The world of accounting has a number of different career options for students who have gained the necessary educational credentials. The field is known for providing jobs that are full of security with relatively low upside. Because it is a technical field, accountants tend to have solid job prospects with very little turnover.
One of the potential career options for a person with an accounting degree is that of an auditor. An auditor takes a look at the financial records of companies and other organizations to ensure that those records are in order. The goal is to do more than just look at the records. Rather, the goal is to ensure that the entire process through which the records were compiled is in order. Auditors are tasked with the difficult job of identifying irregularities in order to detect fraud and other kinds of misrepresentation. While they do work on behalf of clients, they are also working on behalf of the public, providing oversight to ensure that information remains on the up and up.
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Another potential field for a person with an accounting degree is that of forensic accountant. A forensic accountant is a person who looks through financial records in search of clues. They are often charged with investigating the financial side of crimes or for civil lawsuits. They hope to find some evidence of malfeasance or some other kind of bad acting by looking at the records. These are people who can sometimes work for government entities. They might also work for accounting firms and law firms that are tasked with doing due diligence before another companies will enter into a deal.
A forensic accountant is an accounting position that provides significant value to companies seeking candidates. First, the job responsibilities of a forensic accountant are fairly specific. They are looking for fraud, embezzlement, and other problems within the numbers (Fiia, 2013). In some cases, they are employed on the front end to ensure that fraud and the like are not taking place. In other cases, they are brought in after the fact to investigate how something took place or to identify where money has gone so that it might be recovered either by the government or by the party to a lawsuit.
In order to be successful as a forensic accountant, one has to know more than just accounting. They also have to have a solid understanding of the modern laws on credit card fraud, embezzlement, misrepresentation, and other forms of financial malfeasance. Ultimately a forensic accountant is looking for irregularities, but they have to know which questions to ask in order to discover the proper things in the financial documents they are searching.
This means that forensic accountants have to have a good sense of the modern methods by which people break the law. With this knowledge in tow, they can identify patterns and piece together the puzzle of how some fraud took place. In addition to that, it is critical that these individuals are able to write cogent and concise reports (Rezaee et al, 2016). Often, a forensic accountant will have to break down a relatively complex fraud in a few sentences so it might be consumed by the public at large (Seda & Kramer, 2015).
These individuals add value in a number of ways. In some cases, they can allow for recovery of funds that have been lost to corporate fraud (Ramesh, 2013). In a case where an employee might be stealing, a forensic accountant can not only help the company find where the money has gone, but also provide assistance in helping the company fill whatever leaks might exist that allowed the money to slip out the door in the first place (Bhasin, 2017). This makes them both diagnostic forces and recovery forces.
- Bhasin, M. L. (2017). Role of Forensic Accounting to Strengthen Corporate Governance: An Empirical Study. Journal of Economics, Marketing and Management, 5, 17-36.
- Enofe, A. O., Agbonkpolor, O. R., & Edebiri, O. J. (2015). Forensic accounting and financial fraud. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Development, 2 (10), 305-312.
- Fiia, F. (2013). Forensic accounting: A tool for fraud detection and prevention in the public sector.(A study of selected ministries in Kogi state). International Journal of Academic Research in Business and social sciences, 3(3), 1.
- Ramesh, B. (2013). The role of forensic accounting in modern corporate accounting world. ZENITH International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 3(1), 224-233.
- Rezaee, Z., Lo, D., Ha, M., & Suen, A. (2016). Forensic Accounting Education and Practice: Insights From China. Journal of Forensic & Investigative Accounting, 8(1), 106-119.
- Seda, M., & Kramer, B. (2015). An examination of the availability and composition of forensic accounting education in the United States and other countries. Journal of Forensic & Investigative Accounting, 6(1), 1-46.
