Big Data, Data Analytics and External Auditing

Abstract

 Big Data and Data Analytics affect almost all aspects of modern organisations’ decision-making and business strategies. Big Data and Data Analytics create opportunities, challenges, and implications for the external auditing procedure. The purpose of this article is to reveal essential aspects of the impact of Big Data and Data Analytics on external auditing. It seems that Big Data Analytics is a critical tool for organisations, as well as auditors, that contributes to the enhancement of the auditing process. Also, legislative implications must be taken under consideration, since existing standards may need to change. Last, auditors need to develop new skills and competence, and educational organisations need to change their educational programs in order to be able to correspond to new market analytics are altering the way the audit process is done at both the transaction and general-ledger levels. Auditors have new tools to extract and visualise data, allowing them to dig into larger, non-traditional data sets and perform more intricate analysis. (PwC, 2015)