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.
Use of Benford's Law, to detect errors and fraud in certain datasets.
Benford's Expected Frequency of First digits
1 — 30.10%
2 — 17.61%
3 — 12.49%
4 — 9.69%
5 — 7.92%
6 — 6.69%
7 — 5.80%
8 — 5.12%
9 — 4.58%