BYU Student Author: @IWillyerd
Reviewers: @Mark, @Donovon
Estimated Time to Solve: 10 Minutes
We provide the solution to this challenge using:
- Celonis
Celonis is a software company that offers a process mining platform designed to help organizations analyze how their processes are executed across the organization through visualizations. The software is cloud-based, so no download or setup is required. You can find a link to the dashboard needed to complete the challenge below.
Overview
As a first-year associate at a small audit firm, you have been tasked with performing preliminary checks for an upcoming audit. Specifically, you have been assigned two major tasks. The first task is to check the materiality for some of the revenue processes that were a prior year concern. The second task is to determine if there are any overarching Segregation of Duties issues.
Fortunately, the audit client, Nimbus Co., has recently implemented process mining software for its internal audits and has granted you access to it as the external auditor. You have been provided with a dashboard that you can use to answer some of the questions that your audit manager has. It is important to note that the dashboard has filters that not only apply to the current page but also across the entire dashboard. You may need to filter on a field from one page and find the relevant information on another tab.
Instructions
Your audit senior has asked you to answer the following questions with the dashboard before an upcoming meeting so they can get a high-level view before they drill down deeper. Note down some answers to the following questions you have so that you can bring them up later today with your senior.
- Check the Segregation of Duties tab and make note of any discrepancies that you might want to bring up with your manager to discuss.
- Check the total number of variations for the cash conversion cycle and answer the following questions.
- How many cases were in the most common process variant?
- What are the total number variations?
- How many cases went through the “Credit Denied” activity in total?
- Last year, there were some issues with sales reps pushing through orders where credit was originally denied to pad their commissions. Please answer the following questions to check if there is a material issue to bring up with your manager:
- How many cases are there where the “Credit Denied” activity occurred that was then directly followed by “Create Picking Ticket” activity?
- What was the total sales order amount of those cases?
- Did any orders go through the “Review and Deny Sales Invoice” activity after the picking ticket was created? If so, how many?
Data Files
Click here for the dashboard.
Suggestions and Hints
To answer some of the questions you may need to filter on one page and move to another page.
Solution
If you enjoyed this challenge, consider earning the Process Mining for Audit Professionals badge from Celonis.
Question 1
Possible Answers: 1) Salesclerk denying credit only a few times 2) Sales Managers approving and reviewing sales invoices, and then printing deposit slip Note: There are multiple answers to the question, and it is very open ended. It is used to highlight some of the other utilities found in process mining software like Celonis.
2a. 371
2b. 22
2c. 82
3a. 27
3b. $73,468.36
3c. Yes, 1 instance.
Solution Video: Challenge 26|CELONIS – Materiality Madness