Introduction to ACL Course Description
PIA Consulting is registered with the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy as a CPE sponsor. This registration does
not constitute an endorsement by the board as to the quality of our CPE program. State boards of accountancy have final
authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit.
Introduction to ACL
"Boot Camp" (2-Day) Edition

Course Level:  Beginner

CPE Credits:  16  (2.0 days)

Course Description:

The objective of the Introduction to ACL training class is to acquaint the participant with the primary features of
the ACL software system in order to enable him/her to successfully perform data analysis on various types of
data files.  The ACL environment will be discussed including navigation techniques, creating and working with
ACL projects and views, and the function of the overview feature.  Data access methods will be presented and
explained.  Real-world exercises will include the use of the primary ACL data analysis commands including:
Count, Total, Verify, Classify, Stratify, Statistics, Duplicates, Age, Sort, Summarize, Sample, Join and Export.  
Graphing, reporting, record filtering, and expression building will also be presented.

Course Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this course, each participant will be able to:
  • Understand the role data analysis software plays in supporting audit activities.
  • Understand and recognize data analysis terminology, as well as common data types and structures.
  • Create and manage ACL Projects and Project components.
  • Navigate within the ACL software system in order to utilize ACL commands, functions and other software
    features.
  • Perform basic data analysis operations on various types of data files.
  • Utilize the reporting and other output features of ACL to generate meaningful reports, charts and graphs.

Course Balance:

  • Lecture / discussion:    50%
  • In-class applications:    20%
  • Section exercises:        30%

Course Prerequisites:

Participants should have basic computer skills, including at least some experience using applications operating
within the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Who Should Attend:

IS/IT Auditors, Financial and Operational Auditors, Internal/External  Auditors, Analysts, Accounting
Professionals, Investigators, or anyone interested in learning to use the ACL software system.

Other Information:

PIA Consulting will provide comprehensive course manuals containing presentation material, command, function
and other ACL reference material, class exercises, and glossary sections.

Course Outline:
Day 1
Day 2
A.  Understanding the Basics
  • Data audit and analysis techniques - What is
    ACL?
  • Understanding common data types and data
    structures.
  • Obtaining your data.

B.  The ACL Environment
  • Navigating within ACL / ACL Main Menu structure.
  • Creating and working with ACL projects.
  • Creating and managing ACL Views.
  • Working with the Overview feature.

C.  Accessing Data
  • Data paths and data downloading.
  • Defining data files.
      - Flat files
      - Delimited files
      - Excel files
  • Accessing / downloading ODBC-compliant data.
 D. Analyzing and Understanding Data
  • Using the Verify, Count, Total, and Statistics
    commands.
  • Using the Sequence, Duplicates, Stratify,
    Classify, & Age commands.
  • Graphing and reporting within ACL.
  • Filtering records.
  • Building expressions using the ACL Expression
    Builder feature.
  • Creating and using Computed fields.

E. Manipulating and Managing Data
  • Using the Extract, Export, Sort, Join, Relate,
    Summarize, and Sample commands.
  • Working with ACL Functions.

F. Comprehensive Class Exercise

G. Course Wrap-up & Discussion
This course is offered as an open-enrollment class and as an on-site class.  For more information or to
register for this course, please email us at info@pia-consulting.com or phone us at (512) 343-2866.