Excel for Auditors
Develop practical Excel skills that help auditors turn accounting data into focused, efficient audit procedures. Learn to prepare and validate data, apply core functions, sort and filter transactions, build PivotTables, perform reconciliations, and conduct analytical reviews. Explore sampling and exception testing techniques for identifying unusual transactions, timing issues, and concentrations. Then use Power Query to create repeatable data processes and charts to communicate trends, exceptions, and audit results clearly to reviewers effectively throughout the engagement.
Format
PDF Course
Course Lists
Duration
12 Hours
Course Information
Author: Steven Bragg
NASBA Category: Computer Software and Applications
NASBA Category: Computer Software and Applications
Course Number: SP1023
Not Acceptable For: Enrolled Agents
Not Acceptable For: Enrolled Agents
Learning Objectives
- Recognize key Excel audit practices for preserving data integrity, designing repeatable procedures, evaluating data suitability, controlling spreadsheet risks, and documenting audit work and review.
- Specify appropriate procedures for selecting, importing, validating, cleaning, correcting, and documenting audit data to support complete and reliable Excel-based testing.
- Recall how core Excel functions, including SUM, COUNTIF, SUMIFS, text, date, and error-handling functions, support audit analysis, data validation, exception identification, and the preservation of reliable audit evidence.
- Recognize how Excel sorting, filtering, exception analysis, and PivotTable features can be used to identify unusual transactions, trends, and concentrations, and specify procedures for configuring and validating these analyses to support audit objectives.
- Specify how Excel-based reconciliation and analytical procedures use control totals, horizontal analysis, ratio analysis, averaging methods, and expectation ranges to identify unusual financial relationships and results requiring further audit attention.
- Recall the principles for defining audit populations and selecting samples in Excel, including the use of unique identifiers, appropriate sample sizes, systematic sampling procedures, population coverage, and the treatment of zero and negative balances in monetary-unit sampling.
- Recall Excel techniques for identifying and evaluating transaction exceptions involving round-dollar amounts, unusual timing, inconsistent transaction relationships, and vendor concentration patterns, and specify when identified exceptions require additional audit investigation.
- Recognize how Power Query supports repeatable audit data preparation, validation, and refresh procedures, and identify appropriate Excel charting techniques for analyzing data composition and audit exceptions.
Instructional Method: QAS Self-Study
Prerequisites: A solid grounding in how to operate Excel spreadsheets
Program Knowledge Level: Intermediate
Program Knowledge Level: Intermediate
Advance Preparation: None
Latest Review Date: September 2026
Program Registration Requirements: Click on the Enroll button to pay for and access the course. You will then be able to download the course as a PDF file, then take an on-line examination, and then download a certificate of completion if you pass the examination.
Program Refund Policy: For more information regarding administrative policies concerning complaints, refunds, and other matters, see our policies page.