SESSION GOAL:  After completing this session, you should understand the implications of Benford's Law and digital analysis in fraud detection.

• Read Nigrini, I've Got You Number, Journal of Accountancy. May 1999
• Read Nigrini, Digital analysis - Part 2: A review of the audit tests to detect anomalies in data subsets, ITAudit Forum, February 1, 1999. Printer-firendly version here.
• Read Nigrini, Digital Analysis Part 3: Innovative Value-Added Applications of Digital Analysis, ITAudit Forum, April 1, 1999. Printer-friendly version here.
• Read Lanza, Digital Analysis - Real World Examples, ITAudit Forum, July 1, 1999. Printer-friendly version here.
• Read ACL Workbook, pages 216-222.
• Use ACL to do a test of Benford's law. There are two datasets in the COURSE MATERIALS section of Blackboard that you can choose from - Accounts Receivable or General Ledger. These datasets are in EXCEL format. Once you open a dataset you will need to create a tab-delimited file by doing a "SAVE AS" and selecting Tab-Delimited TXT as the file format. Then you can use the data wizard in ACL to open the delimited file in ACL to do your analysis. If you get an error message that the maximum number of records have been analyzed, just ignore it. Does the data set you chose conform to Benford's Law? Prepare a brief explanation of your findings to be turned in at the beginning of class.
• Login to the CHATROOM and participate in the online discussion.