Deloitte Wins 2018 'Audit Innovation of the Year' Award

The Deloitte data platform “Cortex” was named “Audit Innovation of the Year” at The Digital Accountancy Forum & Awards 2018, Oct. 4, in London. Sponsored by The Accountant and International Accounting Bulletin, the award recognizes demonstrated dedication to innovation and transformation of the audit.

Cortex is a cloud-based data platform that harnesses the power of data by securely and seamlessly integrating data acquisition with data preparation and analytics. Combining advanced technology with business processes, Cortex can generate meaningful and valuable insights in a repeatable and consistent fashion.

“We are constantly investing, evolving, and transforming the audit process with leading edge technologies, and our innovation capability will continue to accelerate thanks to groundbreaking advancements such as Cortex,” said Jon Raphael, national managing partner for audit transformation, Deloitte & Touche LLP. “Cortex is able to aggregate, organize, and analyze data in ways that were only conceptual just a few years ago. The effectiveness of our technology toolset allows our auditors to spend more time on analysis and exceptions rather than data wrangling. This, in turn, helps to identify risks and outliers, as well as the completion of audit procedures. Auditors can focus on what matters – consistent audit quality along with meaningful insights.”

Cortex creates a structured data lake to enable advanced, repeatable and scalable analytics, and is being deployed on both public and private company client engagements.

“Deloitte is leading audit into the digital age with the help of state-of-the-art tools that have streamlined auditor and client experiences,” said Raphael. “But true audit innovation is more than technology; it’s about our people, our most valuable asset. Our professionals are just as integral as our technology solutions in propelling and defining the future of audit, and we plan to continue to leverage the capabilities of both as we enter the next generation of this profession. As an organization we are helping our clients to solve for now and build for next.”

Cortex is the latest example of Deloitte’s suite of next generation audit applications focused on enhancing audit quality and value. In 2015, Deloitte was recognized with The Accountant and International Accounting Bulletin’s “Audit Innovation of the Year” award for “Argus,” a leading-edge tool that innovates the analysis of electronic documents through the utilization of cognitive technologies.

“We are proud to be recognized not once, but twice in the past four years for our contributions to the advancement of the audit and assurance profession,” said Joe Ucuzoglu, chairman and CEO of Deloitte & Touche LLP and leader of Deloitte’s U.S. audit & assurance practice. “We have made significant investments in our audit and assurance business and affirmed our commitment to transforming the audit profession with innovative tools that allow us to seamlessly analyze data and provide valuable insights to clients. This award validates our team’s efforts to advance the audit profession to the next level and our commitment to deliver high-quality audits and value to our clients and the capital markets.”

The Accountant and International Accounting Bulletin’s “Audit Innovation of the Year” award recognizes organizations that make a major impact on audit quality and client service. Entries were judged based on a variety of factors including demonstrated improvements in quality; efficiency, accuracy and reliability; and client satisfaction.