Forensic Analytics: Methods and Techniques for Forensic Accounting Investigations
By Mark Nigrini
Forensic Analytics the act of obtaining and analyzing electronic data using formulas and statistical techniques to reconstruct, detect or otherwise support a claim of financial fraud.
Mark Nigrini established himself as a pioneer in using and applying Benford’s Law for the detection of fraud. With this book Mark moves to the next level by demonstration the use of Microsoft™ Access, Excel and PowerPoint for analyzing data and reporting the results of forensic analysis. The next section focuses on a methodology and techniques for forensic analysis and is, in my opinion, the meat of the book. The remainder of the coverage concentrates on examples or case studies, a risk scoring technique, and detecting financial statement fraud. The author includes detailed demonstrations for running the tests using Access and Excel. What pushes the usefulness of this book over the top is the inclusion of a companion Web site with the Excel templates, PowerPoint slides for all 18 chapters along with exercises and problems useful in a classroom for teaching the concepts of forensic analysis to budding auditors, fraud examiners and investigators.
I highly recommend this book as a must have for your internal audit department professional library. It is a must read for anyone who aspires to use forensic analytics for audits and investigations.
JK 09/2011