Stronger, faster audits using data, analytics & AI
Test more. Identify exceptions faster. Focus your audit effort on what matters.
We help internal and external audit teams use data, analytics and AI to improve audit coverage, reduce repetitive manual work and identify risks and exceptions more efficiently.
Traditional audit approaches were designed for a world where manually extracting data, working through spreadsheets and testing samples were often the only practical options. As transaction volumes, systems and data complexity have grown, those same approaches can increasingly limit the assurance you are able to provide.
Heavy reliance on manual and spreadsheet-based testing can result in:
Sampling may leave significant parts of the transaction population untested.
Unusual transactions, patterns and relationships can be difficult to identify manually across large datasets.
Significant effort goes into extracting, cleaning, combining and manipulating data before testing even begins.
Copying, pasting, formulas and repeated spreadsheet manipulation create opportunities for errors and inconsistencies.
Procedures may have to be rebuilt or repeated each audit cycle.
Manual processes become harder to manage as transaction volumes and data complexity grow.
Skilled auditors spend too much time preparing data instead of investigating exceptions and assessing risk.
The question is no longer simply whether the audit was completed.
It is about using data and technology to perform better assurance work.
Effective audit analytics starts with understanding the process being audited — how transactions should flow, what controls should operate, where things can go wrong and what the data should tell you. We don't simply analyse the data that is available. We help determine what should be tested, why it matters and which exceptions warrant further investigation — then use Excel, Power BI, analytics, automation and AI to perform those tests more efficiently and at greater scale.
This can enable audit teams to:
Analytics can be applied across a wide range of financial and operational processes. The tests should be determined by your risks, processes, controls and audit objectives — not by the technology.
Duplicate payments, unusual suppliers, purchase-order compliance, transactions outside established processes, payment patterns and other exceptions.
Duplicate records, unusual payments, changes to employee information, unexpected payroll movements and transactions requiring investigation.
Unusual journals, postings at unusual times, duplicate values, unexpected users, unusual account combinations and other risk indicators.
Billing, adjustments, credit notes, ageing, collections and customer transactions — trends and exceptions requiring investigation.
Automated comparisons between systems, accounts and datasets, identifying unreconciled items and exceptions for investigation.
Transaction splitting, threshold breaches, unusual spending patterns and compliance with defined business rules.
These are only examples. We work with your team to understand the process, the risks and the assurance required — and then determine how data can be used to test it more effectively.
You may not need another audit tool.
Many organisations already have much of the technology they need. We help you build automated audit flows using tools you already have — including Excel and Power BI. From data extraction and transformation through to testing and exception identification, recurring audit procedures can be automated and designed to roll forward from one audit cycle to the next.
Instead of rebuilding the same tests every year, your team can refresh the underlying data, rerun established tests and focus its time on investigating the results. Automated audit flows can provide:
Our role does not end when the audit flows are built. We train your team to understand the solution, refresh the underlying data, operate the tests and roll the audit setup forward from one audit cycle to the next. As risks, processes and audit requirements change, the flows can be adapted and extended.
The objective is to leave your organisation with practical capability your team can continue to use, rather than a solution that permanently depends on external consultants.
AI creates additional opportunities to improve audit productivity, particularly when combined with good-quality data and clearly defined audit objectives. It can support auditors with activities such as:
We help audit teams understand where AI can add practical value, develop the skills to use it effectively, and introduce appropriate review processes to support the quality and consistency of the work produced.
Not sure where to begin? Start small. Give us one recurring audit procedure, dataset or area where your team is spending significant time extracting data, manipulating spreadsheets or performing repetitive manual testing — and we'll explore how analytics and automation could improve it.
Sceptical about what Excel, Power BI, analytics or AI can actually do for your audit? Let us tackle one of your real audit challenges so you can see the potential value first-hand before committing to a wider implementation.
You may already have much of the technology you need. We can help you use Excel, Power BI, analytics and AI more effectively to increase audit coverage, automate repetitive testing and build reusable audit flows that your team can continue to use.