Forensic Accounting

Posted by James Hutchinson Apr 29, 2009

Webster’s Dictionary defines forensic characteristic of, or suitable for a law court. Forensic medicine has been featured on television, particularly the CSI shows.

There is also a branch of accounting that is used in criminal law, focusing on investigating businesses and financial records for embezzlement and fraud.

Teams of specially trained accountants can be brought in by courts to investigate businesses, or owners can choose to engage experts to examine work from their own employees.

Forensic accounting is slow, tedious work. Individuals that are trying to cover their tracks never provide clean, easy to follow records. The more difficult to decipher the problem, the less likely they are to caught.

Still, just as sometimes the medical investigators find a small piece of evidence that leads to the perpetrator, forensic accountants can put together a case that demonstrates criminal behavior by a company or individual.

If your think your company has a problem, the big four accounting firms and others have employees trained in forensic accounting. Discovering and stopping the fraud may be worth the expense of bringing in the outside experts.