BYU Student Author: @Parker_Sherwood, @James_Gerstner
Reviewers: @Hyrum, @Mark, @Andrew_Wilson
Estimated Time to Solve: 75 Minutes
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Overview
You are auditing Porter’s Plates, a company that sells glassware throughout the United States. Porter has been a good client of your audit firm for a few years now and the partner over the engagement has never given a qualified audit opinion on the company’s financial statements. Because Porter’s Plates has consistently reported financial results in compliance with accounting standards and the company is a good client, there is some pressure to give another good report. It’s also possible that the team is used to Porter’s Plates reporting fairly that they have lost some professional skepticism. As a new member of the revenue auditing team for Porter’s Plates, you have access to their employee list, customer list, inventory files, sales orders, invoices, and cash receipts. However, you do not have any of last year’s financial data, so SALY (same as last year) isn’t here to save you. Use the Alteryx tools you’ve learned to connect all of these data tables and find insights worthy of sharing with the senior members of the audit team.
Instructions
- Connect all the worksheets so that you can compare the data from all sheets to one another. When you are done, you should be able to compare things like the sales order total with the invoice total, for example.
- Use the skills and tools you have to identify risk areas within Porter’s financial data. There’s no limit to what you can do! See the hints for ideas as needed.
- Find a way to summarize or present your data for other people on your team. See the hints for ideas as needed.
Data Files
Suggestions and Hints
• Begin by joining tables together to allow comparisons across multiple sheets at once. Use Primary Key - Foreign Key relationships where possible.
• You may want to create calculated fields to find patterns or make comparisons—the “Formula” tool is great for that.
• If you’re having trouble thinking of things to test, consult the Excel version of this challenge for ideas from previous respondents.
• There’s no “right answer,” so see what you can come up with and have fun!
across
Solution
