Microsoft Excel provides some easy-to-use tools that can greatly enhance and expedite the fraud audit process. With all detective work, you want to be able to sift through a large volume of data and utilize a tool that is adequately flexible for you to perform immediate investigations of anything questionable. Excel provides a number of different tools however we are going to focus on a couple of extremely useful ones: Auto filter, Arrays as well as a couple of extremely useful functions that include TEXT(),WEEKDAY(), IFERROR(), IFNA(), MATCH() and MOD().

Another tool used in fraud audits that do not necessarily require Excel, but can be used in conjunction with Excel, is Benford’s Law. Benford’s law is based on an observation that in certain large data sets, certain digits appear more frequently than others. By comparing the distribution of first digits in some accounting data, this tool can assist you in determining where more investigation is necessary by helping to pinpoint where data may have been contrived through fraud.

There is an accompanying Excel file so that you can walk through all the exercises.

Learning Objectives
  • Recognize and identify when Auto Filter and conditional formatting may be utilized to highlight exceptions.
  • Recognize how to use VLOOKUP and IFERROR/IFNA functions when comparing lists.
  • Recognize different array formulas, lookup functions as well as a few other functions that are useful for comparing lists and displaying data.
  • Identify and eliminate duplicate items.
  • Identify gaps in a sequence using Excel.
  • Recognize Benford’s Law and how it to use it.
Last updated/reviewed: January 8, 2023
15 Reviews (59 ratings)

Reviews

5
Anonymous Author
I enjoyed this text based course. Course materials were well written and exercise workbook was easy to follow. Learned some new skills in that will help me evaluate and analyze data quicker. This course introduces you to some quick and easy conditional format techniques. Good course and appropriated CPE earned for time it took to complete.
3
Member's Profile
I liked the course and was useful especially as a reference tool for later use. The formulas and logical tests highlighted I think will be useful. Prefer the lecture based however. Hard to keep focused by just reading.
5
Anonymous Author
This course had lots of great ideas about how to review data sets and find anomalies or any variety of challenges. I learned things I was not aware of and enjoyed thinking about and practicing the examples presented.
5
Anonymous Author
An excellent review of both Excel data filter functions and formulas, as well as introducing fraud red flags that may be present in data...and using these functions to detect these red flags in Excel data sets
5
Member's Profile
This was a great course for some standard, but helpful auditing formulas. The formulas taught in this course are a great starting point for additional investigation.
5
Member's Profile
Wonderful and easy-to-use tools that make data analysis and auditing much more time efficient and reduces the risk of error.
5
Member's Profile
Excellent course on powerful techniques to hunt down anomalies, duplicates, and data that needs further investigation.
5
Member's Profile
This course was beneficial, because how frequently I use excel, and the importance of identifying fraud.
4
Member's Profile
Simple course but could have been more effective if it was instructor lead vs. text based course.
5
Member's Profile
Concise descriptions with good hands-on examples made this course interesting and informative.
5
Anonymous Author
Thank you very much for the excellent explanations. I will benefit from what I learned.
4
Member's Profile
I liked the course, it is clear, good examples were given, straightforward. Thank you.
5
Member's Profile
Very easy to understand and a helpful course for many different things.
5
Member's Profile
Nice refresher for excel skills that can be used to detect fraud.
5
Anonymous Author
I learned a couple of nifty tricks for excel. Very good course.
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Prerequisites
Course Complexity: Foundational

No advanced preparation or prerequisites are required for this course.

Education Provider Information
Company: Illumeo, Inc., 75 East Santa Clara St., Suite 1215, San Jose, CA 95113
Contact: For more information regarding this course, including complaint and cancellation policies, please contact our offices at (408) 400- 3993 or send an e-mail to .
Instructor for this course
  Course Overview CPE
Course Syllabus
COURSE MATERIALS
  Fraud Audit Techniques Using Excel PDF
  Workbook: Fraud Audit Techniques Using Excel XLXS
REVIEW AND TEST
  REVIEW QUESTIONSquiz
 FINAL EXAMexam