Working Smartly with Office Software

Auditors are the poor relations when it comes to spending time learning or experimenting with software. This unique course, designed by auditors for auditors, provides an opportunity to explore techniques that improve your day-to-day efficiency using software that you are already familiar with, and the chance to explore options that increase the value of your work.

Note: This course requires that you bring a notebook PC equipped with MS Office version 2000 or later.

Suitability and duration

Suitability: All auditors

Duration: 2 days

Who should attend

This seminar is open to all auditors and requires that you bring a Notebook PC with you equipped with MS Office version 2000 or later.

Benefits

Skills

After completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Work more efficiently with the most common software components
• Add value to your work by producing more professional layouts and increasing the visibility of work-papers, research notes and reports
• Apply strategies to improve presentations, to improve charting skills and deal with complex data
• Create connections to data sources to retrieve query based data
• Create process maps that improve your communication of risk and control

Support Materials

This course is accompanied by briefing notes and examples of techniques.

Programme

Working with text: MS Word

• Design: page layout and the use of white space, sections and breaks, variable or continuous headings and footings
• Typographic options: paragraph styling and in-line styling, changing the appearance of the document at a stroke, indexing and references
• Working with tables: anchoring and controlling rows, columns, and page breaks, dealing with words that spill over pages
• Controlling images and picture positioning, working with the clipboard
• Using new structures to create better audit reports

Working with images: MS PowerPoint

• Setting up slide masters and slide layouts
• Headings, footings, page numbers
• Including clipart and images
• Action buttons and control of the show including optional slide pathways
• Including tables and data from other sources
• Including moving images and sound
• Interacting with your slides
• Using new structures to create better audit presentations

Working with spreadsheets: MS Excel

• Building spreadsheets more rapidly
• Rapid charting, the use of functions and using add-ins
• Importing data from external sources
• Using tools to detect errors and correct faults in the spreadsheet

Working with data: MS Query

• Connecting to external databases
• Forming a query and selecting data
• Adding criteria and limitations to the query
• Running the query
• Exporting and polishing results

Working with processes: MS Visio

• When a picture is worth a thousand words
• Process maps in audit reports and supporting working papers
• Process maps recording risk and control
• The true cost of controls