Quality of Available Data

Auditors must ensure that they can rely on the data they receive from the auditees. They need to obtain reasonable assurance that the listing of the items in a population is accurate and complete.

Accuracy means that the information is correct—devoid of systemic errors and flaws that could lead to misleading results. To obtain this assurance, auditors have a number of methods at their disposal. For example, they can:

• compare information recorded in the sampling frame with original source information;
• implement tests to check for invalid or out-of-range values; or
• examine the controls over the information contained in the sampling frame (Do they exist? Are they implemented? Are they effective?).

If concerns about quality of data are observed when attempting to conduct sampling activities, the auditors may report them as they would be identified reliably and credibly. In some instances, it’s also possible to obtain from the audited organization an attestation that their data is fit for use. Although this could provide a layer of additional credibility, some underlying audit work would still have to be undertaken it to validate it.

Completeness means that no information is missing in the records in the sampling frame. To obtain this assurance, auditors can do the following:

• Conduct a gap analysis, searching for gaps in fields that encode dates, locations, ID numbers, registration numbers, etc.
• Examine missing values.
• Compare with population totals reported elsewhere (e.g., number of centenarians reported by Statistics Canada based on census data versus the number of centenarians reported in databases of universal social programs).
• Do a sampling from an independent record of the population (e.g., original paper files).

In some circumstances, external auditors can also rely on the work of internal audit to obtain assurance regarding the quality and completeness of the population data (CSAE 3001, 60).

In order to ensure that the data meet these quality requirements, the auditors should test controls over the preparation, security, and maintenance of the information.

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