Antifraud

Visit the comprehensive AICPA Antifraud and Corporate Responsibility Resource Center (the Resource Center) and discover information and tools to combat fraud in your specific role as an auditor. This Resource Center allows you to select optional ways to learn about fraud.

The Resource Center specifically offers an "Auditor's Perspective" on combating fraud and the extended responsibilities within the new regulatory environment that both public companies and public accounting firms face.

The Resource Center's Key Auditor Antifraud Tools:

• SAS 99 (AU Section 316) – Consideration of Fraud in a Financial Statement Audit
  
  
• Useful tools to:
  
  
  • help auditors brainstorm and identify fraud risk factors;
    
    
  • recognize typical fraud schemes;
    
    
  • learn about what types of inquiries to ask of your public clients;
    
    
  • develop audit procedures;
    
    
  • understand management's antifraud programs and controls.
    
    
• Fraud Competency Model that allows you to assess your own skills and proficiencies as they relate to fraud prevention, detection, and investigation.
  
  
• Related Party Toolkit – Created by the staff of the AICPA, this toolkit is intended to provide accountants and auditors with an overview of selected authoritative accounting and auditing literature, SEC requirements and nonauthoritative best practice guidance concerning related parties and related party transactions. Learn More>>
  

PCAOB:

• PCAOB Issues Report on Auditors' Implementation of the Fraud Interim Standard (January 2007)
  

Training Materials and Tools:

CPE-Self Study Courses

• Forensics and Financial Fraud: Real World Issues and Answers (January 2007) – Specific steps to help auditors and accountants fully meet fraud-handling expectations are found in this new CPE self-study course.

Videos

• New Anti-Fraud Video entitled "Fraud and Tone at the Top" sponsored by the AICPA and ACFE (September 2006) – The AICPA and ACFE have united to create a new anti-fraud training aid for today's business leaders. Featuring insight from Joseph Wells, ACFE founder and Chairman, and Barry Melancon, CEO of the AICPA, this video provides insight about the connection between fraud and ethics in the executive suite, including commentary from Walt Pavlo, MCI Worldcom convicted criminal.

View the Center for Audit Quality Summary: New Anti-Fraud Video – A Must See For All CAQ Members in a Global Fight Against Fraud (members-only)

Archived Web casts

• Financial Fraud from the Fraudsters Perspective – How Good People Go Bad CFO Quarterly Roundtable Series 2nd Quarter 2006 – This Web cast has been archived on a CD-ROM and you will learn about financial fraud from a different perspective – directly from those who committed financial fraud.
  
  
• Financial Fraud in the Smaller Company: The Inside Story From the FBI—CD-ROM – This archived Web cast, which was originally held on December 20, 2005, discussed corporate financial fraud in smaller companies. This CD-ROM will help you better understand the FBI's experience in investigating smaller company financial frauds; understand the specifics of several small company fraud cases and any lessons learned; help you identify specific forensic procedures that can be used to help detect fraud in a financial statement audit; and learn what to do when you discover fraud in your (client's) organization.

Articles, Publications, Surveys and Reports:

• Predicting Accounting Manipulations - Attributes to Consider in Audit Risk Assessment Models (August 2007) - A recent study called “Predicting Material Accounting Manipulations," was conducted on 2,191 SEC Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases (AAERs) that occurred between 1982 and 2005. The authors identified some common attributes among the misstating companies and developed a prediction model to assess the probability of future restatements. 
  
  

• A Risk-Based Approach to Journal Entry Testing (July 2007)- The easiest route to changing the books is for management to post a top-side journal entry. The authors present a strategy to detect fraud through computer-assisted journal entry testing.
  
  

• Curtailing the F-Word in Accounting Practice (May 2007) How CPAs can detect and prevent fraud in the workplace.
  
  
• What Is Your Fraud IQ? (May 2007) Journal of Accountancy survey. Think you can spot corruption in any of its many forms? Take this (deceptively) simple test to find out just how much you know.
  
  
• Payment Fraud Protection in an Electronic Age (May 2007) - Journal of Accountancy article on how to prevent electronic fraud in your organization
  
  
• Fighting Fraud- The AICPA and ACFE form first organization to fight fraud worldwide (January 2007) – Journal of Accountancy interview with Michael G. Cherkasky, President and CEO of Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. and Max-Peter Ratzel, Director of the European Police Organization – Europol.
  
  
• Demand Draft Fraud – The Fraudster's New Vehicle (October 2006)
  
  
• What's Your Fraud IQ? (July 2006) – Think you know enough about corruption to spot it in any of its myriad forms? Then rev up your fraud detection radar and take this (deceptively) simple test.
  
  
• Best Practices: Automating Fraud Detection and Controls – Read about 3 steps that companies can take to automate fraud detection and controls. Due to the importance of such anti-fraud programs, the PCAOB determined that deficiencies in this area ordinarily constitute at least a significant deficiency in internal control over financial reporting (PCAOB AS2, par. 140).
  
  
• Management Override of Internal Controls: The Achilles' Heel of Fraud Prevention – The Audit Committee and Oversight of Financial Reporting – This document, written by the AICPA Antifraud Programs and Controls Task Force, offers assistance to audit committees in addressing the risk of fraud through management override of internal control over financial reporting and can be downloaded for free.
  
  
• Sherlock Holmes, CPA, Part 1 and Sherlock Holmes, CPA, Part 2 are part of an insightful series written by the founder and chairman of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, Joseph Wells, on the basics of fraud investigation in small businesses. These articles explain what it takes to gather evidence, interview witnesses and obtain a confession. In this two-part article Wells draws upon his years of experience to provide useful techniques and tools to neophyte fraud investigators by providing an example of a common purchasing fraud scheme and the steps that should be taken when conducting a fraud examination.
  
  
• 2005 Oversight Systems Report on Corporate Fraud – Survey conducted at the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners' 16th Annual Fraud Conference to report the trends, risks and major concerns that businesses face today. View the complete survey.
  
  
• CPA's Handbook of Fraud and Commercial Crime Prevention
  This revised and updated comprehensive reference tool contains ready-to-use fraud prevention checklists on a companion CD-ROM.

Events:

• CAQ Summary of the AICPA Event: Fraud . . . Can Audit Committees Really Make a Difference? – Held on January 31, 2005, this unique one-day event discussed fraud and management override of internal controls. Learn More>>

Additional Resources:

• AICPA Audit & Control Technology Store – Automated technology tools to help CPAs improve audit efficiency and effectiveness particularly in dealing with some of the hottest areas of current focus such as fraud prevention, compliance with SOX and internal controls.
  
  
• For additional preventative or detective antifraud resources, available for purchase, go to www.cpa2biz.com, the AICPA online store that offers the latest developments in the industry or go directly to Antifraud Resources.