Information Technology and Data Analytics
Core concepts
Understand the role of IT in accounting and control: enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, segregation of duties, access controls, and IT general controls (change management, backup, disaster recovery). Know the difference between general controls and application controls (input, processing, output). Familiarize yourself with data analytics fundamentals: data types, data quality (completeness, accuracy, validity), descriptive vs. diagnostic vs. predictive vs. prescriptive analytics, and visualization principles.
Understand audit data analytics: sampling, exception testing, trend analysis, and the use of CAATs (computer-assisted audit techniques). Know basic database concepts (tables, keys, joins) and the risks of spreadsheets (formula errors, version control).
Traps in questions
- General vs. application controls: general controls apply broadly to the IT environment; application controls are transaction-specific.
- Segregation of duties in IT: developers should not have production access.
- Analytics type confusion: predictive uses models to forecast; descriptive summarizes past data.
- Correlation is not causation - a frequent distractor.
Rule of thumb
For control questions, trace the data: input → processing → output. Ask what could go wrong at each stage and which control prevents or detects it. For analytics questions, identify the question type first (what happened, why, what will happen, what should we do) - it maps directly to the analytics category.