To get a better idea of where to look for data and for what purpose when building Sherlock visualizations, see the functional descriptions of the various Working Papers datasets below.
Documents (SH)
Provides data on all things managed through the Working Papers document manager, for example
- Document name and number
- Document sign-offs and dates
- Document properties
The most common uses include
- Project management - Monitoring progress, and understanding what’s been done and what is left.
- Quality management - Ensuring proper engagement workflow steps are being followed, ensuring critical documents like a signed engagement letter have been included and signed off.
Issues (TS)
Provides data on all things a user can set in the Issues dialog within Working Papers. Examples include
Trial Balance
Provides trial balance data at the account level.
The most common uses include but are not limited to
- Analyzing changes in trial balance accounts
- Providing additional details on the financial statement, that is, different revenue sources, different cash accounts, and so on.
Account Summary
Provides a summarized view of trial balance data. Data is grouped by account classes, that is, current assets, current liabilities, revenue, cost of goods sold, and so on.
Ideal uses include
- Easily calculating key financial ratios (that is, current ratio, working capital ratio, debt-to-equity ratio, and so on) if you have defined Classes within your mapping/grouping structures.
- Visualizing trends in key financial ratios or groups of accounts, that is, trends in revenue, operating expenses, current assets, cost of goods sold, and so on.
Mapping
Provides a view of the trial balance grouped by the mapping numbers on accounts.
The most common uses include
- Analyzing changes in the trial balance, but at the mapping number level, that is, the year-over-year change in all cash-related accounts.
- Constructing a view of a financial statement, such as a balance sheet or income statement.
Grouping
Provides a view of the trial balance grouped by the grouping numbers on accounts.
Common use cases of this dataset are similar to the Mapping dataset.
Provides a view of all metadata properties and their values stored on the engagement.
Metadata properties can include those that are standard across all Working Papers engagements, such as
- Working Papers version
- Engagement created date
- Lockdown status and lockdown date
- Clean up status
But can also include any custom property that template creators save to the metadata object. Examples include
- Template version
- Industry name and code
CaseView (CV)
Provides all data that is captured within the CaseView database of engagements. The CaseView database is where template creators save information captured within CaseView documents.
Examples of information that may be accessible in this dataset depending on the template include
- Materiality
- Balances on significant financial statement areas, their risk assessment and audit response
- Risks and controls
- Specific procedure responses
- Industry
Risk
Provides a comprehensive view of all risks raised within engagements.
The most common uses of this dataset include
- Summarizing risks raised in an engagement.
- Calculating key indicators, such as the total number of significant risks identified.
- Identifying whether there are risks not addressed, or not associated with a control.
- Identifying year-over-year trends material misstatement.
Control
Provides a comprehensive view of all controls raised within engagements.
The most common uses of this dataset include
- Summarizing controls raised in an engagement
- Calculating key indicators such as the number of controls not tested, and the number of key controls.
- Identifying the year-over-year trends in control effectiveness.
- Anticipating controls that require retesting, based on the number of years since testing last took place.
Management Letter Points (MLP)
Provides a comprehensive view of all management letter points (also known as reportable items) raised within engagements.
The most common uses of this dataset include
- Summarizing management letter points raised in an engagement and the various observations/recommendations.
- Visualizing how management letter points are associated with risks/controls in the engagement.
History
Provides all data that is captured within the history database of the engagement. The history database captures comprehensive details on a wide range of events, such as
- Who opened the file.
- When exact documents were added/deleted.
- Who performed a lockdown or attempted an unlock.
The most common uses of this dataset include
- Identifying who has been accessing the engagement and whether there is unusual activity by individuals not assigned to the engagement.
- Process mining the workflow a team took to complete the engagement.
User
Provides user-related information from the security database of the engagement.
The most common uses of this dataset include answering questions such as
- How many users work on engagements?
- Which users have access to which engagements?
- Which users belong to which groups?
User Group
Provides information related to user groups, from the security database of the engagement.
The most common uses of this dataset include
- Auditing exact user group settings that are being applied to engagements.