Big data analytics in financial statement audits

Abstract

Big Data analytics is the process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling Big Data to discover and communicate useful information and patterns, suggest conclusions, and support decision making. Big Data has been used for advanced analytics in many domains but hardly, if at all, by auditors. This article hypothesizes that Big Data analytics can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of financial statement audits. We explain how Big Data analytics applied in other domains might be applied in auditing. We also discuss the characteristics of Big Data analytics, which set it apart from traditional auditing, and its implications for practical implementation.