Forensic Accounting in Practice

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Forensic Accounting in Practice “Forensic accounting is the action of identifying, recording, settling, extracting, sorting, reporting, and verifying past financial data or other accounting activities for settling current or prospective legal disputes or using such past financial data for projecting future financial data to settle legal disputes.” (Crumbley, Heitger, and Stevenson Smith, 2009) This is a large and detailed definition of a form of investigative accounting that goes beyond numbers. It gets to the heart of fraud – the people who perpetrate fraud. Forensic accounting became more mainstream in the early 2000s with the high-profile cases of Enron and World Com. However, forensic accounting has been around a lot longer. Al Capone was convicted through the use of forensic accounting. For all of the heinous crimes he was accused of, tax evasion is what sent him to prison. Bernie Madoff is another criminal who was convicted as a result of forensic accounting. (Silverstone, Sheetz, Pedneault, & Rudewicz, 2012) This paper will identify and explain five forensic accounting skills and how they relate to business. The role of the forensic accountant in the courtroom and providing a service to business will also be discussed. Forensic accountants require more knowledge than that of an auditor or CPA. (Anastasi, 2003) The Forensic accountant must be part accountant, part detective, and part professional witness. Forensic Accounting Skills Strong Accounting Background. Whether or not they are actual CPAs, forensic accountants must have a strong accounting background. Obviously forensic accountants are dealing with numbers. These numbers involve money and determining if it was gained fraudulently or how money relates to other types of investigations that forensic accountants perform. Being able to determine if a company has been “cooking the

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