With the release of IDEA 10.4 comes improvements to visualizations, user experience, interoperability, and much more. The Caseware IDEA team dedicates itself to building the most powerful and user-friendly data analytics tool in the financial and accounting industries. Over the last 30 years, we’ve helped users perform data analysis quickly, identify control breakdowns, and drive stronger audits – resulting in a platform that auditors rely on every day.

 

IDEA 10.4 builds on an already strong foundation making the platform more integrated and robust so that auditors feel confident choosing IDEA for years to come. We’ve enhanced our current feature-set to deliver an analytics solution that better assists you; both for the audit today, and for the audit tomorrow.

 

Here are some details on what’s new and exciting about IDEA 10.4—and why you should upgrade now to save time, extract deeper insights and make your audits more efficient than ever. The new features of IDEA 10.4 include:

 

Seamless Integrations

1. Caseware Accounting Package Imports – A new feature in 10.4, this enhancement allows users to easily obtain data from numerous accounting packages. This feature standardizes the data into a single output that is consumable by IDEA.  Caseware supports numerous accounting packages including Quickbooks, SAGE, ACCPAC – plus many more.

2. Unlock More Scripts – Leveraging automated scripts instead of manual processes increases productivity and reduces cost. To give our Customers with Support even more value,  we’re putting additional scripts in Passport. Created by audit experts, these scripts will help you tap in your audit team’s potential.

3. Experience the Working Papers and IDEA Integration – The latest version of IDEA provides the ability to work seamlessly between the two platforms making it easier to integrate data analytics into the engagement. This gives you the ability to transform the way your team works, and drive the quality and consistency of your engagement.

 

Improved Visualizations 

 

4. Enhanced Charting Capabilities – IDEA 10.4 delivers new options for visualization as well as improvements to the overall charting experience for users. The 10.4 release provides new chart types to highlight the data such as Pyramid, Funnel and Bubble as well as several improvements to how the user interacts with the new charting interface.

5. Connect to Third-Party Apps for Even More Visualizations – Using Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) to access IDEA data, you can now seamlessly import the latest IDEA data to third-party applications that support ODBC. Applications include Tableau, Power BI, MS Excel and many more. With the ability to further analyze, interpret and reveal more valuable insights within your IDEA data, you are empowered to make smarter, data-driven decisions.

6. Receive support for 4K monitors – Remaining current on industry changes, IDEA 10.4 provides additional support for high-res screens.

 

Supporting Features 

 

7. Archive Projects – Archiving of projects is now able to support file sizes in excess of 4GB which is becoming more common in the industry. Also, users can now choose the location of where to archive projects to, such as a network location, allowing them to free up much needed local disk space.

8. Benefit from Enhanced Security – Ensuring your data continues to be safe and secure, IDEA 10.4 sees enhanced security with TLS 1.2, specifically for communication with IDEA server. This release also sees support for FIPS (the Federal Information Processing Standard) ensuring compliance for even more users.

9. Enhancements to Python – Caseware IDEA continues its Python evolution with the release of 10.4. This release enables bidirectional data transfer that enhances the way IDEA and Python scripts interact. The result: fewer steps for users, boosting the efficiency of this robust integration.

10. Leverage Our FREE GDPR Tool –  The launch of IDEA 10.4 equips users with the ability to more easily comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Caseware provides a complementary tool that looks at the data within IDEA and analyzes it to determine the level of risk based on the laws of the GDPR. Supported Users can download the free GDPR compliance checker from the support site.

 

Plus, coming soon, after the release of 10.4 are features that transform the way you perform audits:

 

• Outliers Detection – Our team of data scientists continue to drive the Machine Learning capabilities, resulting in Outlier Detection Algorithms. These algorithms assist you in discovering outliers, important to the success of an audit.  
• Exceptional Exceptions – Aggregate the results from multiple SmartAnayzer audit tests based on their risk score. Spend your time further analyzing exceptions that have the potential biggest impact.

• Internal Audit Smart Analyzer Apps – these are a series of prewritten tests that help determine the health of internal controls in key financial accounts. Use the SmartAnalyzer apps to leverage a wealth of shared knowledge with just a few clicks.  
  

 

All these changes to IDEA® Data Analysis Software demonstrate how dedicated the Caseware Team is to improve the entire auditor’s workflow. From how it integrates with other applications, to taking advantage of technology like Python, and finally providing access to scripts made by audit professionals; Caseware’s latest update improves your experience of IDEA in the present for ultimately a better future.  

 

To learn more about IDEA 10.4 and how the updates will help upgrade how your team works, contact us at connect@caseware.com