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IDEA and ACL are computer-aided auditing solutions designed for data extraction and analysis. IDEA, short for Interactive Data Extraction and Analysis, is a product of CaseWare. ACL, which stands for Audit Command Language, is a product of ACL Services Ltd. Though they are designed with similar functionality and target markets in mind, features vary slightly between IDEA and ACL.
Corrections if for some reason your numeric data show up as string data. Having made any necessary corrections, at the bottom left, click Data View, and there's your data file, ready for analysis. At this point it's a good idea to go up to File in the Toolbar, click Save As, and save this data. The IDEA Academic Program was created to assist post-secondary institutions in offering valuable practical courses so that their students can gain the hands-on experience they need to succeed in the audit industry. By joining the program, post-secondary institutions and their students receive free access to IDEA Data Analysis software and tools.
General Functionality
ACL and IDEA differ very little in terms of overall functional features. Both scan and profile data, allowing you to analyze, summarize and compare things like financial and business transactions in an attempt to identify and reduce risk. ACL and IDEA also both allow you to archive and retain financial transactions, establish relational tables, set up continuous controls monitoring, edit equations for data collection and analysis and detect fraud. Both companies offer a variety of different packages tailored for specific tasks. ACL AuditExchange is a business-assurance platform tailored for managing data security, for example. IDEA has a similar product called Examiner.
Excel Integration
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Because of its prevalence in the spreadsheet-software market, compatibility with Microsoft’s Excel software is important when comparing the features of computer-aided auditing solutions like IDEA and ACL. Prior to 2009, IDEA had closer integration with Excel, with superior exporting and importing capabilities. Recent versions of ACL have closed that gap, however. ACL now has its own set of add-ons that allow closer integration with Excel, including products like ACL Acerno, which lets you use Excel itself to examine ACL analytics results.
Community Features
ACL is far more commonly used that IDEA. As a result, it has a broader community knowledge and support base. According to a 2009 article published in “Internal Audit,” ACL is the most commonly employed>