The same, same, same procedure is flexible in how the processing is done. First, the analyst must determine which variables will be involved in the identification process (for example, in the instances cited above the variables would be invoice number, vendor, amount). There can be up to five variables involved, or as few as a single variable. In each instance, all but the last variables are SAME, and the final variable may be either SAME or DIFFERENT. For example, in a review or payroll data, you might want to identify the same employee last name, same street address and same city, but DIFFERENT employee number. In this instance the selection type would be coded as "SSSD".

A much different (and possibly simpler) instance would be where you wanted to identify any duplicate items in a single column. In this instance the selection type would be "S".

There are a number of examples of the "same, same, same" processing included in the test files provided.

There are two solutions for the identification of duplicate payments to facilitate cash recovery. The Duplicate Payment Detector - SQLite Database, uses a database solution and is available at no charge. A test dataset of invoice payments, along with example SQL scripts and example data base is provided. The database is open source, public domain. To identify and recover duplicate payments, requires that the internal auditor modify and run the supplied SQL scripts after they are tailored for a specific system. This same system may also be used to identify duplicate employee expense reports, duplicate fixed assets or other types of duplicate records.

The second solution is a scripting based system. In order to use this system, the data is first converted into the industry tab separated value format (TSV). There are instructions and examples of how to do such a conversion. After the data has been converted, then scripting procedural steps can be run to identify duplicate payments or other duplicate transactions or records. The scripting system is available for evaluation at no charge through August 31, 2006. After that date the system will be available at a nominal charge.

The Proc CR procedure is part of EZ-R Stats for Windows - Standard Edition. Download EZ-R Stats for Windows and other products.

Analysts interested in Proc CR may also be interested in Proc Means and Proc Univariate.