Many industries have implemented specific tools to increase quality and efficiency and technology-based tools are advancing rapidly with the addition of AI and machine-learning capabilities. We'd like to hear from you about how your company is using AI-driven technology!
In the audit industry, we've begun to implement AI-driven software solutions to help with the risk assessment phase of the audit, before we start our audit testing. These tools are designed to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of an audit by helping us tailor our audit procedures to financial statement areas that contain higher risk. The technologies require us to import a client's general ledger, then the software analyzes the transactions, assesses them, and assigns risk factors based on pre-set red flags, including some of the following. Then we design audit procedures to investigate and address the higher risk areas identified by the software.
- Large transactions
- Entries with rounded numbers or ending in "999"
- Unusual or non-standard account activity (credit posting to expense, debit posting to revenues, etc.)
- Transactions posted on a weekend, a holiday, or late at night
- Postings to seldom used accounts (i.e. Miscellaneous Income, Miscellaneous Expense, Reconciling Discrepancies, Credit Losses, Inventory Adjustments, etc.)
- Transactions posted by employees who do not routinely post transactions
- Transactions with certain key words in the description (i.e. "Adjust", "Plug", "Fix", "Fraud", "Misc", "Error", "To correct"
Other areas where AI technologies are being implemented include general productivity enhancers, such as research tools, software aimed at easing the burden of timesheet tracking, tools that directly connect to client's financial software for data extraction, and snipping tools to speed up conversion of PDF information to Excel.
Let us know by responding to this post how your industry is currently using AI-driven technology and what tools you plan to implement in the future.
------------------------------
Amanda Bernard CMA,CPA,CFE
Director/Manager
Douglassville PA
United States
------------------------------