FRAUD PREVENTION AND DETECTION
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they do not understand them. Auditing complex nancial products falls
into this category.
When a company has to rely heavily on estimates for balances of
otherwise insignicant accounts, this, too, lends itself to manipulations.
Balances based on percentage of completion considerations, in particular in
the construction industry, are typical examples for this. In particular, when
paired with strong dependence of a company’s nancial performance
on individual transactions, this showed increased risks of manipulation.
Other noteworthy examples of empirically observed Red Flags are
cash ow shortages and rapidly changing industries.
PREVENTION VERSUS DETECTION
When it comes to nancial statement fraud, there are t ...