Course:
Data Analysis with Benford’s Law and Microsoft Access, first session
Description:
This course reviews Benford’s Law which gives formulas for the expected patterns of the digits in numerical data. The course then requires you to download a data set from a government website, we discuss the architecture of Microsoft Access, we show how to create an Access database and import data into that database, we show how to calculate and count the digits of the numbers in Access, we show how to graph your output, and we discuss possible results from applications of Benford’s Law.
Instructions
Read and study the written material and then analyze the prescribed data set using Microsoft Access. When this has been done, complete the course exam in the last lesson.
Author: Mark J. Nigrini, Ph.D.
Author bio: Mark J. Nigrini, was formerly on the faculty at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University where he taught undergraduate and graduate level auditing classes and a computer modeling class. He started his work with digital and number frequencies in 1989 when he saw the potential for auditors to use the expected digit patterns to test the authenticity of client data. In 1995 his work started receiving publicity and has been written about in forums such as The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, CA Magazine, The Financial Times, The New York Times, Business Week, and USA Today. He has published papers 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, and in practitioner journals such as Internal Auditor, Journal of Accountancy, IT Audit Forum, The White Paper, and IEEE Potentials. He is the author of Digital Analysis Using Benford’s Law: Tests and Statistics for Auditors and Using Microsoft Access for Data Analysis and Interrogation.
Author Website: http://www.nigrini.com
Prerequisites: A basic knowledge of Excel functionality (Copy,
Paste, functions, cell-references etc.) and a basic knowledge of how to
download files from websites. For the
Access work no advance preparation is required, but if your Access skills are
newly acquired, then the course will take longer than one hour. This course is the Access follow-on course
to Data Analysis with Benford’s Law and Microsoft Excel. If you have not done that predecessor
course, then this course will take longer than one hour.
Course level: Basic – Covers fundamental principles and skills, This level is for participants with limited or no exposure to subject.
Field of Study: Accounting/Auditing
Instructional method: Interactive self-study.
Software/Hardware requirements:
Internet connection at 28.8-kbps or faster speed
Microsoft Excel 97 or higher
Microsoft Access 97 or higher
Review Benford’s Law
Download a data set from the internet
Create a database in Microsoft Access and import data into this database.
Learn how to calculate the digit frequencies in Microsoft Access
Learn how to graph the output in Excel
Understand how the graphs might help auditors to assess the integrity of their data