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LEARNING RESOURCES

Advanced Excel: Practical Applications for
Accounting Professionals Size Search Solution”). Note that these strata
sample sizes meet our requirement of 20 sample
Written by a CPA and Excel expert, this self- items per stratum. If the minimum stratum sample
study course will help you be more efficient and size requirement is not met, the Subject to the
productive. This course covers topics including
advanced PivotTables, external data ranges (ODBC), Constraints input area can be modified to specify a
and visual basic (macros and user-defined functions). minimum sample size in each stratum.
The screenshot “Solver Sample Size Search
CPE SELF-STUDY Solution” indicates the Solver’s recommended total
sample size is expected to provide a monetary
precision of $149,114.83 and thus satisfy the desired
Excel — Advanced Financial and Statistical monetary precision of $150,000. By comparison, a
Calculations
total sample size of n = 345 would be required to
In this webcast, you will learn some powerful meet the desired precision objective if the equal-
functions in Excel that will take your calculating cumulative-square-root-of-frequency method was
power to the next level. used. Hence, in this hypothetical application, reliance
WEBCAST on the Solver’s recommended strata boundaries
reduced the required total sample size by over 75%.
For many real-world populations, we expect that
strata boundaries selected via AI will yield sample
For more information or to make a purchase, go to aicpa.org/cpe-learning size reductions of 50% or more. Given this fact, all
or call the Institute at 888-777-7077. auditors should be aware of the Solver’s capabilities.
(See the sidebar, “Solver Options,” about the tool’s
settings.)
USING THE SOLVER WITH NONSTATISTICAL
AICPA RESOURCES SAMPLES
The statistical formulas used in this article apply only
Articles when strata samples are chosen via random selection.
“Embracing Technology in the Audit,” JofA, Feb. 2022 However, the need to efficiently allocate audit effort
exists regardless of whether the auditor selects
“6 Lessons From Audit Experts Who Adopted AI Early,” JofA, Nov. samples randomly or via nonstatistical methods. In
23, 2021 circumstances where the auditor plans to stratify a
“Journal-Entry Testing Using Excel,” JofA, Nov. 2021 population and select sample items via nonstatistical
procedures, using the Excel Solver to select strata
“More Businesses Using AI as Tools Emerge,” JofA, Feb. 24, 2020 boundaries will likely improve audit sampling
efficiency. ■