Data Extraction
Data extraction is a key step in the audit process and is used to narrow down the population to be tested to just those rows or transactions which meet specific extraction criteria. There are at least five basic types of criteria which can be be used to isolate specific transactions. These criteria include:
- Date ranges or types
- Numeric ranges
- Day of week
- Specific text
- Logical operators ('AND','OR','NOT')
Each of these types of criteria can be applied on data sources in a variety of formats. Data sources may include Excel, Access, SQLite, text files (comma separated values, tab separated values), MySQL and SQLite databases.