The book will review and discuss (with Access and Excel examples) the methods and techniques that investigators can use to uncover anomalies in corporate and public sector data. These anomalies would include errors, biases, duplicates, number rounding, and omissions. The focus will be the detection of fraud, intentional errors, and unintentional errors using data analytics. Despite the quantitative and computing bias, the book will still be interesting to read with interesting vignettes and illustrations. Most chapters will be understandable by accountants and auditors that usually are lacking in the rigors of mathematics and statistics. The data interrogation methods are based on (a) known statistical techniques, and (b) the author's own published research in the field.

Table of Contents

Preface. About the Author. Chapter 1: Using Access in Forensic Investigations. Chapter 2: Using Excel in Forensic Investigations. Chapter 3: Using PowerPoint in Forensic Presentations. Chapter 4: High-Level Data Overview Tests. Chapter 5: Benford's Law: The Basics. Chapter 6: Benford's Law: Assessing Conformity. Chapter 7: Benford's Law: The Second-Order and Summation Tests. Chapter 8: Benford's Law: The Number Duplication and Last-Two Digits Tests. Chapter 9: Testing the Internal Diagnostics of Current Period and Prior Period Data. Chapter 10: Identifying Fraud Using the Largest Subsets and Largest Growth Tests. Chapter 11: Identifying Anomalies Using the Relative Size Factor Test. Chapter 12: Identifying Fraud Using Abnormal Duplications within Subsets. Chapter 13: Identifying Fraud Using Correlation. Chapter 14: Identifying Fraud Using Time-Series Analysis. Chapter 15: Fraud Risk Assessments of Forensic Units. Chapter 16: Examples of Risk-Scoring with Access Queries. Chapter 17: The Detection of Financial Statement Fraud. Chapter 18: Using Analytics on Purchasing Card Transactions. References. Index.

About the Author

Mark J. Nigrini, PhD, is an Associate Professor at The College of New Jersey, where he teaches auditing and forensic accounting. His current research addresses forensic and continuous monitoring techniques and advanced theoretical work on Benford's Law. Dr. Nigrini has published his Benford's Law and forensic accounting research in academic journals and in professional accounting and auditing publications. He has been interviewed on radio and television and his work has been discussed in publications including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Reviews

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