ACL User Conference
New York City
June 8th, 2009
New York: Monday, June 8
7:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.
Breakfast | Registration | Networking
8:30 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Welcome and Opening Remarks
8:45 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.
The Road to Continuous Assurance:
A Team's Transition from Audit to Continuous Controls Monitoring
Jason A. Gross, CPA, CIA, CFE, CISA, ACDA
Vice President Controls Management
Siemens Financial Services
9:45 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
Break | Networking
10:15 a.m. - 11:15 a.m.
Gaining Audit Assurance:
Continuous Audit Techniques with ACL
David Toussas, CISA, Director IT Audit
Tiffany & Co.
11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
ACL Impact Award Winner
12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Lunch | Roundtables | Networking
1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Workshop: Advanced Techniques to Improve
Audit Efficiency
Michael Keiffer, CPA, CIA, CISA, CTA, ACDA
ACL Certified Master Trainer
Workshop: Continuous Auditing &
Monitoring with ACL
Dustin Lewis, CISA, ACDA
Senior Technology Consultant, ACL Services Ltd.
3:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Break | Networking
4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
ACL Use it or Lose It: Benchmarking Workshop
Facilitated by Steve Biskie, CPA, CITP, CISA
Best Practices Director, ACL Services Ltd.
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Cocktail Reception
The Road to Continuous
Assurance by Jason Gross

Control Management versus Internal
Audit
◦ No longer independent
◦ Actively participates in the business decisions
◦ Become more of the event driver towards
continuous monitoring
In Order To Succeed…
Obtain support & commitment from
Audit Committee and Management
 Continuous Auditing should complement
the Audit Plan
 Start small; build from success
 Automate/leverage from well-defined
periodic audits
 Gain reliance by external auditors and
add value

Technology Tools…
Optimize current data analytic scripts and
schedule routines on a ‘continual’ basis’
 Obtain direct access to the data
 Cultivate core team of skilled auditors
using technology for data extraction and
analysis

Continuous Audit Techniques with ACL by
David Toussas
No little blue box under our chairs
 Interesting overview of the history of the
company
 The evolution of using ACL in their
business
 Overcoming the challenges/access to data
 Get buy-in

Evolution of ACL at Tiffany
2001: Created A/P Testing Module in ACL
 2003: Initial Attempt at Continuous Audit
 2003: Identified Issue in Production
Report
 2004: Utilized U.S. Sales Data Warehouse
 2005: Enhanced Post Void Testing
 2005: Travel & Entertainment (cash
advances)

Challenges they faced

Staffing
◦ Turnover in the SOX-Era has been challenging
◦ Limited resources with technical skills

Sustainability
◦ Data exists on various platforms and
databases
◦ Majority of time spent developing/running
queries
◦ Staff is uncomfortable downloading/importing
What they did about it

New Goals
◦
◦
◦
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Centralized repository for data gathering
Consistently refresh data
Ability to control changes to ACL Modules
Expand Continuous Audit into International
Retail
◦ Identify additional projects

Implement
◦ Upgrade ACL Server to ACL AuditExchange
Impact Award Winners

Manuel Coello - Stanley Works
◦ North American Winner
◦ Continuous Monitoring using ACL and their
successes

David T. Miod - United States Air force
◦ Overall winner
◦ Cost reductions in the millions if not billion+
Manuel Coello - Stanley Works
Smorgageboard of ACL Uses
Travel Improvement Event
 Contracts Improvement Event
 GPC Improvement Event
 Supply Improvement Event
 AVPOL Improvement Event
 Reimbursements Improvement Event


All with dollar savings in the millions
Continuous Auditing and Assurance

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By Dustin Lewis – ACL
Do ad hoc first then automate
Early wins/high risk areas
Analytic Essentials (for Audit Exchange Only)
Run Verify
Comment tricks
◦ End of blank line ends comments



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Making font bigger (or smaller)
Example of cleaning up files
All commands in upper case
Use of permanent variables (_status)
Set Debug?
Benchmarking Workshop
Use it or lose it
Must not have been too eventful for me
 Each table had ½ hour to come up with ACL
application ideas that was unique
 ½ hour to share our ideas
 Mine was duplicate reporting – first thing
facilitator said was no dup reporting ideas
since everyone has one.
 Our table wasn’t picked
 Last item on the agenda before cocktail hour
