Preface

Maintaining the integrity and reliability of financial data is key to the success of any organization as more companies around the world have been using financial and operational data to make business decisions. If you’ve been working in the industry for a long time, you probably know by now that data integrity management plays a critical role in helping ensure compliance and avoiding significant financial penalties as well. Unfortunately, there is a big gap when it comes to the proper analysis and management of financial data in organizations globally. In addition to this, companies building their own internal applications and systems are not equipped with the knowledge and experience to guarantee the integrity of the financial data in the databases used to store transactions and generate reports.

I’ve written this hands-on book to help finance, data, and technical professionals learn various concepts and practical solutions to manage the integrity of the financial data used by various types of organizations. This will be equally useful to those planning to build their own internal systems and processes for handling financial transactions, records, and reports. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned professional, this book is for you!

Who this book is for

This book is intended for financial analysts, technical leaders, and data analysts interested in learning practical strategies for managing data integrity and data quality using relevant solutions, tools, and strategies.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Recognizing the Importance of Data Integrity in Finance, gives a quick overview of the concepts relevant to the succeeding chapters in the book.

Chapter 2, Avoiding Common Data Integrity Issues and Challenges in Finance Teams, dives deep into the data integrity issues and challenges faced by different finance teams.

Chapter 3, Measuring the Impact of Data Integrity Issues, teaches you how to develop and generate data quality scorecards using a framework.

Chapter 4, Understanding the Data Integrity Management Capabilities of Business Intelligence Tools, focuses on the common data quality capabilities of business intelligence tools and more popular tools online.

Chapter 5, Using Business Intelligence Tools to Fix Data Integrity Issues, teaches you how to use business intelligence tools in order to solve data integrity issues.

Chapter 6, Implementing Best Practices When Using Business Intelligence Tools, guides you on how to implement various best practices when using business intelligence tools.

Chapter 7, Detecting Fraudulent Transactions Affecting Financial Report Integrity, focuses on processes and strategies to detect fraudulent transactions that affect financial report integrity.

Chapter 8, Using Database Locking Techniques for Financial Transaction Integrity, dives deep into how specific SQL and database techniques prevent transaction data integrity issues.

Chapter 9, Using Managed Ledger Databases for Finance Data Integrity, teaches you how to use managed ledger databases to enforce data integrity in financial systems and applications.

Chapter 10, Using Artificial Intelligence for Finance Data Quality Management, exposes you to artificial intelligence solutions relevant to data quality and data integrity management.

To get the most out of this book

You are expected to have a basic understanding of concepts relating to finance, accounting, and data analysis. Basic knowledge of finance management is not required but will help with grasping the intermediate topics of the book.

Software/hardware covered in the book	Operating system requirements
Microsoft Power BI Desktop	Windows (preferred)
Tableau, Tableau Prep Builder, and Tableau Cloud
Alteryx Designer

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book’s GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Managing-Data-Integrity-for-Finance. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Accessing high-resolution images

The high-resolution version of images used in this book are accessible on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Managing-Data-Integrity-for-Finance/tree/main/images.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: “Using the SELECT FOR UPDATE statement applies a row-level lock on that row and waits for the previous instance to complete before going to the next.”

A block of code is set as follows:

INSERT INTO Accounts (AccountID, Balance)
VALUES (1, 100.00);

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

CREATE TABLE Accounts (
    AccountID int,
    CustomerName varchar(100),
    Balance decimal(10, 2) CHECK (Balance >= 0)
);

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “To access the Data Analysis GPT, click on Explore in the sidebar and select Data Analysis from the list of GPTs available.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [e-mail] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [e-mail] with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.

Share your thoughts

Once you’ve read Managing Data Integrity for Finance, we’d love to hear your thoughts! Please click here to go straight to the Amazon review page for this book and share your feedback.

Your review is important to us and the tech community and will help us make sure we’re delivering excellent quality content.

Download a free PDF copy of this book

Thanks for purchasing this book!

Do you like to read on the go but are unable to carry your print books everywhere?

Is your eBook purchase not compatible with the device of your choice?

Don’t worry, now with every Packt book you get a DRM-free PDF version of that book at no cost.

Read anywhere, any place, on any device. Search, copy, and paste code from your favorite technical books directly into your application.

The perks don’t stop there, you can get exclusive access to discounts, newsletters, and great free content in your inbox daily

Follow these simple steps to get the benefits:

1. Scan the QR code or visit the link below

https://packt.link/free-ebook/9781837630141

2. Submit your proof of purchase

3. That’s it! We’ll send your free PDF and other benefits to your email directly