Foundations of Audit Analytics

Broad application of statistical and data analytic tools is essential for the cost-effective completion of audits. Fortunately, R has become the go-to language for analytics, and offers many features that reduce the cost of data acquisition, preparation, exploration, and summarization. It provides a scientific basis for audit decisions underlying the auditor’s opinion. Effective legal defense of audit methods is predicated on data analytics and statistical methods. This chapter summarizes the subset of R capabilities that are germane to an audit.