Forensic Accounting： A Checkmate for Corporate Fraud

Forensic accounting gained importance due to increasing number of financial frauds and scams. This new area in accounting encompasses accounting, auditing, and investigative skills, thus emerged to detect frauds. They involve themselves in different areas like employee-related frauds, settlement and arbitrations, etc.. A forensic accountant has a financial sixth sense. Despite the fact that forensic accounting can bridge the gap between conventional accounting and auditing, this profession has not been able to gain the needed momentum due to some hassles. This paper tries to shed light on the theoretical concept, nature, practice, need, role of forensic accounting in preventing fraud, and the practical difficulties faced by forensic accountants. The study is based on information collected from interviewing practicing forensic accounting in India during 2011-12. The paper was able to assess the importance and rising scope of forensic accounting as a job. It also understood the practical difficulties they faced like lack of organized databases in Indian scenario which makes it difficult to access all needed information. Expectation level of the clients is very high and at times even unreasonable. This paper fulfills an identified need to study the important rising field of forensic accounting in India.

Creative Accounting Does not Need to Equal Falsification of Accounts

The aim of this paper is to present different aspects of creativity in accounting. Firstly, since creative accounting allows to present a company＇s financial condition in a more favourable light, the ＂advantages＂ of this creativity are identified. This is followed by the enumeration of negative aspects of creative accounting, to illustrate how creativity in accounting may help to falsify the true picture of a company＇s business. Next, the concept of creative accounting and aggressive accounting （the latter, identified rightly, with a financial and accounting fraud） is explained. Finally, methods that are commonly used to falsify accounts, as well as the premises for and the circumstances in which such criminal practices occur, are presented. The paper draws on the results of other scientific works （books and articles published in scientific journals） in which the main and most interesting views of other authors have been presented. A critical analysis method was employed, followed by a comparison of legal texts and legal acts. The scientific conclusion was conducted using the deduction, and, partially, the induction method. It has been shown that it is justified to differentiate in accounting between creativity that is allowable within the established legal limits and practice based upon the use of creativity in a manner contrary to law. Further, it has been concluded that where creativity in accounting goes beyond the limits unambiguously established by the law, it definitely carries attributes of an offence. It has been also noted that due to continuous changes in the functioning conditions of enterprises, the above mentioned limits cannot be fixed or rigid. Thus it is necessary to control and analyse the creativity of accounting and financial staff working in enterprises in order to adapt the binding regulations to the needs of current markets.

Earnings Management Practices in Indian Companies： A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Corporate accounting frauds over the last two decades have caused massive erosion of investor wealth and shattered public confidence in regulators and capital markets. Deliberate manipulation of financial numbers by a company is rarely a one-off event; it is more a culture of widespread earnings management that permeates an organization and eventually leads to a full-blown accounting fraud. This paper looks at earnings management practices in Indian companies and examines the extent of earnings management prevalent across firms of varying market capitalization. The present study examines 130 listed Indian companies during the period of 2013-2015. The findings of this study provide a measure of the quality of financial reporting in India. Modified Jones model （1995） is used to estimate discretionary accruals （DA）, which is considered as a proxy for earnings management. The average DA is estimated at 5.6% of the total assets of the firms, which is comparable to the estimates in other parts of the world （about 1%-5% of total assets）. A sector-specific analysis reveals presence of higher earnings manipulation in the consumer durable and energy sectors. Large cap companies are found to show a lower level of eamings management as compared to the small-cap firms. The study also finds a dip in the magnitude of DA in 2015, which is the first year of application of the new Companies Act 2013. Subsequent years will reveal the true success of the new Act in enforcing a stricter regime of corporate governance and greater accountability of corporate boards and audit committees. International studies point towards a high degree of correlation between effective audit committees and lower levels of earnings management in companies. Further work in this field from an Indian context will help identify factors that have a constraining effect on earnings management, and ultimately help preserve the sanctity of reported financial numbers.

Benefit of Employees and Motivation for Earnings Manipulation—— A Case Study of Employee Shares

The employee shares of Guilin Jiqi became tradable in stock exchanges from June 2000. The firm coincidently made up her profit disclosed in the semi-annual report. After ruling out other explanations, we find that the fraud of Guilin Jiqi seems to be intended to help her employees （not including top managers） to reap profits at the expense of misled investors. Our findings offer a potential insight into relating employee shares to insider selling.