Another red flag, or audit point, for us to look for within our data is check numbers that are out of sequence. Typically, an account will have check transactions showing check numbers that are canceled or cashed in order, as an individual or accountant will use the next check number by habit in an effort to keep proper records.

If the check numbers drawn for a particular bank ID, during a short period of time, are found to be more than a few numbers out of the current sequence, it is classified as a suspicious event.

Watson Analytics can help us with this analysis as well. The following is a visualization generated based on the question: What is the breakdown of BankID and CheckNumber? 

Excluding data, with a quick glance, the first BankID (0312-0471-0) in the visualization seems interesting (in that it has a longer list number of canceled checks). In Watson Analytics, we can click on the Visualization Content section (to the right of the page), select on the row, and then unselect all of the BankIDs from the list (except for the first one), as shown in the following screenshot:

Now we have a more focused visualization to study, as shown in the following screenshot:

After studying the preceding Watson Analytics visualization, we can zoom into the check number matrix and see that there are four check numbers (501, 502, 503, and 504) that are outside of the current sequence of 1 through 104, as shown in the following screenshot:

Suppose someone still wants to see the data in a row and column format? Well, Watson Analytics allows for that as well. In the following visualization, we have asked the question how does BankID relate to CheckNumber for CanceledAmount?:

With the results, we have then clicked on the Visualization types icon as shown in the following screenshot:

We have then changed the visualization type to Grid, as shown in the following screenshot:

Using a Grid type of visualization, we can see the check numbers in sequence, as well as each check's canceled amount. If we scroll vertically through the check numbers, we will again see the check numbers that seem to be out of sequence or out of the expected ordering, as shown in the following screenshot:

Just to be sure that the check numbers (501, 502, 503, and 504) are out of the expected order (that is, what happened to check numbers 105 through 500?), we might want to see what dates these checks were cashed or canceled on. To do that, we can return to our grid visualization and click on the Visualization Content section to the right of the grid (shown in the following screenshot), then click on + Add Column to find, select, and add the data column CanceledDate:

Once we have done that, our grid visualization will include the date that each check was cashed on, all presented in a rows and columns format as shown in the following screenshot: