Martha Godfrey, CPA, is including audit data analytics in an audit for the first time. Excited about what she has accomplished, she tells you that it was much easier than expected. She began by planning the ADA and made sure the relevant assertions would be covered. She then approached the client to request the data. At first the client indicated they would not have time to help with the data gathering. Upon further discussion, management assigned a recently hired member of their team who had the time available to walk through the requirements of the test to be performed and gather the necessary data. Martha and the new employee found a way to make the data gathering efficient. The employee found a report that is regularly run, which appeared to provide similar output to what Martha requires. They used that as the first point to extract data and then added some data from another report to provide Martha with what she needed. When preparing the audit budget, Martha suggested that the only area where additional time would be needed was for evaluating the ADA results. When the test was performed, there was a longer list of notable items than expected. In response, Martha sent a request to the client asking for explanations for each of the notable items. She is waiting for the responses. She is happy she has completed her first application of ADAs.

Required

a. What should Martha have considered before approaching the client to request the data?

b. Did Martha follow the five steps of ADAs? Suggest what she did correctly and/or what she should have done differently.

c. Besides asking the client for more information, how should Martha handle the long list of notable items?