The delivered artifact
The review queue
Not a Slack message. The decision this informs is which transactions a person opens this week, so the output is the worklist that person works, ordered, with the evidence and the lines attached.
Approval limit tested: $5,000, with a $400 window either side. Population conformity: close (MAD 0.0012). 149 lines on the pull list.
unit Meridian Facilities Group (1,250 lines this quarter) digit test chi-square p = 0.0263, MAD 0.0104, acceptable limit test 66 below / 8 above $5,000, p = 1.6e-11 q after BH 2.5e-10 across 16 units under the limit $139,733 in excess lines, 66 to pull
| INV-1113-0031 | 2026-06-03 | Emergency callout | $4,974.58 |
| INV-1113-0443 | 2026-06-13 | Fit-out labour | $4,972.11 |
| INV-1113-0162 | 2026-07-16 | Fit-out labour | $4,970.55 |
| INV-1113-0171 | 2026-07-10 | Building services | $4,967.66 |
| INV-1113-0073 | 2026-06-12 | Emergency callout | $4,966.64 |
| INV-1113-1130 | 2026-06-26 | Building services | $4,964.52 |
Check whether any of these were raised against the same purchase order, the same requester, or the same week. That is what would distinguish a split purchase from a vendor whose work happens to price near the limit, and the data here cannot make that call for you.
unit Regional Buildout (1,600 lines this quarter) digit test chi-square p = 0.3186, MAD 0.0073, acceptable limit test 49 below / 13 above $5,000, p = 4.8e-6 q after BH 5.2e-5 across 16 units under the limit $86,085 in excess lines, 49 to pull
| EXP-1114-0318 | 2026-07-15 | Temporary power | $4,968.81 |
| EXP-1114-1215 | 2026-07-03 | Contract labour | $4,967.46 |
| EXP-1114-0528 | 2026-06-02 | Site prep | $4,966.80 |
| EXP-1114-0253 | 2026-06-30 | Site prep | $4,960.53 |
| EXP-1114-0069 | 2026-07-23 | Temporary power | $4,955.13 |
| EXP-1114-0509 | 2026-07-21 | Site prep | $4,945.49 |
Check whether any of these were raised against the same purchase order, the same requester, or the same week. That is what would distinguish a split purchase from a vendor whose work happens to price near the limit, and the data here cannot make that call for you.
unit Northwind Licensing (600 lines this quarter) digit test chi-square p = 6.4e-13, MAD 0.0364, nonconforming limit test 34 below / 23 above $5,000, p = 0.1451 q after BH 2.1e-11 across 16 units under the limit no excess, spend is smooth across $5,000
Flagged on digits alone. The spend is smooth across the approval limit, so nothing here points at splitting. Most likely explanation is fixed price points, which produce this exact digit shape legitimately. Confirm against the contract and suppress the unit if it matches.
Atlas Freight Systems, Corvus Print & Mail, Helio Facilities, Northgate Legal, Pinewood Catering, Quarry Road Hardware, Sable Analytics, Field Operations, Marketing, R&D Prototyping, Facilities, Travel, IT Support.
- This is not a finding of fraud, an accusation, or a determination that anything is wrong. It is a ranking of where to spend the next forty audit hours.
- A Benford deviation is evidence of an anomaly and nothing more. Fixed price lists, capped ranges, narrow spend bands, and a vendor that bills one number all year all violate Benford while being entirely legitimate. Item 3 below is exactly that case.
- Clustering under an approval limit is a statistical pattern, not an intent. It has innocent causes, including a vendor whose own pricing sits near the limit and a policy that produces natural rounding.
- No item here should be raised with an employee or a vendor before a human has opened the underlying documents and formed their own view.
Item 3 has the smallest p-value on the page and belongs at the bottom of it, because no money is sitting under the limit and the digit shape has an obvious explanation. Sorting a review queue by statistical strength sends the reviewer to the most surprising thing rather than the most expensive one. Those are different questions.