The Clerk’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducts internal audits, reviews and investigations related to Clerk and Collier County Board of County Commissioners operations. Our standards require us to consider a review for fraud within our scope of work for each engagement. Given the billions of dollars being spent annually, and the number of supporting transactions, technology provides our office the ability to review large populations for outliers that could indicate fraud.
The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the world’s largest anti-fraud organization with more than 90,000 members, released their world-wide 2024 Anti-Fraud Technology Benchmarking Report to their members. The goal was to allow their members to assess the effectiveness of their anti-fraud measures, to benchmark their practices with those of their peers, and to plan for future technology-related budgets and resources.
The table below shows the top results of the surveyed population for common analytic software, data analysis techniques, risk areas monitored, and sources of data. We’ve added the mechanisms the OIG uses to employ these different analytics, and common tests performed.
Overall, the benchmarking shows the Clerk’s OIG is using the most popular methods of anti-fraud analytics in effective tests of the areas with the highest perceived risk.
Additional key findings of the survey were:
- 91% of organizations use data analysis techniques as part of their anti-fraud programs.
- 83% of organizations expect to implement AI as part of their anti-fraud programs over the next two years. (The OIG has no immediate plans in this regard).
- A majority of organizations (61%), either currently contribute, or are willing to contribute, to data consortiums to aid their anti-fraud efforts. (The OIG participates in consortiums with other government auditors and financial investigators).
- 59% of organizations expect to increase their budgets for anti-fraud technology over the next few years, and 82% say budget or financial restrictions are a concern. (The OIG has no immediate plans to purchase new software, but potentially additional licenses would be needed for any additional staff).