CAAT software is software that is used by auditors
and accountants to help them perform testing on
financial data. The key benefits of using CAAT
software are that:
it can greatly improve efficiency (often
saving many hours a week),
it reduces risk; and
improves the quality of the audit.
TopCAATs is a CAAT software that runs as an Add-in for
Excel, containing over 100 tools. The tools range from
statistical sampling routines to powerful fraud detection
tools.
Being based in Excel and using simple input forms,
TopCAATs is immediately familiar and one of the easiest
CAAT software to learn. TopCAATs includes over 130 tools
and features, all designed to make life easier for Auditors
and Accountants.
TOPCAATs ribbon in Excel 2007
In Excel 2007/2010 all the tools appear on the TopCAATs ribbon
bar. In Excel 2003 the tools are split between the TopCAATs
Toolbar and the TopCAATs menu.
The TopCAATs toolbar includes various tools to help with
day to day life in Excel and to help tidy up and manipulate
source data.
Format as
Number - custom number format can be set in Options
Date - custom date format can be set in Options
Currency - custom currency format can be set in Options
Manipulate Text - A variety of tools to manipulate text,
including changing the CASE, removing unwanted spaces,
removing non-alphanumeric characters, and many others.
Insert Borders - A variety of border options for your cells
Tick/Cross - Inserts a "tick" or "cross" symbol into a cell using
the included tick font (avoids having to use “Insert symbol”)
Merge, Wrap and Auto fit - Merges the selected cells, wraps
the text and auto fits the cells to the appropriate height.
When the built in excel function “Merge and Centre” is
used, it is unable to auto fit the row height to ensure that all
the data is visible, TopCAATs solves this.
Debit/Credit Columns - Splits an amount column into
separate debit/credit columns, or combines debits and
credits into a single column.
Fill Cells - Fill selected cells with fixed values, incremental
values or random values. Can either prefix, append or
replace existing values. Can also "fill from above", allowing
you to repeat a value (e.g. supplier number or date) where
it only appears once.
Fix Dates - Every had a system report where Excel doesn't
recognize the dates? This tool will automatically work out
what format the source data is in, and covert it to dates
Excel (and TopCAATs) can recognize and work with.
Global Find and Replace - Search for a value or text across
the current workbook, all open workbooks or all workbooks
in a folder. You can also choose to replace the found term
if desired.
Add Date Column - Creates a formatted date column, for
example to identify the "week number" and "financial year",
which can then be used to summarize by.
Header and Footer - Inserts a standard header and footer
into the worksheet. Uses information stored in Engagement
Details.
Comment to Header - Many of the tools store details about
the options selected, source data, etc. as a comment in
cell A1 (an audit trail). This button converts this comment
into a document header, incorporating stored information
from Engagement Details.
Reverse Polarity - Converts positive numbers to negative
and vice versa.
Swap Delimiters - Converts numbers in the format
“12.345,67” to “12,345.67” so Excel can recognize them as
numbers.
Move Minus Sign to Front - This tool moves the minus sign in
numbers that are displayed as “9,652.23-” from the back to
the front, so Excel can recognize them as numbers (e.g. “9,652.23”).
Convert to Values - This converts any formulas in the current
selection to their values.
Extract Visible Cells - Extracts all the visible cells on the sheet
to a new sheet.
Sheet Index - Creates a clickable index sheet, either
alphabetically or in original sheet order.
Sheet Checker - Check your source data for potential issues
like merged cells, duplicate headers, total rows, blank
rows/columns, etc. As well as identifying issues, the
TopCAATs Sheet Checker can automatically fix most of
them at the click of a button.
ENGAGEMENT SETUP
Engagement Details - Stores information about your
current engagement, so you don’t have to keep
entering the same information in each tool.
Lead Scheduler - Produces a set of lead schedules
for the audit file.
SAMPLING
Monetary Unit Sampling - Estimate, Extract and Evaluate a
statistically selected sample from a population.
Stratification - Split data into bands containing ranges of
values.
Random Sampling - Extract a number of randomly sampled
items.
Systematic Sampling - Extract every nth item from the
population.
DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS
Join Sheets - Joins two sheets together, based on a
common matching column - although this sounds simple it
literally has hundreds of uses and is one of the most useful
tools in TopCAATs.
Append Sheets - Joins multiple sheets that all have the
same column structure together. E.g. where you have
separate reports for each sales person, each warehouse,
etc.
Aging - Re-age a listing based on a variety of aging
options, including custom aging bands.
Quick summary - Quickly and simply summarize your data,
based on criteria you specify.
Advanced summary - Summarize your data in a variety of
ways and perform statistical analysis on the results.
DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS
Ledger split - Splits a report into several worksheets (e.g.
split an inventory listing into a separate listing for each
warehouse).
Column statistics - Get a detailed report of the data in
each of your columns.
Highlight Changes - Highlights any differences between 2
versions of a worksheet or workbook.
Benford's Analysis - Perform Benford's Digit Analysis testing
to identify unusual patterns in data.
Exception report - Extracts any records that meet the
criteria you specify (up to 3 criteria).
Specific Comments - Searches a worksheet or range for
specific comments (e.g. “suspense”, “rainy day”,
“unknown”, etc.)
DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS
Top and Bottom - Extracts the top and bottom records from
a list.
Gap detection - Look for gaps in a sequence (e.g. missing
invoice or journal numbers).
Duplicate extraction - Extract duplicate records, based on
the fields you specify.
Same, Same, Different - Extract records where 2 fields are
the same and a 3rd is different (e.g. same amount, same
date, different vendor).
Outliers - Extract records where the amount significantly
deviates from the mean.
Out of mask - Extract records where a field does not match
a pre-defined mask (e.g. bank account numbers/sort
codes, National Insurance numbers, etc.)
DATA ANALYSIS TOOLS
Round Number Extraction - Extracts any records which
have a rounded amount.
Analytical Review - Compare two columns of numbers and
calculate the absolute and percentage difference (e.g.
current period and prior period).
Options - Allows you to specify global options for TopCAATs.
OTHER TOOLS/FEATURES
Multi Drill Down - Allows you to perform a Show Detail on
multiple cells in a pivot table at the same time (either
exporting the results to separate sheets, or to a single
sheet).
Rename Show Detail Reports - When you "Show Detail" in a
Pivot Table, Excel renames the sheet numerically, e.g.
Sheet4, Sheet5, etc. TopCAATs can automatically rename
the new sheet with information about the cell you double
clicked.
Double Click to Sort - Allows you to sort your data by
double clicking in row 1 (can be turned off in the options).
OTHER TOOLS/FEATURES
TopCAATs Statistics - Provides statistics about the
selected cells on the right click menu. Selecting a
statistic stores the value to the clipboard, so you can
easily paste it to another cell or even another
document/program (e.g. copy the total of the selected
cells and paste into Word).
Tick Font - A font consisting of a wide variety of ticks
that can be used to mark your data. The font is globally
available, so you can use it in other applications like
Word or PowerPoint too.
SECTION MODULES
TopCAATs includes 7 “Section Modules” each specifically
targeted to an area of the accounts.
Prepare Sheets - This prepares a worksheet for input into
the section modules.
7 SECTION MODULES:
Non Current Asset Section Module
• Asset additions
• Asset category summary
• Recalculate straight line depreciation
• Recalculate reducing balance depreciation
• Zero or negative net book value
• Accumulated depreciation > net book value
SECTION MODULES
Inventory Listing Section Module
• Aging
• Recalculate inventory balance
• Calculate inventory turnover (by value and quantity)
• Zero or negative unit cost
• Zero or negative quantity
• Large inventory amounts (by value and quantity)
• Inventory received around a specific date
• Inventory location summary
• Last sales price lower than cost
• Total sales value lower than cost of goods sold
Trade Receivables Ledger Section Module
• Account over given amount
• Accounts with credit balance
• Accounts over credit limit
• Accounts with a rounded balance
SECTION MODULES
Trade Receivables Invoice Section Module
• Aging
• Duplicates
• Invoices over a given amount
• Credit transactions
• Invoices posted on specific days
• Invoices posted on specific dates
• Transactions around a specific date
• Transactions posted between 2 times
• Transaction summary by user
• Rounded amounts
Trade Payables Ledger Section Module
• Account over given amount
• Accounts with debit balance
• Accounts over credit limit
• Accounts with a rounded balance
SECTION MODULES
Trade Payables Listing Section Module
• Aging
• Duplicates
• Invoices over a given amount
• Debit transactions
• Invoices without purchase orders
• Invoices posted on specific days
• Invoices posted on specific dates
• Transactions around a specific date
• Transactions posted between 2 times
• Transaction summary by user
• Rounded amounts
SECTION MODULES
General Ledger/Journal Listing Section Module
• Duplicate journals
• Missing journals
• Non balancing journals
• Journals over given amount (by journal line or total
journal debits)
• Transactions posted on day of week
• Transactions posted on specific dates
• Transactions posted between 2 times
• Rounded amounts
• Multiple users, same journal
• Summary by user
• Summary by period
• Summary by source
• Summary by period and account
• Summary by source and account
• Summary by user and account
• Summary by period and source
USES
Other than the reduction in audit risk, the other key benefit of
TopCAATs is the time savings, which can be substantial. Our
research shows that TopCAATs will save an auditor 2-5 hours
every week on average! Take a look at these examples
USES
Most auditors already use CAATs to some extent – simply using
Excel to check that a ledger casts is using a CAAT, but
specialized CAATs packages are often not used, or their full
potential is rarely realized. This is often because other products
are so complicated that even with substantial training; staff
are reluctant to use them. They are also extremely costly and it
can cost a small fortune to buy licenses and train staff
At Reinvent Data, we understand that auditors and
accountants come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and
may not have a strong IT skill set. TopCAATs allows users to
quickly and easily analyze any area of the accounts, from an
invoice or sales listing, to the general ledger and journal listings,
with minimal training
The seamless integration with Microsoft Excel ensures a familiar
interface and the colour coded user forms and step by step
guidance gives TopCAATs the shortest learning curve of any
CAATs software on the market
USES
The benefits don’t stop at the junior staff – TopCAATs reports
are all in a standard format, making them easy to review,
saving managers time as well. Each tool contains an audit trail,
detailing what analysis has been run (the section modules
even have a screenshot showing the parameters entered)
allowing complete re-performance of the work undertaken if
required. Also, with your junior staff using TopCAATs, you’ll
spend less time coaching on the job (as TopCAATs is so
intuitive and simple) freeing up your valuable time to focus on
the key audit issues
USES
INTERNAL AUDITORS
CAATs have similar benefits for internal auditors as they do
for external auditors.
The uses of TopCAATs for an internal auditor are almost
endless, but here are a few examples:
• find duplicate payments
• check payroll records for invalid national insurance
numbers
• perform Benford's testing to identify fraudulent data
sets
Furthermore, as the reports from TopCAATs are all in a
standard format, it makes benchmarking between
divisions, locations or subsidiaries easy
Accounting Department
If you work in an accounts department, you probably find yourself
performing the same tasks each week or month and you probably use Excel on
a daily basis. Many of the TopCAATs tools can be used to automate these
repetitive tasks, allowing them to be performed in a fraction of the time. It also
reduces the chance of errors being made.
The TopCAATs tools are so easy to use that you'll be producing meaningful
reports, that help you perform your job better in no time at all!
The wide variety of tools, and inbuilt flexibility make up for a number of
shortcomings in many mainstream accounting packages – ever thought to
yourself “I wish I could produce a … report”, well there's a good chance you
can using standard reports and TopCAATs
The toolbar will speed up your daily Excel use – whether it's quickly applying
formats, extracting visible cells to a new sheet, converting formulas to values
or inserting a header and footer, TopCAATs has got it covered
Our ability to customise TopCAATs to suite your specific needs means it truly
can become the ultimate support tool for your accounts department. For
example, we can include custom reports which clean and analyse standard
output from your accounting software, then convert it into the format you
want, all at the click of a single button! If you've got a task that takes 30
minutes every day, we can create a button that do it in 30 seconds.
Financial Management
As a finance manager you are responsible for the companies
accounting records. You need to be constantly aware of issues that
may impact the financial position of the company, and need to have
confidence in the underlying numbers. To do this, you need good
quality information, presented in an appropriate manner. TopCAATs
allows you to quickly and easily generate reports that show you the
information you need to run your finance department.
TopCAATs allows you to perform high level analysis, and then drill
down to the details on areas of interest. Suspicious and unusual
transactions can be identified in seconds, allowing further
investigation. TopCAATs can be used to perform a wide variety of
internal controls, strengthening your control environment, helping to
prevent and detect mistakes, errors and fraudulent activity
TopCAATs can also be particularly useful when approaching the
annual audit – it can identify the areas and transactions that the
auditors are likely to ask questions about. This allows you to prepare
in advance of the audit, lowering the pressure on your staff during
the audit, and facilitating the auditors work (this may even give you a
case for fee renegotiation!)
Fraud Examiners
One of the key parts of any fraud examiner's job is substantial
amounts of data analysis – which is exactly what TopCAATs is designed for.
Many of the tools are specifically designed to look for suspicious transactions,
and identify potential fraud.
Unfortunately, fraud is fairly common place in today's world – it is widely
acknowledged that the majority of companies experience at least one fraud a
year. Studies have shown that the average company can expect to loose 2-5%
of gross revenue to fraud. This can often amount to substantial sums, and can
even be the difference between success and failure of a business.
With the large volumes of transactions within a company it is almost
impossible to analyse these without the use of computers. Fraud examiners
need a suite of high performance, simple to use tools, which is exactly what
TopCAATs delivers.
Here are some examples of how TopCAATs can be used to detect fraud
Using “Join 2 Sheets” to look for matches between the employee master file
and vendor master file (by bank account number, address, telephone number,
etc)
Use “Benford's test” to perform digital analysis to check the source data is
“natural” and not manually manipulated
Search for rounded transactions
Use “Outliers” to look for above average purchase price for stock lines (which
may indicate a 'kick back' scheme)
GROUP 2
BSA 4B
Ann Jo Pelagio
Cherrnech
Hormiguerra
Rhea Vitug
Clarisse B. Torres
Richard John
Tinasas