"Who's who" of Georgia professionals to speak at 9/18/09 event
Next Friday's 2nd Annual Fraud & Forensic Accounting Conference, presented by the Forensic and Valuation Services (FVS) Section of the Georgia Society of CPAs, will provide CPA practitioners a wide array of relevant topics to help sharpen their FVS-related skills. Sessions and [...]
Lately, primarily due to its amazing ease of use, I've been relying heavily on Twitter to direct my audience to topics pertaining to forensic accounting. In this blog post, I want to emphasize one of my recent Tweets which points my Twitter followers to a concise and well-written article on the subject of fraud/internal investigations. The author,' [...]
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333 3333 3333 333 [...]Harry Markopolos, CFE, CFA, now famous for his recent testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Subcommittee on Central Markets about the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, offered the following tips in an interview for the ACFE's May/June 2009 issue of FRAUD Magazine:
Following is one small excerpt of the notes I took the last two days at the ACFE's "Conducting Internal Investigations" conference held in Atlanta. The presenter, who did a super job, was Allen F. Brown, CFE, CPA.
To investigate fraud, you must have...
The authority to do what you need' [...]
In litigation cases, forensic accountants and the lawyers they serve depend greatly on documents and other data obtained from opposing counsel through the discovery and document production process. It can be frustrating when requested information is not timely received, or even worse if not received at all. I'm always amazed at' [...]
Recognizing the ongoing rapid growth in the field of forensic accounting, the Board of Directors of the Georgia Society of CPAs (GSCPA) began a strong initiative in 2008 to help meet the needs of GSCPA members who work in this exciting practice area. Steps taken to-date include:
Approved a name change for [...]
The AICPA's Forensic and Valuation Services Center describes the "Managing the Business Risk of Fraud" publication as follows:
"This guide makes recommendations to key stakeholders on how to attempt to prevent fraud in an organization. It provides guidance from well respected authorities on establishing an effective fraud risk management program including" [...]
"The next best thing to a confession is a real detailed lie."
I recently had the privilege of hearing Clifford E. Cormany, Jr. speak at one of the regular Lunch 'N Learn sessions hosted by the Forensic and Valuation Services Section of the Georgia Society of CPAs. In his 26-year career with [...]
Source: Recordnet.com
STOCKTON, CA - Thick binders on the shelf in prosecutor Stephen Taylor's office tell stories of betrayed trust in columns and rows of accounting ledgers followed by snippets of narratives spelling out corporate theft. On one page, there's a copy of a check written to pay a Stockton [...]
Eielson Air Force Base worker charged with embezzlement
Source: ajc.com
The federal government’s bankruptcy overseer chose Anton Valukas, a former federal prosecutor and a specialist in white-collar crime, as the examiner in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case. Valukas’ investigation could be used to determine whether Lehman executives lied, committed fraud or mismanaged the company. He will conduct his [...]
Forensic accountant Michael Grayson has caught countless fraudsters out, saving companies thousands of pounds. Now he is warning that with a recession tightening its grip, North-East businesses could become easy targets.
Source: The Northern Echo
Michael Grayson calls them his “war stories” – and he has plenty of them. In his role [...]
Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An Alpharetta-based financial firm has been charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with operating a Ponzi scheme worth at least $25 million. According to the SEC, CRE Capital and its president, James G. Ossie, 48, wooed investors to a currency trading program last year by [...]
Source: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The bookkeeper at a Cherokee County (Georgia) church was arrested Tuesday for allegedly stealing $60,000 from the church. Cherokee sheriff’s Sgt. Jay Baker said authorities believe Susan Brooms, 40, funneled the money from Sixes Presbyterian Church to pay her personal expenses. “Investigators suspect Brooms had been taking [...]
Source: Turnaround Management Association; By Tom Gray, CTP
ABC Telco was already a management morass when the CFO resigned and the CEO stepped down due to a terminal illness. The two executives had virtually been at war with each other, and each had his camp of loyal managers. Earnings [...]
Source: Business Week
"The reason there's an increased risk of fraud in a down economy is the 'fraud triangle.' You have the pressure, opportunity, and rationalization," says Donna Epps, a partner with Deloitte Financial Advisory Services' anti-fraud practice.
With the news out of India that outsourcer Satyam Computer Services' accounting [...]
Forensic accountants find drama, routine on the job
By Livia Gershon, Staff Writer for Worcester Business Journal Online
As a rule, accounting probably isn’t a profession that’s ripe for a television drama. But the specialty of forensic accounting, essentially digging up financial information that could [...]
Financial investigators, often referred to as forensic accountants, are increasingly being called upon by lawyers, corporate governance officers, government officials, and others...to ferret-out monetary and other pertinent facts and data in a wide variety of situations. You may be faced with a matter, now or in the future, in which a [...]
Source: The New York Times
When Marci Needle and her husband began to contemplate divorce in June, they thought they had enough money to go their separate ways. They owned a million-dollar home near Atlanta and another in Jacksonville, Fla., as well as investment properties. Now the market for both houses has [...]
Source: Securities Docket
Please join us on January 6 for a terrific webcast featuring leading securities litigation and SEC enforcement commentators Tom Gorman ("SEC Actions"), Walter Olson ("Point of Law" and "Overlawyered"), Kevin LaCroix ("The D&O Diary"), Francine McKenna ("re: the Auditors") and others. The [...]
Teams of forensic accountants get set to trace - and maybe recover - funds lost in $50 billion Ponzi scheme.
NEW YORK- Accounting teams are sharpening their pencils and preparing to pore over spreadsheets in an effort to trace the money at Bernard L. Madoff Securities, which stands accused of perpetrating [...]
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Associated Press
A Georgia businessman has admitted taking part in a scheme to defraud a California construction company of nearly $13 million. Edgar J. Beaudreault of Alpharetta pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Federal prosecutors say the 60-year-old Beaudreault and two others conspired to defraud [...]
An embezzler or other workplace fraud perpetrator will often display certain telltale red flags. One of the many charts included in the "2008 Report to the Nation on Occupational Fraud & Abuse," published by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, includes the following listing of these behavioral indicators:
Earlier today, the board of directors of The Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors released the following letter to Congress summarizing key ways in which the Chapter 11 process could offer relief and rehabilitation to the troubled U.S. automotive industry:
LETTER TO CONGRESS
The Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors is a [...]
Today's ajc.com includes the following update regarding my 4/23/08 post entitled, "$2.1M Embezzlement...Possible Murder...Then Suicide."
Hilton Head Island, S.C. — An accountant who was the last person to see a missing couple alive bought drop cloths large enough to be body bags and turned off his cell phone for [...]
We can all benefit from the following comments written by my friend and business colleague, Gary Epp, President of The SURVIS Group, a top-tier, Atlanta-based staffing and consulting firm.
An Anchor in a Storm
Where do you head during a storm? Our instincts urge us to find a protected harbor, drop an anchor [...]
Source: ajc.com
A Decatur pastor arrested on forgery charges in Smyrna Friday pleaded guilty in DeKalb County last month to unrelated theft charges under the first offender statute.
Maurice Joseph Easley, 37, was given five years probation, ordered to pay $4,000 in restitution and complete 150 hours of community service for [...]
According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners...
Forensic accounting is the use of professional accounting skills in matters involving potential or actual civil or criminal litigation, including, but not limited to, generally acceptable accounting and audit principles; the determination of lost profits, income, assets, or damages; evaluation of internal [...]
Source: ajc.com
Danielsville, Ga. — A former Madison County deputy clerk has been arrested and charged with stealing more than $80,000 in county funds.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested Melinda Watson Spence on Friday on one count of felony theft by taking.
Jim Fullington, special agent in charge of the GBI’s [...]
The Solo Accountant Reporter has a new name: Forensic Accounting Today. This change reflects the direction in which my practice has been evolving over the past few years. Future posts will be centered around the specialized service niches in which I am now almost entirely focused:
1) Fraud investigation, [...]
The Solo Accountant Reporter is now included as one of Rick Telberg's top-70 favorite blogs/websites. The full list is included on the main page of his CPA Trendlines blog. Telberg is a highly-respected CPA industry trend-watcher and blogger/writer. Among the other respected sites making the Telberg "favorites" list are AICPA's CPA Insider, [...]
Source: LexisNexis Tech Tips...
As the field of electronic discovery has matured, attorneys have enjoyed the benefits of electronic document review. They realize that the actual discovery and review processes have not changed—only the tools and the storage media are different. Review teams have become accustomed to the speed and efficiency [...]
"Atlanta Financial Professionals Network" Launched with E-Community Intranet
Over the last few years, I've developed an informal, diverse network of very capable freelance accounting and financial professionals...primarily to help facilitate the growth of my own solo accounting and consulting practice. Earlier this month, I began formalizing this concept by launching the Atlanta [...]
Bookkeeper headed to prison
According to an article in the 8/28/08 Atlanta Journal & Constitution, "A Luthersville woman will serve four years in prison for embezzling nearly $200,000 from an Atlanta engineering company, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said Wednesday.
Gwendolyn Cummings, 48, a former bookkeeper and office manager for BAA [...]
Christina Laun, a writer for BIZ.edu, included The Solo Accountant Reporter in her 8/28/08 post entitled, Crunching the Numbers: Top 50 Accounting Blogs. Ms. Laun writes, "Check out this blog for some great managerial and forensic accounting tips and advice."
This ranking comes right on the heels of an [...]
In his recently-published book, Don Keough, the 81-year old retired president of Coca-Cola, writes about "The Ten Commandments for Business Failure":
We are currently faced with tough and uncertain economic conditions. I believe the business climate will deteriorate further over the next 12 months. No matter what type of business you operate, or how successful it's been, times like this call for heightened attention with respect [...]
Here's another example of alleged fraud in the workplace. According to a 4/23/08 article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution online newspaper,
"An accountant who killed himself after police questioned him in the disappearance of two wealthy clients had embezzled $2.1 million from the couple and seven companies, his former employer said. An [...]
I'm ashamed to admit it, but it has taken an award (of sorts) to get me re-focused on making updates to this blog. I just learned that The Solo Accountant Reporter has been included in the"Top 100 Freelancer Blogs" post in an information-packed blog entitled Bootstrapper. The post [...]
A critical step in the employee hiring process is reference checking. Paul Barada, a salary and negotiation expert with Monster.com, has identified the most common reference checking mistakes made by recruiters and employers. He lists them in his article, "Reference Checks: Five Mistakes You Want to Avoid." Here they [...]
Robin Hensley, a former Big-8 accountant and consultant...and proven entrepreneur, is a highly-regarded business development coach. Through her Atlanta-based company, Raising the Bar, Robin coaches CPAs, attorneys, and other professionals, helping them build their practices by becoming more effective rainmakers. She serves numerous prominent practitioners, several of whom [...]
Over the last five years, we've all observed a growing trend towards "virtual" business organizations and other forms of online communities. As I continue to shape and build my business, I've been doing a little research on this subject. For starters, according to Wikipedia:
"A Virtual Organization is an organization [...]
Until each of these ten items are successfully resolved by a small company controller, they should remain on his or her To Do list. Here they are, in no particular order:
A good defense against employee fraud starts with a proactive antifraud mindset by top management. This should result in company polices and procedures...and employees...that all work together to prevent and deter wrongdoing in the organization. Tracy Coenen, a CPA and nationally recognized expert on fraud investigation, recently posted the [...]
We can all take a few lessons from this powerful video. It illustrates the value of leadership and encouragement, regardless of the setting. More importantly, it shows that by disregarding artificial performance limitations we or others place on ourselves, and then simply (or not so simply!) doing our very best, [...]
Working together. Whether on the field, or in a business turnaround, fraud investigation, or other critical matter, teamwork is a critical success factor.
As a forensic accountant and business consultant, one of the first steps I take on an engagement is to identify all the key players [...]
