| Course | AC570 Data Analytics for Accountants |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Analytics scoping memo |
| Length | About 760 words, 5 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MS in Accounting |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for AC570 Unit 2
A Decision, a Date and Four Tests: A Unit 2 Analytics Scoping Memo on Rent Credits
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
AC570: Data Analytics for Accountants
Unit 2 Analytics Scoping Memo
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Stowfield Storage, its officers and every figure are composite; the textbook and guide cited are real.
Memorandum
To: Controller From: Data Analyst, Finance Date: January 9, 2026 Re: Should site managers be able to credit rent without district approval, and up to what amount?
Background
Rent credits, the amounts taken off a tenant's bill for promotions, fee waivers, goodwill and corrections, reached 6.72 percent of billed rent in fiscal 2025, up from 4.9 percent a year earlier. Billed rent was $23,042,750, so credits were about $1,548,000. The regional vice president for the Gulf region says credits "seem high at a few facilities." That observation is a reason to look, not a question an analysis can answer.
The Decision
The vice president of operations will decide, at the March 2 operations meeting, whether to cap the credit a site manager may grant without district manager approval, at what amount, and whether any facility needs a field review first. The analysis is scoped to inform that decision and nothing else.
Four Tests
Each test answers part of the decision.
Test 1, duplicate refunds. Are refunds being paid twice to the same tenant for the same amount? Needs: refund date, tenant identifier, amount, check or transfer number, void flag.
Test 2, receipt sequence gaps. Are cash and check receipts missing from facility sequences, which could indicate unrecorded collections? Needs: receipt number, facility, date, payment method, void log.
Test 3, credits outside office hours. Are credits entered when no office is staffed? Needs: credit timestamp with time zone, user identifier, channel (staff or online portal), facility office hours.
Test 4, credits relative to activity. Are a facility's credits higher than its move-ins and delinquent accounts would explain? Needs: monthly credits, move-ins and delinquent account counts by facility.
Together, the tests show whether large credits concentrate where controls are weakest, which is what the cap decision depends on (Richardson et al., 2023).
Scoping the work to one decision tells the analyst what to leave out, which is as important as what to include, because an open-ended look at credits would produce charts that no one could act on by March 2.
Data Source and Period
All four tests use the tenant ledger export for the 31 facilities for January 1 to December 31, 2025, reconciled to the general ledger's concessions and refunds accounts and reshaped so each row holds one transaction (Wickham, 2014). The export will be pulled on January 14, after the year-end close.
What Stays Out
Pricing strategy, competitor rates, marketing spend and tenant satisfaction are outside scope. They matter to the business, but none bears on whether a credit cap is needed. Fiscal 2024 data is out except for the prior-year ratio already quoted, because the decision concerns current controls.
Deliverables and Dates
A data preparation log by January 23, a population profile by January 30, test results by February 13, a prioritized exception report by February 20 and a presentation for the March 2 meeting. If the data cannot be reconciled to the general ledger within $5,000, work pauses and the controller is told (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, 2017).
How Results Will Be Judged
Each test's exception rule will be written down before the test is run, so that results cannot be tuned after the fact. Findings will be ranked by likely cost, not by count, since a large number of small, explained exceptions matters less than a few unexplained ones. For the fourth test, the expectation will be built from all facilities and then used to score each one, so that a facility is compared with a standard set by the whole chain rather than by its own history.
Who Needs to Be Involved
The IT team must confirm how timestamps are stored and supply the user master. District managers must confirm office hours for each facility and explain any documented events, such as storms or remodels, that would affect credits. The controller will review the reconciliation before any test is run. Nobody at a facility will be told which tests are running until results are in, so that behavior during the test period stays normal.
Risks
The ledger's timestamps may not carry time zones, and some facilities may not log voided receipts. Both will be checked during preparation, and any test that cannot be run reliably will be reported as such, not quietly dropped.
References
American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. (2017). Guide to audit data analytics. AICPA.
Richardson, V. J., Teeter, R. A., & Terrell, K. L. (2023). Data analytics for accounting (3rd ed.). McGraw Hill.
Wickham, H. (2014). Tidy data. Journal of Statistical Software, 59(10), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v059.i10
Reading the AC 570 Unit 2 instructions
Unit 2 of AC570 asks you to scope an analytics engagement in a memo. Use the subject line to state the decision. Give the background that triggered the request, with figures. Name the decision, who owns it and when it will be made. Then define each test you will run: the question it answers, its population and the fields it needs. Identify the data source, period and how it will be reconciled to the books. State what is out of scope and why, so the work stays tied to the decision. Explain how results will be judged, including defining exception rules before running tests. Name the people whose help is needed, the deliverables with dates and the data risks you already see. Cite Richardson and colleagues, the 2017 AICPA guide and Wickham's tidy data paper in APA 7.
Inside the AC570 Unit 2 example
The sample's subject line asks whether site managers should credit rent without district approval, and up to what amount. Background gives 6.72 percent of $23,042,750 billed against 4.9 percent a year earlier. The decision belongs to the vice president of operations on March 2. Four tests follow, each with its fields: duplicate refunds, receipt sequence gaps, credits outside office hours and credits relative to move-ins and delinquencies. The highlighted sentence explains why scope matters. Sections cover the January 14 ledger export and its reconciliation, what stays out, how results will be judged, who must help, dated deliverables and a stop rule if the data cannot be reconciled within $5,000.
AC570 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Scoping memos in AC570 earn points for tying every test to a stated decision and committing to methods before results exist. Graders check that the decision has an owner and a date, that each test names its population and fields, and that the data source is reconciled to the ledger. The rubric rewards explicit exclusions with reasons, exception rules fixed in advance and early identification of data risks. Deliverables with dates show the work can be managed. Memos that list interesting analyses without a decision, leave scope open or skip reconciliation lose substantial credit. A subject line that states the decision and clear memo structure help the reader, with sources in APA 7.
AC570 Unit 2 help from the desk
Weak Unit 2 memos restate the vague request and promise to explore the data. Others list tests without saying what decision each informs or what fields it needs, so the data pull is incomplete. Reconciliation to the general ledger is missing, leaving no way to know the population is complete. Out-of-scope items are not named, so the project grows. Deadlines are absent. Known data risks, such as time zones, appear only after they have distorted results. If your section's scenario involves a different decision or data source, a writer can scope the tests, fields and schedule around it.
Get an AC570 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Which vague concern opens your Unit 2 case? State it in a line, then attach the prompt, the rubric and the field names your data holds. A scoping memo built on that concern, with an owner, testable questions and a fenced scope, returns inside 24-48h, and the first custom sample is free. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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AC570 Unit 2 questions, answered
How is a scoping memo different from the analysis?
It commits, before any result exists, to what will be tested, on which population and against which thresholds. That order protects later findings, because a cutoff chosen after seeing the data invites the charge that it was tuned. The AC570 sample runs no tests at all; it defines four and explains why each would inform the decision about who may issue credits and how much.
Why list data risks before anything is run?
Because some risks change results enormously. Timestamps stored in Coordinated Universal Time, read without conversion, would push thousands of ordinary daytime credits into an after-hours test. Listing that risk in Unit 2 lets the preparation log show the fix and lets a reader trust the timing test later. Your own extract may carry different risks, but the habit of naming them early carries over.
Where can I find a free AC570 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page holds a full AC570 Unit 2 analytics scoping memo for Stowfield Storage with a decision and date, four tests and their fields, exclusions, deliverables and APA 7 references.
Why reconcile the data before running any test?
Because tests on an incomplete file produce misleading results. Tying the ledger export to the general ledger's concessions and refunds accounts shows the population is whole before anyone draws conclusions from it.
What stays out of scope, and why?
Pricing strategy, competitor rates, marketing spend and tenant satisfaction. They matter to the business but none bears on whether a credit approval cap is needed, so including them would delay the March 2 decision.