Part III
From Data Collection to Decision Making:
How ChatGPT Transforms Audit Workflows

Mary Breslin, CFE, CIA

The audit process has always been data intensive. Whether it’s financial statements, transaction logs, or compliance documents, auditors spend a significant amount of time collecting, organizing, and analyzing data. Traditionally, this has been a manual process, prone to errors and inefficiencies. But with the advent of AI, and specifically tools like ChatGPT, the landscape of data management in auditing is rapidly evolving.

AI-Assisted Data Collection

ChatGPT’s ability to handle data goes far beyond simple automation. It can assist auditors at every stage of the data workflow, from extraction to analysis and decision-making. For example, during the data collection phase, ChatGPT can integrate with various APIs and data extraction tools to pull in relevant information from multiple sources. This means that auditors no longer have to manually gather data from different systems, reducing the risk of errors and freeing up time for more critical tasks.

Streamlining Data Preprocessing

Once the data is collected, the next step is often preprocessing—cleaning up the data, removing duplicates, correcting errors, and organizing it in a way that makes it easy to analyze. This is another area where ChatGPT excels. It can automate these tasks using natural language instructions, making it accessible even to auditors who may not have a deep technical background. For instance, an auditor could instruct ChatGPT to “remove duplicate entries and correct any formatting errors,” and the AI would execute these tasks, ensuring that the data is ready for analysis.

Enhancing Data Analysis and Decision-Making

The real power of ChatGPT, however, lies in its ability to assist with data analysis and decision-making. By processing large datasets quickly, ChatGPT can identify trends, patterns, and anomalies that might not be immediately apparent to human auditors. This capability is particularly useful in risk assessment and fraud detection, where identifying subtle discrepancies can be the key to uncovering significant issues.

Simplifying Complex Queries

Moreover, ChatGPT can help auditors create complex queries in natural language, which it then translates into database queries. This means that even auditors without advanced programming skills can explore data more thoroughly, asking more sophisticated questions and getting more detailed answers. For example, an auditor could ask, “Which vendors have been paid more than $10,000 in the past year but have had fewer than five transactions?” ChatGPT would generate the SQL query to retrieve this data, saving the auditor from having to write the code themselves.

Transforming Audit Workflows with AI

In essence, ChatGPT transforms the audit workflow by making data management more efficient and accessible. By automating tedious tasks and providing deep insights through advanced analysis, it allows auditors to focus on strategic decision-making, ultimately leading to more thorough and accurate audits.

Mary Breslin, CFE, CIA, is president and founder of Verracy, a training and consulting company. Contact her at mbreslin@verracy.com.