Forensic Accounting Practice

Forensic Accounting in Practice:

A Review of the Literature

Forensic Accountants are well known for solving financial mysteries when people or businesses use their funds unethically. The U.S. Department of Justice reported that as early as 2005, 67% of surveyed businesses encountered at least one instance of cyber crime (Forensic Accountant Careers: Job Description & Salary Info. (n.d.). It is critically important that businesses seek individuals that they can trust to find financial discrepancies, as well as provide advice and suggestions to avoid illegal financial activities from occurring again. A majority of lawyers, judges, and other law critics have oppositions that forensic accountants are sometimes not the best choice to result for a court case to explain financial mishaps. Others believe that forensic accountants make differences for their companies that will allow their organizations to succeed in the future. These following questions will be addressed along with explanations of how forensic accountants are beneficial towards courtroom cases:

1. What are the most important five skills that a forensic accountant needs to possess?

2. What are the roles that forensic accountants display within a courtroom environment?

3. What is the legal responsibility that a forensic accountant has while providing service to a business?

4. What are two cases where forensic accountants have provided vital evidence in a case? How important were forensic accountants towards solving these court cases?

This review of the literature on Forensic Accounting in Practice focuses on these four questions.

What are the most important five skills that a forensic accountant needs to possess?

The five most important skills a forensic accountant needs to possess on their jobs are analytical skills, detail-oriented characteristic, oral and written communication skills, sense of ethics, and investigation skills. Analytical skills are necessary for forensic accountants to partake in researching, questioning, exploring all options that caused fraudulent activity to occur. As a part of a legal team, two of their responsibilities are as follows: Investigating and analyzing financial evidence, especially in complex or potential criminal financial transactions, and developing computerized applications to analyze, compare and interpret financial facts and figures (Yong, n.d.). Providing accurate and precise evidence of fraud and financial discrepancies, will allow lawyers to have victory over criminal and civil cases. It is important that forensic accountants are trained and knowledgeable about all types of fraudulent and illegal activities that may occur within a company. Most cases of fraudulent activity