GRC Tuesdays: How to Run Advanced Analytical Processing in SAP Audit Management in 3 Simple Steps

The Institute of Internal Auditors describes Internal Audit Activity as “a department, division, team of consultants, or other practitioner(s) that provides independent, objective assurance and consulting services” while evaluating and improving organizations’ “effectiveness of governance, risk management, and control processes.”  In addition to these mandates, recent surveys¹ of chief audit executives found board members and management want more internal audit involvement in new regulations, cybersecurity, technology advancements, business strategy changes, and financial challenges.

Today I’ll discuss how SAP Audit Management’s integration with SAP Fraud Management allows internal auditors to harness the power of in-memory computing analytics in their audits to meet the challenges above. Below are three simple steps to running detection tasks.

Step 1: Adding a Detection Task

SAP Audit Management users can add and assign different types of tasks to an audit during the audit preparation phase. This flexibility allows auditors to add detection tasks to a work program during the audit preparation phase of the audit by opening a work program, clicking Add Procedures, and selecting Detection Tasks.

Through the integration with SAP Fraud Management, internal auditors can add Detection Tasks to run dozens of out of the box general business and FCPA related detection. Auditors can also create and share their own best practice detection strategies for a variety of audits and consulting engagements. (For more information on the many use cases of SAP Fraud Management, see this previous blog post.)

Step 2: Running a Detection Task

During the audit execution phase, users can run a detection task in SAP Audit Management by selecting the Open your audit, opening a detection tasks, and clicking Run.

The Task Details screen will automatically generate a working paper link associated with the audit evidence and the detection strategy details.

This allows auditors to leverage the power of in-memory computing analytics to test 100% of large volume data against complicated algorithms and generate evidence automatically.  SAP Fraud Management’s calibrator also reduces the number of false positives and allows auditors to simulate different results quickly. This reduces the amount of time the auditors spent on collecting, analyzing, and testing data. It allows auditors to provide insights to operation managers while giving more assurance to the audit committees about their concerns.

Step 3: Collaborate with Auditees about the Finding

SAP Audit Management provides real-time audit management insights to users, with intuitive information visualization to meet the collaboration needs with stakeholders across the internal audit teams and their customers.

The Fiori apps and the SAP BusinessObjects Lumira dashboards are updated automatically with the latest audit findings and audit status with links to drill down to the results from the detection tasks to speed up collaboration, enable quick and timely root cause analysis, and make auditors trusted advisors of the business.

Learn More

• Read the Forrester’s report: Adopt Three Lines of Defense Technology To Manage Governance, Risk and Compliance. See more.
• Read How CFOs Can Make Compliance a Competitive Weapon
• You can also register for a free three-day trial or take a virtual tour of  SAP Audit Management.
• Read the other blogs in our GRC Tuesday series.

¹ 2017 State of the Internal Audit Profession study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2016 Global Chief Audit Executive Survey by Deloitte US, Matching Internal Audit talent to organizational needs by Ernst & Young.