In my earlier article on how fraud can be committed, let’s us turn to a branch of accounting which focus very closely on detecting or preventing accounting fraud i.e. called Forensic Accounting.
Interestingly, the word “forensic, will turn our mind immediately to the medical professions, whereby crimes are solved by examining dead bodies.
We are also very clear that external auditors are those who expressed a true and fair view of the company’s financial statements.

So who really is a forensic accountant?
A forensic accountant is simply one which assists management to detect fraud, identify risk exposure areas and more importantly to implement prevention programmes by devising the appropriate controls so as to ensure moving forward, cases like Enron and others will not happen.

The forensic accountant is a specialist that due to his or her diverse experiences and training is able to see warning signs of fraud. ( fraud is as a deliberate deceit, which is planned and executed to deprive an individual or organization of the property, money or any other valuable security.) This is normally through the breakdown in internal controls/checks, examining behaviour of fraud perpetuator for example employees who suddenly resigns, maintain an excessive lifestyle or who tells other colleagues he loves to go for gambling.

If we were to examine the role of the internal auditors, they are in existent in the organization for two dual purposes: one to perform audits that can enhance operational efficiencies and secondly to detect weaknesses in internal controls/checks so as to prevent or detect frauds.

In the event that there might be a clash of role, management might need to review the respective role to ensure resources are effectively being used.