Forensic Accounting For Dummies

by Frimette Kass-Shraibman, Vijay S. Sampath

A practical, hands-on guide to forensic accounting Careers in forensic accounting are hot- US News & World Report recently designated forensic accounting as one of the eight most secure career tracks in America., Forensic accountants work in most major accounting firms and demand for their services is growing with then increasing need for investigations of mergers and acquisitions, tax inquiries, and economic crime. In addition, forensic accountants perform specialized audits, and assist in all kinds of civil litigation, and are often involved in terrorist investigations . Forensic Accounting For Dummies will track to a course and explain the concepts and methods of forensic accounting. Whether you're a student pursuing a career in forensic accounting or just want to understand how to detect and deal with financial fraud, Forensic Accounting For Dummies has you covered.

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 2011

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

To start off, I am a CPA with 20 years of professional experience so I do have a little bit of a background with the topics in this book. I found a lot of it interesting and some of it understandably basic considering my background but not a detriment to this book.

I think the authors do a great job providing high-level examples of the types of fraud that can occur as well as specific examples they or associates of theirs have run across in their careers. Nothing beats hearing the war stories of the type of company, type of fraud, how the fraud was pulled off and, ultimately, how the perpetrator was caught.

If you are a student in high school or college (or thinking about college) and not sure of what you may want to do or doing investigations of various career paths armed with an accounting degree, I would highly recommend this book. You will probably need to have a slight bit - but not much - of an understanding of accounting, but you certainly don't need to understand intricate debits and credits.

One of the advertisements on the back covers says "detect the perpetrators of fraud and their methods by using the latest technology and investigative tools." That's largely misleading as while the book has a plethora of examples, many of them are dated such as the stores that still use pneumatic tubes for cash receipts and many other cash-intensive examples. With the majority of today's transactions occurring with a credit card, the authors may want to consider a refresh of some of the examples cited.

All-in-all, I think this is a very good overview of the field and should help some students out in their career choices, but not so informative for really learning the latest techniques and fraud occurring in today's society.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

The case study examples here were entertaining and whilst the subject depth was a little shallow (which you would expect from a 'for dummies' book) I was left with a real wanting to learn more about the field.

[A.soorianarayanan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives lot of examples of frauds in business accounting and how to discover them. Enjoyed reading the book.