Accounts Payable Question: Download Accounts Payable PDF

This mathematical law states that in a list of numbers within a data set the leading digit is distributed in a specific, non-uniform way. What this means is that in a data set of numbers from one through nine the odds of the number one appearing are different than the odds of the number nine appearing. The odds of the number one appearing is around 30 percent, decreasing as the digits increase until reaching nine which appears less than five percent of the time. Running a frequency check on the digits in your Accounts Payable and comparing them to Benford's frequency will alert you to potential fraud if certain digits are appearing too often (which is a sign of manual manipulation through fraud).