Prodiance White Paper

Leading tax and audit firms recommend that organizations automate the spreadsheet controls environment to help prevent and detect spreadsheet fraud, while establishing sustainable governance. Both preventative and detective controls are recommended, along with a lifecycle approach to managing spreadsheets. Organizations can certainly implement this lifecycle process via manual efforts, but this requires employees to take on additional tasks and often breaks down over time. By leveraging technology, organizations can automate many aspects of spreadsheet management and control, from discovery and inventory, to risk assessment, remediation, management and control, and automation and monitoring. Technology provides a sustainable approach to spreadsheet fraud prevention and detection by embedding key controls into everyday business processes.

According to Baseline Consulting, approximately 32% of corporate data is contained in end-user computing (EUC) applications and approximately 68% is stored in IT controlled applications. These EUCs – primarily spreadsheets, PC databases (e.g. Access databases), BI reports, and word documents – are often stored on employee desktops and corporate file shares, and for the most part, are uncontrolled. They lack the proper safeguards and controls one would expect with IT controlled applications, including documentation, version control, back‐up and archival, change control, testing, security and access control, and more.

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