2018 ACFE-DC Chapter Training Information Email/Session Description

Date: Thursday, February 22, 2018

Time: 8:15 AM – 4:30 PM (Training starts promptly at 8:45), breakfast and lunch will be served

Location: KPMG, 1801 K St NW, Washington, DC 20036 (training rooms 1006, 1007, 1008)

 

Speaker: Dr. Mark Nigrini, Ph.D., Professor, West Virginia University

Subject: Forensic Analytics & Employee Fraud

 

Registration includes a copy of Mark Nigrini’s Nigrini Cycle Excel-based software that will allow you to run the digit based tests when you get back to work.  Registration will also include a set of handouts. 

 

Auditors are increasingly using forensic analytics to detect fraud, errors, and biases in transactional data.  Biases involve people gravitating to specific numbers or number ranges to circumvent actual or perceived internal control thresholds or to just make or miss some or other target amount.

 

This is a special opportunity to attend a workshop with Mark J. Nigrini, author of Forensic Analytics and Benford’s Law. The workshop will review much of the material covered in his previous Washington, DC sessions and will include new state-of-the-art content related to recent fraud cases and the accounting technology used to run these analytics tests. Dr. Nigrini has presented several talks on forensic analytics at the ACFE’s Global Conferences. In the just the past year Dr. Nigrini has had papers accepted for publication in The Journal of Forensic and Investigative Accounting, The Journal of Emerging Technologies in Accounting, The Journal of Accountancy, and Hepatology (the leading liver disease journal). This workshop will, amongst other things, review the material published or forthcoming in those journals.

 

The afternoon sessions will include a review, and possibly an interactive (attendees will follow along on their own machines) hands-on demo of the R programming language (free to install and to use), IDEA, and Tableau. The Excel-based Nigrini Cycle software will also be demonstrated. Other analytics related topics will include the Microsoft Office Specialist (Excel 2016) Certification, extracting data from pdf files, using the (free) CourseSites platform for in-house analytics or other training, and auditing (at no charge) the wide array of forensic accounting, data analytics, and other Coursera offerings.

 

Dr. Nigrini will discuss his most recent research and hands-on experience at American companies, and applications of forensic analytics to detect fraud by way of topics that will include:

• Benford’s Law (a shorter session that in the previous workshop);
• The fingerprints of fraud numbers (new and recent material, handout will be included);
• Purchasing card data and purchase order data of the District of Columbia;
• The Nathan Mueller ING fraud, a description of the scheme with effective preventive and detective measures (a shorter session than in the previous workshop);
• The Harriette Walters DC tax refund fraud case where the millions of dollars of losses could have
• been avoided by using some basic detective controls and/or preventive controls; and
• The Charlene Corley Department of Defense vendor fraud case where the millions of dollars of
• losses could have been avoided by using some basic detective controls and/or preventive
• controls.

In this workshop, you will learn:

• How analyze and interpret evidentiary material with particular reference to the attributes of
• fraudulent numbers;
• How to apply electronic forensic accounting techniques to small, medium, and large data sets;
• and
• The attributes of various electronic techniques, platforms, and apps that will enhance your
• productivity and output per hour.

About The Speaker:

Mark J. Nigrini is on the Business & Economics faculty at West Virginia University. Nigrini’s research passion for many years has been a phenomenon known as Benford’s Law. The phenomenon relates to the fact that there are predictable patterns to the digits in lists of numbers. The smaller digits (1s, 2s, and 3s) are expected to occur more often in scientific and financial data. Benford’s Law has proved itself to be valuable to auditors in their quest to uncover fraud in corporate data. Nigrini’s current research addresses advanced theoretical work on Benford’s Law, employee fraud, identity theft tax refund fraud, and the use of analytics in forensic accounting.

 

Nigrini is the author of Forensic Analytics (Wiley, 2011) which describes analytic tests used to detect fraud, errors, estimates, and biases in financial data, and also Benford's Law (Wiley, 2012). In 2014 Nigrini published an article in the Journal of Accountancy that was co-authored with Nathan Mueller, a fraudster, who at the time was incarcerated in a federal prison. That article won the Lawler award for the best article in the Journal of Accountancy in 2014. His work has been featured in The Financial Times, New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal and he has published papers on Benford’s Law in academic journals and professional publications. These journals include the highly regarded Journal of Accounting,Auditing, and Finance and Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory. 

 

Nigrini published the lead article in the new premier forensic accounting journal, the Journal of Forensic Accounting Research. His radio interviews have included the BBC in London, and NPR in the United States. His television interviews have included an interview on a fraud saga for the Evil Twins series for the Investigation Discovery Channel.  He is a regular presenter at the ACFE’s Global Conferences. He regularly presents professional seminars for accountants and auditors in the U.S and abroad.

 

Who Should Attend?

• Certified Fraud Examiners and other anti-fraud specialists
• Special investigation unit personnel
• Forensic Accountants, auditors and analysts
• Internal and independent auditors
• Criminal investigators from the local, state and federal agencies
• Lawyers, prosecutors and other professionals

Session Details

Field of Study: Specialized Knowledge [Fraud-Related]

CPE Credits: 8 Specialized Knowledge

Delivery Method: Group Live

Pre-Requisites: None

Advanced Preparation: No advanced preparation is needed for this course

Cancellation Policy: If this course must be cancelled, all registrants will receive an email indicating the course was cancelled and providing a rescheduled training date.

Complaint Resolution Policy: All participants are encouraged to submit an evaluation of the course to receive CPE credit. Any course issues should be address in the evaluation and/or directed to the DC-ACFE prior to the end of the course.

Contact Information: Contact the chapter at Speaker.Request@acfedc.org

Materials Needed: None. Course materials will be provided prior to the course date, if applicable.

Training materials:

NigriniAttachmentsFeb_22_2017