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Analysis Of The Article ' Balancing The Books '

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In the past, the act of “balancing the books” involved hammering through countless accounting records and ledgers, anticipating that debit entries will equal to credit entries. In current times “balancing the books” is much more complex as we have electronic databases that are housing financial data and computer software that is computing the financial data for multi-national companies, worth billions of dollars. The current state of the global economy makes it possible for an investor in Germany to electronically manage their financial portfolio in California. It also allows an individual in Baltimore to operate a business in Nigeria. While globalization has been beneficial to businesses around the world, it has created opportunities for illegal behaviors to manifest. Specifically, white-collar criminals are exploiting the weaknesses in internal controls of corporations for financial gain. Subsequently, the field of accounting has received more attention in recent years due in part to the increase in high profile, white-collar crimes involving the accounting practices of large corporations such as the Adelphia, Enron, and WorldCom debacles in the early 2000’s. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) estimates that occupational fraud losses cost organizations $994 billion annually (“Report to the Nation, 2014). The accounting scandals, the growing occurrences of occupational fraud and the changing needs of the legal society are the driving force behind an

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