I’m refreshing our SOX 404 control around vendor master changes and weighing whether to keep the routine in IDEA 12 or port it to Python/pandas. For those running continuous controls monitoring, how are you preserving audit trail integrity and reproducibility on about 48k change events from Q4 — hashing the inputs and code in Python, or relying on ACL/IDEA project histories with documented approvals?
Going through a similar process, we found using Python/pandas gave us more flexibility with the data, especially when dealing with 48k change events. Relying solely on IDEA’s project histories might miss some nuances in the audit trail. I’d recommend considering how active your monitoring will be, as I found that hashing inputs was crucial for maintaining integrity.
Deciding between IDEA and Python can be really frustrating! I’ve used Python for similar vendor monitoring tasks, and the flexibility with pandas makes it easier to manipulate large datasets like your 48k events. One tip: consider implementing a simple version control system for your scripts to maintain a clear audit trail.
I’ve had great success using Python for similar tasks, especially with data manipulations. It was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole when I used IDEA for larger datasets — pandas really helped me streamline the process and keep things tidy. Just make sure to set up your version control properly to preserve those changes, or you might end up playing hide and seek with the data.