On the possibility of Benfordʼs Law application in accounting fraud detection

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the article is to indicate that, theoretically and practically, Benford’s Law can be applied in order to detect accounting frauds. Methodology/approach: The paper provides an overview of current regulations and experts’ opinions published in the existing literature and internet sources. Moreover, data analysis was used as a research method. Findings: The results of assessing the conformity of the first two significant digits of distribution of foreign revenues from the sales of finished products to Benford’s Law (using the chi-square goodness of fit test) showed that in the case of a proper accounting process, one cannot reject the hypothesis that the data conform to Benford’s Law. On the other hand, the analysis of intentionally falsified foreign revenues led to the conclusion that in the case of an improper accounting process, data, in general, does not conform to Benford’s Law. Research limitations/implications: In the study, it was assumed that the human mind generates false val-ues of accounting entries, and the number of attempts to commit fraud was limited to 10. Originality/value: The article extends the existing knowledge of using Benfordʼs Law in detecting ac-counting fraud in the Polish literature.