1. Give and explain 3 example

Answer 1. Examples of Financial Instruments:

• Loans and Bonds. A lendergives money to a borrower in exchange for regular payments ofinterest and principal.
• Asset-Backed Securities. Lenders pool theirloans together and sell them to investors. The lenders receive animmediate lump-sum payment and the investors receive the paymentsof interest and principal from the underlying loan pool.
• Stocks. A company sells ownership interests inthe form of stock to buyers of the stock.

2. Examples of GAS:

a. Audit Command Language (ACL): ACL offers data analyticssolution, developed to control audit, risk, compliance, IT andfinancial control. Its integrated platform standardizes andstreamlines key functions, which results with as much as 50% inproductivity and efficiency improvement.This way, users can enhance their audit coverage, clearly focus onrisks and segments with maximum room for improvements. They canalso view, manage, and observe all compliance responsibilities andget full risk monitoring for accounting and financedepartments.

b. Interactive Data Extraction and Analysis (IDEA):

IDEA® is a powerful and user-friendly data analysis tooldesigned to help auditors, accountants and other financeprofessionals perform data analysis quickly to help improve auditsand identify control breakdowns. IDEA allows you to analyze 100% ofyour data, guarantees data integrity and provides easy analysiswith over 100 audit-relevant tasks.When your data comes from different sources and in a variety offormats, data analysis can sometimes be a challenge. The ability toimport multiple data sets and view them as though they were onelets you to see the big picture. You are able to identifyrelationships, patterns and anomalies as well as conduct acomprehensive analysis of transactional data.IDEA allows you to quickly import an infinite amount of recordsfrom practically any source, including spreadsheet and databasesoftware, mid-range accounting programs, ERP systems, legacymainframes, telecom switches, travel and expenses applications,flat and printed files such as PDFs, plain text (.txt), andprint-report (.prn) files.

c. Statistical Analysis System (SAS): SAS software is far morethan just a programming language – it is a complete end-to-endanalytics platform that leverages the expertise and collaborationof experienced partners around the world who provide a variety ofservices, including installation, administration, hosting, andsupport. As a result of this, organisations and businesses don’tjust have a piece of standalone software, they have a network ofexperts ready to help them make the most of their data – no matterwhere they are in the world. Thus, everything a company needs for adata analytics model comes from a single framework and onevendor

3. Why GAS?

GAS performs routines on files, uses various calculations andprints reports based on the information used. Standard audits areperformed by analyzing sample information from a company’s records.Random information is chosen and analyzed since investigating allinformation is too time-consuming.

Purpose

This software allows auditors the ability to sort through largeamounts of data in a rapid manner. GAS can scan and test all datawithin a computer system, allowing for a more accurate audit of thebooks. Instead of random sampling, 100 percent of the company’sdata is examined.

Functions

GAS software is designed to examine financial information forquality, completeness, correctness and consistency. It verifies allcalculations, compares data and prints audit samples.

4.

One of the most common GAS is –  Computer-AssistedAudit Tool (CAAT).It is used to mine and analyse data (often in vast quantities) toidentify anomalies, errors and omissions and is used in gatheringaudit evidence rather than documenting.