Prevention And Detection Of Accounting Fraud

Professional auditing standards discuss the three key “conditions” that are typically present when a financial fraud occurs and identify a lengthy list of “fraud risk factors.”

In fraud committed against organizations, the victim of fraud is the employee’s organization. In frauds committed on behalf of an organization, executives usually are involved in some type of financial statement fraud; typically, to make the company’s reported financial results appear better than they actually are. In this second case, the victims are investors in the company’s stock. A third way to classify frauds is via the use of the ACFE’s occupational fraud definition, “the use of one’s occupation for personnel enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets” (ACFE, 2010). The ACFE includes three major categories of occupational fraud: asset misappropriations involves the theft or misuse of the organization’s assets, corruption involves the wrongful use of influence in a business transaction in order to procure benefits contrary to their duty to their employer, and fraudulent financial statements involving falsification of an organization’s financial statements for personal gain.

Fraudulent schemes are often ongoing crimes that can last for months or even years before detection. It has been identified that there are three factors that often combine to lead individuals to commit fraud: pressure or an incentive to engage in fraud, a perceived opportunity and the ability to rationalize fraudulent behavior. Because fraudulent activities are usually well planned and intentionally covered up, it is difficult for the auditor to detect these incidents. Although fraud does not happen as often as misuse and error, when it does occur, it negatively impacts organizations as well as the stakeholders. Most fraudulent schemes can be avoided with basic internal controls and effective audits and oversight; however, they remain undetected due to following factors-

Committing fraud requires motivation from perceived pressures like greed or meeting expectations. With the shift in investor focus and the need to meet analyst expectations, Scrushy and the “family” manipulated earnings to make HealthSouth appear more successful. Perceived opportunity establishes how an individual’s position enables fraud to be committed and

11-2: The three main groups of people who commit financial statement fraud are organized criminals, mid- and lower-level employees, and senior management (Wells, 2013, p. 274). Senior management such as the CEO and CFO typically commit fraud to meet the expectations of Wall Street, preserve status, and/or receive performance bonuses (Wells, 2013, p. 274). Middle management will falsify financial statements in order to receive performance bonuses (Wells, 2013, p. 274). While organized criminals will try to obtain loans or engage in a pump-and-dump scheme (Wells, 2013, p. 274).

The general purpose of this research is to determine the cause for financial statement fraud. In addition, the purpose is to review ways fraudulent behavior can be detected and prevented. Lastly,

Accounts payable fraud requires the ability to create fictitious vendor accounts, purchase orders, and invoices. Someone playing multiple roles in the organization has the ability to conceal wrongdoings by being the sole approver over the department’s transactions. Due to the high employee turnover at Wayland Manufacturing Company, Newbaker is in charge of most of the accounting department’s functions including his own responsibilities. Therefore, he is in the position to not only create fraudulent accounts payable transactions, he also has the authority to approve them for payment (Arens, Elder, & Borsum 2013) (Accounts Payable and Disbursements Fraud 2016) (The Fraud Triangle

Employee fraud often takes place when pressure (motivation), opportunity and rationalism are present. In fact, employee perception where failure to meet sales target might leave them unemployed and unable to settle bills for their family (Kelly, 2016). Furthermore, watching other co-worker committing fraud will most likely influence the employee to do the same because their mindset tends to persuade themselves that it is one of a way to meet their quota plus “everyone is doing it.”

The high pressure and unrealistic goals was the primary issue that drove the employees to commit the fraud. If the managers had focused more on better motivational tactics, and reinforcing the values of the company rather than high pressure and scare tactics for performance goals not being met, there may have been a different outcome in how employees worked to meet their

The accounting profession believes there are three conditions necessary for fraudulent behavior, as well as a responsibility to to perform quality services with integrity, objectivity, and professionalism. Accounting firms have the responsibility to hire and monitor competent personnel, so they can fulfill their assigned responsibilities. This report will explain how all three conditions were present in Anna’s actions, how Max and Company

5.6.1 There are several factors that can contribute to fraudulent activity. Firstly, the presence of the motivation for an employee to commit fraudulent action, such as being under financial pressure, having unmanageable debt or an addiction. Secondly, an opportunity to carry out fraudulent activities, such as poor internal controls implementation or wrong segregation of duties, coupled with a lack of physical security measures like CCTV cameras, locked money tins and boxes. Low ethical and moral standards of managers can lead to employees following the same pattern. Also, a lack of effective communication within the organisation, so that employees do not feel appreciated, or that their work is not valued. Common types of fraud are: illegal

Occupational fraud or corruption can be defined as showing the divergent behavior in the workplace due to break in the psychological contract. Occupational frauds are of three types includes asset misappropriation, corruption and fraudulent statements. Holtfreter (2005) asserts that asset misappropriation and corruption are equally likely to be committed by males and females, whereas fraudulent statements are distinctly linked to male and also connected to employees holding higher positions in organisations. Insider manipulation and

Fraudulent, erroneous, and illegal acts committed by a public company, usually at a managerial or executive level, have been a very serious problem for many years and have prompted development of strict and updated regulations, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, in an attempt to prevent these occurrences. Unfortunately, these new or updated regulations are not enough to prevent these acts from happening, thus not alleviating the auditors of their responsibility to detect fraud. Some methods that management and auditors can employ to prevent and detect fraud, errors, and illegal acts are: improving knowledge, improving skills,

Fraud is defined as a deliberate misrepresentation that causes a person or business to suffer damages, often in the form of monetary losses through deception or concealment. And Occupational Fraud as defined by the ACFE is the use of one’s occupation for personal enrichment through the deliberate misuse or misapplication of the employing organization’s resources or assets. Traditional fraud triangle theory by Donald Cressey explains that propensity of fraud occurring in an organization lies on three critical elements which are Pressure, Opportunity, and Rationalization.

A business can not work out without an account system, which includes internal. Internal controls are used by companies to make sure financial information is accurate and valid. Strong internal controls are signs of a financially healthy company and protect the company’s integrity. Strong internal controls can also increase a company’s profitability. There are several types of internal controls that companies used to protect themselves such as: Segregation of duties, asset purchases, supervisor review, internal audits and adequate documents and records. This paper will discuss several topics from a case study about And the Fraud