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Data Analytics

This document provides an overview of performing data analysis, including defining the question, collecting and cleaning data, analyzing patterns and relationships, and sharing findings. It discusses structured, unstructured, raw, and derived data and examples. Key aspects of data analysis covered include data integrity, data mining, descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analysis. The role of data analytics in accounting is also summarized, including monitoring inventory, industry benchmarks, and fraud detection. Reporting insights through data visualizations and dashboards is also outlined.

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Jon Bryan Cruz
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32 views

Data Analytics

This document provides an overview of performing data analysis, including defining the question, collecting and cleaning data, analyzing patterns and relationships, and sharing findings. It discusses structured, unstructured, raw, and derived data and examples. Key aspects of data analysis covered include data integrity, data mining, descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive analysis. The role of data analytics in accounting is also summarized, including monitoring inventory, industry benchmarks, and fraud detection. Reporting insights through data visualizations and dashboards is also outlined.

Uploaded by

Jon Bryan Cruz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Introductory Accounting – ACCT2100YA

DATA ANALYTICS & ACCOUNTING

Slides derived from Financial Accounting: Tools for Business Decision-


Making; Eighth Canadian Edition Material Resources
Overview of Performing Data Analysis
• Defining the question that you wish the data to answer
• Collect the data from a source or various sources
• Clean and scrub the data to ensure accuracy and integrity
• Analyze the data to establish patterns, relationships, answers
• Convert findings into sharable reports or visualizations
Data Typologies
• Structured data
o Most common source of data – data that is stored in defined fields in arrays composed of columns
and rows. Includes excel or spreadsheet data.
• Unstructured data
o Not well defined or reliably structured. Includes text messages, emails, images, etc.
• Raw data
o Data that has not undergone any processing. Information that has not been assembled or organized.
Data that has not been structured or provides little benefit in current form.
• Derived data
o Data that has undergone processing – such as compilation, computations, aggregation. Raw
data that has been refined to provide a benefit to the user.
• Dark data
o Data or information that a company already collects, but does not use.
Structured Data Example
Data Integrity
• Data integrity is the accuracy, completeness, and quality of data.
• Threats to data integrity:
o Human error
o Inconsistencies across format
o Collection error
o Cybersecurity or internal privacy breaches
Data Mining
• Art of extracting information or knowledge from data
• Involves sorting through large data sets to identify patterns and relationships
• Allows uses to better predict future trends
• Two types of techniques:
o Predictive: designed to extrapolate new information based on present information -
used to forecast outcomes.
o Descriptive: designed to bring out information that is present but buried in a mass
of data – used to find associations between data points (i.e. products, customers,
seasonality's).
Data Analytic Approaches
• Developed analytics:
o Objective insights to supplement and guide human decision-making
o Data records (such as online sales records) are used to compare competing courses
of action or identify the strongest determinants of outcomes of interest

• Emergent analytics:
o Use of data to drive automated processes
o Continuous streaming of data to make real-time responses and process controls
(such automated cars)
Types of Data Analysis
• Descriptive analysis: identifies what has already happened
o Analyzing events that have already taken place; answers what happened.
• Diagnostic analysis: focuses on understanding why something has happened
o Helps to draw correlations between the issue and factors that may be causing it – seeks to
answer why something happened.
• Predictive analysis: allows you to identify future trends based on historical data
o Uses past or current data to forecast or predict what will happen next.
• Prescriptive analysis: allows you to make recommendations for the future
o Uses real-time data to make decisions in real-time.
Data Use in Accounting
• Because accountants are immersed in financial systems that contain various
transactional data, they can use data analytics or big data to provide users with
information to help with decision making.
• Benefits to accountants and analysts can include:
o Monitoring inventory information in real-time
o Apply industry benchmarks to financial ratios
o Can be used in audit to detect potential fraud or errors
o Use predictive data to create budgets or forecasts
Sharing Data Insights
• Reports or Summaries
• Data visualizations
o Typically done using data dashboards (via excel, PowerBI, Tableau)
o Dashboard or visualizations can be static or interactive
Dashboard Example
Ethics and Data Analytics
• Misinformation
o False information that is spread, regardless of the intent to mislead
o ”Garbage in, garbage out”
• Disinformation
o Deliberately misleading or biased information; manipulated narrative of fact
• It is important to identify and isolate biases before analyzing date to create
insights

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