Introduction to ACL - Boot Camp Edition

Introduction to ACL Course Description

PIA Consulting is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as
a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State
boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit.
Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be addressed to the National Registry of CPE
Sponsors, 150 Fourth Avenue North, Nashville, TN, 37219-2417. Web site: www.nasba.org.

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 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.