This paper develops and explains step by step how a company used lean accounting tools to identify cost savings and how these savings are integrated into a project investment evaluation. Little is known about the use of lean accounting tools in small and medium-sized companies operating in regional economies of Latin America, and this study is designed to continue expanding our knowledge of the subject. The tool used is value stream mapping and it is shown how it allows to identify cost savings, which is the first stage to calculate the recurring cash flows that is a critical building block of traditional project evaluation tools. This study is based on a real case that links aspects of production method and improvements applying lean manufacturing and financial indicators of the project. The development of the investment project allowed the company under study to improve delivery times,...

Purpose: The technical feasibility of using Benford's law to assist internal auditors in reviewing the integrity of high-volume data sets is analysed. This study explores whether Benford's distribution applies to the set of numbers represented by the quantity of records (size) that comprise the different tables that make up a state-owned enterprise's (SOE) enterprise resource planning (ERP) relational database. The use of Benford's law streamlines the search for possible abnormalities within the ERP system's data set, increasing the ability of the internal audit functions (IAFs) to detect anomalies within the database. In the SOEs of emerging economies, where groups compete for power and resources, internal auditors are better off employing analytical tests to discharge their duties without getting involved in power struggles. Design/methodology/approach: Records of eight databases of an...