Excel application. In this exercise, we'll use Excel's "sampling" function to create a random sample. Random samples of transactions are often used in financial statement audits.

1. Access the Excel data file in the 3 February 2014 post on my AIS blog. An excerpt of the file appears below:

Transaction # Transaction Amount

1. $645
2. 350
3. 60
4. 32
5. 333

2. Use Excels sampling function (part of the data analysis tools) to select a sample of five transaction numbers. Sort the five transaction numbers from smallest to largest.
3. Use Excels VLOOKUP function to find the associated transaction amounts. Heres an example of how it might look; your transaction numbers will likely be different.

Transaction # Transaction Amount

11 $523

22 464

28 370

29 327

48 361