The AICPA Audit Data Standards
- Intro & an academic’s perspective UWCISA
Information Integrity & Systems Assurance
Toronto - October 2015
Clinton E. White, Jr (Skip) – U of Delaware
skipw@udel.edu
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The AICPA Audit Data Stds.
• The ADS:
– Objective: to standardize the format of
data fields and files commonly requested
for audit and related purposes (AICPA,
Assurance Services Executive Committee, 2013)
– To improve the communication between
auditors, accountants, and IT personnel
involved in the request for, and exchange
of, a company’s data, as well as, the
efficiency of the audit process (ADS Working
Group, 2013)
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The Audit Data Standards
• The challenge for both management &
auditors:
– Obtaining accurate data in a usable format
following a repeatable process
– The ADSs:
• Facilitate identifying key info needed for audit
purposes in a standard format
• Facilitate being able to assess its completeness
and integrity
• The result should be consistent, understandable
data & the opportunity for more extensive
analysis
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The ADSs
• Audit Data Standards (July, 2015)
– The Base standard:
• Basic information about the client’s ERP/AIS,
Business units, and System users
– The GL standard:
• GL details, Trial balance, Chart of accounts, & Source
listing
– The Order-to-Cash subledger standard:
• Customers, Orders, Shipments, Invoices, AR, & Cash
– The Procure-to-Payment subledger standard:
• Suppliers, POs, Goods recvd., Invoices recvd., AP, &
Payments
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The Base ADS
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The GL ADS
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The O2C ADS (part 1)
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The O2C ADS (part 2)
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The Order-to-Cash Cycle
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The Order-to-Cash Cycle
• When you consider the Order-to-Cash
cycle of your client:
– What data would you like to have to
investigate the reliability of the processing of
orders and the accuracy of the data in their
related accounts?
• When you request the data that you need, how do
you communicate your request to your client?
• How do you document your request?
• How do you verify that you received what you
requested?
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ERP/AIS Relational Tables
Employees
FirstName
LastName
ContactInfo
EmployeeId
Departments
DepartmentName
DeptAddress
DepartmentHeadId
EmployeeId
Title
ERPUsers
ERPId
EmployeeId
ActiveStatus
StatusModifiedDate
Audit Data Standard Table
User_Listing
User_ID
First_Name
Last_Name
User_Active_Status
Title
Department
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Data Format
• What format do you want the data in?
– Flat-file format (pipe-delimited):
• 12345 | Active | Skip | White | CIO
– XBRL GL format:
–
–
–
–
<gl-cor:identifierCode>12345</gl-cor:identifierCode>
<gl-cor:identifierCategory>systemUser</gl-cor:identifierCategory>
<gl-cor:identifierActive>true</gl-cor:identifierActive>
<gl-cor:identifierContactFirstName>Skip</gl-cor:identifier
ContactFirstName>
– <gl-cor:identifierContactLastName>White</gl-cor:identifier
ContactLastName>
– <gl-cor:identifierContactPrefix>CIO</gl-cor:identifier ContactPrefix>
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The ADSs
• The ADSs:
– Adoption is voluntary
• Benefits will drive adoption
– A company:
• Would create routines to extract their data and
populate XBRL GL instance documents
– Major advantages:
• A standard way for internal & external auditors to
communicate data needs to the IT staff
• Data is extracted in a standard format
• A documented, reliable, & repeatable process that
will streamline audits
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Resources
• The AICPA ADS Library:
– http://www.aicpa.org/InterestAreas/FRC/
AssuranceAdvisoryServices/Pages/Audit
DataStandardWorkingGroup.aspx
• XBRL.US
– http://xbrl.us/Pages/default.aspx
• XBRL International:
– https://www.xbrl.org/
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The future is already here – its
just unevenly distributed!
William Gibson
Thanks for your attention!
Skip
skipw@udel.edu
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