Forensic Analytics - Methods and Techniques for Forensic Accounting Investigations

Informationen zum Autor MARK J. NIGRINI, PHD, is a professor at West Virginia University where he teaches highly-rated, graduate-level accounting technology and forensic accounting classes.He has published extensively in academic and professional journals on various topics related to forensic analytics. His current research addresses forensic and continuous monitoring techniques and advanced theoretical work on Benford's Law. Klappentext Become the forensic analytics expert in your organization using effective and efficient data analysis tests to find anomalies, biases, and potential fraud--the updated new editionForensic Analytics reviews the methods and techniques that forensic accountants can use to detect intentional and unintentional errors, fraud, and biases. This updated second edition shows accountants and auditors how analyzing their corporate or public sector data can highlight transactions, balances, or subsets of transactions or balances in need of attention. These tests are made up of a set of initial high-level overview tests followed by a series of more focused tests. These focused tests use a variety of quantitative methods including Benford's Law, outlier detection, the detection of duplicates, a comparison to benchmarks, time-series methods, risk-scoring, and sometimes simply statistical logic. The tests in the new edition include the newly developed vector variation score that quantifies the change in an array of data from one period to the next. The goals of the tests are to either produce a small sample of suspicious transactions, a small set of transaction groups, or a risk score related to individual transactions or a group of items.The new edition includes over two hundred figures. Each chapter, where applicable, includes one or more cases showing how the tests under discussion could have detected the fraud or anomalies. The new edition also includes two chapters each describing multi-million-dollar fraud schemes and the insights that can be learned from those examples. These interesting real-world examples help to make the text accessible and understandable for accounting professionals and accounting students without rigorous backgrounds in mathematics and statistics. Emphasizing practical applications, the new edition shows how to use either Excel or Access to run these analytics tests. The book also has some coverage on using Minitab, IDEA, R, and Tableau to run forensic-focused tests. The use of SAS and Power BI rounds out the software coverage. The software screenshots use the latest versions of the software available at the time of writing. This authoritative book:* Describes the use of statistically-based techniques including Benford's Law, descriptive statistics, and the vector variation score to detect errors and anomalies* Shows how to run most of the tests in Access and Excel, and other data analysis software packages for a small sample of the tests* Applies the tests under review in each chapter to the same purchasing card data from a government entity* Includes interesting cases studies throughout that are linked to the tests being reviewed.* Includes two comprehensive case studies where data analytics could have detected the frauds before they reached multi-million-dollar levels* Includes a continually-updated companion website with the data sets used in the chapters, the queries used in the chapters, extra coverage of some topics or cases, end of chapter questions, and end of chapter cases.Written by a prominent educator and researcher in forensic accounting and auditing, the new edition of Forensic Analytics: Methods and Techniques for Forensic Accounting Investigations is an essential resource for forensic accountants, auditors, comptrollers, fraud investigators, and graduate students. Zusammenfassung Become the forensic analytics expert in your organization using effective and efficient data analysis tests to find anomalies! biases! ...

List of contents

List of Cases xiii
 
About the Author xv
 
Preface xvii
 
Abbreviations xxi
 
Analytics Software Used xxv
 
Introduction 1
 
Temptation in an Occupation 2
 
Fraudulent Checks Written by the CFO 4
 
Fraudulent Purchases Made by a Purchasing Manager 7
 
Donna was a Gamblin' Wreck at Georgia Tech 9
 
Forensic Analytics 11
 
An Overview of Tableau 13
 
The Risk Assessment Standards 19
 
Discussion 21
 
Chapter 1: Using Microsoft Excel for Forensic Analytics 23
 
The Fraud Types Relevant to Forensic Analytics 23
 
The Main Steps in a Forensic Analytics Application 25
 
The Final Report 27
 
An Overview of Excel 28
 
Importing Data into Excel 29
 
Some Useful Excel Formatting Features 30
 
Protecting Excel Spreadsheets 32
 
The Valuable "IF" Function 33
 
The PIVOTTABLE Routine 36
 
The Valuable VLOOKUP Function 38
 
Using Excel Results in Word Files 40
 
Excel Warnings and Indicators 42
 
Excel Dashboards 43
 
Dashboards in Practice 46
 
Summary 47
 
Chapter 2: The Initial High-Level Overview Tests 50
 
The Data Profile 51
 
The Histogram 56
 
The Periodic Graph 58
 
Descriptive Statistics 60
 
Preparing the Data Profile Using Excel 62
 
Preparing the Data Profile Using Access 64
 
Preparing the Histogram in Excel and Access 68
 
Preparing the Histogram in IDEA and Tableau 72
 
Preparing the Periodic Graph in Excel and Access 74
 
Summary 76
 
Chapter 3: Benford's Law: The Basic Tests 79
 
An Overview of Benford's Law 80
 
Some Early Discussions of Benford's Law 83
 
Selected Articles from the Eighties 85
 
Selected Articles from the Nineties 88
 
Scenarios Under Which Data Should Conform to Benford 90
 
The Two Scenarios Under Which Accounting Data Sets Should Conform to Benford 93
 
Other Considerations for the Conformity of Accounting Data 94
 
Accounting Data Examples 95
 
Preparing the Benford Graph Using Excel 98
 
Preparing the Benford Graph Using Access 99
 
Summary 101
 
Chapter 4: Benford's Law: Advanced Topics 103
 
Conformity and the Likelihood of Material Errors 103
 
The First Digits Versus the First-Two Digits 107
 
Measuring Conformity Using the Z-Statistic 109
 
The Chi-Square and the Kolmogorov-Smirnoff Tests of Conformity 111
 
The Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) Test 112
 
The Effect of Data Set Size of Conformity to Benford 114
 
Using Benford's Law in a Forensic Accounting Setting 116
 
Using Benford's Law for Journal Entries in an External Audit 119
 
Using Benford for Subsidiary Ledger Balances in an External Audit 123
 
Preparing the Benford Graph in Excel 125
 
Summary 126
 
Chapter 5: Benford's Law: Completing The Cycle 127
 
The Number Duplication Test 127
 
The Number Duplications in Accounting Textbooks 132
 
The Electric Utility Company Fraud Case 134
 
The Petty Cash Fraud Scheme 136
 
The Last-Two Digits Test 139
 
The Fraudulent Credit Card Sales Scheme 141
 
The Missing Cash Sales Case 142
 
Running the Number Duplication Test in Excel 144
 
Running the Number Duplication Test in Access 146
 
Running the Last-Two Digits Test in Excel 148
 
Running the Last-Two Digits Test in Access 149
 
Running the Number Duplication Test in R 151
 
Summary 153
 

Product details

• Authors: Mark J Nigrini, Mark J. Nigrini, Mj Nigrini
• Publisher: Wiley, John and Sons Ltd
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.04.2020
• EAN: 9781119585763
• ISBN: 978-1-119-58576-3
• No. of pages: 544
• Series: Wiley Corporate F&A
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Business administration; Controlling, Rechnungswesen, Forensik, Accounting, Corporate/Managerial Accounting