Microsoft® Excel CAATs and Benford's Law Testing

Computer-Assisted Audit Techniques (CAATs)

Use of Excel's features and add-ins to audit and analyze data.

For Example
* comparing employee addresses with vendor addresses
* searching for duplicate check numbers
* searching for vendors using only post office boxes
* analyzing the sequence of transactions to identify missing items (e.g. checks/invoices)
* identifying vendors with more than one vendor code or more than one mailing address
* analyzing vendor master lists to identify vendors with identical mailing addresses
* sorting payments by amount to identify transactions that fall just under authorization limits.

Benford's Law Testing

Use of predicted digit frequency to detect errors and fraud in certain datasets. Basically,
the Benford's Law provides probabilities of how often each number (from 1 to 9) appears
as the first digit; as the second digit (from 0 to 9); as the first two digits (from 10 to 99);
and the last two digits (from 00 to 99).