audit innovation, disclosure analytics

Case studies

Innovations in financial disclosure, accounting policies research

Disclosure Analytics for more efficient audits

Disclosure Analytics empowers auditors to perform fast, flexible searches for more than two million individual disclosures and accounting policies.

Case study: Innovating for smarter audits

Challenge

Researching company financial disclosures, accounting policies, and other related Securities and Exchange Commssion (SEC) filing information during the audit is a frequent, manual, and time-intensive effort that relies in large part on an auditor’s judgment and past experience. It requires auditors to identify a company that may potentially fit the search criteria, search for and download individual SEC filings and then manually search within such filings for a single disclosure. Only then can auditors perform comparisons against prior periods and industry peers.

In addition, clients facing a complex accounting disclosure matter often enlist Deloitte auditors to assist in researching comparable situations and potential solutions. Completing these disclosures and comment letter research-related tasks using current methods and tools can take considerable time and effort and may not yield the most relevant results.

Innovation

To develop a faster and more effective solution, Deloitte created a powerful research application called Disclosure Analytics. This application:

  • Uses a proprietary eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) parser that processes disclosure data from the SEC and makes it available through an easy to use web application. 
  • Empowers auditors to perform fast, flexible searches for more than two million individual disclosures and accounting policies while also applying different filters and text analytics to gain insights into the results, including insights into the relative complexity of a document. 
  • Can compare disclosures from multiple companies simultaneously and export custom-built reports for clients. 
  • Has the functionality to visualize, search, sort, and review SEC comment letter data by topic or industry

Deloitte teams can use these solutions to rapidly identify whether similar SEC filings by a peer company currently exist to use for client or audit team reference. The solution also includes a mobile application so information is accessible on the go or in meetings.

Impact

Deloitte’s Disclosure Analytics solution drives faster response times to client requests and audit research requirements. Teams are now able to access results in minutes rather than hours. In addition, the application’s consistency of data helps to further increase the quality of audit insights.

These capabilities increase Deloitte’s value in performing high-quality audits and strategically serving our clients.

Through this application, Deloitte is transforming the audit by providing a more time-efficient, data-driven process.

This frees up auditors from manual data collection and enables them to better assess risks and focus on areas where they can provide additional value, insights, and increased levels of client engagement.

Key impacts:

This frees up auditors from manual data collection and enables them to better assess risks and focus on areas where they can provide additional value, insights, and increased levels of client engagement.

 

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