Mark
J. Nigrini – Biography
Mark J. Nigrini was formerly on the faculty at the Cox School of
Business at Southern Methodist University.
He taught undergraduate and graduate level auditing classes and a
computer modeling class. He
is a Research Fellow at the Ernst & Young Center for Auditing
Research and Advanced Technology at the University of Kansas. He recently spent a sabbatical at one of the Big-5 accounting
firms. His current line of
research addresses using Digital Analysis for continuous audit and a
second book on Benford’s Law is in progress.
Mark started his work with digital and number frequencies in 1989 after
reading Frank Benford’s 1938 paper on the expected digit frequencies
in tabulated data. He saw
the potential for auditors to use the expected digit patterns to test
the authenticity of client data. His
early work focused on reading and understanding the theory underlying
Benford’s Law. In 1992 he
completed his Ph.D. dissertation (“The Detection of Income Tax Evasion
Through an Analysis of Digital Distributions”) at the University of
Cincinnati. In 1995 his
work started receiving national publicity and was publicized in The
Wall Street Journal, Canadian Business, Technology
in Government, Contingencies,
The Globe and Mail, and CA
Magazine, among others. His
work has been written about in publications such as The Financial Times, The New
York Times, Der Spiegel, Business Week, Dallas Morning News,
Philadelphia Inquirer, The Journal of Accountancy, and USA Today.
Nigrini has presented numerous academic seminars and professional
seminars for organizations such as the Institute of Internal Auditors,
Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, Insight Information, Bank
Administration Institute, CAURA, The Association of Government
Accountants, the International Association of Airline Internal Auditors,
and the International Association of Financial Crime Investigations.
He has presented his work to audiences in North America, Europe,
Africa, and Asia. His DATASâ
software is used by corporate, professional, government, and academic
institutions in North America and Europe.
Digital Analysis using Benford’s Law is an important part of
Ernst & Young’s new world-wide auditing technology.
Nigrini has published papers on Digital Analysis in academic
journals such as The Journal of
the American Taxation Association, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory, and The Journal of Accounting Education. He has published practitioner articles in journals such as Internal
Auditor, Journal of Accountancy, IT Audit Forum, The White Paper, IEEE
Potentials, and Tolley’s Practocal Tax Service.
Mark is also the author of Digital
Analysis Using Benford’s Law: Tests and Statistics for Auditors
published by Global Audit Publications (www.acl.com).
INSTALLING DATAS ADDRESS PROGRAMS
The DATAS ADDRESS suite of programs are shipped on a single
diskette or on a single CD depending on the request of the licensee at
the time of purchase.
The files are in a directory called DATAS_ADDRESS.
Since these are Excel files the licensee has discretion as to
where to load the programs. Installation
on the c:\ drive of a PC will most probably allow for the fastest
execution time.
4 Microsoft Excel files
(the programs),
1 test data file
Address_Test_Data.xls, and
2 documentation files
(Program_Details_2001.doc & .pdf)
in a directory called
DATAS_ADDRESS. Copy the
files to your c:\ drive. After
the copying is done your c:\ drive should have a DATAS_ADDRESS
directory that is an exact copy of all the files on the DATAS ADDRESS
disk or CD.
The contents of DATAS_ADDRESS should be copied as
is to the drive and directory of your choice. If you work off of a copy of the files then in the event of
an accidental erasure or overwrite, the programs can simply be copied a
second time.
2.
Make a backup copy of the DATAS_ADDRESS files (for your own use
as authorized in the license agreement).
