Benford analysis profiles for expenditures transaction data. The results of this analysis reveal that the leading two digits “49” were in the data more often than expected.

Classifying on the employee for all transaction amounts with 49 as the first two digits determined several employees who submitted an excessive number of expense reports for $49X (possibly to avoid regulations required purchases over $500 to have a supervisor’s signature). An auditor could then use this information to initiate a further investigation of potential abuse of corporate control systems.

   employee_no       date   amount
1      Emp0001 2020-05-17 491.0000
2      Emp0001 2020-07-26 497.0000
3      Emp0002 2020-08-04 498.0000
4      Emp0002 2020-08-19 493.0000
5      Emp0003 2020-09-09 497.0000
6      Emp0004 2020-01-15 496.4115
7      Emp0004 2020-05-21 496.0000
8      Emp0004 2020-06-10 491.0000
9      Emp0005 2020-06-15 497.0000
10     Emp0005 2020-07-14 495.0000
11     Emp0005 2020-08-08 493.0000
12     Emp0006 2020-06-27 498.0000
13     Emp0007 2020-06-28 491.0000
14     Emp0010 2020-01-10 498.2874
15     Emp0010 2020-06-22 499.0000
16     Emp0011 2020-05-13 493.0000
17     Emp0011 2020-06-01 498.0000
18     Emp0012 2020-05-03 496.0000
19     Emp0012 2020-05-28 491.0000
20     Emp0012 2020-07-19 498.0000
21     Emp0013 2020-06-12 490.0000
22     Emp0013 2020-07-30 495.0000
23     Emp0013 2020-07-31 499.0000
24     Emp0014 2020-09-06 490.0000
25     Emp0015 2020-06-18 499.0000
26     Emp0016 2020-07-12 490.0000
27     Emp0016 2020-09-07 492.0000