Training and Consulting

CAATS offer four courses:

CAATS also offers a unique opportunity to combine training and consulting activities – to address the objectives of an ongoing audit, while learning ACL.

All courses can be customized to meet your specific requirements using your data files and tailored exercises.

Introductory ACL

CAATS offers a 3-day Introductory ACL course. The purpose of the hands-on course is to expose you to the basics of ACL and give you an opportunity to use ACL in a classroom setting. The first part of the course stresses the ACL user interface and the ACL Project concepts. It also covers the definition of different file types: flat file, Excel (ODBC), Delimited, dBASE and Printed report files.

The second part of the course will concentrate on the ACL commands: Verify, Count, Total, Statistics, Sequence, Duplicates, Gaps, Stratify, Classify, Age, Cross tabulation, Sort, Index, Quick Sort, Summarize, Extract, Export, Benford Analysis, Join and Relate.

The course uses a combination of instructor-led presentation and hands-on exercise. The materials are provided only as a supplement to the ACL materials (electronic reference documentation and help).

By the end of the course you should understand:

  • the ACL project concept, including table layouts (creating and using); data file types, expressions and filters
  • ACL commands, allowing you to
    • assess data integrity and completeness;
    • get an overview of the data;
    • drill-down into the details;
    • export/extract data; and
    • join and relate data files.
  • How to use the ACL Log file

Advanced ACL

The Advanced ACL course is 3 days of intensive instruction aimed at experienced ACL users.

The first part of the course should be a refresher – starting with a review of importing the five types of data dBASE, Delimited, flat file, ODBC, and Report files. The second part of the course covers: reusing table layouts; maximizing efficiency through the use of the LOG; expressions – logical, unconditional and conditional; workspaces; and a review of Join and Relate.

Next the advanced course covers some of the most commonly used Functions and then moves on to discuss methods of creating script. It then discusses Interactive Scripts, including IF Command, Accept Command and Dialog boxes. The course concludes on Day 3 with instruction on Interactive Dialog, and Groups: Simple, Conditional, and Nested.

By the end of the course you should fully understand:

  • the ACL project concept, including table layouts (creating and using); data file types, expressions and filters;
  • ACL functions; and
  • how to develop ACL applications (scripts).

The prerequisite is a good working knowledge of ACL – usually obtaining through frequent use of ACL over a period of 6 months or more.

Fraud Detection and Data Analysis

Over the 3 days, the course covers the following topics:

  • Defining what constitutes fraud and look at the cost of fraud
  • How to use the fraud toolkit – examining the uses of each of the scripts in the toolkit; and look at how they can be used to create your own fraud templates.
  • Fraud schemes in several areas – payroll, A/P, A/R, etc
  • Exercises to obtain practice using an approach to detect fraud and abuse
  • Building a series of ACL scripts in the payroll and purchase card areas

There are only a few additional handouts for this course. Most of the materials are contained in the two books that you received with your registration – Fraud detection – a revealing look at fraud; and the Fraud Toolkit. During the exercises you should refer to these books often.

During the course, you will be working in groups to address a series of cases. The goal of this course is to leave with working series of ACL scripts.

The prerequisite is a good knowledge of ACL – usually obtaining through frequent use of ACL over a period of 6 months or more.

Continuous Auditing

One day presentation/workshop

David Coderre will discuss the main concepts presented in the IIA’s third Global Technology Audit Guide (GTAG #3) – Continuous Auditing: Implications for Assurance, Monitoring and Risk Assessment. GTAG #3 discusses continuous auditing tools and techniques for assessing controls and risks.

The morning session will introduce participants to the theory and tools supporting continuous control assessment- used to identify control deficiencies – and continuous risk assessment – used to develop enterprise-wide audit planning. The afternoon session will allow participants to identify indicators of risk in specific areas (finance, operations, informatics), and to develop a continuous risk assessment tool Continuous auditing approaches will be employed by the participants, who will work in groups to identify/assess indicators of risk supporting three audit activities:

  • the development of an annual enterprise risk-based audit plan;
  • the audit/monitoring of corporate credit cards; and
  • the follow-up for an audit of accounts payable.

Examples of an automated continuous auditing application for these three areas will be also demonstrated.

At the end of the workshop you will:

  • understand the concept of continuous auditing;
  • have practice in applying continuous auditing techniques;
  • benefit from the contribution of others (group work);
  • see the utility of continuous auditing; and
  • have the beginning of a continuous auditing application.

Audit Specific ACL training

Maximize your benefits by combining training with an actual audit that requires data analysis. Using your own data, and the objectives of an ongoing audit, CAATS will tailor the ACL training to help you work through your audit program.

  • Perform a p-card audit while learning how to build ACL scripts to detect p-card fraud.
  • Perform a payroll audit while learning how to develop specific payroll test.

Prerequisites: must have an on going audit with defined objectives and pertinent data files.

Note: only available for in-house courses.

Consulting Services

A wide range of consulting services are available. These include both on-site and remote (via the Internet) consulting services.

Please contact us for more information.