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Technology Product Review: ActiveData
Reviewed by Beth Brilliant, CPA, CITP
bbrilliant@comcast.com

What It Is
ActiveData for excel is an Excel add-ins program, that enables one to analyze data quickly. The program is marketed as a low end inexpensive auditing program but it is more than that. ActiveData for Excel provides over 100 data analysis and management features that automate functions that may be possible in Excel, albeit extremely difficult from a technical perspective.  The functions range from sampling to formatting and reduce the number of clicks and steps you need to get a task completed. This review is written based on using ActiveData with Excel 2007.

How It Works
ActiveData will interact with all versions of Excel; however, there are minor differences on how to access the program. ActiveData is easy to install and the ribbon menu appears on the Excel's ribbon.

The program is organized into three categories: data analysis, worksheet commands and workbook commands. 

Data analysis - The novice excel user will now be able to analyze data within minutes. The major analysis's commands are: 

• Summarize/pivot table
• Top/bottom Items,
• Duplicates
• Age
• Strata
• Gaps
• Statistics
• Digital Analysis
• Sample

Worksheet commands - Working within in the familiar Excel environment, users have a new stream of functions. ActiveData's worksheet commands include: 

• Merge Sheets
• Compare Sheets
• Split Sheet
• Query Sheet
• Sort to New sheet
• Duplicate Sheet

Workbook commands - With ActiveData, you can save time with better workbook management. The Workbook commands are: 

• Open Workbooks
• Global Find/Replace
• Index Sheets and books
• Navigators
• Import
• Others

Pros
ActiveData extends' Excel capabilities tenfold. An example is the power of the "Duplicate" command. The duplicate command is used to analyze a worksheet for duplicative items. The command allows up to six columns in a sheet to be used to search for duplicated items. It also allows for fuzzy duplicates, (case and punctuation characters can be different but still considered as a duplicate).

Another important component of this command is what can be done with the duplicate entries.  ActiveData will allow tagging the duplicates or extracting them to a new worksheet or, create a new worksheet with only the first row or last row of each duplicated set of rows, or create a new worksheet that contains only rows that had no duplicates.

Some of the other benefits include:

• Drill-down capability for the results of age, benford, compare, summary, sample, query and others functions.
• The user friendly formula/Criteria builder screen for adding calculated columns and specifying Queries. 
• A sample can be calculated in just a couple of clicks with minimal training. 
• The Group summary feature provides a new spreadsheet and how the spreadsheet came about.
• The split sheet command, enables one to split the sheet into multiple sheets by group or data.
• Worksheet Navigator that lets you go back and forward between sheets much like Internet explorer's back button.
• Merge a sheet into an existing sheet - option to merge the data into the current sheet as opposed to creating a new sheet.

Cons
Data comes in all forms and shapes and tend to be within a database.  ActiveData is an excel add on, it does not help reviewing data in other formats.  Most of the data I use is stored in databases, therefore the data needs to be extracted and saved in workbooks. Not all data can be easily converted to excel, therefore I do not suggest using the program as an audit tool when doing any extensive audits.

Overall Recommendation
As an accounting manager and not an auditor, I find the program to be indispensable. The program will lower your risk of spreadsheet errors since it reduces the need for complicated formulas. The rate of return is exponential as the price is affordable to all. There is minimal learning curve as the program is based on basic Excel knowledge. The company's website has numerous tutorial videos and the program comes with a manual and practice spreadsheets. I believe that ActiveData is a powerful tool for all accountants who want to enhance their performance. 

Beth S. Brilliant, CPA, is an accountant for the law firm Blume & Goldfaden. She is an Adjunct Professor at Kean University.  Ms. Brilliant is currently a member of the Technology Interest Group. Contact her at bbrillia@njatty.com or 973- 635-5400.