IDEA and I: An Unexpected Journey - AuditWare · IDEA and you: Where will your journey take you?...

IDEA and I: An Unexpected Journey

John Latimer

An Unexpected Journey

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained - well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

An Unexpected Journey: Overview

• The journey begins

• Picking up the keys

• Getting the data

• Excelling

• Journals

• Examples in IT audit and more

• Open data – food for thought

• Scripting without a pen

• Plotting the path ahead

An Unexpected Journey: The Journey Begins

• Sometimes I had to pore through these…

• Mostly I had to pore through these…


• Then we purchased IDEA…

• We encountered difficulties initially

• Accessing data from clients

• When we knew what we wanted the question was how to get the data from the client system to our own?

• The hurdle was great


• Some testing was successful

• Sampling was a focus

• Legislative move from LGA to NIAO

• More data coming in from more clients

• Continuing to focus on sampling; some duplicate testing

• Some slicing and dicing; account codes analysis

An Unexpected Journey: Picking up the keys

• A large public housing authority

• Balance sheet housing stock, greater than £2bn

• Beacon valuation


• Data available from the valuer

• An application of Key Values Extraction

An Unexpected Journey: Getting the data

• Advent of shared services for government departments and others

• Impact on the uniformity of data available for financial audit

• Common software base including reporting tool

• Easier data retrieval and reconciliations

• Deploy a central group to download, reconcile and track

• Data Analytics team for initial analysis and lead schedule prep

An Unexpected Journey: Getting the (right) data• Sometimes we can encourage/advise the data owner/keeper on

better ways to produce the data for us;

• Sometimes we need to take what we are given and deal with it

• Option 1: Seek amendments at source

• OR Option 2: Apply amendments in IDEA

An Unexpected Journey: Getting the data

An Unexpected Journey: Excelling


Top - no empty rows; titles in row 1


Middle - no used columns to the left or right;

(Excel includes "blank“ columns to the right)

Check the data for consistency and date fields


Bottom - delete rows below, including any totals


• I suggest using the Top-Middle-Bottom approach

• Top

• Middle

• Bottom


• You may just…


TOP – MIDDLE - BOTTOM

• Other considerations:

• Use a macro in Excel to prepare?

• Sense and formatting check - "garbage in, garbage out"

An Unexpected Journey: Journals

• Using IDEA at NIAO

• Main emphasis is financial audit

• Renewed emphasis and training over the last 2 years

• Journal testing pilot – leading to expanding client data requests

An Unexpected Journey: Journals

An Unexpected Journey: Example in IT Audit

• Review of Active Directory

• Register of user accounts and settings in Windows environments

• Large number of possible values to extract from Active Directory

• Work with client IT staff to determine what you need

• A look at the data helps build understanding


• Focus might be on password policy compliance


• Focus might be on leavers and their access


• Focus might be on how the users are separated into units


• Service accounts - in use, who controls?

• User accounts with unusual attributes, eg password doesn't expire.

• Admin user accounts - associated "normal" account, stronger security attributes

• [Use of AD tools such as Netwrix]


• Types of user

• Password settings

• Password expiration

• Password complexity

• What is a good password?

• (NCSC)


• Other examples

• Review change control records

• Review generated lists of privileged (application) users, over time

An Unexpected Journey: Other tests

• Visual connector for pay award review


• Stratified random sampling for bonus payments


• Other examples used by colleagues

• Project expenditure records to accruals listing

• Extent of asset NBV understatement due to non inclusion of assets related to unpaid invoices which are not included by the fixed asset software

• Matched rates non-domestic property vacancies against RHI address data to identify properties claiming vacancy for rates but also claiming occupancy for RHI


• Speak to family members

• Look for old records in the attic

• Search through old photos

• Do a DNA test – matches

An Unexpected Journey: Open Data

An Unexpected Journey: Open Data (showcase)

An Unexpected Journey: Open Data

An Unexpected Journey: Scripting

• Diving into scripting with payroll analysis

• Shared Service and contractor

• Never start with a pen

• Utilise history if you have carried out analysis before


• Utilise history if you have carried out analysis before


• Plan it out

• Flow diagram

• Dependencies

• Piece of paper?


• Put it all together

• IDEAScript course

An Unexpected Journey: Plotting the path ahead


• Data analytics – a hot topic!


• IFAC Response to Bryden


• ACCA


• My Great Grandfather

• My Uncle – a source of information (and great stories)!

• Groggan Primary School – a newspaper clipping

• My wife’s ancestors – Howth visit

• Who knows where after that???

• An Unexpected Journey…

IDEA and I: An Unexpected Journey Recap

• The journey begins

• Picking up the keys

• Getting the data

• Excelling

• Journals

• Examples in IT audit and more

• Open data – food for thought

• Scripting without a pen

• Plotting the path ahead

IDEA and you: Where will your journey take you?

Unleash your inner Bilbo Baggins!

This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found

himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may

have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained - well, you will

see whether he gained anything in the end.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/john-latimer-IT-Auditor

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.linkedin.com/in/john-latimer-IT-Auditor

IDEA and I: An Unexpected Journey - AuditWare · IDEA and you: Where will your journey take you?...

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