Fraud, IT\'s Better to Be

¶ … Fraud, it's Better to Be Safe than Sorry, it is shown how there is an ever rising presence of fraud in companies. This type of fraud is almost always detected eventually, but it is not always easy to do. This article represents why there is a growing need for fraud examination and why fraud examination classes are important. Experts tend to agree that fraud in business and government is endemic and the CPA's role in combating fraud has augmented because of corporate indignities and the ensuing media awareness. It is probable, even likely, that in any large corporation, but especially one with widely dispersed operations someone somewhere will attempt to improve upon actual performance through bookkeeping manipulation. In each of the three situations discussed above, employees at the subsidiary level altered the subsidiary records to improve performance.

This article showed how it is virtually impossible to scrub away the damage to a company's reputation. In the litigious climate in which business is conducted today, a failure to find, correct, reveal promptly, and be completely transparent in the procedure can lead to years of litigation, important expenditure of resources, and worse. Even if some of those consequences are avoided, personal information about malfeasance, obtainable through the Internet, has a half-life long enough to end a career. It is frequently thought that it is better to be safe than sorry (Weinstein, 2010). Because of the growing amount of fraud that appears to be occurring more and more frequently it is important for there to be fraud investigators.

Popular belief shows that not all corporate accounting frauds start at the top. This article looked at three stories of corporate accounting indiscretions all of which started at the bottom. This article set forth the facts concerning the violations of procedures, detection of errors, and appropriate or inappropriate follow-up and corrective actions. In the first case that was looked at the matter portrayed was one in which one person committed fraud in an effort to make their division and their boss look better. The other two cases looked at errors that were made deliberately by subsidiary management and, in both cases, were both quantitatively and qualitatively material.

Due to the fact that most fraud starts at the bottom, is it very important for executives to always be looking for things that do not appear to be right. Fiscal honesty is crucial in financial markets. It is essential that management quickly resolve any monetary issues that come up. Delay only compounds accounting indiscretions. The consequences to all concerned, the business, its investors and creditors, and administration, are that if things are left unattended they will only get worse.