Technology for Business Assurance
ACL Business Case
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
Business Case Outline
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ACL Introduction
Impact to the bottom line – Revenue leakage: Errors & Fraud
Primary goals: Why ACL?
ACL solution functional diagram
– High level report
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Analytic packages: prebuilt scripts
ACL client results
Summary of savings
Pricing
Sequence of Events
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
ACL
Industry Leader
21 Years of Business Assurance Solutions
11,000+ organizations in 150 countries
Commercial
Global 500
Fortune 500
Wells Fargo Foothill
Fortune 100
70%
85%
95%
Public Sector
200+ departments in 37 national governments
500+ regional, state and local governments
Public Accounting / Business Services
External Audit : Big 4 Audit firms
100%
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ACL Services Ltd.
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Impact to the bottom line –
Revenue leakage: Errors and Fraud
Revenue Leakage Calculator
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
Primary Goals
Goal
ACL Impact
Proactively monitor risk exposure
Quantify errors/revenue leakage through daily/weekly/monthly continuous
monitoring. Recover money in a timely manner. Ability to fix controls
before problem grows.
Reduce time and resources spent on manual controls testing for SoX 404
Certain repeated SoX controls testing can be performed by ACL on a
continuous automated basis.
Reduce time and resources spent on manual processes to report on
financials or exceptions
Today: Manual process from SAP to Access to Excel. Takes a day to
report for each month. Data integrity can be lost due to Excel.
Reduce other manual hours spent on error verification (i.e. Check
matching to Vendor invoices) – receive error exception report before
checks are sent.
Automate data access from SAP and other data sources, run prebuilt
tests within ACL, export results/exceptions to:
 centralized library
 email notification
 dashboard report
Results can be exported daily or run on adhoc basis, taking minutes –
hours depending on complexity of test.
Identify control weaknesses.
Proactively identify control breaches i.e. split transactions, duplicate
payments, transactions just below thresholds
Take preventative measures to improve business process controls:
Purchase to Payment | Payroll | Travel & Entertainment | Order to
Cash | General Ledger
Use proven prebuilt scripts that ACL clients have found the most revenue
leakage and fraud in high risk areas.
Alignment with internal and external audit
Internal audit can leverage analytics and results for their audit plan.
External audit can rely on ACL results, increase effectiveness of audit
engagements. Utilize the same solution that the Big 4 uses and is
familiar with.
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Continuous Auditing
ERP
Enterprise
Data
SQL
Access virtually any data source
and automate data feeds
Automation – Built-in Analytic Scheduler
Server Analytic Processing Power
Content Management – Any File Type
Automatically distribute
exceptions found during data
analysis testing to multiple
business stakeholders
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High level report example
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
Analytics – Areas of Focus
Package:
Purchase to Payment (35 scripts)
Category:
Requisitions
Purchase Orders
Receiving
Payables
Payments
Bundles:
 Limits – single and split
 Purchasing limits – single
 Two Way Match – quantity
 Limits – single and split
 Two Way Match – amount
requisitions
 Authorization – creating
and approving
 Data Validity – critical
data fields
and split PO
variance: goods receipt vs PO
 Order Authorization –
Unauthorized purchaser
 Data Validity – critical data
fields
 Segregation of Duties
– creator/modifier vs
approver
 Segregation of Duties –
 Data Validity - critical data
fields
 Segregation of Duties –
goods receipts creator/modifier
vs PO creator/modifier/approver
creator/modifier vs vendor
master record
creator/modifier
invoices
variance: payment vs invoice
 Timing – retroactive PO’s
 Two Way Match – amount
variance: PO vs Invoice
 Data Validity - critical data
fields
 Segregation of Duties –
invoice approver vs PO or
goods receipt creator/modifier
 Suspect Vendors –
prohibited, phantom vendor,
unusual activity, 1 time
vendors
 Duplicate Payments - 6
different types
 Data Validity - critical data
fields
 Segregation of Duties –
payment approver vs PO
creator/modifier
 Suspect Payments – manual
payments, missing vendor
information
 Unaccrued Liabilities – good
receipt w/o invoice after period
end, invoices after period end
# of
scripts:
5
6
3
14
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
Analytics – Areas of Focus
Package:
General Ledger (22 Analytics)
Category:
Validation & Profiling
Journal Entry Testing
Bundles:
 Validation of Trial Balance
 Analysis of Month End Balances (SAS99)
 Validation of Control Accounts (SAS99)
 Profiling of Suspense Accounts (SAS99)
 Data Validity
 Duplicate Journal Entries
 Segregation of Duties
 Suspicious General Ledger Accounts
 Suspicious Journal Entry Dates
 Suspicious Journal Entry Amounts
 Suspicious Journal Entry Description
 Invalid Account Classification
 Period Close Cut-Off
 Reversed Journal Entries
 Temporary Accounts
 Unreconciled Journal Entries
# of Scripts:
4
18
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
Analytics – Areas of Focus
Package:
Cost Management (23 Analytics)
Starter Pack (10 Analytics)
Category:
Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Employee Transactions
Utility Scripts
Bundles:
 Vendor Payments
 Duplicate Payments
 Phantom Vendors
 Vendor Master
 Vendor Discounts
 Purchase Authorization
Limits
 Customer Credit
 Sales Orders to Purchase
Orders
 Payroll
 Travel & Entertainment
Expenses
 Corporate Credit Cards
 Split Transactions
 Incorrect Totals
 Even Dollar Transactions
 Transaction Aging
 Fuzzy Name Matches
 Matched Join
 High Standard Deviation
 Transaction Volume Summary
 Duplicate Transactions
 Suspicious Date Range
# of Scripts:
12
5
6
10
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
ACL client results:
 Engineering & Construction firm: San Francisco, CA
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Purchase to Payment, Travel & Entertainment
Six Sigma focus
Savings of $140K/year in labor hours
Control/process errors especially in T&E
 Manufacturing: Becton, Dickinson & Company
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Purchase to Payment, Order to Cash and Payroll
First nine months – identified 4K duplicates worth $1.2M
Pre-controls monitoring 5000 control tests – reduced SoX compliance costs
Provided management assurance every procurement transaction subjected to 44
control tests
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
ACL client results:
 Biopharmaceutical: Talecris Biotherapeutics
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P2P, T&E, Pcard, G/L, Payroll, Order to Cash
Manual processes, weak controls over cash mgmt
Found fraud rampant in troubled economy
5 out of 60 centers = ~ $2M in fraud found
 Manufacturing: Illinois
– Updated all controls before ACL implementation; found $17K in duplicates
first week
– Found plant in China had employees reselling precious metals back to
company (worth in millions)
– Due to ACL analysis, putting GPS trackers in trucks to track total distance
and travel time to ensure no drug trafficking
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
ACL client results:
 Thomson SA: France, EMEA
– VAT tax team – existing spreadsheet software had limited file capabilties,
slow calculation speeds, and did not provide Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
capabilities.
– “ACL has revolutionized our audit methodology. We can now analyze large
data files from SAP and cross-reference the information to find errors and
controls gaps” – VAT Manager
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ACL Services Ltd.
Copyright © 2010 ACL Services Ltd.
Summary of savings
Year 1
Recovery of Errors (potential – on low end)
Vendor Payments error % by industry + T&E payments error % by #
of employees + Fraud %
Ie. $9 050 000
1% of total potential = $90,500
Reduced manual labor hours – Excel reports
Ie. 6 hours * $30/hour x 12 months
= $2,160
Reduced manual labor on SoX controls testing
Ie. 20 hours * $30/hour x 12 months
= $7,200
Reduced manual labor hours – Check matching
to Vendor invoices
Reduced time extracting data for external
auditors
# hours to build and automate 45 control tests
in Excel for Purchase to Payment, T&E, Payroll,
Order to Cash, General ledger
Total possible estimated soft & hard cost
savings
* Not including increased areas of scrutiny that are not monitored
today
Total ACL solution
Total ROI
(excluding full potential of errors/leakage
found)
Year 2 (or Phase 2)
Total
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FREEDOM FROM DOUBT ™
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