Enterprise Reporting System Audit
"The application is only as good to us as the reports it churns out."
This quote from one of our customers very realistically states the importance of any reporting system to an organization. Users rely heavily on the reports your software application provides. Many important management decisions are based on the "numbers" provided by these reports. Customer satisfaction is greatly dependent on the timeliness and the accuracy of the reports. Regulatory bodies and board members know the organization through the reports they get. A lot of time and money can be saved if these reports are readable, quick, reliable and easily accessible.
It is very important to know if your investment in the reporting system is being optimally utilized. As a decision maker, it is very important to know if your reports are reliable and whether the system itself can be sustained as long as the application is around.
In the last few years, many new reporting tools have emerged in the software market. Some of these tools are as evolved as the software applications themselves. You may already have some of these tools in your organization. These reporting tools no longer take a backseat or can be maintained as an afterthought. Each tool has its own unique characteristics that need to be properly configured and maintained. Our sole focus is on these reporting tools. It's not one of the things we do at Reporting House - it's the only thing we do.
We employ a guided auditing process to go through your reporting system and identify the areas and points of prospective failures. We provide recommendations to fix current problems and avoid future disasters. Our team has extensive real-life development and deployment experience that helps them understand the functional as well as technical issues that might affect the system, and in turn, your business.
Our team will audit your reporting system in relation with the following areas:
Accuracy
- Report accuracy is dependent on selecting data from correct data sources and applying precise criteria
- We identify and set-up processes to verify the accuracy of your reports and draw parallels between similar reports
- Reliability of reports is extremely important for decision-making
Policies
- We perform a detailed study of enterprise-wide policies designed to maintain and enhance the reporting system infrastructure.
- Formal, clear-cut, easy-to-follow policies/procedures allow for long-term sustainability of the reporting system.
Security
- We perform a detailed audit of your organizational security policies concerning reporting system access and modification.
- Setting up proper access privileges to users and roles is very important to safeguard sensitive information, and eliminates intentional or inadvertent misuse of data.
Compliance
- Traditional accounting and tax-related issues are reviewed
- Sarbanes-Oxley mandates require adherence to strict guidelines.
- Our audit reviews internal compliance procedures as they relate to your reporting system
Performance
- We identify bottlenecks and review performance statistics using manual processes and automated tools.
- Performance degradation can be a major factor in an organization's ability or inability to better serve internal and external customers.
- Anything less than maximum performance can seriously affect the overall user acceptance of the system.
Archiving
- We help refine/setup policies and procedures to archive historical reports, so they are neither lost nor a burden on present business needs.
- Proper archiving procedures help an organization better manage historical reports and provide easier access to them for auditing/compliance needs.
Areas covered in the audit:
- Overall system Architecture
- Gap analysis between design and deployment
- Hardware components
- Software components
- Interfaces with other systems
- Report server configuration
- Printing/data presentation (related to reports)
- Datasource configuration (if there are multiple data sources the two most important sources will be identified and audited)
- Security (related to report generation and access)
- Archiving (related to reports)
- Report development, testing and deployment strategies.
- End user and developer training
- Hardware and software maintenance policies
- Configuration management
The topics mentioned above will be covered in the audit, using a sampling methodology. All topics are necessary in a complete system audit, with each topic containing numerous related subtopics. The granularity of each topic is decided in consultation with the client, but it is recommended that no topic be completely dropped from the audit.