Meeting/Event Information

Financial Statement Fraud Risk Post-Pandemic (CUR 103)

Following the 2001-2002 and 2008-2009 economic downturns, we saw waves of financial statement fraud cases.  The impact of COVID-19 has the potential to usher in another wave of fraud if accounting practices, processes and changes are not fully understood, vetted and kept in check.

This session will use three case studies to look at the potential for financial statement fraud due to manipulation of financials in accounting valuations and estimates.  Never in history have valuations and estimates been more subjective and easier to manipulate than now.  We will also look at what accounting, audit, compliance and anti-fraud professionals should be questioning and examining to deter, prevent and detect financial statement fraud.

What you will learn:

• How estimates, reserves, and valuations provide opportunity for financial statement manipulation.
• How the pandemic makes estimates more subjective, providing opportunity and concealment for financial statement fraud.
• What auditors and others should be reviewing and what questions they should be asking.

Case Studies: Using Data Analytics to Investigate Fraud (FRD 303)

If robust data analytics programs existed 20 years ago, would Enron, WorldCom, or the countless other major corporate fraud scandals ever have reached the magnitude they did? Would they have occurred at all? All organizations are subject to fraud risk. Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) studies show that an average of 5% of revenue is lost to internal fraud schemes. Utilizing effective data analytics as part of an organization’s fraud management program can reduce the fraud scheme’s average duration from 18 months to mere weeks, or in some cases, eliminate it. More importantly, a robust fraud data analytics program can be the strongest deterrent in an organization.

This session will introduce the participants to the techniques currently being used by leading data analytics programs to detect and investigate fraud. 

What you will learn

• Learn specific fraud detection methodologies using data analytics
• Understand trends and patterns in fighting fraud
• Using analytics in detection of fraud
• Fraud-focused continuous auditing and monitoring
• Why Analytics is excellent for prevention, detection and most importantly, deterrence
• Examine data analytics used to identify, quantify and prove fraud in three real-world cases