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IIA-CIA-Part2: What is the Best Approach for an Internal Auditor to Identify Duplicate Customer Accounts in Large Database?

Learn the most effective technique for internal auditors to detect any duplicate customer records when auditing a retailer’s database with 100,000+ accounts. Understand how sorting compares to other methods like filtering, extracting and stratifying data to find duplicates.

Table of Contents

Question

Which of the following approaches would best help an internal auditor determine whether a retailer’s database of 100,000 customers has any duplicate accounts?

A. Stratifying the customer information.
B. Extracting the customer information.
C. Filtering the customer information.
D. Sorting the customer information.

Answer

D. Sorting the customer information.

Explanation

Sorting the customer database on key fields like name, address, phone number or email is the best approach for an internal auditor to identify any duplicate customer accounts out of the 100,000 records.

Once the data is sorted alphabetically or numerically, any duplicate values will appear right next to each other, making them easy to detect. The auditor can then investigate those duplicates further to determine if they represent the same customer or are valid separate accounts.

In contrast, the other options would be less effective for finding duplicates:

A. Stratifying (dividing into subgroups based on characteristics) does not actually help identify duplicates since records for the same customer could end up in different strata.

B. Extracting the data simply means exporting it from the database, which alone does not detect duplicates. The extracted data would still need to be sorted.

C. Filtering the data means narrowing it down based on criteria, but does not necessarily surface duplicates. Duplicates could be filtered out or remain in the filtered data.

Therefore, sorting is the most direct, efficient approach to spot records with the same name, address or other customer information, which likely indicate duplicate accounts that warrant further review by the internal auditor. The systematic comparison enabled by sorting is ideal for such a large volume of records.

IIA-CIA-Part2 certification exam assessment practice question and answer (Q&A) dump including multiple choice questions (MCQ) and objective type questions, with detail explanation and reference available free, helpful to pass the IIA-CIA-Part2 exam and earn IIA-CIA-Part2 certification.