有效利用班福法则检测会计数据中的舞弊.pdfVIP

Journal of Forensic Accounting 1524-5586/Vol.V(2004), pp. 17-34 © 2004 R.T. Edwards, Inc. Printed in U.S.A. The Effective Use of Benford’s Law to Assist in Detecting Fraud in Accounting Data 1 2 3 Cindy Durtschi , William Hillison and Carl Pacini 1Utah State University, Logan, UT USA 2Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL USA 3Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers, FL USA Benford’s law has been promoted as providing the auditor with a tool that is simple and effec- tive for the detection of fraud. The purpose of this paper is to assist auditors in the most effec- tive use of digital analysis based on Benford’s law. The law is based on a peculiar observation that certain digits appear more frequently than others in data sets. For example, in certain data sets, it has been observed that more than 30% of numbers begin with the digit one. After dis- cussing the background of the law and development of its use in auditing, we show where dig- ital analysis based on Benford’s law can most effectively be used and where auditors should exercise caution. Specifically, we identify data sets which can be expected to follow Benford’s distribution, discuss the power of statistical tests, types of frauds that would be detected and not be detected by such analysis, the potential problems that arise when an acc