I was doing a little bit of maintenance work on the software we had built for a large cinema chain (support of new ticket printing hardware). Their IT manager called me aside confidentially (oops, what have I done?). But he explained that management thought they had a problem with cash going missing from the till of the concession (snack bar). Would I be able to analyse their cash register data log to report shortages/surpluses per shift per user with long-term averages?
Fortunately, the cash/sales reconciliation software had been well designed and recorded everything needed, so without too much effort we could quickly see that one particular operator quite consistently recorded a cash shortage, whereas the average of all other operators was essentially a zero balance. With a Statutory Declaration attached to my signed report, I heard nothing more other than that the subject staff-person no longer worked for them.
It was quite a simple job but was my first taste of "forensic" data analysis and reinforced the importance of not just updating a database, but when it comes to money, the importance of also recording who, what and when.
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