ACL Analytics
Big Data Analysis Made Easy
ACL Analytics (formerly ACL Desktop) is recognized worldwide as the leading standalone data analysis software for audit and financial professionals. With a unique and powerful blend of built-in audit functions, unrivaled data access and straightforward scripting language, ACL Analytics provides access to business critical data so you can:
- Analyse data in its entirety;
- Identify trends, pinpoint exceptions and highlight areas of concern;
- Locate errors and potential fraud;
- Identify control issues and ensure compliance with organisational and regulatory standards;
- Age and analyse financial or any other time sensitive transactions; and
- Cleanse and normalize data to ensure consistency and accurate results
Data analysis doesn’t have to be an arduous, manual task
Internal audit, financial control and compliance professionals are faced with the challenge of reliably achieving objectives while addressing uncertainty and acting with integrity. Whether the objective is to provide business assurance, improve controls, or ensure compliance, it will be difficult to draw any credible conclusions to help the business without analyzing the underlying data in detail.
However, data analysis specifically for audit, financial control and compliance is easier said than done. The key goal behind the analysis is to identify data discrepancies that need more investigation – this requires more sophisticated capabilities than just summarisation and aggregation. Add to this the importance of easily sharing, presenting and distributing analysis results to stakeholders and the search for an effective analysis solution becomes even more challenging.
Business Benefits
- Increase business assurance
With so many disparate data sources in the enterprise, being able to capture relevant transactional data for a complete view of the business is no trivial task. ACL Analytics provides connectivity to a broad range of data sources. From transactional databases, spreadsheets, flat files, business applications (including SAP ERP and SAP CRM) and more, ACL Analytics’ depth and breadth of connectivity helps ensure complete data coverage for increased business assurance regardless of the disparateness and variety of information sources. The business can also be reassured of the integrity and validity of results as a detailed audit trail of all analysis activities is always being recorded.
- Raise executive visibility
Analysis results don’t resonate with upper management unless they’re presented in an executive context. Effectively get the attention of an executive audience by conveying the significance of analysis results through compelling, yet easy to create, data visualizations that provide additional business context, not just transactional data results.
- Save time and effort with automation
Eliminate manual effort and quickly help achieve significant cost savings by automating data import, export and analysis tasks. Using the industry standard Audit Command Language (ACL) designed by the company founder, scripts can easily and quickly be created to automate repetitive manual tasks. For example, instead of taking 1-4 days to manually reconcile multiple spreadsheets, ACL Analytics can import, combine and test the data using a script that only takes seconds to execute.
- Improve corporate culture for increased collaboration
A siloed corporate culture limits the ability to leverage the collective expertise of the organisation. Spreadsheets, documents and e-mail are also not a viable or scalable means of easily sharing thoughts and keeping track of feedback. Break down communication barriers and help nurture a more synergistic culture by easily showcasing analysis results and encouraging collaboration across cross-functional teams with ACL™ GRC for secure cloud-based sharing.
To learn more: visit www.acl.com
