoffGet a complete view of your data for analysis and correlate information from disparate systems to identify breakdowns in internal controls as well as potential fraud.

Increase Audit Scope with Data from Multiple Systems2.

ProblemSpreadsheets can’t process large amounts of data quickly from multiple systems.

Solution with IDEADesigned for auditing, IDEA can process millions of data points, enabling auditors to quickly analyze 100% of the data rather than rely on sampling, which provides only a cursory view of the data. When sampling is needed, IDEA also offers sophisticated sampling capabilities such as monetary, stratified and attribute.

PayoffFaster and more effective audits that identify internal control breakdowns and potential fraud.

Forget Sampling – Analyze 100% of Your Data3.

“IDEA is fundamental to our business processes. The wide range of functions, the usability and the powerful processing capability of IDEA enables us to provide clients with ever-increasing opportunities to save money.”

Twice2much Ltd.

“Our ability to aggressively and completely analyze the data we recover from suspect hard drives using IDEA has made the search for evidence much safer and more cost effective.

IDEA’s features such as extraction, sorting, searching, summarizing and comparing data files make it an invaluable tool for the forensic accountant and fraud examiner..”

Levi & Sinclair, LLP

“We use IDEA on the majority of our audits, both large and small. The most

useful feature is the ability to import PDF and text files into a usable

database even if the data is not well organized… IDEA also allows you to

search for anomalies in an entire population, instead of just a sample of

the population.”

Brown, Graham & Company –Tax Preparation and Accounting Services

ProblemSpreadsheets are a general tool that is being applied to specialized tasks. They’re not able to handle multiple manipulations or provide methodological consistency.

Solution with IDEAAuditors can do their jobs efficiently and effectively when they have tools to quickly discover and visualize trends in their data, detect gaps and duplicates, create summaries, show variances and more. IDEA offers more than 100 audit-specific functions such as:

• Fuzzy duplicate to identify similar records in character fields

• Stratified random sampling to test data with the highest likelihood of errors

• Ability to convert data into many formats for better analysis

• Option to assist actions to fields

• Benford’s tests to identify potential fraud

PayoffAn advanced data analysis tool helps auditors perform better, in-depth and consistent data analysis. It also enables audit teams to add value and save the business money.

Increase Efficiency with Audit-Specific Functions4.

ProblemWhen manipulating data in spreadsheets, it is easy to accidentally corrupt or lose data without knowing that its integrity has been compromised.

Solution with IDEAIDEA automatically locks source data files so that they are read-only—the original data cannot be lost or altered.

PayoffReliable information provides the opportunity to make good decisions and offer solid recommendations. With data protection, auditors can go back to the source data and be confident in their analysis and decisions.

Protect the Integrity of Your Data5.

Union First Market Bankshares Corporation (NASDAQ – UBSH)

“IDEA has reshaped the way in which the Internal Audit Department of Union First Market Bankshares reviews and evaluates data. Using IDEA, we are able to analyze entire populations of data, compare multiple databases and identify potential anomalies with speed and accuracy.”

ProblemIn a highly regulated and data-intensive environment, good record-keeping is critical. But with so much to do in so little time, validating your audit activity can be a daunting task if you don’t have efficient audit tools.

Solution with IDEAIDEA automatically creates an overview of all the actions performed within a project, including the creation, deletion and modification of databases. The history function maintains an audit trail or log of all operations carried out on a database, presented in an easy-to-use expandable list. These form a credible body of evidence that can be shared amongst peers and management.

PayoffAuditors can review their analysis and provide credible details on what functions were performed during the audit.

Create an Auditable Trail6.

“We started using IDEA on a trial basis and quickly adopted it thanks to the significant improvements and efficiencies it offered our audit

processes.”

Christopher Schaufele, BBA, CA, Senior Accountant, KNV Chartered Accountants LLP

ProblemAuditors need to be more efficient and perform follow-up audits faster.

Solution with IDEARepeatable audit testing allows auditors to quickly and easily perform follow-up and any future audits. IDEA has a Visual Script Editor that lets auditors click and drag task icons into sequence to create reusable tests. The software also allows the creation of macros from the audit log. More in-depth applications can be created with Python or IDEAScript, a Visual Basic-based programming language. Finally, SmartAnalyzer provides access to a library of pre-built analytics that speed analysis and provide more insights.

PayoffSwitching to automated macros reduces the time spent on repeatable tests and gives auditors time to spend on other value-add components of the audit plan.

Allow for Repeatable Tests7.

“Our fraud audit practice is built around IDEA. Within the last year we have identified conflicts of interests, shell corporations,

overbilling, payroll schemes and theft of revenue schemes.”

Leonard W. Vona, CEO of Fraud Auditing, Inc.

“Our auditors have greatly improved their efficiency by using IDEA… We spend less time on producing relevant audit

information, which gives us more time for analysis.”

The Ascott Limited

ProblemWith so many solutions on the market, what is the best data analytics solution for auditors?

Solution with IDEACountless internal auditors from multiple industries and levels of governments use IDEA to provide the highest level of analysis during their audits. Within the U.S., more than 83 of the top 100 accounting firms rely on IDEA, while three of the top six global accounting firms rely on IDEA to deliver value for their customers.

PayoffChoosing IDEA is a sound business decision. With years of experience in providing audit analytics capabilities, IDEA is the tool auditors need to be effective and valued members within their organizations.

Use a Trusted Solution8.

IDEA is a product by CaseWare IDEA, developers of data analysis software solutions for auditors and other financial professionals. IDEA’s analytics, including Benford’s Law and Fuzzy Duplicate, help auditors analyze 100% of their data at the click of a button, quickly revealing patterns, trends and outliers that may be indicative of fraud or other risks.

Discover why three of the top global accounting firms and 76 of the top 100 accounting firms in the United States rely on IDEA for their data analysis – visit us at idea.caseware.com or email us at salesidea@caseware.com for a free demo of IDEA.

Use CaseWare IDEA for Your Audits