Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Forensic Accounting
Accounting has been around for centuries and has been used to organize one's financial matters. Unfortunately the people who are supposed to organizing and keeping track of finances are also frequently responsible for stealing money from the company they are working for. This is where forensics comes into play. Forensic accounting is using the abilities of an accountant and a detective to find how and when someone may have stolen money from a company. A brief description of forensic accounting is described in this youtube video (link in title)
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When I hear forensic account, the first thing I like of is the movie The Untouchables. I did not realize the field has been around for over 40 years. Seems like you cannot watch the news or read a paper today without hearing about another financial scandal from both the private and public sectors. Interesting that as technology advances and makes illegal financial transactions easier so does the technology used to trace down these criminals. As our ability to communicate becomes easier and reaches a larger global audience, the forensic accountants must now content with international financial laws as well.
ReplyDeleteI had no idea this kind of detecting techniques has been around for so long. I honestly thought this was a relatively new thing, within the last 10 years. I guess this was used in the whole Enron incident, and will be continued to be used for the foreseeable future. This article peaked my interests because I'm going to be majoring in accounting. After seeing this article however I might consider going into this field. It would seem that this would add a whole different dynamic to accounting. I have always been interested in crime shows and detective work, and combine that with accounting it would seem that I have the perfect career path.
ReplyDeleteIt almost seems like everything in the world always comes back to money. Everyone wants it, everyone needs it. As an accounting student, I find it interesting that there is another side to accounting that is not simply number crunching. Getting to play the role of a detective makes accounting seem much more interesting, and the forensic side of accounting makes accounting in general even more invaluable to businesses. Hopefully, forensic accounting techniques will be able to crackdown on all perpetrators and make the business world a more honest place.
ReplyDeleteWith my major most likely going to be accounting (I love accounting) this subject really caught my interest. It's funny to me how concepts can be around for half a century and no one really begins to use that concept, or that formula, until there has been some kind of crisis or some kind of fraudulent activity happening. What I'm getting from this is something every business student should understand. We need to check our books if someone else is doing them for us. The issues in today's economy always come back to money. One moment you hear of a woman stealing millions of dollars from one company or a man embezzling millions of dollars from another company. This Forensic Accounting could keep all that from happening, the problem is society gets lazy and doesn't check the work of their staff. I've owned two businesses and I can't imagine never checking the books after someone. Once a month I'd go in, check inventory, check the cash flows, and make sure everything lined up. I trust my employees to a point, but not 100%. And I agree with Chris, I hope that Forensic Accounting will help to "crackdown" on a lot of these issues.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely an innovative technique which helps prosecutors in collecting evidence against employees of a company who try to embezzle funds. I can't believe that this technique has been around for so long just as Andrew stated, I would have thought that this technique was recently created but I am sure with all the technological advancements in society there will be a more efficient way of detection in this field
ReplyDeleteThis is really neat to do. That way people cant steal money without being caught. Many people can't be trusted. So for them to do that is really neat. By Jen Hight
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